Planet Earth II is a 2016 British nature documentary series produced by the BBC as a sequel to the highly successful Planet Earth television series, which aired a decade earlier, in 2006. The series is presented and narrated by Sir David Attenborough with the score composed by Hans Zimmer.
Planet Earth II marks the first television series that the BBC have produced in Ultra-high-definition (4K).
“Elephants will push their way through and create temporary tunnels. You end up with this network of beautiful carved grass tunnels, Alice in Wonderland like” – Dr. Chadden Hunter
Grasslands producer Dr. Chadden Hunter & Cameraman Sandesh Kadur at Kaziranga National Park.
Grasslands cover a quarter of the earth’s surface.
They support some of the largest gatherings of wild animals and are home to more large animals than any other habitat on the planet. Kaziranga National Park in north eastern India is testimony to that. In this unique flood plain grows the world’s tallest grass that dwarfs even the Asian Elephants
Shooting in December when the grass was at its tallest, was not an easy task.
As Sandesh reminisces it was difficult for the team to maneuver through the grass with heavy equipment. Besides, hidden amidst the same grass were some of India’s largest mammals including the Greater One-horned Indian Rhinoceros, Bengal Tiger and the Water Buffalo!
Much like the other episodes of this series, the Grasslands episode was filmed using new generation cameras and stabilization technology. The episode was filmed on the latest in 4K cameras – the Red Dragon and the Panasonic Varicam35. The Red Dragon was stabilized on the DJI Ronin and the Easy Rig. For the high angle shots on an ABC crane the team used a trusty Panasonic Lumix GH4 mounted on a DJI Ronin at the end of an ABC Jib.
“Without the intense technological innovations over the years, it would have certainly been impossible to achieve such immersive shots in the field!”
