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2019 | Book

Introduction Read chapter Read first chapter

BBC Wildlife Documentaries in the Age of Attenborough

Author: Dr. Jean-Baptiste Gouyon

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Book Series : Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book explores the history of wildlife television in post-war Britain. It revolves around the role of David Attenborough, whose career as a broadcaster and natural history filmmaker has shaped British wildlife television. The book discusses aspects of Attenborough’s professional biography and also explores elements of the institutional history of the BBC—from the early 1960s, when it was at its most powerful, to the 2000s, when its future is uncertain. It focuses primarily on the wildlife ‘making-of’ documentary genre, which is used to trace how television progressively became a participant in the production of knowledge about nature. With the inclusion of analysis of television programmes, first-hand accounts, BBC archival material and, most notably, interviews with David Attenborough, this volume follows the development of the professional culture of wildlife broadcasting as it has been portrayed in public. It will be of interest to wildlife television amateurs, historians of British television and students in science communication.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
Wildlife documentaries are one of the main sources of knowledge of nature for non-scientific publics. They are about knowledge, and their makers need to find ways of convincing viewers that they can speak authoritatively on behalf of nature. The wildlife making-of documentary (MOD) is one of the means by which film-makers solicit trust from their audiences. By disclosing aspects of film-making, MODs redefine the relationship of wildlife films with objectivity and with nature. MODs make the case for wildlife documentaries to be seen as participants in the scientific endeavour. This book tries to understand how the way in which British wildlife television was practiced from the early 1950s to the early 2000s has become the accepted stereotype of how nature appears on-screen.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Chapter 2. Live from Alexandra Palace, Wildlife Comes to Television
Abstract
This chapter provides a rapid overview of British wildlife television before World War Two, focusing on a programme about the making of the film series Secrets of Life (1934–1950) to introduce the notion that wildlife television is as much about television as it is about wildlife. The chapter then examines Peter Scott’s programmes produced by the BBC in Bristol, which led to the flagship series Look, and Michaela and Armand Denis’s series of films shot in Africa. These two approaches to wildlife television contrast with each other in their aims, one geared toward edification, the other toward entertainment. They are discussed in the light of the cultural repertoire of origin, amateur natural history and imperial big game hunting. Both relied on the construction of their front figures as personalities with audience appeal.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Chapter 3. David Attenborough: The Early Years—Fashioning Zoological Expertise On-Screen
Abstract
This chapter first examines how David Attenborough participated early on in shaping the practical aspects of creating wildlife television. His early programme work, notably The Coelacanth (1953) and Animal Patterns (1953), contributed to creating a professional culture of television making, distinct from that of radio broadcasting and cinema. These two programmes placed the emphasis on television’s ability to show things and tell a story visually. The chapter then turns to the first two Zoo Quest series, Zoo Quest to Sierra Leone (1954) and Zoo Quest to British Guiana (1955), to discuss their contribution to establishing Attenborough’s reputation as a successful programme maker within the BBC, and as a figure of zoological expertise whom audiences found trustworthy.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Chapter 4. Wildlife Television, Empathy and the End of the British Empire
Abstract
In Zoo Quest for a Dragon, the BBC crew worked in the field on its own, without the support of the Zoological Society of London. This chapter examines this series’ contribution to the construction of the public persona of David Attenborough as a trustworthy zoological expert. The chapter makes the case that this third Zoo Quest series and the other travel-based wildlife TV programmes it inspired, notably the Travellers’ Tales series and Gerald Durrell’s programmes, put forward empathy with wildlife as the main evidence of expertise for the wildlife broadcaster. Considered in the context of the unravelling of the British Empire, these series promoting empathy as a source of knowledge of wild animals are interpreted as relocating the British imperial project in nature programmes made for television.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Chapter 5. Wildlife Television and Progressivism in 1960s Britain: Rise of the Professional Broadcaster and Downfall of the Amateur Naturalist Film-Maker
Abstract
