In 2007, 12 million Americans tuned into a new kind of reality show: Discovery Channel's Planet Earth, an 11-part series that zoomed in on the world's most jaw-dropping landscapes, weather patterns, and quirks of nature. (How else would we know how a great white shark eats dinner?) The program went on to score four Emmys (one for Outstanding Nonfiction Series), and Oprah anointed the epic as one of her "favorite things" by gifting the DVD set to her audience. On March 21, Discovery and the makers of Planet Earth will air Life, a brilliant new program about the survival tactics of the world's most captivating animals and plants thanks to brand-new HD camera tracking technology (you can hear the butterfly wings). And this time, Oprah narrates.
Watching a never-before-documented pack of giant squid in the Sea of Cortez or a super-slow-motion shot of a Central American lizard projecting its gummy tongue at an unsuspecting grasshopper, viewers can't help but think, How the hell did they get that shot? "In some cases, you just sit there and hope it works out," says Neil Lucas, who produced two of the 11 episodes. "You tend to have an idea of how it's going to go, or you draw a storyboard like they do in movies. But when you go down there, no one tells the animal, `This is what I want you to do now.' " When Lucas explains specifics of the filming process (days that start with 3 a.m. hikes to the location, nights that end on boats in pirate-inhabited waters), you begin to understand why the series took four years to make, and how a one-minute scene can require two full years of shooting, not to mention six months of research. And then there's building on-location studios with waterproof lights, cameras that can follow migrating elephants, and, in an Antarctic starfish shoot, a 10- person crew, some of whom dived under eight feet of ice to set up equipment. Still, nothing prepares you for the results. "I'm six-foottwo, I dive under ice, I climb mountains, I dive out of airplanes," Lucas says. "But I've watched the footage of this mother octopus dying when her babies were born, and it actually brought a lump to my throat."