The new BBC series Planet Earth II, like the Planet Earth that came before it, promises to take you deep into the natural world, to places that humans without multimillion-dollar budgets could never tread. Cold places, searing places, tippy-top-of-mountains places.
As a companion to the series, the BBC is releasing incredible 360-degree videos that immerse you in the action like never before. And the latest, embedded above, drops you in the middle of a Costa Rican rainforest to meet a giant snake, a less giant but still fascinating snake, and a lizard that can walk on water. NBD. Just click and drag to look around like Sir Attenborough himself.
(This is the third of six 360-degree videos that the BBC will be publishing. Scroll below to see more.)
Filming nature documentaries is a singular pursuit—often terrible conditions, lots of things biting you, and lots of waiting for your subject to show up. And it doesn’t get much more challenging than tracking snow leopards in the Kashmir mountains. This is one of the most elusive cats on Earth, living in one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth.
So to capture a snow leopard for David Attenborough’s new series Planet Earth II, the crew had to combine patience, luck, and a whole lot of fancy tech. They deployed camera traps along the mountain passes, capturing (ever-so-briefly) their prize walking past. Eventually, they captured more than they could have ever hoped for using a camera loaded with a good-ol’ giant lens: the first sighting of snow leopards mating in the wild.
You can see it all above in glorious 360 degrees (click and drag to look around), from the pursuit to the payoff. And hey, bonus: nothing will bite you in the process. (This is the second of six behind-the-scenes 360-degree videos we’ll be publishing from the series. Check back in this thread for more as the BBC releases them.)
David Attenborough’s Planet Earth ranks as one of the all-time great nature documentaries, an epic journey that took viewers to ice worlds and rainforests and down into caves to reveal the stunning biodiversity of this planet. And now, the BBC is out with a sequel, aptly titled Planet Earth II, which promises even more spectacle—and shiny new technologies to pull viewers deeper into the action.
Above you’ll find the first of six behind-the-scenes videos the BBC is releasing as companions to the new series. But not just any videos: These are 360-degree films. Click and drag on the picture and you can actually look around as the crew works its magic. See how they prepped to shoot an epic battle between snakes and baby iguanas (the final astounding footage you probably saw bouncing around on social media over the past few days but we won’t link to here because I don’t think the BBC would appreciate it none), and dive with playful Galapagos fur seals. It’s an immersive new way to experience nature, and it’s most certainly the future of natural history.
We’ll be rolling out five more 360-degree videos as the BBC releases them, so check back!
Link:
Immerse Yourself in the Jungle With a Wild 360-Degree Video