Centenarian Attenborough lends his voice again, Blue Planet III is now online

 At the age of 100, David Attenborough once again recorded narration for a marine documentary.《Blue Planet III》(Blue Planet III) will be launched simultaneously on iQiyi, BesTV, Bilibili, Migu Video, Tencent Video and Youku at 18:00 on November 2. The full season has six episodes, each episode is 60 minutes. It will also be launched on Dragon TV later.

It has been 25 years since the first film, The Blue Planet, came out.The Natural History Department of BBC Studios has invested four and a half years in the third part. Since the preliminary research in May 2022, more than 800 people have participated in the production, and a total of more than 2,000 hours of underwater filming have been completed.

At the special screening on November 2, Jonny Keeling, head of the natural history department of BBC Studios, reviewed the changes in this series: The first film allowed global audiences to see the wonders of the seabed, Blue Planet II (Blue Planet II) focused more on science and discovery, and also revealed the pressure on marine ecosystems.Talking about the third part, he hopes that the team will continue to bring surprises based on the accumulation of the previous work, and provide a new perspective on the ocean world and the relationship between people and the ocean.

The six episodes start from Tropical Seas and go to Open Ocean, Seasonal Seas, Polar Waters and The Deep. Finally, Future Seas discusses how humans can protect the ocean.

In order to get closer to these underwater lives, the film crew traveled across the five oceans, visited more than 37 countries and regions, spent more than 2,100 days shooting on-site, and collaborated with more than 350 scientists.The camera goes from the sunlit coral reef all the way to the lightless seabed, reaching the deepest 4,000 meters below the sea surface. It not only records newly discovered and first-time animal behaviors, but also incorporates the connection between humans and the ocean into the narrative.

A total of more than 60 cameras and 17 drones were used for filming.Some equipment is specially developed for special environments: “Stonefish” can stay on the seabed and work continuously for 24 hours; “drop-in cameras” can smoothly send lenses from the air into the water; “small dome cameras” with a diameter of about 10 cm are suitable for entering narrow tide pools.The team also used what is believed to be the first 6K movie camera that can dive to 6,000 meters, and used a remotely operated submersible to shoot the deep sea.

In the first episode, bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia, move around with sponges in their mouths.The reason behind this action has puzzled scientists for nearly 40 years.

《The vast ocean》Turn to the sea far away from the land: California sea lions penetrate deep into the Pacific Ocean, chasing huge schools of fish with tuna, mahi mahi and seabirds.The wrinkled-toothed dolphin, which rarely enters the public eye, will emit a stream of bubbles near the turtle, forcing the accompanying small fish to scatter, and then prey on them one by one.There are also scenes of killer whales trying to hunt adult blue whales off the coast of Mexico.

Green sea turtle hatchlings that have just emerged from their shells must climb over piles of sargassum on the beach before they can swim to the sea.The team developed a low-light macro photography device for this purpose, lowering their sights to the hatchlings, which are only a few centimeters tall, and photographing this section of the road that has not been recorded by cameras before.

Talking about his third voice appearance, Attenborough said: "Twenty-five years ago, when I recorded the narration for the first film - Blue Planet -, I never thought that I would be 100 years old and contribute my voice to the third film.“He described the underwater life discovered this time as more unexpected, more complex and subtle, and more important than what he had known before. He felt ”proud and happy% to be able to participate in the third part.