- [Voice Of David Attenborough] Seven
extraordinary continents.
♪ I've traveled the world and the seven ♪
Each one full of life.
(bears roaring)
- [Voice Of Marah Eakin]
This particular show
is about seven continents in biodiversity,
and it's an interesting
way to tackle things,
because the continents, some
of them are so enormous,
and they can vary so wildly
from rainforest to tundra.
What were some of the
challenges of dividing
the show up that way?
- Actually, one of the
beauties of the show
is the variety in each episode;
that you have amazing variety
in North America, say.
You can be up in the Arctic
or you could be in deep snow
in the mountains or you could
be down in the Everglades
or something in Florida.
So there's great variety
within each episode,
but then it does mean it's
harder to tie them together.
- Look at characters
that told us something
about living on that continent,
'cause it's very important to
us to try and bring through
the character of each continent.
So, when we're looking
at stories and talking
to our researcher, we're
desperately looking
for new stories, but
we're looking for animals
that might have character,
animals that might be visual,
they might, in their day-to-day behavior,
they might be telling us something about
what the challenges are
living in that continent.
For example, North America is so defined
by extreme seasons and big weather,
that we're looking for animals
that really experience that,
pioneering animals that might
have to do something radical
when the season changes,
something that really tied it together.
And I think it gave it a deeper context
to each of the shows.
- We're looking for new species,
new behavior or animals
that have not been seen
on television very much, or sometimes,
animals that are familiar.
Like Chadden has a polar bear
in the North America show
that he made.
- My polar near.
- Your polar bear, and
it's doing something
which you just haven't
seen polar bears do before.
Emma, in her show, has a brand
new species of spider that's,
some people don't like spiders,
but I defy you to not
fall in love with spiders
after that sequence.
It's a little courtship
mating sequence and it's,
I don't know if you've seen it,
- I have.
- but there's a lovely little
male spider with paddles as
hands and he plays peekaboo
with the female to try and woo her.
That's a new species, we have new behavior
in one of your episodes as well.
In the Australia episode, dingoes,
the Australian wolf, chasing
and hunting kangaroos.
So, all the time,
novelty is one of the top
most important things for our sequences.
- The Australia episode
was actually a joy for that
because everything there is
like nowhere else on earth.
It was a fantastic job to be given to look
at all these animals which many people,
even maybe within Australia
have never heard of
and find new stories and,
and their journeys and how they deal
with living in a continent which is
an incredibly challenging place to live.
♪ This walk feels longer
in the dark tonight ♪
♪ No hand to hold no hand in sight ♪
♪ I pour my heart out
to the blackest sky ♪
- [Voice Of Marah Eakin] I
have to imagine making this,
you spent a lot of time
with certain animals
or with observing certain animals.
Is there any sadness or interest in,
"I wonder what happened to
that specific kangaroo?"
- You can't walk away from it.
You go on location and
you spend a long time
with these individual
animals and you care deeply
about how they're doing and
you end up with this kind of
family around the world of scientists
who are still watching
those animals or guides
are still watching those animals.
Even animals I filmed 10
years ago, I'll be like,
"Are they still okay,
what are they doing?"
They'll tell me their news
and I think in the Australia episode,
sitting at home in the UK and watching
the footage of the fires;
like everybody else, I feel
for the human loss and for,
it's really horrible to watch
those locations on fire.
And then also, we know some of the animals
that are in those locations
and we know the people
and it's, yeah, you can't
disconnect yourself from that.
But, of course, the
damage that's been done,
that those animals have
lost their habitat,
and in the program, one of
the things we wanted to do
is show the amazing
diversity of animals there.
And at the end of the program,
we talk about how many of those animals,
due to human pressures
for the last 200 years,
have been pushed into little pockets.
So we've got a really privileged sequence
of something called a Tasmanian Devil,
which is only now found
in a few little pockets.
And the fires happened
after we finished filming,
but the significance is that
those animals already pushed
into pockets, those very special
things found nowhere else;
if that area now goes up in flames,
they could be lost forever
and that's an incredibly sad thing.
- [Voice Of Marah Eakin] But there is also
a very cute wombat in that episode.
(chuckling)
- Yes!
- [Voice Of Marah Eakin] We
were talking about how much
we love wombats earlier.
- And the wombats can be
a little bit of a hero
in the fires, actually.
They dig burrows, that's how
they survive in the snow,
which is what we filmed in the episode.
There's been plenty of
stories of animals sheltering
in those wombat burrows
to escape the fires.
And so, yeah, I don't think
they'd want to be heroes,
they're grumpy animals, I don't
think they meant to do it.
But, yeah, they've been a
little bit of an unsung hero
in those areas, I think.
♪ Can I have a sign ♪
♪ 'Cause I am losing hope ♪
♪ Yeah on my darkest night ♪
- [Voice Of Marah Eakin]
Do you have a white whale?
Like for you guys, not in the show.
Not a white whale in the show.
- We have got white whales
in your show.
- But for you guys,
something that you'd really,
I mean, well, I haven't
gotten to that episode yet.
(laughing)
Something that you guys
would really, that
you've always been like,
"Man, I really wanna capture giant squid".
You know what I mean?
Whatever it is.
- Well, I'll just say
giant squid, those deep sea creatures.
Our colleagues worked on "Blue Planet II",
but some of those spaces
which are so little explored
and have creatures that
we've never seen before
are pretty exciting.
And also, the world of creepy-crawlies
I think is where so many of
our new stories come from,
and we're often dealing with
these charismatic, big animals,
the fluffy things;
but I think when you go
into that leaf litter,
that's where you find some
unbelievably rich stories
and really unsung heroes down there.
So I think that's where I'd go
next looking for new stories
and new animals.
- In terms of animals on a bucket list,
the dingoes definitely were
that before this series.
They're so hard to film and
I've looked into it in the past
and you wonder why nobody
has really done it before.
A lot of hard work but that
was definitely something
that felt like, wasn't sure if
it was ever gonna be possible
and was really, really
pleased to be able to meet
the dingo family that we filmed
and follow an incredible predator.
- Think for me it's giant
armadillos in Bolivia.
I just think they must be so bizarre.
I can't believe that they're a mammal,
they look like a little mini dinosaur.
But actually, some of
the team on this series
managed to film some of the things
which I'd always wanted to film.
So I've been to Patagonia
three or four times trying
to film pumas hunting and
Chadden and his team went
and managed to absolutely
capture that for the first time
in this series.
We had, in Europe, muskox, the big,
shaggy sheep and I'd failed.
It's the only shoot I've
completely failed on
for "Planet Earth I" it was.
Two muskox running and smashing heads,
and actually, in the Europe episode,
the team went and got that.
So I definitely slayed
it, well the team for me,
slayed a few demons.
(dramatic music)
(monkeys screeching)
(water splashing)
(zebras yelping)
(birds chirping)
