Planet Earth II Live In Concert - Q and A with Executive Producer Mike Gunton
What is your role in the forthcoming Planet Earth II Live In Concert?
As the creative director of the Natural History Unit in Bristol and also Executive Producer on the Planet Earth II television series, I’m delighted that I’m going to be a special guest presenter on the forthcoming Planet Earth II Live In Concert UK arena tour. Liz Bonnin will of course be our host but I will be on stage to give some insider secrets as to what happens when you make a television series like this. I’ll be offering insights on some of the behind the scenes stories and help the audience relate to the visuals on the gigantic screen.
What does an Executive Producer do?
There are lots of different executive producers, and they have very different styles and various levels of involvement. My main job is to conceive the idea in the first place, get it in front of a commissioner and then get the show commissioned with a good budget. But you also need to have a vision to keep that creative flame burning. In any long production there will always be changes, so part of my role is to make sure that any changes which are made are indeed for the better.
What did it mean to win the BAFTA and EMMY Awards?
I’ve been making wildlife films for over 30 years, the first series I worked on was called Trials Of Life, and it amazingly won two BAFTA awards for best series and photography. I thought to myself, well this is easy! Fast forward 30 years and never another sniff of an award, then all of a sudden Planet Earth II comes along and wins four BAFTA and two EMMY awards. I don’t think any series has ever done that, let alone a natural history one. The reaction from the audience and from the critics was pretty much unprecedented, so of course for the whole team at the Natural History Unit, it was a great endorsement of what we’d been doing all these years. It really put the wind in our sails!
Did winning the awards change things for the Natural History Unit?
When you win awards like this it’s a vindication of what you’ve been doing and building for years, it is incredibly gratifying. As a filmmaker, you want to move people, turn the dial, and have an impact on people’s lives.
Planet Earth II is particularly special because it did reset how we make wildlife films and it really engaged the audience reaction with wildlife film making. The number of people who watched the series globally was huge, it changed the way people think about the environment and our natural world. Planet Earth II has effectively become the ‘mothership’ of a whole series of projects that are now being made, we’re delighted because it has rebooted the public connection with the environment and wildlife.
The success of Planet Earth II was partly the way it was made, the time it was made and perhaps the fact that it was Sir David Attenborough’s 90th birthday – the stars aligned in a particular way. But I think it also seeded the idea that although the series is mostly about the wonder of the natural world, we are also now realising much more about the fragility our of planet. That sense of the preciousness and fragility, something we perhaps take for granted, has now permeated through all of our filming making, to the extent that in every series we now make, we try to address those very important environmental and conservation issues. People are certainly now more aware of the wider environmental issues because of our shows and we have carried that mantra through with Blue Planet II, and now into Seven Worlds, One Planet.
I can’t imagine us ever making one of these big landmark blockbusters shows without having significant reference to the context of these stories, both good and bad. It’s so great to be able to take Planet Earth II on a UK arena tour, as it will rekindle and remind everyone of those very memorable 2016 stories and images, in a uniquely immersive experience, one that all the family can enjoy.
You were quoted as saying “Most of the world's problems could be sorted out if everybody could spend 5 minutes with Sir David Attenborough”. What have you learned from him and what impact do you think he’s had?
He’s not just a kite mark of quality, it’s his presence, his ethos, his voice and the effect that he has upon us. I work on many programs, but when I work on a Sir David Attenborough one it creates a particular approach that you try to adopt. He just had to be voice of Planet Earth II. What is incredible about his career is that it has also evolved over time. If you look at the shows he’s done through the decades going back as far as the 1950s you can see a remarkable growth, the way he tells and narrates stories is so complementary to the photography and makes for almost perfect television. There is no greater spokesperson on the environment for our generation!
You hosted the first ever UK live performance of Planet Earth II at the Royal Albert Hall in May 2017. What memories do you have of that occasion?
