David Attenborough at 97: ‘He still works harder than most of us – seven days a week’
At 97, Sir David Attenborough is a man still happy to crawl on his belly through wet grass to get his shot.
For his latest Sky Nature project, Secret World Of Sound, the world-renowned naturalist and broadcaster explores the ways that animals hear and produce sound, using cutting-edge technology to record noises from nature – with some captured on film for the first time.
Attenborough’s long-time collaborator, and the show’s series producer, Sharmila Choudhury tells The Climate Show: “David keeps us on our toes. He sets the bar very high. And that’s a good thing.
“I think he work still works harder than most of us, usually seven days a week… When he commits himself to something, he gives it 100%.”
Sir David Attenborough puts sound centre stage in his new three-part documentary, Secret World Of Sound. Pic: Sky Nature/NOW
Joining the team for filming in the Wye Valley in Monmouth to capture the song of a wild dipper, Attenborough found himself lying on the damp ground hoping that the small bird would show up.
Truly at one with nature, he didn’t have long to wait.
Choudhury explains: “He crawled through the grass to get into the best position, and was all up for it… We didn’t want to leave him lying in the wet grass for hours.
“Miraculously, and this often happens when David arrives on location, the sun suddenly burst through the clouds.
“The dipper flew in. David smiled and delivered his lines of what he wanted to say, you know, smoothly in one go. It’s amazing.”
Pic: Sky Nature/NOW
‘It hits you in the core’
For the same episode, Attenborough explains how bees are struggling with modern fertilisers and climate change.
Choudhury says: “Him looking straight to camera and delivering a message like that is so powerful. It literally hits you in the core.”
Calling him an “inspiration,” and praising his “unrivalled” breadth of knowledge, she adds: “And he obviously has a fabulous voice and style of delivery, which is the cherry on the cake of any natural history program.”
A three-part series, the documentary studies animal behaviour, breaking the sounds they make down into four functions – finding a mate, looking after young, hunting for food or avoiding becoming prey.
Technology worthy of 007
Some of the technology used in the series was borrowed from other walks of life, while other bits of kit were of true James Bond status.
Choudhury says: “We used everything from the tiniest microphone the size of your fingernail, that you could put inside a bird nest or a beehive, to super sensitive hydrophones that you can put underwater to record, the faintest communications between fish.
“There were also a couple of, gadgets that were actually developed for other industries – the gas industry, or for espionage purposes, that we thought might help us to listen in on sounds that we don’t normally get to hear.”
One of those gadgets was the laser vibrometer – a machine which shoots out a laser beam to detect any vibrations caused by noise and amplifies them, so they are audible to the human ear.
Pic: Sky Nature/NOW
It was used to capture the love song of a pair of amorous treehoppers in Costa Rica.
While sound was the focus of the documentary, another theme became impossible to ignore while filming.
‘Every single shoot was impacted by climate change’
Choudhury says: “The biggest challenge, without any doubt, was climate change. It’s something that we’ve seen creep in on us over the years.
“I’ve been making wildlife films for over 30 years. And in the last decade or so, more and more shoots have been impacted by climate change.
“That means animals that would have been predictable in their movements, say, their migrations or where they would be, or the time of year they’d be breeding, are not doing the usual things anymore.
“It started off with one or two parts of the world, or one or two shoots being affected by this. But on this particular series, every single shoot was impacted by climate change.
“That made filming very difficult, and it was very distressing to see the animals suffering in this new world.”
‘The elephants were so stressed’
One example was the team’s trip to Amboseli National Park in Kenya to film elephants.
Pic: Sky Nature/NOW
The plan had been to shoot a story about how mothers and babies communicate with each other – but when they arrived following Kenya’s worst drought in 40 years, they found the elephants in an awful plight.
“The elephants were behaving very differently to before. They had split up into tiny herds and every night they would go out of the park to surrounding fields to try and find some food.
“Every morning they would walk back into the waterhole in the middle of the park, and they would walk single file heads down, absolutely dejected. They didn’t make a single sound.
“The animals were so stressed, they had no energy left to talk to each other effectively.
“After we left, Kenya and Amboseli experienced the worst deaths of wildlife, including elephants, recorded history and that was clearly a result of climate change.”
Pic: Sky Nature/NOW
‘Buy the coral reefs a little time’
But there was some hope amid the devastation being caused to the natural world by the climate crisis – and this was very much set in the world of sound.
During filming, the team discovered an Australian scientist whose research had found that by playing the sound of a healthy coral reef at the site of a dying reef it could help regenerate it and bring back some of the fish.
Click to subscribe to ClimateCast with Tom Heap wherever you get your podcasts
Choudhury explains: “They are hopeful that they might be able to buy coral reefs a little bit of time whilst we tackle climate change.
