Yellowstone | |
---|---|
![]() Series title card from UK broadcast | |
Also known as | Yellowstone: Battle for Life |
Genre | Nature documentary |
Narrated by | Peter Firth |
Composer(s) | Edmund Butt |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of episodes | 3 |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Mike Gunton |
Producer(s) | Andrew Murray Nathan Budd Paul D. Stewart |
Running time | 50 minutes |
Production company(s) | BBC Natural History Unit Animal Planet |
Release | |
Original network | BBC Two |
Picture format | SD: 576i HD: 1080i/1080p |
Audio format | SD: Stereo HD: DTS 5.1 |
Original release | 15 March – 29 March 2009 |
External links | |
Website |
Yellowstone is a BBC nature documentary series broadcast from 15 March 2009. Narrated by Peter Firth, the series takes a look at a year in the life of Yellowstone National Park, examining how its wildlife adapts to living in one of the harshest wildernesses on Earth. Yellowstone debuted on BBC Two at 8:00pm on Sunday 15 March 2009 and has three episodes. Each 50-minute episode was followed by a ten-minute film called Yellowstone People, featuring visitors to the Park and locals who had assisted the production team. The series was the channel's highest-rated natural history documentary in over five years with audiences peaking at over four million. [1]
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London, and it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total, 16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed-contract staff are included.
A natural history film or wildlife film is a documentary film about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on film taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of trained and captive animals. Sometimes they are about wild animals, plants, 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 medium. The proliferation of this genre occurred almost simultaneously alongside the production of similar television series.
Peter Macintosh Firth is an English actor. He is best known for his role as Sir Harry Pearce in the BBC One show Spooks; he is the only actor to have appeared in every episode of the show's ten-series lifespan. He has given myriad additional television and film performances, most notably as Alan Strang in Equus (1977), earning a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for the role.
In the United States, an edited version of the series was broadcast under the title Yellowstone: Battle for Life. It aired as a two-hour TV special, and premiered on Animal Planet on 22 March 2009.
Animal Planet is an American pay television channel owned by Discovery, Inc. First established on October 1, 1996, the network is primarily devoted to series and documentaries about wild animals and domestic pets.
The series was one of the most popular titles at BBC Worldwide's annual market for international clients with pre-sales to nine territories including Spain (Canal+), Germany (WDR), Russia (Channel 1) and Italy (RTI). [2]
Yellowstone was commissioned by Roly Keating, then Controller of BBC Two, as a follow-up to the award-winning series Galápagos which aired in autumn 2006. Filming began in January 2007 and continued through the following four seasons. [3] Filming techniques previously used for both Galapagos and Planet Earth were again put to good use, including shooting with high definition cameras and high-speed shooting to slow down fast action sequences. Stabilised camera mounts also enabled the team to capture natural animal behaviour from the air, as well as dramatic, wide angle landscape shots. Aerial cinematography was provided by Aerial Camera Systems. [4]
Galápagos is a three-part BBC nature documentary series exploring the natural history of the Galápagos Islands and their important role in the formation of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. It was first transmitted in the UK on BBC Two in September 2006. The series was filmed in high definition, produced by Mike Gunton and Patrick Morris of the BBC Natural History Unit and narrated by actress Tilda Swinton. The series was proposed to the BBC by the principal cinematographers Paul D. Stewart and Richard Wollocombe.
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.
Yellowstone was produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and Animal Planet. The executive producer was Mike Gunton and the series producer Andrew Murray. The British version was narrated by Peter Firth.
The BBC Natural History Unit (NHU) is a department of the BBC which 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, their notably called Life on Earth.
Mike Gunton is a British television producer and a senior executive at the BBC Natural History Unit, the world's largest production unit dedicated to wildlife film-making. In November 2009 he became the Unit's first Creative Director.
