Exclusive with BBC Producer Jonny Keeling

EXTRAORDINARY ANIMALS IN

BBC’S SEVEN WORLDS

Seven Worlds One Planet is BBC Earth’s latest show – and it is incredible, with one particular episode focussing solely on the African continent. Scott Alexander, Series Producer, and Jonny Keeling, Executive Producer, share their thoughts on this breath-taking new series.

BBC Earth’s content is synonymous with raw, natural beauty. We’ve all been awe-struck by the Blue Planet and Planet Earth series and their fellow mates, but Seven Worlds One Planet is a breath of fresh air. Not only does it change the format to focus on a different continent in each episode, but the footage and stories told are both captivating and extraordinary, almost beyond belief. We hear more from Series Producer Scott Alexander and Exec Producer Jonny Keeling.

What’s the idea behind Seven Worlds, One Planet?

Scott Alexander: This is the first time we’ve done a series based on the seven continents at a time when the biodiversity of each of the continents is at its greatest. It comes at a pivotal moment because we could be entering biodiversity’s fastest decline – the sixth extinction. Normally we’ve broken up the natural world by habitat: this is an entirely new

way to look at the planet.

It consists of seven standalone films because each continent has its own identity, its own characteristics and its own unique wildlife. This is first and foremost a wildlife behavioural show. We went out looking for the newest and latest stories, new species, and new behaviours. Even where we show animals that you’ve seen before hopefully they will be doing things you haven’t seen them doing before.

Jonny Keeling: The other thing that’s really important is that we want people to relate to the animals, to feel for the animal, fall in love with it, and watch a characterbased story and experience a full range of emotions.

Would you give us an example of this?

Scott: A classic example comes in the Africa episode. The one I really like is the elephant story. Everyone’s seen elephants but we’ve shown two particular

Asian Monkeys

elephants that have learnt to stand up on their back feet and balance so they can reach higher up into the trees and get those last bits of fruit that no other elephants can reach. That’s very helpful in times of drought and it’s astonishing to see.

Take us through running a production of this magnitude. How long does it take to put it together?

Jonny: The whole production takes about four years – generally it’s about a year to dig up stories and leads, then about two years filming, and about a year in the edits. Then we bring in David Attenborough to do the narration, Hans Zimmer to do the music, so the quality of it is high because the people who work on it are at the top of their game.

We all come from a wildlife background – I have a PhD and have worked with animals for 30 years – and we’re working with 1 500 people around the world who have expertise and knowledge for shoots, which

are generally five or six weeks long. And although all of these are planned out, what’s lovely about the natural world is that something always happens that you’d never expect.

We film somewhere approaching 2 000 hours of footage or maybe more, and for each episode it’s about 300 hours of footage so it’s a huge undertaking. We’re on location for about 1 700 or 1 800 days, which is crammed into two years. At any one time, we would have four or five shoots out on location.

How has wildlife filmmaking changed in the last decade?

Scott: All the big talk is about the technological advances. You go from film to Beta, you go to HD then you go to 4K and on this series we’ve been shooting in 8K. But actually I think that where we’ve really evolved is in our storytelling and how we characterise our stories. I think we’re making the big advances by improving on our storytelling.

MOTIF STUDIOS

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Founded upon a desire to tell and realise stories that go beyond the norm, Director Craig Hunter Parker and Producer Jacques Bock have been forging the path for Motif Studios into its ninth successful year. With a lean in-house team of talented 3D and VFX artists, animators and directors, Motif has produced award-winning work for big brands in advertising, motion graphics, TV channels and, primarily, visual effects work for both local and international features. We have a strong collective of artists with whom we work both locally and abroad to scale up for various projects.

SERVICES OFFERED

Owing to our background in advertising, design and illustration, one of our strong-suits is being able to creatively collaborate with directors in realising their vision. It’s a skillset that’s a bit of an open secret when it comes to adding to the many offerings that we’re usually approached for. Some of which include: VFX supervision, 3D & 2D design, modelling, character animation, motion graphics, compositing and directing. From title sequences to music videos, short films to blockbuster features, Motif endeavours to deliver work of international standard.

CV OF CLIENTS

Warner Brothers Sony Pictures Universal Pictures Paramount Pictures 20th Century Fox Netflix HBO

Fox BBC SyFy Channel Showtime Starz National Geographic

CONTACT US WHAT WE DO

Having cut our teeth working on countless commercials and contentbranding, we’ve moved into more narrative-based work since working on film and television series. To date, we have completed over 25 features and series in the short time that we’ve been operating. We pride ourselves in being key players in the local film industry and have helped on numerous local features and proof of concepts to get the spotlight on the multitude of talent South Africa has to offer. We are also developers of original content and are always looking to get more projects in front of the world.

MEET THE TEAM

Craig Hunter Parker Director

Jacques Bock Producer