In the early 1960s, wildlife broadcasters in Bristol engaged in distancing themselves from amateur naturalist cameramen and creating a professional culture of wildlife film-making. This involved developing the use of film and other pre-recorded material at the expense of live studio sequences, and publicly presenting film-making as a valid form of production of natural historical knowledge. A key moment in this part of the story is the 1963 film Unarmed Hunters, the first wildlife MOD made for television in Britain. This chapter considers the context of its production and what it reveals about how wildlife broadcasters chose to present themselves to their audiences.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Chapter 6. Showcasing Science, Showcasing Nature on BBC2
Abstract
The launch of BBC2 in 1964 led to profound changes in wildlife television. The new channel was designed to increase the broadcasting of knowledge-based content. This brief gave free rein to David Attenborough, as controller of the new channel, to establish new programme formats and content. Under Attenborough’s aegis, the Life series fronted by Desmond Morris brought wildlife television and ethology close together in a new, ‘professional’ approach to natural history. The series The World About Us instated the fifty-minute, film-only format as the default for wildlife television. By the end of the 1960s, wildlife broadcasters at the BBC had succeeded in establishing a professional culture of wildlife television making, distinct from both amateur natural history and big game hunting—one informed by science.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Chapter 7. From Oxford to Bristol and Back: The Invention of Scientific Wildlife Television
Abstract
In the 1960s, two scientists from Oxford University, Niko Tinbergen and Gerald Thompson, began using film as part of their scientific practice. The BBC’s Natural History Unit (NHU) in Bristol quickly got wind of their work and started collaborating with them to develop a new approach to wildlife television making. Tinbergen, the founder of ethology, brought intellectual foundations to it, creating, with Christopher Parsons, stories of wildlife informed by the theory of evolution. Thompson provided a technological edge which enabled the Bristol NHU producers to bring a new perspective to the subject matter they were showing in their programmes. The two collaborations also led them to further define their identity as experts in wildlife television making.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Chapter 8. Oxford Scientific Films: From Field Craft to Film Craft
Abstract
Tinbergen’s and Thompson’s film work paved the way for the development of a new film unit specialising in biological filming: Oxford Scientific Films (OSF). A key player in the creation of OSF was Peter Parks, an Oxford zoology graduate who first started working for the BBC as a caption artist. He developed an ingenious device, an optical bench, which enabled him to film minuscule life forms using the technique of dark field illumination. Over the course of a decade, Oxford film-makers became central to wildlife television, turning camerawork into a key aspect of the narrative in wildlife films. OSF established a new standard for wildlife television, as described in the 1972 documentary The Making of a Natural History Film by Mick Rhodes.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Chapter 9. Life on Earth and Beyond: Producing the Wildlife Blockbuster
Abstract
Life on Earth was a milestone in the production of wildlife television. It opened a new epoch, characterised by the production of large-scale, ambitious series which rested on the creation of a new public figure for wildlife television: the telenaturalist, as embodied in David Attenborough. In turn, the appearance of this new figure rendered the MOD necessary, for it established the claim that the telenaturalist could be trusted to produce objective knowledge of nature in front of the camera for the benefit of the watching public. The model instituted with Life on Earth was perfected with the next two series, The Living Planet (1979) and The Trials of Life (1990).
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Chapter 10. Afterword
Abstract
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the BBC’s NHU changed its treatment of environmental programmes from acting as a neutral observer of wildlife to taking a more active role in environmental debates. This shift can be related to changes in the life sciences’ relationship to the environment with the emergence of the biodiversity movement in the 1990s, and the development of what has been called an endangerment sensibility. These changes in the life sciences conflated conservation activism with the biological study of biodiversity. But could the endangerment sensibility be a consequence of the repeated exposure of life scientists to wildlife documentaries?
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
BBC Wildlife Documentaries in the Age of Attenborough
Author
Dr. Jean-Baptiste Gouyon
Copyright Year
2019
Electronic ISBN
978-3-030-19982-1
Print ISBN
978-3-030-19981-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19982-1