Galápagos (TV series)
Encyclopedia
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
nature documentary
Nature documentary
A natural history film or wildlife film is a documentary film about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on film taken in their natural habitat...
series exploring the natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
of the Galápagos Islands
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
and their important role in the formation of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's theory of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
. It was first transmitted in the UK on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
in September 2006
2006 in television
2006 in television may refer to:*2006 in American television*2006 in Australian television*2006 in British television*2006 in Canadian television*2006 in Japanese television...
. The series was filmed in high definition
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
, produced by Mike Gunton
Mike Gunton
Michael Gunton is a British television producer and a senior executive at the BBC Natural History Unit, the world's largest production unit dedicated to wildlife film-making...
and Patrick Morris of the BBC Natural History Unit
BBC Natural History Unit
The BBC Natural History Unit is a department of the BBC dedicated to making television and radio programmes with a natural history or wildlife theme, especially nature documentaries...
and narrated by actress Tilda Swinton
Tilda Swinton
Katherine Mathilda "Tilda" Swinton is a British actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films. She has appeared in a number of films including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Burn After Reading, The Beach, We Need to Talk About Kevin and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her...
. The series was proposed to the BBC by the principal cinematographers Paul D. Stewart and Richard Wollocombe.
Episodes
The episodes, each 50 minutes in length, are as follows:- "Born of Fire" - an introduction to the volcanic islands
- "Islands that Changed the World" - reveals how the islands helped shape the theory of evolution
- "Forces of Change" - how life has evolved to cope with climatic and volcanic changes
Some of the endemic wildlife featured in the series includes frigatebird
Frigatebird
The frigatebirds are a family, Fregatidae, of seabirds. There are five species in the single genus Fregata. They are also sometimes called Man of War birds or Pirate birds. Since they are related to the pelicans, the term "frigate pelican" is also a name applied to them...
s, marine iguana
Marine iguana
The Marine Iguana is an iguana found only on the Galápagos Islands that has the ability, unique among modern lizards, to live and forage in the sea, making it a marine reptile. The Iguana can dive over 30 ft into the water. It has spread to all the islands in the archipelago, and is...
s, flightless cormorant
Flightless Cormorant
The Flightless Cormorant , also known as the Galapagos Cormorant, is a cormorant native to the Galapagos Islands, and an example of the highly unusual fauna there. It is unique in that it is the only cormorant that has lost the ability to fly...
s, Galápagos tortoise
Galápagos tortoise
The Galápagos tortoise or Galápagos giant tortoise is the largest living species of tortoise, reaching weights of over and lengths of over . With life spans in the wild of over 100 years, it is one of the longest-lived vertebrates...
s, Galápagos finches
Darwin's finches
Darwin's finches are a group of 14 or 15 species of passerine birds. It is still not clear which bird family they belong to, but they are not related to the true finches. They were first collected by Charles Darwin on the Galápagos Islands during the second voyage of the Beagle...
and blue-footed boobies
Blue-footed Booby
The Blue-footed Booby is a bird in the Sulidae family which comprises ten species of long-winged seabirds. The natural breeding habitat of the Blue-footed Booby is tropical and subtropical islands off the Pacific Ocean, most famously, the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador.- Etymology :The name booby...
.
Awards
The opening episode "Born of Fire" won four awards at the 2007 International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula.. It won "Best of Festival" at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival 2007 and won a prestigious Peabody AwardPeabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
in the same year. Horace Newcomb, director of the Peabody Awards, described the first episode as one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen . It was also BAFTA, Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...
, WildScreen
Wildscreen
Wildscreen is an educational charity based in Bristol, England, working globally to promote the conservation of nature, and the public’s appreciation of biodiversity, through wildlife imagery....
& EMMY nominated for cinematography and won further awards for its photography from the Guild of Television Cameramen and the Japanese Wildlife Film Festival in 2007. Galapagos DVD and Blu-ray sales in the USA were second only to Planet Earth and Blue Planet in BBC Worldwide Natural History sales for three years after its release.
Merchandise
A DVD, Blu-ray, soundtrack CD and book were released to accompany the TV series:- A Region 2DVD region codeDVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
, 2-disc DVD set (BBCDVD1997) featuring all three full-length episodes was released on 30 October 2006. The DVD includes the specially-commissioned 60-minute documentary, "Lonesome George and the Battle for Galápagos", originally broadcast alongside Galápagos on BBC FourBBC FourBBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
.
- The series was released on a region-free Blu-rayBlu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
disc (BBCBD0011) on 12 November 2007. This disc shows the film in a 1080i1080i1080i is the shorthand name for a high-definition television mode. The i means interlaced video; 1080i differs from 1080p, in which the p stands for progressive scan. The term 1080i assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, implying a frame size of 1920×1080 pixels...
picture.
- The accompanying paperback book, Galápagos: The Islands that Changed the World by Paul D. Stewart, with a foreword by Richard DawkinsRichard DawkinsClinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
, was published by BBC Books on 7 September 2006 (ISBN 0-563-49356-9).
- Soundtrack CD with music created by Paul Leonard-MorganPaul Leonard-MorganChristopher Paul Leonard-Morgan is a Scottish composer, particularly known for his work in scoring for television and film. He won a BAFTA award for his first film score, for the movie Pineapple. He was nominated for a BAFTA and an Ivor Novello award for his score to the ITV drama Fallen. He...
was released in 2006.