"Human beings venture into the highest parts of our planet
at their peril."
Planet Earth holds the #1 spot on the IMDB list of top-rated TV shows,
and the #3 one, for good measure.
Certainly the Planet Earth series is a sight to behold --
it’s narrated by British national treasure David Attenborough
and features footage from the most remote pockets of the planet,
collected over decades.
But still, how is a BBC documentary about animals beating out
the most popular narrative shows of all time,
like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones?
The true secret to its power is that Planet Earth knows how to tell a story.
Tell a story so well, in fact,
that the series can make the life of a mole rat
as suspenseful as a Jodie Foster thriller.
So, let’s look at how exactly Planet Earth shapes documentary footage
into high drama.
"Now he must choose.
Fight, or flee?"
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The number one reason we love stories is this --
we feel empathy for the characters.
Empathy is distinct from sympathy --
it doesn’t mean liking the characters, necessarily;
it means seeing parts of ourselves in them,
recognizing our shared humanity.
So, how do you make us recognize our humanity in animals?
Planet Earth achieves this through anthropomorphic storytelling --
the animals onscreen are accessorized with human-like sentiments and thoughts.
"But this year, she's late.
No, that's not her.
The other birds come and go.
The clock is ticking."
There’s a poetic license operating here --
clearly, if we saw into this bird’s head, he wouldn’t be thinking
“the clock is ticking” because birds don’t use clocks.
The narration translates the bird’s situation into a human language
and connects us to the “character” by referring to our own date-related anxieties.
"Could this be her?
At last."
Attenborough’s narration humanizes the animals
through speaking about them in the close third and second persons.
Close third-person speaks in “he”s or “she”s
but gives the audience access to the protagonist’s inner thoughts
and feelings.
"A cuttlefish may be clever, but a shark is bigger.
And it eats cuttlefish.
Time to disappear.
Back to the hunt."
These last two lines are said as if from inside the cuttlefish’s inner
mind.
Second person uses the pronoun “you” to address us, the viewers, directly.
"For all monkeys, morning is grooming time --
a chance to catch up with friends.
But unlike other monkeys, geladas chatter constantly
while they do it.
It’s a great way to network while your hands are busy."
So this technique of speaking with “you” and “your”
explicitly compares us the viewers to the animal character onscreen.
These tools of second and close third person
bring out the analogies between our lives
and what we’re watching,
inviting our emotional investment.
We all know how stressful it can be to find your dream home,
only for someone else to snatch it up --
"It's a perfect place to settle down.
Well, it would be, but there's already someone here."
to travel through crowds,
"For these commuters, it's rush hour."
to be judged by teachers or parents,
"Technique?
Room for improvement."
or to feel the highs and lows, of romance.
"It's hard not to feel deflated when even your best isn't good enough."
The technique of using animals to illustrate human emotions and behaviors
has been around for thousands of years:
See Aesop’s fables, many fairy tales, cartoons, children’s books
and, nowadays, all of our favorite viral animal videos.
The reason animals are such popular vehicles for storytelling
is that they are the perfect blank slate --
we don’t understand animals like we do people,
so we more willingly accept the interpretation of their character
given by the author of the story.
Stories about humans are tied to certain cultural and behavioral codes --
and we respond to the individual human in a story.
Whereas stories about animals are universal, representing all of us.
We can project our own memories, experiences and feelings onto animals
not in spite of, but because of the fact that they aren’t human.
Think about, say, the Frog Prince -- it’s story of a frog
turning into a beautiful Prince after a kiss --
maybe the clearest metaphor around for the transformative powers of love.
Or the Ugly Duckling --
a story that has become the shorthand for growing out of an awkward phase.
Watching Planet Earth’s tales of animals imbued with human emotions,
brings us back to the joy of experiencing children's stories.
The universality of animal stories allows for discussions of larger questions
of morality, truth, good and evil, and the bigger picture of our existence.
Oddly, these big truths can sometimes get more lost in our adult stories,
which are so concerned with the minutiae of specificity.
Apart from children’s stories, animal characters are often used in satire
--
think Orwell’s Animal Farm, HBO’s Animals,
even satirical papyruses from Ancient Egypt and their modern counterparts -- memes.
By giving an animal character unpleasant human qualities,
satirists through the ages have been able to
a) avoid punishment for their criticisms of society
and b) give people the necessary distance from these caricatures
to laugh at themselves.
Planet Earth doesn’t use very biting or explicit satire,
but it does add gentle humor to frame animals in a way
that lets us laugh at ourselves.
"First, he tidies things up.
Showing off in this jumble of leaves wouldn't be easy,
and his beauty will stand out better against a plain background."
Another way Planet Earth keeps us enthralled is
by never forgetting about the forces of antagonism.
"The vast herds do not travel alone --
wolves, packs of them, eight to ten strong,
shadow the migration."
The caribou migration begins as a story of endurance,
but the addition of the wolves weaves in the element of immediate danger.
The stakes are higher now.
The forces of antagonism go against the hero’s objective or desire,
providing conflict, the lifeblood of all stories.
If you look at Planet Earth stories, each one adheres to this principle,
centering around the collision between the things the animals need
and whatever is in their way.
Here, it’s the penguins’ need to keep their eggs safe --
"The penguins stay when all other creatures have fled,
because each guards a treasure."
versus the harsh winter.
"There is no food and no water for them.
And they will not see the sun again for 4 months,
surely no greater ordeal is faced by any animal."
Here it’s the need for water --
"Elephants are in immediate danger.
They must drink almost daily."
versus the danger of nearby predators.
"They must share what remains with desperately thirsty animals of all kinds."
The formidable obstacles the animals are up against make us root for them.
You might think, in theory, that these antagonists are too severe
to feel relatable in modern first-world human life.
Most of our stories aren’t about the desperate search
for food, water and shelter,
but fall higher on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs --
centering on things like internal conflict or self-realization.
But, at their core, all these different levels of conflict
share a similar DNA -- as Jean-Paul Sartre said,
“The essence of reality is scarcity, a universal and eternal lacking.
There isn’t enough of anything in this world to go around.
Not enough food, not enough love,
not enough justice and never enough time.”
This lacking as the core driver of all our conflicts is
as true for the animals around the watering hole
as it is for the lonely kid at the school dance.
"Shall we."
"Um, no, thanks."
[LAUGHS]
In our next Planet Earth video,
we’re continuing to look at how the show tells a story
through some of its other techniques,
like playing on genres and building a world.
So stay tuned for part 2.
"Never have those wildernesses been as fragile and precious as they are today."
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Susannah and Debra here.
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