''Great Migrations'' is a seven-episode

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 ...

television miniseries that airs on the National Geographic Channel, featuring the great migrations of animals around the globe. The seven-part show is the largest programming event in the ten-year history of the channel and is part of the largest cross-platform initiative since the founding of the

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, an ...

. It was filmed in HD, and premiered on November 7, 2010 with accompanying coverage in the '' National Geographic'' magazine and an official companion book.

Episodes

''Great Migrations'' debuted on November 7, 2010 worldwide. The series airs on the Sundays of the same month, spread across four hour-long chapters, excluding three supplemental hours which run on other dates. The National Geographic Channel estimated that the show's premiere would be accessible in 330 million homes across the globe.

Production

The production team traveled over two and a half years tracking multiple species ranging from

army ant The name army ant (or legionary ant or ''marabunta'') is applied to over 200 ant species in different lineages. Because of their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", a huge number of ants forage simultaneously over a limi ...

s to Mali elephants. Cinematographers went to great lengths to film the species and their migratory habits, although none were hurt in the process. Filming provided rare footage of various animal scenes, including the documentation of an elephant's funeral for the first time outside East Africa. Various technologies were used to film the show, such as the use of high-tech tags on

monarch butterflies The monarch butterfly or simply monarch (''Danaus plexippus'') is a milkweed butterfly (subfamily Danainae) in the family Nymphalidae. Other common names, depending on region, include milkweed, common tiger, wanderer, and black-veined brown. ...

and

elephant seal Elephant seals are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus ''Mirounga''. Both species, the northern elephant seal (''M. angustirostris'') and the southern elephant seal (''M. leonina''), were hunted to the brink of extinction for oi ...

s. The Cineflex Heligimbal gyrostabilized cameras was widely utilized in the production. It allows rock-solid closeups to be shot from a kilometer up, a height that does not disturb the animals being filmed. The series also uses the ultra-slow motion Phantom HD camera by Vision Research and the "beyond high-def" Red camera.

Reception

''Great Migrations'' was acclaimed, with considerable praise its cinematography and photography.

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

remarked on the show's "compelling grandeur"; reviewer

Tom Shales Thomas William Shales (born November 3, 1944) is an American writer and retired critic of television programming and operations. He was a television critic for ''The Washington Post'' from 1977 to 2010, for which Shales received the Pulitzer Pr ...

noted how contemporary nature films would inevitably be compared with the BBC classics, ''Planet Earth'' and ''Life''. ''Great Migrations'', he felt, superseded both in its narration and score. The '' Edmonton Journal'' went to the extent of praising the show's photography as being "so magnificent that there will be a boomlet in sales of high-definition televisions".

Awards

Won Primetime Emmy as Best Documentary Film

References

* * * *

External links

''Great Migrations''
on the National Geographic Channel official site
''Great Migrations'' official companion book
on

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{{National Geographic TV Nature educational television series 2010 American television series debuts 2010 American television series endings 2010s American television miniseries National Geographic (American TV channel) original programming Television series about animals Animal migration