Written by Christopher Stevens
01:04 February 26, 2024, updated 02:43 February 26, 2024
Secret World Of Sound (Sky Nature)
Prisoner (BBC 4)
Sir David Attenborough is obsessed with new technology. So when a camera with 40 directional microphones is developed that can pinpoint voles burrowing beneath snowfields, it’s no wonder he supports it.
His lifetime in the broadcasting industry has seen amazing advances in filmmaking technology. After all, the period between the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903 and his first moon landing in 1969 was only 66 years. Sir David is still going strong after 72 years in the television industry.
“When I joined the BBC in 1952, on one of the many occasions I was lucky enough to interview him, he reminded me: “Watching television… Only in London could you do it, and only for about three hours a day on a small screen.
He has been the driving force behind so many innovations. In the 1960s he was director of BBC2, where he oversaw the introduction of color television in the UK. It was Attenborough’s groundbreaking life documentary that introduced many new filming methods for the first time. Throughout the year he took stop-motion photographs of plants and trees, shot in ultra-high resolution. – high-resolution video of insects through a microscope lens, a gyroscopic camera under a helicopter that tracks pods across the savannah, and a drone that shows whales from previously unimaginable perspectives.
Sir David always likes to share his credit, but he’ll point out that he didn’t actually invent any of this. But his insatiable enthusiasm for new discoveries in the natural world is what motivates film crews to develop new ways to look even deeper into the animal world.
Secret World Of Sound (Sky Nature) uses state-of-the-art sound equipment to investigate how animals hunt and forage in unexpected ways. A pod of dolphins in the Bahamas bombards the sandy sea floor with sonar clicks as they burrow for eels and razorfish.
They can find buried prey by listening for changes in echoes, but this requires tilting their heads, just as humans try to hear something that is almost out of earshot. .
This three-part series is as impressive as Sir David’s work in the BBC’s natural history department. At 97, he looks as sharp and energetic as ever as he walks through his foxglove garden and shows bumblebees buzzing “like living tuning forks” to collect pollen. He seems completely absorbed in the wonders of nature.
Thanks to a heat-sensitive camera, we were able to observe a pride of lions eating a warthog. A pack of unscrupulous hyenas gathered together, signaling each other with a variety of shrieks, growls, and barks that sounded as complex as human language. But the Lions never bothered to engage in negotiations, and the outcome was short, bloody, and one-sided.
In the brilliant Danish drama The Prisoner (BBC4), a human lion and a hyena are brought to the brink of eternal violence. The Killing’s Sophie Grabol leads the prison guard cast, with Youssef Wayne Wittfeld as Sammy, a new employee eager to “make a difference” and David Densil as Sammy, a quiet life with occasional brutality. He played the role of Henrik, a cynical veteran who wishes to
The first two episodes were packed with too many subplots. Miriam (Grabol) receives threatening anonymous messages and he must find over £10,000 to pay off her drug-addicted son’s debts. Henrik lives in a caravan, Sammy realizes he grew up with one of the prisoners, and the Governor is fighting to stop the prison from closing.
But if you’ve enjoyed recent works depicting life behind bars, such as BBC1’s Time and Ch4’s Screw, then this is not to be missed. Much better. Oh, and Marin Elizabeth Romer Brolin Tani, who has to qualify as the actress with the longest name in Europe, also co-stars.