Innovations transform documentary’s subjects
The most memorable screen performance of 2016 won’t be recognized at the Academy Awards on Feb. 26.
It was, after all, delivered on television (not the big screen) — and by an iguana.
In fact, describing a young marine iguana’s capture and improbable escape from scores of racer snakes as a “performance” slights the stakes of this scene from the nature documentary “Planet Earth II,” which arrived in Britain in November and makes its debut in the United States tonight on BBC America.
The sequence was at once a life-or-death flight, a waking nightmare and a slithery metaphor, the riot of snakes descending inexorably like so many demons of 2016 — deaths of icons, appalling international tragedies, the emotional body blows of a punishing presidential campaign.
“It ticks a lot of boxes in the human consciousness,” said Richard Widdicombe, one of the camera operators who captured it. “It is nightmare that turns into a fairy tale.”
Released as a promotion for the British premiere of the six-part series, the clip became a viral sensation. The popularity presaged blockbuster ratings in Britain: The show was seen by 30 million people — nearly half the country — making it one of the biggest natural-history hits since “Planet Earth,” its landmark predecessor from 2006.
But its high meme factor is only one way the little lizard’s Great Escape exemplifies how things have changed in the decade since the original “Planet Earth.”
The clip offers a multidimensional lesson in the tactics — some fascinating, some slightly dodgy — filmmakers use to stand out in a highly competitive genre, said Tom Hugh-Jones, the series producer, who also worked on the first “Planet Earth.”
“You’re trying to capture new and younger audiences,” he said. “You have to try every trick to hook them in and engage them.”
The iguana sequence shows an annual ritual on Fernandina, one of the Galapagos Islands. Marine iguanas — named for their defining swimming ability — hatch from buried eggs and must immediately traverse a stretch of beach thick with predators, in this case scores of hungry racer snakes.
In this scene, one plucky iguana is set upon by a swarm of snakes, only to miraculously wriggle free and scrabble up the surrounding rocks, serpents nipping fruitlessly at its heels.
The challenge was to translate astounding but chaotic behavior into footage that is as spectacular onscreen as it was in person.
“People have seen pretty much every corner of the Earth covered by naturalhistory series,” Hugh-Jones said. “So you need to find a new way to tell the story.”
Like its predecessor, “Planet Earth II” was an enormous undertaking, involving 2,089 shooting days in 40 countries. David Attenborough, 90, returned to narrate. (The American version of “Planet Earth,” shown on Discovery, was narrated by Sigourney Weaver.)
Unlike the original, though, which specialized in awesome spectacle shot at a remove, “Planet Earth II” seeks to close the distance between viewer and animal.
The goal was to pair the spectacle with an intimacy that made the animals characters rather than just subjects for observation. The innovation is partly technological.
The other key component is stagecraft. The producers used tension-amping slow motion and a pulsepounding score, and varied the lengths and perspective of shots for maximum suspense. They also varied iguanas.
The sequence is built around a master shot of the star lizard’s escape, but the producers acknowledge that shots of different animals were used to build a composite scene.