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Justine Evans is a British wildlife filmmaker featured in many BBC Natural History Unit productions such as Planet Earth, Life, and Frozen Planet. [1] [2] She is a canopy specialist and an expert on filming nocturnal animals. [3]
Justine Evans | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1966 (age 57–58) Richmond, London, UK |
| Occupation | Wildlife filmmaker |
| Years active | 1991–present |
| Website | justineevans |
Evans graduated from film school at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and Design in 1991. [4] Shortly thereafter, she started filming short campaigns for the RSPB about lowland heathland bird habitats in her spare time [5] and ended up working closely with the BBC Natural History Unit as a camerawoman and presenter of several nature films and series.
In 1997, Evans first appeared as an additional cinematographer in "Wild Wolves", a BBC-produced episode for the American popular science television series Nova . [6] In 1998, she travelled to Venezuela as part of the filming team of The Life of Birds , which was produced by Mike Salisbury and presented by David Attenborough. In one of the episodes, she filmed oilbirds in a cave using low light cameras, with Attenborough providing commentary in the dark. [7] [8]
On episode seven, "Great Plains", of the series Planet Earth , Evans and her colleagues were able to film a pride of 30 lions hunt an elephant in the dark. Evans used infrared night vision equipment to film the hunt after following the animals for several days in harsh conditions. [9] Until then, the ambush techniques used by a pride of lions had never been filmed before. [10]
In 2009, and as part of the episode "Primates" of the BBC documentary series Life , Evans went to Guinea to film chimpanzees. The chimpanzeest had created an entire tool kit to dip for ants, pound and soften palm hearts using leaf stalks, and to hammer nuts with precision. [11] [12]
In 2013, using starlight cameras, Evans filmed the social nocturnal behaviour of black rhinos in the Kalahari as part of the BBC documentary series Africa . This was the first time that the behaviour was filmed. [13] [14]
In more recent productions, Evans has moved in front of the camera to appear on screen in several natural history expeditions.
In the Lost Land of the Tiger series, Evans is in Bhutan with Gordon Buchanan, Steve Backshall, George McGavin, and big-cat biologist Alan Rabinowitz to determine whether there are tigers in this area of the Himalayas. [15] [16] In the first episode, Evans appears at the top of a tree looking for tigers and other nocturnal animals with night vision equipment when a tropical lightning storm hits.
In 2013, Evans travelled to the forests of Myanmar with wildlife filmmaker Gordon Buchanan and zoologist Ross Piper for the BBC documentary series Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom. Their mission was to establish whether Burma's forests were indeed a crucial stronghold for iconic animals rapidly disappearing from the rest of the world, such as Asian elephants, tigers, pangolins, and a host of rare jungle cats, as well as to demonstrate the incredible diversity of all species in the area. [17] [18] [19]
Sir David Frederick Attenborough is a British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series forming the Life collection, a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth.
The Blue Planet is a British nature documentary series created and co-produced by the BBC and Discovery Channel. It premiered on 12 September 2001 in the United Kingdom. It is narrated by David Attenborough.
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 The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, and has a long association with David Attenborough's authored documentaries, starting with 1979's Life on Earth.
A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures. Nature documentaries usually concentrate on video taken in the subject's natural habitat, but often including footage of trained and captive animals, too. Sometimes they are about wildlife or ecosystems in relationship to human beings. Such programmes are most frequently made for television, particularly for public broadcasting channels, but some are also made for the cinema. The proliferation of this genre occurred almost simultaneously alongside the production of similar television series which is distributed across the world.
Planet Earth is a 2006 British television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Five years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC and also the first to be filmed in high definition. The series received multiple awards, including four Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and an award from the Royal Television Society.
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Frozen Planet is a 2011 British nature documentary series, co-produced by the BBC ZDF and The Open University. It was filmed by the BBC Natural History Unit. The production team, which includes executive producer Alastair Fothergill and series producer Vanessa Berlowitz, were previously responsible for the award-winning series The Blue Planet (2001) and Planet Earth (2006), and Frozen Planet is billed as a sequel of sorts. David Attenborough returns as narrator. It is distributed under licence by the BBC in other countries, Discovery Channel for North America, ZDF for Germany, Antena 3 for Spain and Skai TV for Greece.
