"An aerial view gives a unique perspective on a vast landscape such as the Okavango delta." "To achieve extraordinary top shots" "Planet Earth pioneer the latest in high tech filming." "Meet the chopper squad producer Mark Linfield, teamed up with helicopter pilot Peter Perlstein and Hollywood aerial cameraman Michael Kelem." "This helicopter is fitted with a new High Definition camera system - the heligimbal." "Originally invented for the military, it's only been used so far in Hollywood movies and glossy adverts." "Filming for Planet Earth will be the first time that a high tech system like this has been taken into the wild." "The chopper squad fly the heligimble into the swampy heart of the delta, an area inaccessible to ground filming crews." "With a 360 degree view and an extremely powerful lens the camera can zoom in from a kilometre away." "The animal remains totally undisturbed, oblivious to the film crew hovering high above." "The gyro stabilised camera produces rock solid images both in wide shots and in close-up." "For the first time wildlife can be put in context of the epic landscape in which it lives." "This aerial system is key to the team's most challenging mission - filming African wild dogs hunting, impossible to follow when filmed from the ground alone." "A highly experienced ground crew joins forces with the chopper squad." "Mike Holding has been filming hunting dogs for over ten years." "But even he has never successfully filmed a complete hunt from the ground." "In such rough terrain even keeping up with the dogs is a struggle and filming anything more than glimpses is completely impossible." "Today the challenge is to track the dogs so that Mike can guide in the helicopter." "We just saw an impala come flying past us here which means that dogs are actually hunting in this area." "So all hell will be breaking loose here." "Time to call in the chopper squad." "The dogs are now racing ahead." "Peter, you'd better get in here." "They're moving towards impala." "2,000 behind you there" "Another stop." "It's chaos for the ground crew making it impossible to film anything." "There they are, down below 9 o'clock [well done] straight beneath us." "OK, less, less, less turn left..." "From a great height the camera locks on to the target and Michael zooms in for the closer shot." "You see the dogs here in the monitor?" "A reasonable size, but they're actually way, way off in the distance." "Probably... at least a kilometre and a half away." "The ground crew finally catch up but face a new hitch." "Who has the right of way in a situation like this?" "It looks like... don't know Stalemate at the crossroads." "The dogs' interest in the car is short-lived." "They've already given up hunting and they're on their way back to their den." "It's home time for everyone." "He's a maniac." "The ground crew's day starts well before sunrise." "They must reach the den before the dogs wake up, or they will lose them." "Yesterday they caught us napping." "They went out earlier than we expected." "and we spent three hours trying to catch up with them." "So we're gonna try not to do that today." "Sure enough, the dogs are already up and about, the ground crew must keep on their tails until it's light enough for the chopper squad to take off." "The dogs seems oblivious to the filming vehicle and to the helicopter flying high above them." "[Pilot communication - unintelligible]" "OK, we're in business" "Five, six, three business." "The dogs are starting to hunt." "If you can pull back slightly Hang on - I might be on to something..." "Yeah, this one seems to be..." "You don't... don't do anything, Michael." "Nothing rash." "There's two of them stalking." "They're stalking, just hold still, Peter." "I think he's just gonna make a dart out of these trees, so get ready." "This could be Martin's only chance." "He reckons ten seconds they'll go." "Going, going, going..." "And they're off - They're off, they're off!" "Hold that, that's nice, just that keep going." "Really, that's a nice shot." "This is a unique perspective on a dog hunt." "A revelation even to the local experts." "Who leapt out of the path after that impala." "Exactly." "Oh, no!" "I can't believe it!" "That was so close..." "Ah!" "For the chopper crew it's a short ride back to their landing pad in the bush." "The ground crew still have a two-hour journey." "Back at camp there's a worrying turn of events." "There has been an accident and a tent has caught fire." "The camp staff are on to it straight away." "Put sand on it, put sand on it." "OK, all right." "If that had gone near the drums of fuel and the chopper, we would have had an explosion... that is just not even worth imagining." "And it's got the heligimbal attached to it as well." "I don't wanna think about it..." "I really don't wanna think about it..." "With the chopper and the heligimbal still intact, the aerial team embark on a gruelling ten day stint." "They set off every morning and evening, but after 50 hours of flying they're making little a headway with filming a hunt." "Still got tomorrow..." "We've still got tomorrow morning." "We WILL get it tomorrow morning!" "We will!" "So we have it!" "Sunrise over the Okavango delta." "7 o'clock dead." "It's looking promising, the dogs are already on to something." "Hold that." "Quick go on that." "Hold that, that's nice, just keep that going." "Oh, really, that's great, that's a nice shot." "Yeah." "Feels like a real pack hunt." "Nice shot." "I can see them from the chopper." "They're go, they're go...." "They're racing, they're racing..." "Where are they?" "Three o'clock, there they go - three, four dogs all spread out." "I'm going up..." "Tie up!" "Tie them up as much as you can" "That's good." "Stay with him, stay with him, ...." "He's almost got him." "Ahh..." "They are gonna miss him." "They got him." "Stay with him." "Stay with him." "He's heading towards the water!" "He's heading towards the water!" "Now the guy's prompting away." "So nice shot then." "Ah, it's getting, what, what?" "Oh..." "Taking the impala to the water." "That croc's gonna get that impala." "Well let's go for the impala." "The croc's gonna get the impala." "The crocs have all surrounded this impala." "You gotta to see these dogs grab this impala when it comes up..." "Great!" "OK, let's get close to the impala so when he comes we're on it." "With lunch seemingly in the bag, the dogs frustrate the chopper crew with a mysterious exit." "These dogs!" "Really!" "I can't believe these dogs!" "That was a closest..." "That was." "He was so close to that guy." "The closest that I've ever." "So determined." "Argh!" "I mean I just..." "I thought it was in the bank." "He was closing in on him so well." "I know." "He was!" "The air crew think they failed again, but soon catch up with the dogs and call in the ground crew." "Well here we are." "They're on a kill somewhere in front of us." "The helicopter's right above us filming." "We're trying to get through this thick stuff." "We're trying get through the thick stuff to them to get some ground shots." "At last, after two weeks of near misses the whole sequence has come together in the final hour, both from the ground and the air." "A complete wild dog hunt as it's never been seen before." "That's amazing." "That is absolutely amazing." "It's not just the scale of mountains that makes them a daunting place to work in." "The wildlife is scarce and extremely hard to find." "And it doesn't come any harder than finding and filming the snow leopard." "Scientists can spend years in the field with barely even a sighting of this rare creature." "Planet Earth sent one of the toughest cameramen in the business to begin a three year quest to film it." "So..." "I guess this is where you could certainly start." "we're up here in snow leopard country." "You look around it... anywhere, anytime... you might just see it..." "These are big, big mountains." "And there are not many snow leopards." "There it is!" "That's home entrance for the next week well." "If I take you inside" "I'll show you the amenities." "Very much, five star." "So actually I think... quite comfy." "There's the bed, and..." "I got pretty much everything I need." "There's film stock, brought some water up from the river, true it" "It's a little bit, eh... cramped." "But its quite enough." "And 'em all I need now" "are one or two pussy cats." "As an insurance policy the crew set up remote camera traps." "Yeah.." "That's good." "OK, Doug." "These cameras are triggered by movement and capture images of any passer-by." "Am I a good snow leopard?" "Umm... no but..." "If a snow leopard does what you did I'd be jolly good." "But to stand a chance of filming any behaviour" "Doug just has to sit in the hide and wait." "This is tedious stuff." "This is the seventh station that I've done." "I do three hours in the morning, three hours in the early afternoon." "No sign." "If you've gotten just... just a little bit of hint, a wee bit of a sighting." "Now and again your spirits will be lifted." "But right now..." "I'd swap a little bit of this animal's charisma for a little bit more visibility." "Doug's hide is carefully positioned to give him the best view of the valley just in case a snow leopard should turn up." "Five days..." "That's 35 hours of watching." "Nothing." "No cats." "And of course it's boring, as boring as hell." "After seven weeks of patiently sitting and waiting, these distant shots are all that Doug managed to film from the hide but luckily the remote cameras proved to be more successful." "Whilst even a few shots of snow leopard in the wild are thrilling to see, the crew was still far from having a sequence of behaviour." "Planet Earth needed to take another risk and move to a new location." "Unfortunately, where they hoped to search for snow leopard, others were already searching for Al-Qaeda." "This is the location in the war against terror." "...and dangerous." "Only news crews were given access until the political situation became more stable." "One year later, Planet Earth was finally allowed into Pakistan." "They faced a week long trek through terrain that was not only politically but geologically unstable." "The BBC has put us through two days of... of safety training." "Sorta went from landmine clearing to... hijack attempt." "And actually having watched the markhor which we're trying to film, climb these cliffs that we're on today the most terrifying thing is these sorta football-sized rocks that keep flying past at head-height." "You just think, actually can't prepare for that sort of thing, getting knocked on the head by big rock;" "quite scary really." "But it turned out to be worth all the risk." "The crew were in promising snow leopard terrain and soon finding plenty of signs that they were around." "How old do you think that one is?" "We just got a lot of snow and we'll be able to track the snow leopard and so will have a lot better chance of filming it so it's just fantastic." "Good news for tracking, but the snow would make it far harder to get around." "To increase their chances of finding of snow leopard the crew split up, leaving Mark to spend Christmas on his own." "It's gonna be the first Christmas and New Year I've spent away from my family." "And I spoke to my wife and kids last night... and they were just about to go out carol-singing around the village." "It would have been nice to have been with them." "However," "that's it really." "Although Mark woke to a white Christmas, there was no sign of the present that he had most been wishing for." "He had to wait five days before he heard any more news." "Just got... we just got a report there's a snow leopard upon the ridge." "we're too low where we were before so...just trying to get some height to get a better view of it." "Hugh on the radio... said it was just up the valley... on a cliff." "on the left here." "Finally, Mark was rewarded with his first ever glimpse." "When I looked up, on to the ridge." "I could see this... leopard-shaped rock which I've seen million times before." "And I looked through binoculars and it was... a leopard, just sat there." "And I said, 'there!" "leopard, leopard!" "', they went... 'a markhor'." "Look at it!" "It is perched like just on the top of the rock and it looked down at us." "And it sorta sat down in a sorta sphinx-like posture." "It came down very quickly in its... in a cave... just up here." "about a 100 meters away above us." "and ... we've just got a ... we've just gotta stake it out now and wait..." "Mark's patience had paid off." "News of his success quickly reached the tracking team." "Snow leopard, snow leopard." "I can't tell you how relieved I am, it... this is just the best news ever." "And tomorrow's New Year's Eve so I think we're gonna party like there's no tomorrow." "Erh, no excuses I think on this one." "I just... unbelievable," "I..." "I couldn't be happier." "The crew were lucky enough to spend two whole weeks with this snow leopard and her cub, capturing intimate details of their lives in this extremely remote location." "But their final day of filming was to bring the best luck of all." "Planet Earth's three-year quest ended with this extraordinary footage - a wild snow leopard hunt, something few humans have ever even seen." "Filming piranhas in the feeding frenzy in the wild has rarely, if ever, been attempted." "And it was to prove the freshwater team's greatest challenge." "Welcome to the piranha's country!" "Arriving in the Pantanal with over a ton of dive and camera equipment producer Mark Brownlow and his team were heading into uncharted waters which have never been dived before." "The pirás lives everywhere and this is the most common fish in the... in the area." "I think I have a gift for Peter." "This will give a good idea about the size." "Ahh.. well, got teeth..." "Look." "They do look like a white sharks in miniature, don't they?" "They are very dangerous when they are... closed in..., trapped in..." "in small lagoons." "At those moments I would not dive with them." "There are many opinions and myths associated with the dangers of piranhas, but the team were pretty confident that they should be able to film the feeding frenzy safely." "Haroldo had reccied this never ending maze of river channels a month previously and thought he knew where to find the piranhas." "Peter is highly experienced and has filmed many so called dangerous fish." "He, at least, remained sceptical about the risks of diving with the piranhas." "How was that Pete?" "Well..." "Interesting, different, no piranhas." "In fact the main problems seemed to be finding any piranhas in the first place, and the murky conditions under water." "What's the vis like, Pete?" "Whoa about three bad feet." "OK." "well forget filming here." "three bad feet..dusty, dirty, brown, dark." "Forget it." "No." "Forget it." "After two days of fruitless searching tempers were beginning to fray." "This is so... frustrating." "What's up, Pete?" "(Pete:) So frustrating." "It's just... complete waste of time." "Well, these ah voracious monsters haven't turned up yet." "I don't believe the Hollywood stories, I mean... we just haven't seen any piranhas, and we're in sorta hot piranha territory, so we were told." "I don't believe they exist." "Unfortunately, we've arrived in the wrong moment." "There is..." "There is too much water around here, piranhas are far away from the main stream, where the water is clear, so... we must find another place." "Resorting to a spotter plane, they surveyed fast tracks of wetland looking for pools of clean water and potential piranha habitat." "Back on the river, and it was beginning to feel more like piranha country." "These fish are part of the staple diet here." "But sometimes dinner bites back." "After several minutes she told the piranha was dead, and then she... was removing the fish from the boat, and the fish caught her - the big bite here." "Oh, he was just removing the hook from another piranha and approached a second one that was supposed to be dead on the boat and this, just one, took the bite here." "Yeah." "They are very fast, like a ... biting machine." "A single piranha bite is one thing, but what about a hungry show under water?" "I would advise you to not go further away under the vegetation where it is very dark, far from the main stream." "It... not to remain too... for a long time too because they are approaching and approaching you circling... and they come curiously and even try to bite you." "At last, Peter was diving with piranhas, but far from being any danger, they appeared to shy away from him." "They just go further and further and further into the dark and... erh... very difficult." "Are they avoiding you, do you think?" "They seem to, I don't think they're used to divers" "Without a single shot in ten days, the pressure was building for Mark." "A change in tactic was called for." "And the team decided to try diving at night." "In this eerie underworld they discovered shoals of fish under the thick mats of weed, but the piranhas remained as illusive as ever." "Instead, they found another predator, the spectacled caiman, and decided to try and film these crocodilians the following morning." "Above three metres crocodiles are considered too dangerous to dive with, but at just two metres these cayman were the perfect subject - big enough to impress, but too small to be a threat." "One, one came sort of quite close, crawled over the top of the camera and chewed the hood, must have thought it was some sort of purple fish or something." "Filming the cayman was a great morale booster for the team." "They returned to civilisation in high spirits, where piranhas still remained top of the menu." "Piranha soup, piranha soup." "OK." "This is made of... especially from the head of the piranha... and it makes you strong." "You are going to become a macho Brazilian man." "Macho man, very strong one." "Haroldo had received a tip-off from local fishermen the night before of a promising piranha