Well strangely enough I wasn’t at all nervous, but I have to admit that when I was on stage I felt this weird aura as though everybody was connected to nature, via these beautiful and extraordinary pictures, stories and live music. It was such a powerful and immersive experience, and simply the happiest, most wonderful event to be involved in. I also remember being so close to and almost in the orchestra! I was virtually sitting elbow to elbow with the second violins. Whilst they were playing you could just feel and sense the intensity of the musical performances, and the orchestra was clearly loving the music, not just for the music’s sake but because it was connected to the extraordinary images on screen. It was a truly memorable, unexpected and special experience.
How does the live concert compare to the television show?
One of the interesting things as a television producer is that the live concert is a distillation of the TV show, in that the concert can only have a certain number of sequences to get across the same stories and message. Because there is no narration by Sir David during the concert visual presentation itself, the music becomes very important as an extra dimension and accompaniment, so choosing the right pictures, creating the best musical arc and arrangements is really key. Of course it helps that Hans Zimmer and the Bleeding Fingers’ music score for the Planet Earth II series is some of the best thematic music I’ve ever been involved with!
On our forthcoming Planet Earth II Live In Concert arena tour, we will be taking things to another level. The 4K gigantic LED screen provides unprecedented clarity of image, the City of Prague Philharmonic are just some of the best musicians on the planet and of course we have tweaked some of the scenes, as well as change my role from the original Royal Albert Hall performance. Liz Bonnin is going to be our host but I’m going to be on stage to compliment that, give some insight and stories from behind the scenes, and to give a little bit of information as to how you make a series like this.
Do you have any favourite moments from the behind the scenes?
It’s quite hard to pick favourites, but obviously the snakes and Iguana sequence was the one that caught people’s imagination in a way that I don’t remember anything else we’ve done ever achieving. It’s strange because if you’d written out the storyboard showing that it was about a little lizard in a desolate, arid bit of the Galapagos Islands, avoiding predatory snakes then you wouldn’t necessarily think that’s going to be a blockbuster moment. But my goodness me, the intensity and timing of that life and death struggle, coupled with our filming technology was incredible.
We wouldn’t have been able to tell that story say five years ago in the same way. It was only by having these tiny micro cameras, that you can take off the tripods and track along with the animals, to give those super close up pictures, which brings that story to life. It really caught people's imagination, a jump off your sofa moment.
Whenever you make a series like this you inevitably get into all kinds of scrapes. These are tricky places to go to, lots of daring do, but really funny things happen as well. When we were filming the locusts swarm, which is one of the key scenes in the live concert, we were trying to get a sense of what it’s like to be in such a swarm.
There’s almost a billion of these insects and it’s absolutely mind boggling. The camera man took his camera off the tripod, held it above his head and was running as fast as he could through the swarm, so the camera was effectively keeping up with the locusts, so you get the sense that you are flying with them. It’s an amazing image. However when we finished he said to us, let’s do another take and this time I’m going to run stark naked amongst them. Sometimes the experience in the field is just so intense and at one with nature, it kind of makes you go a bit crazy sometimes. He was a funny guy but you won’t be seeing that outtake!
What projects are you working on at present?
We’re in a bit of a boom era at the moment for wildlife film making, and there’s such a huge appetite, not just in the UK but globally. It’s important to say that innovation should still be the absolute heart of all of this. It’s easy to replicate but much harder to innovate and all of us in the BBC Natural History Unit are always looking for innovation and new ways to make great shows, that offer the viewer unique perspectives, insight and of course highlight how we can all make the planet a better place to live.
Any last thoughts on Planet Earth II?
Well I’ve worked on many series and have been doing this for more than 30 years, so when you spend a long time on a series there’s always one or two things, or maybe one episode where you think well that could have been better. But honestly, one of the things about Planet Earth II which I’m most proud of is that I truly believe every single episode is a winner – they’d all be in my top ten of anything I’ve worked on.
It will be such a visual, musical and emotional experience to present our wonderful work on the huge arena production during the Planet Earth II Live In Concert tour.
Get tickets for Planet Earth II Live In Concert here.
