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The Wonder of LIFE: Discovery Channel's 11-Part Event

Maj Canton - March 20, 2010

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Discovery's new 11-episode series, LIFE, has one simple goal -- to cover all life on Earth. To do that, 70 camerapeople traveled to 50 countries over a four-year period, using the latest in state-of-the-art high-definition filming techniques to capture never-before-seen video of animals and their behaviors. LIFE premieres on Discovery on Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 8pm ET/PT and will air back-to-back one-hour episodes on five consecutive Sundays. Don't miss this spectacular event!

 

 

 

 

If you liked PLANET EARTH, then you'll love the new series LIFE. Mike Gunton, Executive Producer of LIFE, says it best, "PLANET EARTH really was about taking the audience to the most wonderful and extraordinary places on the planet. What LIFE is doing is taking you there and then showing you the extraordinary animals that live in these places and how they survive there. PLANET EARTH is about the stage, and LIFE is about the lives of the actors." To learn more about how and why the series was created, check out this video clip.

 

 

 

But simply being in the right place at the right time isn't good enough any more for nature documetaries. LIFE used scientific expertise and new technology to capture shockingly realistic video. When asked about the cinematography, Gunton replied, "A lot of it comes down to a spending a lot of time with scientists, people who know these animals incredibly well because not only can they give you insight into how to deal with them, but they've often seen them day in and day out, and the animals are often habituated and used to human presence. We're very, very careful not to disturb them because, clearly, if you do disturb them, they stop doing the behavior, and we are in the business in this particular series of getting just amazing behavior." With this knowledge, the camerapeople used Cineflix mounted on helicopters to video herds, new macro techniques for those close-up images, time-lapse videography to show brilliant, but slow, changes, and high-speed video (at 1000-2000 frames per second) to capture things the naked eye will never see. If you're interested in some of the video techniques, you should watch this footage.

 

 

 

By combining scientific expertise with these advances in video technology, LIFE presents many images and stories for the first-time ever. You'll be able to watch the courtship of the Vogelkop bowerbird, a Komodo dragon taking down a water buffalo, and the details of how the Jesus Christ lizard walks on water. There are so many firsts that you should just watch a clip of the producers and camerapeople describing their favorite firsts.

 

 

 

 

But those aren't the only firsts. Oprah Winfrey narrates her first nature documentary. David Attenborough used to narrate almost every nature series, but Discovery used Oprah Winfrey because, according to Gunton, "He [David Attenborough] is a wonderful narrator, but listening to Oprah's voice, there's a wonderful warmth, and it does bring something different to the program than David does." You can hear what he's talking about in this clip.

 

 

 

And in yet another first, LIFE will debut simultaneously on Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Investigation Discovery, Planet Green and Discovery Health Channel from 8-10PM ET on Sunday, March 21, 2010. The remainder of the series will air on consecutive Sundays from 8-10PM ET through April 18 -- but only on Discovery Channel.

 

If you're still not psyched about this spectacular series, I leave you with a few still images from LIFE. Maybe they'll captivate you as much as me.