Life is a British nature documentary series created and produced by the BBC in association with The Open University. It was first broadcast as part of the BBC's Darwin Season on BBC One and BBC HD from October to December 2009. The series takes a global view of the specialised strategies and extreme behaviour that living things have developed in order to survive; what Charles Darwin termed "the struggle for existence". Four years in the making, the series was shot entirely in high definition.
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Madagascar is a British nature documentary series, first broadcast on BBC Two and BBC HD in February 2011. Produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and Animal Planet and narrated by David Attenborough, the three-part series focuses on the landscape and wildlife of the island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Attenborough also appears briefly on camera at the beginning and end of the series. Each episode is followed by a ten-minute Madagascar Diaries segment, illustrating the techniques used to film a particular subject.
Lost Land of the Tiger is a three-part nature documentary series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit which follows a scientific expedition to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. The expedition team is made up of specialist zoologists, explorers and the BBC crew. Together, they explore wilderness areas from the lowland jungles to high-elevation slopes, in search of rare animals and plants. The focus of the expedition is to investigate the status of the tiger in Bhutan, where little is known of the cat's distribution or population density. Evidence of a healthy population of tigers would elevate Bhutan's importance as a sanctuary for this endangered species. It would also support tiger conservationist Dr. Alan Rabinowitz's proposal for a vast protected corridor linking the fragmented pockets of tiger habitat which lie to the south of the Himalayas.
Attenborough: 60 Years in the Wild is a three-part BBC documentary series chronicling the 60 years career making wildlife programmes of Sir David Attenborough. The first hour-long programme, titled "Life on Camera" was broadcast on Friday 16 November 2012 on BBC Two at 9pm. The second part, "Understanding the Natural World" and third and final part, "Our Fragile Planet" were broadcast on following Fridays, 23 and 30 November 2012.
Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom is a British documentary television series that first broadcast on BBC Two on 29 November 2013. The three-part series explores Myanmar's forests. The filmmakers are Gordon Buchanan, Ross Piper and Justine Evans. The scientists for the series are Chris Wemmer, Darrin Lunde, Khyne U Mar, Kristofer Helgen and Nicole Edmison.
Naresh Bedi is an Indian filmmaker, the eldest of the Bedi Brothers and a member of the second generation of three generations of Wildlife photographers and filmmakers. He is the first Asian to receive a Wildscreen Panda Award and the first Indian to receive a wildlife film nomination for the British Academy Film Awards. He was honoured by the Government of India in 2015 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.
Kalyan Varma is a Bangalore-based wildlife emmy nominated filmmaker, photographer and conservationist. He is one of the founders of Peepli Project, co-director of Nature InFocus nature and wildlife festival, and founding member of India Nature Watch. He currently freelances with BBC Natural History, Netflix, Discovery Channel, National Geographic and Disney+, and also works with grassroots NGOs like Nature Conservation Foundation to highlight environmental issues in India. He is a recipient of the National film awards for his film Wild Karnataka and Carl Zeiss Wildlife Conservation Award.
Planet Earth II is a 2016 British nature documentary series produced by the BBC as a sequel to Planet Earth, which was broadcast in 2006. The series is presented and narrated by Sir David Attenborough with the main theme music composed by Hans Zimmer.
Planet Earth is a television and film documentary franchise produced and broadcast by the BBC. The franchise began in 2001 with the success of The Blue Planet. As of 2017, The Blue Planet has spawned 5 series and one feature film.
Our Planet is a British nature documentary series made for Netflix. The series is narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Silverback Films, led by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey, who also created BBC documentary series Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and The Blue Planet, in collaboration with the conservation charity World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The soundtrack was composed by Steven Price.
The Green Planet is a 2022 nature documentary series on plants and their relationship with animals, humans and the environment. It was produced by BBC Studios Natural History Unit and narrated and presented by David Attenborough.