“It won’t be a solution in the long run because the reef will continue to die off if the oceans continue to warm. But it’s a little ray of hope, at a time when we so badly needed.”
Watch the full interview with Sharmila Choudhury on The Climate Show with Tom Heap, Saturday and Sunday at 3.30 and 7.30pm on Sky News.
Secret World Of Sound With David Attenborough is streaming on Sky Nature and NOW.
Angelina Jolie says although she appreciates being an artist, she would prefer for her legacy to be “a good mother” and to be known for her “belief in equality and human rights”.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as Maria Callas in the new Pablo Larrain film about the opera singer’s life.
Pic: StudioCanal
She has called Maria “the hardest” and “most challenging” role she has had in her career and put months of preparation into immersing herself into the world of opera.
Jolie, who recently reached a divorce settlement with actor Brad Pitt, told Sky News: “To be very candid, it was the therapy I didn’t realise I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out.
“So, the challenge wasn’t the technical [side of opera], it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The biopic combines the voice of the Maleficent actress with recordings of Maria Callas.
Jolie believes it “would be a crime to not have [Callas’] voice through this because, in many ways, she is very present in this film”.
Who was Maria Callas?
Born in New York in 1923, Maria Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants who moved back to Athens at the age of 13 with her mother and sister.
After enrolling at the Athens Conservatory, she made her professional debut at 17 and went on to become one of the most famous faces of opera, travelling around the world and performing at Covent Garden in London, The Met in New York and La Scala in Milan.
Callas’s final operatic performance took place at Covent Garden in 1965 when she was 41 but she continued to work conducting master classes at Juilliard School, doing concert tours and starring in the 1969 film Medea.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Maria focuses on the artist’s final years in the 1970s when she moved to Paris and disappeared from public view.
She died on 16 September 1977 at the age of 53.
Pic: StudioCanal
Jolie on changing motivations as an actor
Maria follows the life of an artist fully consumed by the art she creates and even remarks that “happiness never developed a beautiful melody”.
Reflecting on her own life in the spotlight, Jolie said she noticed her own career motivations change over the years.
“There’s this kind of study of being human that we do when we create, and we communicate with an audience because our work is not in isolation – it’s a connection.
“I think when I was younger, I had different questions about being human and different feelings and now as I’ve gotten older, I understand some things and now I have different questions.
“It’s a matter of life, right? And so maybe that’s interesting that this now is a character really contemplating death and really contemplating the toll of certain things in life that I, of course, couldn’t have understood in my 20s”.
Jolie at the New York Film Festival in September with three of her children (L-R) Pax, Zahara and Maddox. Pic: AP
A family affair
Two of Jolie’s children, Maddox and Pax, took on production assistant roles during the filming of Maria and witnessed their mother perform opera for the first time in public.
She says the film allowed them to create new experiences together and for her children to see her approach to playing a difficult role.
“Everyone in my home, we all give each other space to be who we are and we’re all different.
“I’m the mom, but I’m also an artist and a person and so my family has been very kind and gives me their understanding. They make fun of me, and they support me and just as you’d hope it would be.”
She adds: “When you play somebody who is dealing with so much pain, it’s very important to come home to some kindness.”
Maria is in cinemas now.
Tom Holland’s dad has confirmed his son’s engagement to Zendaya – revealing how the 28-year-old meticulously planned the proposal.
Zendaya, also 28, sparked engagement rumours when she attended last Sunday’s Golden Globes wearing a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.
Neither star has publicly addressed the rumours but Tom’s comedian father, Dominic Holland, has now confirmed the pair are set to wed.
He wrote in a post on his Patreon account: “Tom, as you know by now was very incredibly well prepared. He had purchased a ring.
“He had spoken with her father and gained permission to propose to his daughter.”
“Tom had everything planned out… When, where, how, what to say, what to wear,” he added.
Zendaya arrived at the Golden Globes with a noticeable piece of new jewellery. Pic: Invision/AP
Dominic also noted that while most men worry about being able to afford an engagement ring, he suspects his actor son was “more concerned with the stone, its size and clarity, its housing, which jeweller”.
Tom and Zendaya met on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016, when they played the titular hero and his love interest MJ, respectively. Their romance was confirmed in 2021.
In his post, Tom’s father admitted fears over whether being in the spotlight could put a strain on the couple’s relationship.
He wrote: “I do fret that their combined stardom will amplify their spotlight and the commensurate demands on them and yet they continually confound me by handling everything with aplomb.”
“And even though show business is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public and are too numerous to mention […] yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
More entertainment news:
Paris Hilton’s home destroyed in fires
RuPaul pays tribute to The Vivienne
Zendaya rose to fame after landing a role in Disney sitcom Shake It Up, and became a household name after starring in Euphoria.
Holland – who has starred in three Spider-Man films opposite his now-fiancée – made his stage debut in Billy Elliot the Musical in 2008.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports9 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway