Blue Planet is sadly over, the show was undoubtedly a cinematic masterpiece. The opening episode was really surprising and I’ve never seen broadcast content look this good. It’s only fitting to tribute the first episode by looking at the best shots from Blue Planet 2: Episode I.
Blue planet 2 is the sequel to the massively popular Blue Planet which first aired in 2001. It was described as “The first ever comprehensive series on the natural history of the world’s oceans” by Wikipedia. It consisted of eight 50-minute long episodes.
The new series, which was initially named “Oceans” but was later changed to Blue Planet 2, consists of seven hour-long episodes. The extra ten minutes is called “into the blue” which shows how each episode was formed, which gave the audience a brilliant insight into its creation. I love seeing how things are made, especially shows as beautiful as this. Lets talk some numbers.
- 4 years of filming
- 125 expeditions over 39 countries
- 6000 hours of underwater footage from 4000 dives and one leaky sub
- The crew members also had 3 weddings, 4 house moves and 5 babies born.
Every shot was breathtaking, but I still have my favourites. Here are my five top shots from the episodes. These are in no particular order and all photos are property of the BBC.
OPENING WAVE SCENE
Just look at the texture of that water, it’s so satisfying to look at. It looks almost like a draped piece of silk. What really added was the fact that this shot was in slow motion, just watching the wave slowly fold over itself was enough to drop my jaw.
In terms of the technical sides, composition is on point, this follows both the rule of thirds and the golden ratio. The curves and overlaps cause these strong contrasts between each shade of blue and the whole thing is definitely wallpaper material.
WALRUS ON ICEBERG
A split image, especially with under/over water is always impressive, and this is definitely no exception. The split gives this really well defined line throughout the shot and again this one was in beautiful, buttery smooth slow motion. The walrus is at the centre top of the shot as this shot isn’t solely about the walrus, its about the lack of ice left for them to live on, and how under the water the iceberg is actually quite small.
A certain piece of equipment was used to shoot this which I’ll get into later, but its that piece that allowed for this over/under water shot.
NORTHERN LIGHTS
I mean come on, it’s the northern lights, why wouldn’t it be on this list. In my opinion the Northern lights are one of the most beautiful spectacles that nature has to offer. The northern lights are only really visible at night and therefore this shot has a darker tone to it which really adds a mystical and magical atmosphere.
You have a little island in the middle which is a great focus point for this moody style shot, the waves are still dark underneath but the slow lapping makes it a nice calm vibe.
GROUP SHOT OF WALRUSES
Deviating from the deep and vibrant blues we get this dramatic, misty shot of Walruses (yes they’re back, I feel that this was one of the most beautiful sections of the episode). This shot uses the rule of thirds in a different way, you’ve got the top third of sky, the middle third of Walrus and the bottom third of water. The blue and brown (or teal/orange) goes really well together, and then the steam just tops it off.
MORE WAVES
The first wave shot was there to show the beauty of the ocean, this shot just shows the unforgiving power it has. Looking at this shot I get the feeling nature is saying “I can do whatever the hell I want”, and the size of those waves is definitely scary. The mood that Hans Zimmer’s music sets over the top gives you that same level of intimidation as if you were listening to Mars by Holst, epic, powerful but also unforgiving. A true A New Hope opening scene vibe. The colour grading here is great, high contrast and desaturated to give this angry feel, you wouldn’t mess with these waves.
EQUIPMENT
This is the really geeky bit, but I love finding out what gear was used on big budged cinamagasms like this. It was so nice to see a broadcast program in 4k, this is the start of more to come. All of this gear is purely my own speculation.
Lets start with all those beautiful slow motion shots, now my guess is this camera right here.
This is the Phantom Flex 4k and it is an absolute beast. It can shoot 4k at 1000fps. For those who don’t know, 4k is double the height of 1080p so its super “crispy”, but also is being shot at a frame rate that can get over 30x slower than real life. It is marked as the broadcast industry standard, and they showed it at the end of the episode, because of this I could tell also that this was shot with a Canon 300mm f2.8 PL, no wonder the depth of field was beautiful and the shots were so intimate!
So I mentioned those split pictures earlier, they were shot with a mega-dome, (here’s one for your GoPro) and it basically is a massive glass dome that allows you to create a larger split over the lens.
What about those bioluminescent rays? Yeah, they were shot with some pretty intense equipment too. This video shows Alfredo Barosso, underwater cameraman, talking about a “tiny camera” that has incredible low light capabilities. This has left me to believe that the camera in question is the Canon ME20, the 4’000’000 ISO camera.
In layman’s terms the higher the ISO, the more you can see in the dark, and your phone probable tops out at about 1’600. This is a pretty small camera compared to some of the others that were probably used on production.
With a 15 year gap between the two series, how long do we have to wait for the next one? While many nature and cinematography lovers can’t wait for more, highly detailed and meticulously crafted shows like this do take their time. So be patient!
