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Life on Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure
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"Every breath we take and every mouthful of food that we eat comes from the natural world, and if we damage the natural world, we damage ourselves.”
- Sir David Attenborough
In 1976, Sir David Attenborough embarked on an ambitious three-year global odyssey to film Life on Earth, an innovative documentary of unprecedented scale. Attenborough and his team traveled to 40 countries to document over 600 species and faced extraordinary challenges along the way, including a coup in the Comoros, gunshots in Rwanda and threats from Saddam Hussein’s army in Iraq. Written and presented by Attenborough, Life on Earth set out to “tell the greatest story in all the world”: how life on our planet evolved.
Fifty years after production began, and in celebration of Attenborough’s 100th birthday, Life On Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure offers rare, behind-the-scenes insight into the making of the groundbreaking series. Featuring exclusive interviews with Attenborough and his original crew, the special captures the triumphs and setbacks of filming the series during a pivotal era in television history, when jet travel and color filming were relatively new. Life On Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure premiered Wednesday, May 6, at 8 p.m. on GPB.
Life on Earth was the first series to combine cutting-edge camera technology and techniques. Time-lapse, microphotography and filming speeds of up to 10,000 frames per second were used to capture animal movement in ways never before seen — from striking rattlesnakes to leaping lemurs and hovering hummingbirds. New Kodak film stock allowed the team to produce some of the sharpest and most colorful wildlife footage at the time, while the new Canon 300 lens enabled the camera crew to film at dawn and dusk and document new animal behaviour previously thought impossible to record.
“Natural history television has produced an understanding in the audience about the importance of the natural world,” said Attenborough. “It’s an understanding of the part humanity plays in the way the world operates and the way in which we are totally dependent on the natural world. Every breath we take and every mouthful of food that we eat comes from the natural world, and if we damage the natural world, we damage ourselves.”
The documentary details how the team captured some of the series’ most astounding moments — a lioness ferociously taking down a wildebeest, the rare moment a male Darwin’s frog “gives birth” by mouth and Attenborough’s unforgettable encounter with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, which he calls one of the greatest privileges of his career.
Upon its broadcast on PBS in 1982, Life on Earth quickly became a global phenomenon, commanding the attention of over 500 million people in more than 100 territories. Its extraordinary success launched five decades of ambitious wildlife storytelling and cemented Attenborough’s legacy as the most successful and influential wildlife
filmmaker of our time.
You can stream Life On Earth: Attenborough’s Greatest Adventure on GPB Passport and on gpb.org.
Happy Birthday, Sir David Attenborough!
"For more than four decades, Sir David Attenborough has brought the incredible pageantry of wildlife and wild places to viewers around the world, giving us all a glimpse into places and species we may never see with our own eyes. His face and voice have become synonymous with sterling nature programming and generations have been inspired to learn about, conserve and protect wildlife thanks to his career. A very heartfelt happy 100th birthday from the people, and importantly, the animals of Zoo Atlanta.”
- Raymond King, Zoo Atlanta CEO
Sir David Attenborough has shaped the way the world sees and understands wildlife. For those of us working with animals every day, his storytelling has been a constant source of inspiration, reminding us that every species has a story worth telling and a future worth protecting. Personally, he has been an incredibly formative influence for my career and my life. On behalf of all of us at Georgia Safari Conservation Park, I would like to wish Sir David a happy 100th birthday and thank him for a lifetime spent bringing wildlife closer to us all. If his work for creatures great and small has inspired you, we invite you to open your hearts to nature and support wildlife by visiting your local parks, preserves, and conservation-focused zoological facilities."
- Andi Clason, Director of Animal Care, Georgia Safari Conservation Park
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