Episode | Title | Original air date | UK viewers (in millions) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "Winter" | 15 March 2009 | 4.04 million viewers (14.1% audience share) [5] | |
![]() With temperatures plunging to –40°C and several metres of snowfall, Yellowstone freezes solid for six months each year. In the extreme cold, moisture in the air freezes, creating diamond dust. The severe winter is the greatest challenge facing the Park's animals, but for the wolf, it is the season of opportunity. The film follows the Druid pack, one of the largest in Yellowstone, as they stalk ever-weakening prey. As herds of elk move to sheltered valleys at the edge of the Park, the wolves lie in wait. Other scavengers such as coyotes and bald eagles also take advantage of wolf kills. On the open plateau, bison are built to endure the worst of the winter, bulldozing their way through deep snow to reach grass. In the harshest winter for a decade, even they are forced to move, following a thermal river to a geyser field. The grass here is laced with silica and arsenic – if the bison stay too long, it will poison them. Aerial shots reveal the tracks of otters and coyotes moving through the snow. The coyote steals a trout stashed beneath the ice of Yellowstone Lake by the otters. The red fox is another year-round resident, listening for and pouncing on mice moving under six feet of snow. By the end of March, winter has loosened its grip, and the emergence of grizzly bears from hibernation in their mountain dens signals the approach of spring. Yellowstone People, produced by Nathan Budd, follows another winter resident, roof shoveler Jeff Henry. [6] | ||||
2 | "Summer" | 22 March 2009 | 3.94 million viewers (13.8% audience share) [5] | |
As the Sun gains strength,one direction the Park begins to thaw and grazers move back up to higher altitudes. The hardy bison are amongst the first, their newborn calves struggling to cross rivers swollen by meltwater during the journey. Bison, along with elk, pronghorn and migrant birds, are drawn to the fertile pastures of the plateau. Newborn pronghorn twins must use the long grass for camouflage against prowling coyotes. There is a rare sight of wolf pups as the Druid pack venture from the woods to visit the riverside. By June, the blooming wildflower meadows attract calliope and rufous hummingbirds, but when a summer blizzard blows in, the birds must turn to sugar-rich tree sap to survive. As summer returns, a new challenge emerges: Yellowstone begins to dry out. Yellowstone cutthroat trout mass in shallow streams ready to spawn, but they make easy prey for otters and osprey. In August, the hot, dry plateau is the scene of the annual bison rut. Lightning can spark fierce wildfires, but the short-term devastation is part of the ecological cycle and helps the lodgepole pine forests regenerate. Meanwhile, grizzly bears converge on the high mountain slopes as they seek out an unusual food source: army cutworm moths, which arrive in their millions from the prairies. A female bear is injured in a clash with a male, but they must take advantage of the bounty before the brief summer is over. In Yellowstone People, produced by Kathy Kasic, we meet the 'geyser gazers', tourists drawn to Yellowstone's famous geysers. [7] | ||||
3 | "Autumn" | 29 March 2009 | 3.83 million viewers (14.3% audience share) [5] | |
![]() Autumn is Yellowstone's shortest season and a period of swift change. Conditions change from summer to winter in just two months, forcing animals to leave or prepare for winter. Bison rely on stored fat to see them through, but elk and pronghorn head for lower ground. Their only natural enemy is the wolf, but beyond the Park boundaries they must contend with different hazards: hunting, heavy industry and traffic. Since their reintroduction to Yellowstone in the 1990s, wolves have expanded their range, bringing them into contact with people. Telemetry enables ranchers to track wolves fitted with radio collars and scare them off. The wolf's return has restored the natural balance of Yellowstone: elk no longer graze along the river banks, leaving more willow saplings for beavers. In autumn, beavers are busy repairing their dams and harvesting saplings for their underwater larder. In the Beartooth Mountains, pine squirrels, grizzlies and Clark's nutcrackers take advantage of a bumper crop of cones from the whitebark pines. The trees are under attack from beetle larvae, which now survive through the winter due to the warming climate. By late September, bull elk are exhausted from six weeks of rutting and herding. As the females come into season, only those bulls who still have the strength to see off challengers will have the chance to mate. In Yellowstone's mountains, male bighorn sheep clash horns as the first snows of winter arrive. Yellowstone People, produced by Kathy Kasic, profiles sound recordist Mike Kasic, who swims in the Park's rivers. [8] |
The Daily Telegraph 's David Horspool described the series as "amazingly shot" and a "work of art". [9] Andrew Billen in The Times gave it five out of five, [10] and TV Scoop described it as "majestic yet understated and consistently surprising". [11]
The Daily Telegraph, now naming itself simply as The Telegraph, is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as Daily Telegraph & Courier.
The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, itself wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times do not share editorial staff, were founded independently, and have only had common ownership since 1967.
At the 2009 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, Yellowstone gained the Best Series Award, and "Winter" gained the Best Wildlife Habitat Program award. [12] It was also a finalist in the Best Cinematography category. [13] At the 2009 International Wildlife Film Festival Awards, the series won the Best Cinematography and Best Ecosystem awards, and gained Merit Awards for Editing and Sound Design. [14] Edmund Butt also won the Music – Original Title award at the 2009 Royal Television Society Craft and Design Awards. [15] The series was nominated for the 2010 BAFTA Television Award for Best Specialist Factual. [16] and won a craft BAFTA for Photography Factual in the same year. [17]
Julia Charlotte L. Davis is an English comedian, actress, writer, and director. She is known for writing and starring in the BBC Three comedy Nighty Night (2004–2005) and the comedies Hunderby (2012–15) and Camping (2016), which she also directed. An eight-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, she won Best Comedy Writing for Hunderby in 2013. She is also known for playing Dawn Sutcliffe in Gavin & Stacey (2007–2009). Her film roles include Love Actually (2003), Cemetery Junction (2010) and Four Lions (2010) and the critically acclaimed Phantom Thread (2017) starring Daniel Day Lewis. Davis created Sally4Ever in 2018, which won a British Academy Television Award for Best Scripted Comedy in May 2019.
Natural World is a strand of British wildlife documentary programmes broadcast on BBC Two and BBC Two HD and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history series. It is the longest-running documentary in its genre on British television, with nearly 500 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World programmes are typically one-off films that take an in-depth look at particular natural history events, stories or subjects from around the globe.
Anne Wood, CBE is an English children's television producer, responsible for co-creating shows such as Rosie and Jim with Andrew Davenport. She is also the co-creator of Tots TV and Teletubbies. She was a recipient of the Eleanor Farjeon Award.
World Productions is a British television production company, founded on 20 March 1990 by acclaimed producer Tony Garnett, and owned by ITV plc following a takeover in 2017.
Peter Dougan Capaldi is a Scottish actor, writer and director. He portrayed the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who (2013–2017) and Malcolm Tucker the spin doctor in The Thick of It, for which he has received four British Academy Television Award nominations, winning Best Male Comedy Performance in 2010. When he reprised the role of Tucker in the feature film In the Loop, Capaldi was honoured with several film critic award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
Peter Kosminsky is a British writer, director and producer. He has directed Hollywood movies such as White Oleander and television films like Warriors, The Government Inspector, The Promise, Wolf Hall and The State.
Anthony Dod Mantle, DFF, BSC, ASC is a British cinematographer and still photographer. He won the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for Slumdog Millionaire (2008). Other accolades include two Bodil Awards, two European Film Awards, and four Robert Awards.
The BBC Wildlife Specials are a series of nature documentary programmes commissioned by BBC Television. The series premiered in 1995, and 22 specials have been produced to date, with most of the more recent ones consisting of multiple episodes. The earlier programmes were produced in-house by the BBC's Natural History Unit, but the more recent Spy in the ... titles were made by the independent John Downer Productions. The first 18 specials, through 2008, were narrated by David Attenborough. Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice (2010), Penguins: Spy in the Huddle (2013) and Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (2014) were narrated by David Tennant.
Peter Moffat is an English playwright and screenwriter.
Frozen Planet is a 2011 British nature documentary series, co-produced by the BBC 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.
James Honeyborne is an executive producer at BBC Natural History Unit where he has overseen some 35 films, working with multiple co-producers around the world. His projects include the Emmy Award-nominated series Wild New Zealand with National Geographic, and the BAFTA-winning BBC1 series Big Blue Live with PBS.
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.
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle is a British comedy series created by and starring Stewart Lee and broadcast on BBC Two. It features stand-up comedy and sketches united by a theme for each episode. It was script-edited by Chris Morris and was initially executive-produced by Armando Iannucci, marking a rare reformation of a creative team formed for On the Hour in 1991. Lee had said that this is exactly the sort of show he wanted to do, saying "I don't want to do any television that I don't have complete control of."
David Poore is a British independent musician, who has composed and produced music for over 200 films by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Disney, PBS, National Geographic, RTÉ and other broadcasters.
Charlie and Lola is a British animated children's television series based on the popular children's picture book series of the same name by Lauren Child. It aired from 2005 to 2008. The series was produced by Tiger Aspect Productions, and has won multiple BAFTA awards. The animation uses a collage style that emulates the style of the original books.
Human Planet is an 8-part British television documentary series. It is produced by the BBC with co-production from Discovery and BBC Worldwide. It describes the human species and its relationship with the natural world by showing the remarkable ways humans have adapted to life in every environment on Earth.
Patrick Morris is a British producer, director and series producer of many wildlife documentaries.
Philippa Lowthorpe is an award-winning film and television director. She was awarded the Deluxe Director Award at the WFTV Film and Television Awards for the miniseries Three Girls. Her most recent work is on The Crown season 2, episodes 5 and 6.