hotspot." "The time was running out." "You seen any piranha?" "No, not yet." "At first, it appeared to be another fisherman's tale, but suddenly their luck was about to change." "I can see the piranhas from here." "OK, good luck Pete." "Fish activity had attracted good numbers of piranhas out of the shadows and they were starting to feed." "Yes!" "Clear water, good visibility, and the piranhas in frenzy - this is what we want." "At last, Peter was in position to film unique wild piranha behaviour." "When they are in group attacking you must consider them dangerous." "Despite Haroldo's concerns, the piranhas were only interested in their fish prey." "As Peter expected, they never lived up to their frightening reputation, but he did develop a new respect for piranhas as highly effective group predators." "How was that?" "Well, that went in about 20 seconds." "So you've got a bit of respect for these guys now?" "A number of those attacking on mass I'll believe they'll strip a horse's head down in three minutes, yes..." "No problem." "You still got your fingers?" "Yep." "Yep." "Of all the habitats that Planet Earth teams had to deal with undoubtedly the one that was to provide the most unpleasant working conditions was the underground world of caves." "Look at that!" "Thousands of cockroaches!" "There's a few juveniles in sort of moulting phase here and... just everywhere you look is cockroaches." "Look at that..." "Beautiful sight." "Gomantong Cave is home to the world's largest concentrations of cockroaches and the team are going to have to spend a month working in this massive pile of guano." "And we're back here with the... the biggest mound of do you've ever seen in the world." "And... it's a big grim, we're gonna get dressed up and all the stuff and you get cockroaches in your neck and down your pants and..." "Oh, God!" "Do we have to go back up?" "The crew's goal here was to try and convey the sheer scale of this mound of droppings." "The aim was a continuous smooth shot from the base to the very summit." "Now I'm actually taping up the gusset of my paper suit here because I've spent the last few days with it splitting and I've been sitting down waist-deep in faeces and you can just feel the... insects crawling in." "And it's just not an area where you want... insects." "Every inch of the ground was covered with cockroaches." "As soon as you put a lens or camera down it was engulfed by bugs." "Death and decay was everywhere." "These guys are supposed to be up on a cave roof above us, but..." "I don't think this one has any idea where he is." "This tracking system was a bit Heath Robinson and keeping it working in this filthy damp environment was extremely difficult." "We've just come off the wheel." "So many things go wrong in here with the equipment that's so humid and so messy that everything gets gunk in it and fuses short-circuit." "Terrible!" "Absolutely terrible!" "Can't use it." "The idea was to get the camera to float smoothly over the surface of the mound using a counterweight system to pull it up the slope at a steady pace." "How steady was that?" "Next." "Will you please don't send me back again." "Yeah." "... if you're listening, please..." "One month in this muck, nobody should have to live one month in... poo." "While Gomantong was the most unpleasant cave to work in, the real test for the team's nerves was the deepest and longest of their explorations" " Lechuguilla." "Well, it seems that every cave trip involves at least one thrilling, but buttock clenching moment and ... and this is Lechuguilla's." "It's boulder falls, 150 foot drop into... blackness." "This terrifying decent into the black was just the beginning of a journey to reach Lechuguilla's most remarkable cavern - the Chandelier Ballroom." "It was going to take the team nine hours to reach their base camp and, as they descended, the passages got narrower and narrower." "The claustrophobia of squeezing through shoulder-width crevices is everybody's ultimate caving nightmare." "If you got stuck in a hole like that, they'd have to break your collarbone to pull you out 'cause it's the only way that can bend a human body." "This precipitous drop into the abyss is aptly named 'freak out traverse'." "Negotiating collapsed roof falls and climbing up almost as much as going down, the team laboriously picked their way through a maze of passages." "It was crucial that nobody fell." "The last time somebody broke an ankle down here it took a team of over a hundred expert cavers 3 days to get them out." "Finally, the team reach base camp over a mile from the surface." "Local experts recommend a maximum of 5 days below ground." "It's only too easy to go stir-crazy in this world without daylight or fresh air." "But since filming underground is so time-consuming, the team had to spend ten days to do justice to this beautiful cave system without ever coming to the surface." "Without the normal daylight cycle to influence them, everyone worked round-the-clock lugging 500 kilos of filming equipment through the network of narrow tunnels." "Eventually, the team reach the ultimate goal - the Chandelier Ballroom." "These six-metre long crystals, suspended from the ballroom's ceiling, have taken millions of years to grow." "And working among such precious structures was extremely nerve-racking." "This was the first time a crew had ever been allowed to carry a crane into the cave and essential tool to keep the camera on the move to bring these inanimate crystals to life." "It took over three hours to set up the first shot as they had to plan every single movement in advance to avoid damaging any of these delicate crystals." "This place has been millions of years in the making and yet virtually nobody's been down here." "This is one of most restrictive caves in the world and... just to get the mission to film here has taken two years, so it's been an amazing privilege and frankly... all that sort of slogging through up and down rocks" "and squeezing ourselves to very tight gaps" "I mean just to see these amazing cave decorations, it's been unbelievable highlight." "This was to be the last time that the authorities were going to allow Lechuguilla to be filmed so this footage is the only way that most people can be transported into this magical place." "Lechuguilla would be allowed to return to its pristine status as one of the most beautiful and unspoilt environments on the planet." "Of all the places visited by the Planet Earth team the most remote was Mongolia's Gobi Desert." "But this was dedication for one of the most remarkable desert animals of all - the elusive wild Bactrian camels." "The trip required months of planning, but arriving in Mongolia's capital, Ulaanbaatar, was merely the start of what was to be the most challenging of shoots." "OK." "We're going for two month trip and basically this area's so remote that we have to take everything that we need with us." "So we need two months' supply of food, fuel, uhm... and in the area we're going to there's no ... viable source of water so we have to bring that in too." "So it really is a quest." "And the quest for camels... begins today." "From Ulaanbaatar the team were going to have to travel for a further five days to get to where the camels live." "Despite its huge size," "Mongolia has only 500 miles of paved roads so it wasn't long before they were heading cross-country." "But even their off-road vehicles were to struggle in this terrain." "And with few vehicles, petrol stations were rather Heath Robinson affairs without any of the usual safety considerations." "The Gobi Desert is as large as Holland, but surprisingly difficult to find without any roads or signs." "The team were heading for the outer part of outer Mongolia and in this vast remote and ragged wilderness they were going to have to find a group of animals whose population numbered a mere 800." "The small community of Bayantooroi was the gateway to the Gobi Desert and home to an expert tracker called Choy Gin." "His skills were vital in the search for wild camels and it appeared the camels needed him, too." "You can actually kill two wolves with, ah... which... which killed five... camels, 'taw' camels." "Hmm." "I would tie them." "Taw." "Taw." "Fifty camels!" "Fifty camels, OK..." "Two wolf killed fifty camels, this is what he tells us now." "Choy Gin has been tracking wild camels for 50 years, so if anyone was going to get Henry to within filming distance of these elusive animals then it was him." "Reliable vehicles were also vital to the success of the trip." "The team's Russian made supply vehicle may have needed to be warmed up with a blow torch each morning, but in the event of a breakdown they would be more than covered by the collection of spare parts brought along by the Mongolian drivers." "It was comforting to know that here was a vehicle whose engine could be rebuilt by a man with the file in the middle of the Gobi Desert." "Fortunately, they weren't depending on it for a quick getaway." "Since