Secret World Of Sound review: At 97, Sir David Attenborough is still utterly rapt in the wonders of nature, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS
Secret world of sound (Sky Nature)
Prisoner (BBC 4)
New technology is an obsession for Sir David Attenborough. So it’s no surprise that when a camera with forty directional microphones is developed that can locate a field mouse burrowing under a field of snow, he will be in favor of it.
During his lifetime in broadcasting, astonishing advances in film technology were made. After all, the time span between the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903 and the first moon landing in 1969 was only 66 years. Sir David is still going strong after 72 years in television.
“When I joined the BBC in 1952,” he recalled to me on one of the many occasions I was fortunate enough to interview him, “the only television you could watch in London was about three hours a day, on a small screen.’
He is a driving force behind so many innovations. As head of BBC2 in the 1960s he oversaw the introduction of color television to Britain, and it was in Attenborough’s landmark Life documentaries that many new filmmaking methods were first showcased: stop-motion photography of plants and trees during a full year, ultra-high-definition video of insects through microscope lenses, gyroscopic cameras under helicopters tracking herds across the savannah, and drones showing us whales from previously unimaginable perspectives.
New technology is an obsession for Sir David Attenborough. He is a driving force behind so many innovations. As head of BBC2 in the 1960s he oversaw the introduction of color television to Britain, and it was in Attenborough’s landmark Life documentaries that many new filmmaking methods were first showcased.
The show uses cutting-edge audio equipment to explore how animals hunt and forage in unexpected ways, like dolphins in the Bahamas foraging for eels and razorfish, bombarding the sandy seabed with blasts of sonar clicks.
Always willing to share the credit, Sir David will point out that he didn’t actually invent this sort of thing. But it is his insatiable enthusiasm for new discoveries in nature that drives the film crews to develop new ways to look ever more deeply at the animal kingdom.
Secret World Of Sound (Sky Nature) uses advanced audio equipment to investigate how animals hunt and forage in unexpected ways. A pod of dolphins in the Bahamas went searching for eels and razorfish, bombarding the sandy seabed with blasts of sonar clicks.
They can detect buried prey by listening for variations in the echoes, but they must tilt their heads to do so, much like a human straining to hear something almost out of earshot.
This three-part series is as impressive as any of Sir David’s work for the BBC’s Natural History Unit. At 97, as he strolls through a foxglove garden to make us bumblebees buzz ‘like living tuning forks’ to collect pollen, he seems as sharp and energetic as ever, and still utterly enraptured in the wonders of nature .
A male lion in the secret world of sound. Using heat-sensitive cameras we were able to see a pride of lions feeding on a warthog
Using heat-sensitive cameras we were able to see a pride of lions feeding on a warthog. A pack of careless hyenas gathered and signaled each other with a wide range of cries, growls and barks that sounded as complex as a human language. However, the lions did not bother to enter into negotiations and the outcome was short-lived, bloody and one-sided.
Human lions and hyenas were constantly on the brink of violence in the beautiful Danish drama Prisoner (BBC4). The Killing’s Sophie Grabol led the cast of prison staff, with Youssef Wayne Hvidtfeldt as Sammi, a new recruit eager to “make a difference,” and David Dencil as Henrik, the cynical veteran who wants a quiet life punctuated by occasional brutal acts.
The first double series of episodes, crammed into one too many subplots. Miriam (Grabol) receives threatening anonymous messages and must find more than £10,000 to pay off her junkie son’s debts. Henrik lives in a trailer, Sammi realizes he grew up with one of the inmates, and the governor fights to keep the prison from closing.
But if you’ve enjoyed recent depictions of life behind bars, such as BBC1’s Time and Ch4’s Screw, don’t miss this: it’s much better. Oh, and it also stars Malin Elisabeth Romer Brolin-Tani, who should qualify as the actress with the longest name in Europe.