Yellowstone: Battle for Life - BBC Documentary

Available for streaming from Netflix as of February 2010: Yellowstone: Battle for Life is a BBC nature documentary series.

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. It has three episodes.

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).

Filming techniques previously used for both Galapagos and Planet Earth were again put to good use, including shooting with high definiton cameras and high-speed shooting to slow down fast action sequences.


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Episodes

1. "Winter"

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.

On the open plateau, bison are built to endure the worst of the winter, bulldozing their way through deep snow to reach grass.

2. "Summer"

As the Sun gains strength, 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.

As summer returns, a new challenge emerges: Yellowstone begins to dry out. Cutthroat trout mass in shallow streams ready to spawn, but they make easy prey for otters and osprey.

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.

In Yellowstone People, we meet the 'geyser gazers', tourists drawn to Yellowstone's famous geysers.

3. "Autumn"

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.

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.

References:
Yellowstone (BBC TV series). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Related: It’s a Bear’s World in Kodiak, Alaska - NYTimes.com, 2011.

Films: Mondovino

Mondovino (Italian: World of Wine) is a 2004 documentary film on the impact of globalization on the world's different wine regions written and directed by American film maker Jonathan Nossiter.

It was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and a César Award.

The film explores the impact of globalization on the various wine-producing regions, and the influence of critics like Robert Parker and consultants like Michel Rolland in defining an international style. It pits the ambitions of large, multinational wine producers, in particular Robert Mondavi, against the small, single estate wineries who have traditionally boasted wines with individual character driven by their terroir.

The film gave Nossiter a chance to utilize his knowledge as a trained sommelier as well as an opportunity to visit some of the great wine regions of the world.

Mondovino was filmed with a hand held Sony digital camcorder over the course of 4 years for a budget around $400,000. Over 500 hours of original film was shot at locations in 7 countries on 3 continents in 5 languages (French, Italian, Spanish, English and Portuguese).

The film was shot entirely in single camera, about 60% of the time operated by Nossiter with the camera on his hip while he is conversing with the subject. The cinematography does frequently employ "intense" zooms, sometimes right up to the subject's eyeballs, which Nossiter explains as a necessary means to keep the handheld camera in focus.

The film was edited down to 2 hrs 15 minutes after the screening.

References:
Mondovino. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondovino
Jonathan Nossiter, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Nossiter
Robert M. Parker, Jr. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Parker,_Jr.
Michel Rolland. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Rolland

Related:

Wild China, BBC documentary: 1. Heart of the Dragon

Wild China is a six-part nature documentary series on the natural history of China, co-produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and China Central Television (CCTV) and filmed entirely in high-definition (HD).

"Heart of the Dragon" - the first programme in the series concentrates on South China, where the climate and terrain is ideal for rice cultivation.

The terraced paddy fields of Yuanyang County plunge 2000 metres down steep hillsides to the Red River valley, and are some of the oldest man-made structures in China.

In a Miao household in Guizhou province, the arrival of red-rumped swallows signals the time for planting. Other creatures which benefit from the rice monoculture include little egrets and Chinese pond herons.

Of the hundreds of caves beneath the limestone hills of this karst region, few have been explored. At Zhongdong, an entire community, including a school, lives in the shelter of a cave.

Francois' langurs, a rare primate, use their rock-climbing skills to enter caves at night for protection. Other cave dwellers include swifts and Rickett’s mouse eared bats, filmed for the first time catching fish in the dark.

Freshwater creatures are an important resource for the people of South China. The Li River cormorant fishermen now only practice their art for tourists, but at Caohai Lake, dragonfly nymphs are a unique and valuable harvest.

Chinese alligators only survive in Anhui province thanks to dedicated conservation efforts. A troop of Huangshan macaques is shown retreating to the safety of the treetops when a venomous Chinese moccasin is spotted. After the autumn rice harvest, migratory birds including tundra swans and Siberian cranes gather at Poyang Lake.


Cormorant fishermen.

References:
Wild China. Wikipedia.
Wild China. BBC.

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