Wild China on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Certain sequences could only be filmed using special techniques:
* High speed cameras were used to slow down the action 80 times to show a
''Wild China'' is a six-part
and Gao Xiaoping for CCTV. The Chinese version was broadcast under the title ''Beautiful China''. In Canada, it was broadcast on CBC as part of the series ''nature documentary
A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on video taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of t ...
series on the natural history of China, co-produced by the BBC Natural History Unit
The BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is a department of BBC Studios that produces television, radio and online content with a natural history or wildlife theme. It is best known for its highly regarded nature documentaries, including '' ...
and China Central Television (CCTV) and filmed in high-definition (HD). It was screened in the UK on BBC Two from 11 May to 5 June 2008. The English narration was provided by Bernard Hill
Bernard Hill (born 17 December 1944) is an English actor. He is well recognized for playing King Théoden in ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy, Captain Edward Smith in ''Titanic'', and Luther Plunkitt, the Warden of San Quentin Prison in t ...
and the series produced by Phil Chapman for the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...The Nature of Things
''The Nature of Things'' (also, ''The Nature of Things with David Suzuki'') is a Canadian television series of documentary programs. It debuted on CBC Television on 6 November 1960. Many of the programs document nature and the effect that hu ...
'' narrated by David Suzuki. ''Wild China'' was broadcast in Australia on ABC1
ABC TV, formerly known as ABC1, is an Australian national public television network. It is owned and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is the flagship ABC Television network. The headquarters of the ABC TV channel an ...
and ABC HD each Sunday at 7:30pm from 18 May 2008.
The musical score to accompany the series was composed by Barnaby Taylor and was performed by Cheng Yu and the UK Chinese Ensemble.
The series was billed as the culmination of the BBC Natural History Unit's "Continents" programmes, a long-running strand of blue-chip wildlife documentaries which surveyed the natural history of each of the world's major land areas. It was preceded by ''Wild Caribbean
''Wild Caribbean'' is a four-part BBC nature documentary series exploring the natural and cultural history of the Caribbean Islands and Sea. It was first transmitted in the UK on BBC Two in January 2007. The series was produced by the BBC Natura ...
'' in 2007, but with the broadcast of '' South Pacific'' in 2009 the BBC signalled a continuation of the strand.
Production details
The 2008 Beijing Olympics gave the BBC Natural History Unit team the opportunity to make the first comprehensive series on China's natural history. In the run up to the Games, the Chinese government was "understandably keen to promote itself as a country worth visiting" according to BBC producer Phil Chapman. Permission for ''Wild China'' was granted in 2005, with the BBC working alongside local partners CTV, aBeijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
production company closely allied to state broadcaster CCTV. The series marks the first time that CCTV has collaborated with a foreign broadcaster.
With wildlife filmmaking in its infancy in China, and a perception in the developed world
A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
of a country plagued by environmental problems, the producers hoped that the series would change attitudes in both the East and the West:
Filming for the series took place over 16 months, and involved half a million miles of travel on 57 separate filming trips to some of China's most inaccessible and spectacular locations. The production team shot over 500 hours of HD footage in 26 of China's 30 provinces.
Despite being granted unprecedented access to many remote and protected areas, one of the main challenges faced by the filmmakers was finding wildlife. Although 15% of China's territory has some form of protection, this is not a guarantee of safety for wildlife, as reserves were often found to be under-equipped and under-staffed. In addition, they encountered a lack of local expertise and specialist knowledge, as few of China's zoologist
Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...
s were naturalists with an interest in observing wildlife. Producers even struggled to film the courting behaviour of one of the country's commonest creatures, the rice-paddy frog. Consequently, the team's attempts to find and film wildlife were not always successful.
With the support of local party officials, the producers found it easier to contact and film local people. They were particularly keen to record examples of traditional lifestyles which incorporate the natural world to give the series a cultural context. The episodes were divided by region to present the distinct cultural as well as ecological differences.
Filming techniques
Over 80% of the series was based on traditional observational techniques in the wild. These were conducted in some of China's most remote areas: * Apart from a handful of biologists, the ''Wild China'' team were the first to set foot inTibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
’s remote Chang Tang
The Changtang (alternatively spelled Changthang or Qangtang) is a part of the high altitude Tibetan Plateau in western and northern Tibet extending into the southern edges of Xinjiang as well as southeastern Ladakh, India, with vast highlands ...
reserve for almost 100 years. After a five-day drive from Lhasa
Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Region in Southwest China. The inner urban area of Lhas ...
, they were faced with the challenge of filming rutting chiru
The Tibetan antelope or chiru (''Pantholops hodgsonii'') (, pronounced ; ) is a medium-sized bovid native to the northeastern Tibetan plateau. Most of the population live within the Chinese border, while some scatter across India and Bhutan in ...
in temperatures of -30°C
The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...
at 5,000m above sea level. The sequence showing a duel between two rival males was successfully filmed after stalking the herds for seven days. Field producer Jeff Boedeker trained with his team for a month in various stealth techniques. On one occasion the field team lay under a white tarp for 32 hours waiting for a shot that never came. They burned yak dung to stay warm and melt drinking water, and the crew was specifically selected for its sensibility to cultures, mental and physical aptitude for high stress scenarios, and techniques in nonfiction filmmaking.
* After two unsuccessful attempts to film wild giant pandas in the Qinling Mountains
The Qinling () or Qin Mountains, formerly known as the Nanshan ("Southern Mountains"), are a major east–west mountain range in southern Shaanxi Province, China. The mountains mark the divide between the drainage basins of the Yangtze and Yellow ...
, the producers switched to a different part of the region, the little-visited Changqing Reserve. There they were able to track and film the creatures in winter, and also film courtship and mating activity, the first time such a complete sequence has been shot in the wild.
* Producer Kathryn Jeffs and cameraman Paul Stewart travelled to the remote Gaoligongshan mountains in western Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
and after a three-hour trek to a ridge overlooking the forest, managed to film a troop of bear macaques feeding on fruits in the canopy. A second sequence showing white-eared pheasants at a rarely seen lek
Lek or LEK may refer to:
* Lek mating, mating in a lek, a type of animal territory in which males of a species gather
* Albanian lek, the currency of Albania
* Lek (magazine), a Norwegian softcore pornographic magazine
* Lek (pharmaceutical comp ...
was ruined when the birds were disturbed.
Certain sequences could only be filmed using special techniques:
* High speed cameras were used to slow down the action 80 times to show a songbird
A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5000 ...
evading the lunge of a Pallas' pit viper on Shedao Island.
* A time-lapse
Time-lapse photography is a technique in which the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than the frequency used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus ...
sequence of a remote Tibetan gorge was filmed using still images taken at intervals after the main filming camera broke down.
* Infrared
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
lighting enabled the team to film Francois langurs and bamboo bats covertly.
* Thermal imaging camera
A thermal imaging camera (colloquially known as a TIC) is a type of the thermographic camera used in firefighting. By rendering infrared radiation as visible light, such cameras allow firefighters to see areas of heat through smoke, darkness, o ...
s were used to show how the elephant yam uses convection heating at night to distribute its distinctive smell, which attracts pollinating beetles.
In some circumstances behaviour was too difficult to obtain in the wild, and controlled conditions were required:
* Bamboo rat
The bamboo rats are four species of rodents of the subfamily Rhizomyinae. They are the sole living representatives of the tribe Rhizomyini. All are found in South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia.
The species are:
*The Chinese bamboo rat, ''R ...
s and Roborovski hamster
The Roborovski hamster (''Phodopus roborovskii''), also known as the desert hamster, Robo dwarf hamster, or simply dwarf hamster, is the smallest of three species of hamster in the genus ''Phodopus''. It lives in the deserts of Central Asia, avera ...
s were filmed in burrows with glass side panels in a studio set.
* The producers negotiated an agreement to take Chinese alligator eggs from an incubator at the Xuancheng
Xuancheng () is a city in the southeast of Anhui province. Archeological digs suggest that the city has been settled for over 4,000 years, and has been under formal administration since the Qin dynasty. Located in the lower Yangtze River drainage ...
breeding centre and place them in an artificial nest to film them hatching.
* The courtship display of Temminck's tragopans was filmed using a captive pair of birds habituated to the presence of humans. Hunting pressure has made the wild birds in Yunnan too wary to approach.
* The slowed-down images of jumping spider
Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family Salticidae. As of 2019, this family contained over 600 described genera and over 6,000 described species, making it the largest family of spiders at 13% of all species. Jumping spi ...
s on Everest
Mount Everest (; Tibetic languages, Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is List of highest mountains on Earth, Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border ru ...
could not be filmed in the wild due to the impracticality of transporting high-speed camera equipment to the remote location, so a closely related species was filmed in a studio set.
Episodes
Merchandise
A Blu-ray Disc, DVD and book have been released to accompany the TV series: * The Blu-ray Disc (BBCBD0025), released on 5 August 2008, presents the series in full high-definition format. The series is also included in the ''BBC High Definition Natural History Collection'' Blu-ray box sets for Regions A and B (BBCBD0056). * A Region 2, 2-disc DVD set (BBCDVD2146) featuring all six full-length episodes was released on 9 June 2008. The Region 4 version of the DVD and Blu-ray was released by ABC DVD/Village Roadshow
Village Roadshow Limited is an Australian company which operates cinemas and theme parks, and produces and distributes films. Before being acquired by private equity company BGH Capital, the company was listed on the Australian Securities Ex ...
on 1 July 2008.
* The accompanying paperback book, ''Wild China: The Hidden Wonders of the World's Most Enigmatic Land'' by series producer Phil Chapman, was published by BBC Books
BBC Books (also formerly known as BBC Publishing) is an imprint majority-owned and managed by Penguin Random House through its Ebury Publishing division. The minority shareholder is BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasti ...
on 8 May 2008 ().
See also
* '' Japan: Earth's Enchanted Islands''References
External links
* * * {{BBC Continents Series National Geographic (American TV channel) original programming BBC television documentaries Documentary films about nature BBC high definition shows 2008 British television series debuts 2008 British television series endings Television series about China