Private Life Of Plants

[gemfyre]

This has to be one of the best documentaries made. I love how it managed to reveal that there is just as much excitement and drama in a plant's life as in an animals, it just happens on such a slow scale that we generally don't notice it.

I am noticing however that the bird call tracks are still wrong. A scene of a Singing Honeyeater feeding on a Kangaroo Paw is accompanied by the call of a Brown Honeyeater (at least that's what I think it is, it doesn't sound 100% right), a Western (or more likely the eastern Little) Wattlebird, and something else I can't identify (furthering my suspicion that it was recorded over east). There is no Singing Honeyeater to be heard.

Another scene of the notorious orchid duping a wasp into thinking it's a female ready to mate is accompanied by the calls of Rufous Whistler - a species found over here, but there is also the distinct call of the Pied Currawong - an exclusively eastern species.

I love being a bird geek. :) After Life of Plants is Life of Birds, I hope they get the calls right for that one. ;)

Comments

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

In Private Life of Plants the cameras used are still pretty primitive (despite it being cutting edge technology at the time) and BBC fell back on one of its favourite tricks which was, in situations and landscapes where they hadn't used a boom mike or other recording equipment, to simply go into their archives and grab the tape which says 'Australian bushland birdsong' (for example) and then to play that. Or alternatively to find different 'Australian birds' and then to play them together to create a native sounding scene.

In fact, if you listen carefully in some scenes, it's actually the same call or calls, looped over and over again.

It is done - I think - in a couple of scenes in Life of Birds (which is an awesome awesome series), but by then technology was much more advanced and it's really reflected in the quality of the birdsong that's captured. Recording equipment was far more sophisticated, it had to be, in order to catch the very birds they were trying to film.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

After watching the making of Living Planet and Trials of Life, I'm becoming a lot more aware of the tricks used in the filming. I'll find myself guessing where the cameraman is, and whether the situation is a controlled setup or actual critters in the wild.

I was also amused to notice that Dave goes from saying "lich-en" in the first two series to "Liken" in Life In The Freezer. It also makes me smile to hear "cone-i-fer" and "secsually receptive". Love that proper British accent. :)

[blue-cat.livejournal.com]

BBC Worldwide has some bits of it on YouTube :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igkjcuw_n_U Waterlilies

[blue-cat.livejournal.com]

oh, and the lyre bird!!!! put it on my own LJ/VOx!!!