leaving Ulaanbaatar the team had driven 1,500 miles through the middle of Mongolia." "The supply vehicle had done the same, but they had had to give it several days' head start." "But before leaving Bayantooroi the team had had to deal with some local politics, as Tom explains." "Our... interpreter... uhm... decided to pick a fight with the stand-in head of the park and...head-butted him in the face," "which is not ideal for relations." "Uhm..." "Anyway, our driver, who was also very drunk, decided to... that this was his chance to step in, and he's a big lad, and uhm... he then punched our interpreter in the face... uhm" "and... yeah, knocked him flat." "Luckily, there were no hard feelings the following morning and the team were able to get on with the serious business of finding wild camels." "It wasn't long before Choy Gin spotted some promising signs." "Apparently, one of the ways which you could... tell how fresh the prints are is very, very small detail." "If he sees a little small stone in the print, and it's got some sand on it, like that, he knows that it's very recently because otherwise that sand would have blown away because its just very loose little grains of sand." "But it's very small tiny little signs like that, and that's why he's walking across such a large area." "Sure enough, up ahead, the team finally had their first sighting of wild camels." "They were already running." "Poaching has made wild camels very nervous of people." "They're about 3-4 kilometres away." "They spotted us from that distance." "And that's gonna be a real problem, getting close to these animals." "And they're capable of spotting us from about 5 kilometres and running for 17 k's in the opposite direction so this is what's gonna make this filming incredibly difficult." "But we're gonna need all Henry's extremely accomplished film skills to get as close we know he can do it." "What you think, Henry?" "I don't know." "It was easy to understand Henry's doubts, when faced with the sheer scale of the landscape, the scarcity of camels and their fear of people." "After their first sighting, the team saw nothing for five days." "So Choi Gin tells us ... herd, but this is a herd... 3-4 miles away - very far, can barely tell what it is." "Sometimes I wonder how we do it, how he does it because it's just watching patterns, changing patterns on the heat haze on the horizon." "But at this distance they weren't going to get any useful footage." "A lucky break was needed." "And an overnight snowstorm didn't seem to be it." "With the temperature plummeting to minus 20, the team and breakfast needed thawing out first." "We're having a competition to see who warms up first - my hands or this frozen can of pilchards." "Uhm..." "That's what it's come to ..." "I'm eating frozen pilchards straight out the tin, that's all we got for breakfast." "I think I might pass on breakfast." "The vehicles were useful for spotting camels, but to get close the team had to be on foot." "After walking hundreds of miles they were still no nearer to a sequence and it wasn't helped by having one less camel to film." "Gobi wolves had got to this one first." "It's all the car obviously I mean that's..." "a window, the reflection, low sun..." "The rear ends of running camels continued to dominate the team's filming and it was beginning to cause frustrations." "So... no footage today." "Uhm... they are... supreme long distance travellers, these animals uhm... and we found it difficult to keep up in the vehicle, let alone by foot." "So I'm absolutely knackered, uhm... slightly annoyed that we haven't really got the footage that we want..." "What is it we want last couple of days." "Uhm..." "So I guess it's camels won film crew nil." "Fortunately, Choy Gin's sharp eyes remained on form, and when combined sheer dogged perseverance, the team's luck finally began to change." "Not only did they start getting headshots of camels, but fascinating behaviour " "strange mating rituals and snow eating." "Wild camels remain one of our planet's least known animals, so this unique footage was much needed publicity for the species on the verge of extinction." "Written  synchr. by m06166 with huge help from Beaver, Xibalban, Merrin, bongomaniac and IcyFlame." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Filming at the poles calls for extraordinary dedication." "To capture the private life of penguins, cameraman Wade and his partner Frederique would spend a year in Antarctica with only 20,000 emperors as neighbours." "Well, as you can probably see, we got a bit of weather." "Somewhere behind me is the birds." "Every now and then, when the snow kind of clears, you can just catch a glimpse of them." "Poor buggers, they'll all huddled in tight." "That's where I would rather be." "So, we'll go over and have a look." "It's cold out here, cold and windy." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "In fact it was minus 50 degrees centigrade and the winds were close to hurricane force." "Wade had waited six months for this chance to film the penguin huddle but the extreme cold soon took its toll." "WADE:" "Well, it's really frustrating." "It takes so much effort to film in these sort of blizzard conditions." "I mean, just to get here..." "I had a pretty good run there but the camera's just jammed, the film's jammed." "There's nothing I can do about it out here, there's just no way." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Wade was forced to retreat to the relative comfort of the hut," "leaving the penguins out in the cold." "I was just lying in bed, thinking about those penguins in all the huddle, all the males will be huddled together, and how can they possibly survive in this sort of weather is just absolutely extraordinary." "I really feel quite sorry for them at this moment." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "With the camera fixed, Wade set off again the next day, but the storm was even worse." "The 100-mile-per-hour winds forced Wade onto his knees as he struggled to haul the weight of the camera." "The two-mile walk to the colony now became an epic struggle." "It's hard to imagine a more brutal challenge for a natural history cameraman." "Wade's extraordinary endurance finally delivered remarkable images of penguins braving the worst winter on the planet." "These are scenes that few humans have ever witnessed." "In sharing the ordeal with the emperors," "Wade and Fred developed a deep bond with their penguin neighbours." "Two months on and the colony is bustling with new life." "But there was trouble for one young chick." "We saw a chick's head sticking out of the snow and we just realised he's been trapped in a hole as the snow just surrounded him." "So, during the last blizzard, it must have been there for a few days." "I think I'm gonna try to get him out." "Don't be scared, chicken." "I'm gonna cut the snow." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Without help, this youngster would soon have starved." "FREDERIQUE:" "So sad." "Natural history film crews do not normally interfere with the course of nature, but having shared the penguins' six-month struggle for survival, it was impossible for Fred to just sit back." "The chick's mother looked on helplessly." "Come here, yeah." "Grab my hand, grab my hand." "That's it, come, chicken." "There you go." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Luckily, the chick was none the worse for its experience." "As soon as the chick got out, it bound with its parents again." "It straightaway got a feed." "So, that's really good." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Thanks to the remarkable efforts of its parents, and with just a little help from its human neighbours, this chick has a bright future." "For one of our Arctic filming crews, visits from the neighbours were to prove less welcome." "Hungry polar bears are extremely dangerous and, given the chance, will kill and eat humans." "Drawn by the smell of Doug's home cooking, this male bear seems particularly fearless." "Jason fires blanks to scare it away." "DOUG:" "Is that him?" "." "JASON:" "That was him." "Keep it locked." "I'll just go check the window." "We think he's going, but we're not sure." "Day one." "Day one." "Bear outside the cabin." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Chewing on a generator cable will hardly satisfy the appetite of the world's largest land carnivore." "He was after something more substantial." "This is just a bit of a problem when they get, you know, as close as this to the cabin." "JASON:" "He's a big boy." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "As the day went on, it became clear that this was one very determined bear." "Explosive charges known as "bear scarers" are the polite way to persuade him to leave." "Give him another one." "He wasn't too bothered about that." "You got the pistol?" "." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "They had to resort to a bigger bang, a "thunder flash" fired from a pistol." "But this bear is his own boss and will leave when ready." "Quite exciting, really." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The crew were not here to film hungry male bears, they were after females and cubs emerging from their winter dens." "But to find them, they had to leave the safety of the hut and enter the bears' domain." "Planet Earth had been given special permission to film on this remote Norwegian island, the first human visitors for 25 years." "Motorised vehicles are prohibited in this fragile environment, so the crew had to do things the old-fashioned way." "When the polar explorers used to haul their gear like this they used to have names for their sledges." "Things like Intrepid and Braveheart." "I'm going to call mine... (BLEEPING) ...awkward, heavy object." "Doug's sledge seemed determined to live up to its name." "DOUG:" "Oh, no." "(JASON LAUGHING)" "DOUG:" "Oh, no." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Isolated and on foot, the crew were vulnerable at all times." "And with so many male bears out on the sea ice, Doug had to keep his wits about him." "JASON:" "Where's the batteries?" "." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Females den on steep slopes, but predicting where they would emerge was proving a real challenge." "After weeks of searching, the crew finally got lucky." "This is fantastic." "She's out on the slopes." "Four weeks we've been waiting to get this one opportunity." "But now that it's happening, it's just fantastic." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Close behind the mother bear, her tiny eight-week-old cubs." "With the sequence in the can, the crew were able to relax, but not for long." "DOUG:" "I don't know." "I thought..." "I thought I heard something." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "This bear is much too close for comfort." "DOUG:" "Now, this guy..." "JASON:" "Get down." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "A reminder that we are only visitors in the polar bear's world." "JASON:" "Hang on." "Hang on, Doug." "He's going back that way." "Get the gun ready." "Get the gun ready, Doug." "For the Great Plains crew, filming lions hunting elephants proved to be a very risky business indeed, not least because it all happened in total darkness." "Basing themselves at a camp in the African bush, the crew made exhaustive preparations." "It's almost night-time." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The best way to film wildlife at night is with infrared lights, invisible to animals and humans, but visible to special cameras." "At night, these infrared lights look bright through the sensitive cameras, but to the naked eye this scene is pitch black." "It's only visible by looking at the monitor." "Filming in this way means that wildlife could go about its normal business entirely undisturbed." "To stand any chance of filming hunting behaviour the crew had to first find the lions." "They searched the savannah using infrared lights and night-vision goggles." "No, can't see or hear any lions." "How about you?" "." "Over." "(LION ROARING)" "ATTENBOROUGH:" "In the blackness, a roar gave the crew their first lead." "They had found the lions, one of the biggest prides in Africa." "More than 30 animals surrounded the car and it was impossible to keep an eye on them all." "KEELING:" "Justine, there's one just to your right." "Lion, right here." "Yeah." "There's a lion right next to Jon." "KEELING:" "Yeah." "Yep, sure." "First impressions are that these are very nice lions, I think." "(ROARING)" "It's just so easy." "I mean, it wouldn't take a second for them to jump in here." "There's nothing to stop them getting up here at all." "(LAUGHING) That's the worrying thing!" "You just assume they're not gonna try." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The lions didn't view the crew as prey as long as they stayed in the car." "Leaving the vehicle would have meant serious trouble." "On some nights the pride moved far and the crew tried to follow them using their infrared lights." "But the African terrain can be rough on vehicles." "Breaking down is one thing, but breaking down at night in lion country is very risky indeed." "(LION GROWLING)" "Running repairs were always carried out with one person on watch duty." "Another puncture." "I think it's the fourth or fifth one in this car." "(ENGINE REVVING)" "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Keeping up with the pride was hard, even for some of the lions." "He's lost." "We're following a lost lion." "(CHUCKLES)" "ATTENBOROUGH:" "During the day, it wasn't easy to rest." "Temperatures soared to 50 degrees Celsius." "Trying to sleep in the heat of the African day is quite ridiculous." "You end up getting covered in sweat and then covered in flies." "It's 1 2:30, we went to bed at..." "When, 8:00?" "." "KEELING:" "Yeah." "That's not a lot of sleep, really, is it?" "." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "After a few hours' sleep, the team received an important tip-off." "The lions had been found." "In the heat of the African day, they were sleeping in the most comfortable place, a remote tourist lodge." "Been looking for them all over the place, and here they are." "KEELING:" "Yeah." "The non-paying guests." "It's really shady, and the grass is watered so it's nice and moist, and then they've got, conveniently, a big swimming pool to drink from." "And the poor guests have been locked in their rooms, unable to get out." "KEELING:" "No game drive." "EVANS: (CHUCKLING) Some holiday." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Having located the lions relaxing poolside, the crew were back on the case." "But the lions were still in holiday mode." "Even away from the tourist lodge, the pride could be inactive for long periods." "If you want to have a sleep, let me know, and we can just watch them from here." "Over." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The crew simply had to adjust to the lions' schedule." "During all-night stakeouts, tiredness overcame fear." "Being careful to stay on the car, catnaps were taken whenever possible." "The African night is rarely silent." "Before one beast stops, another one starts." "(SNORING)" "Eventually, the lions and the elephants met." "Elephant coming." "And with the pride on the prowl, another danger soon became apparent." "(TRUMPETING)" "Elephants can't see well at night." "They panic more easily." "Distressed herds charging out of the darkness was a frightening prospect." "(TRUMPETING)" "Just hope they don't come bowling out the bushes and straight into us." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The lions were getting hungry." "Over time, the crew learnt when and where the lions were likely to try and hunt." "But not everything always goes to plan." "EVANS:" "Go, go, go, go, go, go." "Come on, quick." "Quick." "Quick, quick, go, go." "(ENGINE SPLUTTERING)" "EVANS:" "Hurry up." "Keep it down." "Don't back it up." "(LIONS ROARING)" "Lying on its back, keep going." "ON RADIO:" "Come in." "Do you read me?" "." "Having waited days, well, it's pretty grim now it's happening, it's..." "Yeah, I mean, it's something we really wanted to film, but it's not..." "Not very tasteful." "It's quite rare behaviour and we didn't think we were able to get it on film, but now that we're here, it doesn't feel like a privilege to watch." "It just feels like a bit of an ordeal." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "It's never easy for anyone to watch a hunt, especially when the odds are stacked like this." "But the sequence that the crew managed to shoot is a valuable record of a very rarely seen behaviour." "Filming unique behaviour for the first time often means long periods in hides." "And nothing demanded more patience than cameraman Paul Stewart's trip to film displaying birds of paradise." "The location for the bird of paradise filming was the Tari Valley in the remote jungle-covered highlands of New Guinea, a place completely cut off from the outside world until the 1 950s." "It's home to the Huli people whose support was going to be vital to the success of this shoot." "After negotiating with the local landowners for access to the neighbouring jungle, the team were ready to begin." "The first job was building the hides." "This had to be done quickly to avoid disturbing the birds." "Each bird of paradise has its own favourite display site." "Finding them would have been almost impossible without local expert Joseph Tano." "The plan was to film three species of birds of paradise here which meant setting up three different hides." "The next morning, the team were up bright and very early." "It seems the bird of paradise is the original early bird." "It displays very, very early in the morning." "And that means we have to get up even earlier, normally about 3:45." "If we don't get up earlier than the bird, we're going to scare it and that means eight hours sat in a hide for no reason." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Obstacles to progress appeared sooner than expected." "Look at what the bridge is made of." "No, it's not going to support..." "I don't think that's gonna support the truck." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "With the vehicle stuck, the last part of the journey had to be made on foot." "Arriving later than planned meant extra care was needed getting into the hide if the birds were not to be disturbed." "Paul's solitary vigil was about to begin." "You might think that to film something as showy and as exotic-looking as a bird of paradise, you'd need to trek into the deepest, thickest rainforest." "But, funnily enough, Paul's hide is just at the bottom of this field, about 100 metres away." "It's funny that while we have blue tits in our back garden, the Hulis have birds of paradise." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "For the next six hours, Paul sat in the hide." "And at midday, when there was no chance of disturbing the birds, it was time for an update." "Paul." "How's it going?" "." "Good news or bad news?" "." "Good news first." "Good news, it's not scared of the hide." "Yeah." "Bad news, we're in the wrong place." "So we're going to have to move it." "We should do it quick before it moves off." "It's really frustrating." "I can see it if I crouch down there." "It's somewhere in a lie up here." "But I just couldn't move the camera to it." "It just would have been way too noisy." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "While the hide was being moved, the rest of the crew busied themselves with some bridge building." "Well, due to the incident this morning, we've decided to do some running repairs to this bridge." "Unfortunately, these beautifully hewn planks won't necessarily be here in the morning, since the original planks were taken by an enterprising local to build a house apparently." "And this is premium firewood." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The gaps filled, a man and his pig were willing to give it the once-over." "The pig looked none too sure." "Back at the hide, things were looking up." "Here, at least, was one of the birds of paradise the team wanted to film, the male Six-Plumed Bird of Paradise." "But Paul needed him to display, and he wasn't going to do that unless a female showed up." "So both bird and cameraman were now waiting for the girls." "Exactly how long they would both have to wait was anyone's guess." "Hours ticked by without any development and the boredom was beginning to take its toll." "STEWART:" "One of the things about sitting in a hide for eight hours in a day is that you start to mull things over in your head." "And it's the classic scenario where a song that you don't even particularly like, or, in fact, could even hate, comes into your head." "And while I was waiting for these birds of paradise," "I had..." "It was kind of a one-hit wonder from the '80s, which was My Bird of Paradise, Ijust Sit and Wait." "(BIRD OF PARADISEPLAYING)" "And it was going around and around and around, and it was like my own brain was sabotaging me." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The male kept busy tidying up his display site, but, sadly, all his efforts went unnoticed." "Ten days went by without a hint of a female and when things go wrong, one can't help speculating why." "Was it the weather or the amount of food in the forest?" "." "I think..." "I think one of the problems is that with the lack of rain, the fruits haven't ripened." "Now we've got rain and it's getting a bit warmer, I think the fruits may ripen, and we're going to get all three species in one day." "CORDEY:" "Yes." "You reckon?" "." "I think optimism's good, Paul, because otherwise we sink into despair." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Judging from some of the looks, the Huli seem to share our disappointments." "But there were other things to feel positive about." "The bridge remained intact." "And when the truck got stuck in another rut, there was a group of villagers only too willing to help out." "If only the female birds of paradise could be half as obliging." "Paul had now spent more than 90 hours in this hide." "But if birds of paradise weren't in the displaying mood, that wasn't true of the Hulis." "Just a short distance from where Paul sat, a festival was taking place." "The Hulis have been using birds of paradise feathers in their headdresses for centuries, and the traditional dance has an unmistakable similarity to that performed by the original owners of the feathers." "(CHANTING)" "It was certainly very impressive, though, naturally, no substitute for the real thing." "A hundred hours on, both Paul and his subject were becoming equally frustrated by the lack of females." "The shoot was beginning to go down, and news that the team now had to film the displays of three birds of paradise in one week filtered back to the locals." "All very amusing, unless you are Paul." "I'm surprised he's not a gibbering wreck by now." "He's had eight to nine hours in a hide a day for just under five weeks, and I think he's had about five filming opportunities." "I mean, even by the standards of wildlife filming, that shows a high degree of patience." "And the siting of one hide meant he actually had to stand up for about a week, most of that was in the rain." "I mean, that seems more like a cruel and unusual punishment than an opportunity to film one of the great natural spectacles." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Fortunately, when it comes to wildlife filming, patience sometimes pays off, and a female bird of paradise finally appeared." "A hundred and twenty hours on, it was, at last, something to dance about." "Filming the displays of the other species was barely any easier." "And after nearly 300 hours in hides, one can only wonder how many times Paul sang My Bird of Paradise to himself." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "A one ton great white shark, captured in ultra slow-motion." "To record a breach like this, which in real-time lasts just a second, was certainly Shallow Seas' greatest filming challenge." "Simon's Town in South Africa is a thriving seaside resort." "Yet just a few miles offshore is a major gathering of great white sharks." "Cameraman Simon King and his crew arrived with an assortment of cameras including an ultra slow-motion unit." "And for support while filming out in the rolling high seas, the rim of a bicycle wheel to keep Simon firmly on board." "Guided by shark expert Chris Fallows, the crew headed nine miles offshore to Seal Island, home to 60,000 fur seals." "They arrive at dawn, just in time for the first wave of shark attacks." "Whoa!" "There!" "Still going." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Straightaway the action was explosive." "MAN:" "Whoa!" "Look what happened there and the seal's still here on the right." "Seals all over the show here." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Great whites only come to Seal Island for two months of the year, coinciding with the seal pupping season." "And even then, their hunting behaviour is very unpredictable." "It is nonstop." "Sharks are attacking seals everywhere." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The team were very lucky to hit such a busy time." "But the real problem was where to point the camera." "Extraordinary what these seals have to go through every single day if they want to go out to sea to find a meal." "They go across this relatively small patch of water, which is just heaving with these enormous predators." "Okay, what we're gonna do, it really requires all of our attention..." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Chris has studied shark attacks around Seal Island for the last 10 years." "To record a leaping strike, it was essential to understand the daily movements of the seals." "Simon had no way of knowing where the sharks lay in wait." "They patrol close to the island at depth," "looking up at the silhouettes of seals swimming above." "So Simon could only focus his camera on the seals as they porpoised for their lives through this danger zone." "Okay, hold on." "Hold on, Simon." "In theory, as long as he kept his camera running on the stream of escaping seals, in time, a shark would strike in frame." "KING:" "Whoa!" "Unbelievable." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "At last, a breach on camera." "If we manage to film that at ultra slow-motion... (CHUCKLES)" "ATTENBOROUGH:" "To reveal the action, the team had modified a specialised studio camera, normally used to analyse car crash safety tests in ultra slow-motion." "Applied to a shark breach, this revolutionary camera should slow down a one-second leap into a 40-second shot." "But the camera also had another important capability." "This is sending all its information back to a massive computer." "And every two and a half seconds, it's going in cycles, storing information the whole time." "When I press the trigger, which in fact is a doorbell that we strapped onto the handle, it remembers the image right in the middle, that's the trigger." "So, one and a bit seconds before, one and a bit seconds after, it will record everything that happens and that's how we should be able to record the entire breach of the shark from the point it leaves the water to the point it enters." "That's the theory, anyway." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "By firing the camera midway or just after the event," "Simon would be able to record all the previous action, an invaluable ability since there could be no warning whatever of where or when a shark would strike." "The camera was primed, but the fish had stopped jumping." "All went quiet for days." "Then suddenly, the sharks were back in action." "The port side." "It's gonna come back to you on 7:00." "It's really quite extraordinary that already, in so short a time..." "MAN:" "Whoa!" "Hold on." "And again." "See, we just had one kick off now." "Another attack, but it's a big ocean." "The only way to get there is at full speed." "I have to try and keep the spray off the gear." "And maybe, maybe, the attack is not finished by the time we reach the scene." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The shark's first surprise breach is always the most spectacular, and the team's real challenge was to be there when it happened." "Oh, so close, we just..." "Half a second away." "Half a second away, all the time." "It's gonna happen." "Whoa!" "Another one." "Hold on." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Again, just too late and the seal escapes." "Boy, what a mixed feeling, because every time a seal gets away, you go, "Yes!" to the seal, but it also means no shark attack recorded." "So, um, persevere." "The big shark, he came up on my right." "Here, here, here, here, here." "Fired on it." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Once the high-speed camera has fired, it's out of action for 15 minutes while the image is downloaded into the computer." "In the meantime, Simon switches across to a normal-speed camera." "It was off on the right at first, I know that." "Oh, my God." "KING:" "Oh, that was the one, damn it." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Just their luck, a perfect breach but the high-speed camera is still downloading." "That was the one we should have fired on." "Be careful." "Oh, God, don't look down." "You don't want to look down." "Not pretty." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "A seal has been fatally injured." "No, it was a bit of a shock, yeah." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "For scientists and filmmakers alike, recording behaviour like this is always charged with emotion." "When you have a situation like this, we always keep the boat in the same position." "We don't put it in gear, it's unfair on the seal who's now using the boat as a cover, and for us it's a very dangerous situation 'cause the shark can come up and catch the seal right next to the boat." "And obviously if it's a full breach, we're going to get the shark in the boat with us." "So at times like this we always have to be very, very cautious and do our best to respect both the shark and the seal by not changing the situation any more than we have to." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Filming the predation has all the thrill of a chase." "At the same time, you can't help but feel sorry for the seal." "You can see a thousand kills and it still doesn't wrench your heart..." "Every single day you watch these little guys juggle and jostle for their lives." "Incoming group, Simon." "1:00." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "For the next two weeks, the team became more and more practised at predicting where the shark breaches would take place." "Breach!" "ATTENBOROUGH:" "And finally, their experience paid off." "Still going." "Got it." "Yes." "That should be on." "MAN:" "Excellent." "I should have got it." "Oh, man, I think that might be the shot." "That might be the shot we were hoping for." "Here it comes, here it comes, right up through the middle." "Seal first." "Shark second." "That's very good." "I'm chuffed." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The high that comes with getting shots like these after so much effort is always tempered with respect for the predator and sympathy for their prey." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "One of the biggest challenges facing the forest team was how to bring a static tree to life on screen." "The solution is usually to move the camera." "But how did they do it?" "." "The team's favourite tool was the cinebule or film balloon." "Here being readied by pilot and inventor, Dany Cleyet-Marrel." "Yes, the cinebule is the first flying machine specifically designed for filming, yes." "Flying is my passion, sure, and particularly in this kind of place." "In Africa or in the north or in South America, everywhere around the world, yes." "It's my passion." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "With Dany, Planet Earth took the cinebule to all corners of the globe." "But it was the trip to film baobab trees in Madagascar, with cameraman Warwick Sloss, that was to prove the most memorable." "I've never ever, ever been in anything like this before and I'm slightly nervous of it." "Partly 'cause it's basically a deck chair with a balloon on top and partly because I can see where my head's gonna be." "It's gonna be incredibly close to that burner." "I do have a fear of heights." "I mostly have a fear of falling through them onto the ground." "But I think I'm happy with this." "It's got a little seatbelt and everything." "And the BBC health and safety is always very good, all the boxes are ticked, all signed off, all the proper forms and everything." "So I'm sure this will be fine." "Puzzled locals take the ring-side seats." "And Warwick takes the seat no one else wants." "Set for takeoff." "(SPEAKING IN LOCAL LANGUAGE)" "Oh, my giddy aunt!" "Oh, finally they're off." "At last we've got the cinebule here and we've got fuel and as long as the wind stays good and they don't land in Mozambique, we should absolutely be fine." "LINFIELD:" "There's some shots we were looking for, shots that really rotate around baobab trees and show their three dimensional structure and Warwick and Dany will need to communicate together really closely to pull off shots like that." "Which will be interesting 'cause you can hardly hear over the fan and Dany's English isn't that amazing." "So, yeah, I think they'll have some interesting times up there." "How much control do we have?" "." "What?" "." "How much control do we have at the moment?" "." "Not very much." "Not much." "LINFIELD:" "Dany's quite a flamboyant Frenchman and Warwick's reserved, sarcastic, rather English." "They're either gonna get on really well or it's gonna be a disaster." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Buoyed by assurances of Dany's exemplary safety record," "Warwick frames up on his first baobab." "Oh!" "Oh!" "(BLEEP)" "(BLEEPING)" "(BLEEPING)" "I go down, sorry." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Luckily, neither the tree nor the crew seem too damaged." "Oh, stupid." "I'm stupid." "You okay?" "." "Yeah, just." "Yeah, I think so." "Okay?" "." "Just minor flesh wounds." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Miraculously everything still works, another takeoff is immanent." "We're just deciding which tree to try and crash land into." "Preferably the hardest, spikiest one that's nearby." "That one looks quite good." "There's some nice, sort of, sticking out thorns on it." "To go into the shins and the hands and the face and the lens." "Stupidity." "One of those things." "It's my fault." "It's the excitement of ballooning." "Yes." "No, I don't like that." "Very pioneering." "Yeah." "How's the adrenaline level, Warwick?" "." "Oh, it's pretty high at the moment." "Could have been the coffee this morning." "No problem, it's okay?" "." "Go?" "." "Yeah, might as well." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "After a moments put down, they're off again." "This time if we try and go around them a bit." "What?" "." "This time we'll try and go around the trees." "LINFIELD:" "That was one of the most heart-stopping moments I can ever remember." "I was so scared when I saw Warwick hit that tree and Dany go, "Oh, la, la, la!"" "I thought, "Oh, this is it."" "But they're okay, all we suffered is a damaged propeller." "As long as the wind doesn't get up, because now they've lost most of their steering ability, we should be fine." "Anyway, fingers crossed." "(MACHINE GROWLING)" "That doesn't sound good." "Oh, God." "(GRUNTING)" "What's happened?" "." "I think it's the exhaust." "That's all right, then." "Can we carry on, or do we need to..." "I am not happy today." "Okay." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Worried, Dany decides to land again, quickly." "Oh, today..." "Oh, well, never mind." "So stupid..." "Oh, don't worry, mate." "Everyone makes mistakes." "I'm just pleased to be alive." "Yes." "I thought I was gonna die." "I'm sorry I was rude to you." "LINFIELD:" "Here they come." "Whoa!" "Oh, God." "Oh, God." "You okay?" "." "Yeah, I'm okay." "Are you okay?" "." "Oh, Lord." "Seem to be heading towards the lake." "Is that normal?" "." "Probably is." "It is for today." "Yes!" "Oh, so stupid this morning." "I don't like that." "LINFIELD:" "Exciting." "Oh, yes, for you..." "That was astonishing." "LINFIELD:" "It was great." "It's great that you're okay." "I'm in a much better mood now that I'm down and not in a tree." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The postmortem confirms Dany's fears." "DANY:" "Problem is the exhaust, it is broken." "The exhaust is broken?" "." "Yes." "This is why I say this is not my morning." "(BOTH LAUGHING)" "DANY:" "Oh!" "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The cinebule is in need of a major overhaul." "The repair is worryingly inexpensive." "One half of the propeller was snapped in the crash." "By shortening the other half, Dany hopes to restore balance." "It takes all night." "We're going the wrong way." "Sure." "The problem is that my propeller is shorter." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "With half a propeller and a jerry-rigged exhaust, the cinebule is harder to steer." "This is a good area." "We're going straight though there?" "." "Yes." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Undeterred, the pair hit their stride." "WARWICK:" "That's nice." "That's great." "That's good, that's a nice constant speed." "Lovely." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Many of Planet Earth's finest images would have been impossible without passionate and devoted specialists like Dany." "May they always be out there." "Here we go again." "(SHOUTING)" "ATTENBOROUGH:" "For the Planet Earth team, just finding their subjects in the vast empty spaces of the open ocean was often difficult enough." "But one of their greatest challenges was to find the increasingly rare Oceanic whitetip shark and film this fearsome predator in blue water without the safety of a shark cage." "The Bahamas in winter, and the underwater team prepares to film rare, close-up images of Oceanic whitetips in their natural surroundings." "Cameraman Rick Rosenthal has been working in the open ocean for over 30 years and has filmed these sharks before." "It came up, roaring right up to the Zodiac, and I was..." "The mouth was full open." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "To help him, he's trusting his life to the latest in wetsuit camouflage." "The new Rick Rosenthal." "I'm going the pelagic jellyfish look, how to get lost in the big world out there." "Whatever we can do to get an edge." "Anything to get close to the animals." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Also on board is cameraman Doug Anderson." "He's never encountered an Oceanic whitetip before, but he does have a view on what they'll be like." "I roughly think of them like little dogs, you know." "And some little dogs are nice little dogs, and some little dogs are nasty little dogs." "You know, when you're in the water, you've just got to make your presence felt and try and judge the situation to the best of your ability." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Unlike the more familiar reef sharks," "Oceanic whitetips are true ocean wanderers." "Once they were abundant, but fishing for shark fins has devastated their numbers, making them far more difficult to find." "As they prepared to dive, they had no way of knowing what lay in wait below." "It was soon clear that regardless of being nice or nasty," "Doug's little dogs were also somewhat camera-shy." "Nothing." "It's fishless." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "As with most dives in the open ocean, seeing nothing is normal." "So, Rick and Doug persisted in their search." "Brief sharks and no shots." "MAN:" "You okay?" "." "One big old shark hanging down there." "Deep." "It's underneath, just deep, deep, deep." "Wouldn't come up." "We may have to reconsider other ways of getting these, uh, these little Oceanics to pose for us." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "With the sharks refusing to appear, the team was forced to resort to the tried and tested technique of chumming." "It was time to give the little dogs a bone." "What we've done is we've set up a chum line, which is basically a case of hanging..." "Like an onion bag full of the most disgusting offal that you can think of." "The stuff that they couldn't even face putting into Turkey Twizzlers." "And waiting for some sharks to turn up." "There's really not much science in it apart from making sure that there's a slick of smell and stuff that's going to attract the sharks and hopefully goes in the right direction." "And the right direction for here is not over the reef, but over the blue water, 'cause that's where the Oceanics live." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The irresistible smell of rotting fish worked its magic and soon the first shark appeared." "There was no knowing how long it would hang around, so the divers needed to get into the water fast." "The team could at last get to work." "MAN 1:" "Rick, right behind you!" "MAN 2:" "Shark!" "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The Oceanic whitetip is a known man-eater." "A reputation it gained from attacking sailors forced to abandon ship during the Second World War." "Yet this shark seemed almost nervous, wary of the two strange objects that had entered its world." "This was Doug's first chance to get a good look at his little dog." "Amazing." "Truly amazing." "You god-damned doubting Thomas." "Think we're out here screwing around?" "." "MAN:" "Door." "Door, door, door." "So beautiful." "I mean..." "Just real Oceanic wanderers." "Those big pectorals." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "On the next dive, the smell of chum attracted two sharks looking for an easy meal." "How did Rick feel about getting in with them?" "." "Is it a smart idea to stick fish guts and chum and when you put a diver in..." "Hell, no!" "'Cause we become part of the chum." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Diving with known man-eaters is potentially dangerous, especially when they arrive expecting food." "The secret to staying safe is to watch their every move and to know when to leave the water." "These sharks appear to be relaxed, allowing Rick and Doug to get rare pictures of one of the ocean's top predators." "But whitetips are very unpredictable." "So while the sharks were being nice, the team took full advantage to get some of the close-up shots they needed." "But they were always looking for tell-tale signs that things were about to get nasty, and, if in doubt, there was only one option." "That was exciting." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The final day saw the arrival of three sharks." "MAN:" "Whoa!" "He's huge!" "Look at the size of him." "This is kind of crazy out here now." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "Now the team began to notice a change." "The whitetips were becoming bolder and more aggressive." "Their courage seemed to be buoyed by the presence of the other sharks." "Worse still, it was becoming impossible to keep track of all three sharks at once and soon the whitetips began to show more than just curiosity towards the divers." "Some sharks investigate potential prey by bumping it before they attack." "Rick recognised the signs." "It was time to leave." "He was surrounded and knew the boat had to get to him fast." "That was too intense." "One took..." "One had my fin." "It was..." "One had my fin." "It was hitting it." "I was filming one, the other would just..." "Oh, excuse me." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "It was down to Doug to get the final shots and get out before his nice little dogs turned really nasty." "That's enough for me." "I'm getting out while the getting's good." "That shark is getting very electric and hot." "RICK:" "I tell you, he's got a mouth like that." "It could take your leg off." "Fabulous animal, but it's into its feeding mode now and wants to eat." "And I don't want to be part of it." "For Doug, there was always just one more shot to get." "But concentrating on what was in front of him meant he couldn't see what was creeping up behind." "And when one of the cruising sharks changed to attack speed... it was definitely time to get out and join Rick in the safety of the boat before it was too late." "That was very exciting." "It was great." "They seemed a lot more interested in Rick." "I think it's his suit." "Let's go find a bottle of rum, huh?" "." "ATTENBOROUGH:" "The Oceanic whitetips had allowed the Planet Earth team a rare insight into their world." "Now it was time to leave these magnificent animals in peace."