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This box set contains all of David Attenborough's 'Life' series - among the greatest and most beautiful nature documentaries even made. 'The Life of Birds' presents a fascinating and exciting view of the world of birds, the largest animal group on earth.
- Trials of Life
- The Private Life of Plants
- Life in the Undergrowth
- The Living Planet
- The Life of Mammals
- The Life of Birds
- Life on Earth
- Life in the Freezer
Trials of Life
Originally broadcast in 1990, Trials of Life is still one of the most comprehensive wildlife documentaries ever made. It examines animal behaviour in all its infinite variety and in doing so we are allowed to witness some of the most enchanting animal personalities, as well as the most fearsome. Leaving parents, searching for food, building a home, finding a mate; each day brings a new test, a challenge for even the fittest and best adapted animal. Taking some three and a half years to make ,David Attenborough travelled almost a quarter of a million miles to complete this fascinating and insightful documentary.
The Private Life of Plants
David Attenborough's thrilling series, taking us on a guided tour through the secret world of plants, is captured on this amazing DVD. The account of plant life's struggle for survival is seen as never before in a story full of drama, beauty and staggering achievement. Attenborough takes us through each aspect of plants' lives travelling, growing, flowering, their struggle with other plants and animals, and the ingenious way they adapt to even the harshest of conditions.
From the 290-foot-high California Sequoia or the rattan plants that use ferocious ants as bodyguards, to the insect- and even rat-devouring pitcher plants of Borneo, the mysteries of the plant world are unravelled. Using fantastic time-lapse photography, Attenborough shows us plant life in action; beautiful filming highlights the biggest, brightest and the most bizarre of plants and, with the aid of computer graphics, we enter the inner workings of the bodies of plants. Prepare to be surprised and delighted as Attenborough takes you on a journey through a world you thought you knew.
DVD Features:
- Main Language: English
- Featurette - 1. The Making of THE PRIVATE LIFE OF PLANTS
Life in the Undergrowth
Features the world of insects and arachnids that is hidden in the undergrowth. Also features a world populated by the undergrowth invertebrates that have migrated into houses and inhabit the dark corners and spaces in the living room, larder or kitchen. Includes everyday bugs, beetles, centipedes, mites, spiders, dragonflies and moths, as well as scorpions, mantids and locusts.
The Living Planet
In 1979 David Attenborough presented Life on Earth, the first wildlife blockbuster series, a chronicle of three-and-a-half billion years of natural history. The Living Planet followed five years later, an equally ambitious 12-part documentary which spanned the globe with portraits of each of the major geographical regions which offer home to life. Attenborough demonstrates how even in the most hostile of environments, from the volcanic "Furnaces of the Earth" to "The Frozen World" of mountains and tundra, the Arctic and Antarctic, live maintains a foothold. He takes us to "The Northern Forests", the "Jungle", "Seas of Grass" and "The Baking Deserts", and ever the genial host, details how in all its endless diversity, life is ingeniously suited to its surroundings. With breathtaking imagery we meet our fellow inhabitants, from penguins to polar bears, lions to scorpions, oaks to eagles, and journey on to "The Open Ocean" and the "New Worlds" which mankind itself is rapidly fashioning through ever more radical technological change. The series ends with an impassioned environmental plea which rings even more urgent now than in 1984. The Trials of Life (1990) and The Private Life of Plants (1994) further detail The Living Planet.
DVD Features:
- Main Language: English
- Making Of Documentary
The Life of Mammals
David Attenborough and the BBC have a well-earned reputation for producing some of the greatest nature programmes, but The Life of Mammals could well be Attenborough's magnum opus. Much of the footage shot for this series had never been seen before, and is presented with the respect and reverence for the natural world that Attenborough has made his trademark. It never ceases to surprise: the sight of a lion taking down a wildebeest on the African savannah has almost become a cliché of nature programmes, yet in The Life of Mammals the cameras keep rolling and the viewer witnesses the fallen animal's herd coming to its rescue and driving off the lion. It's a moving sight and just one of many remarkable scenes.
A thorough and entertaining overview of one of evolution's greatest success stories, the series is loosely structured to follow the development of mammals, beginning with the basics in "A Winning Design", which clarifies what makes a mammal different from reptiles and birds--no, it isn't egg-laying: both the platypus and the echidna are egg-laying mammals; it's their ability to adapt. And it's this adaptability that becomes the crux of the remainder of the series. "Insect Hunters" focuses on mammals who have specifically adapted to eating insects, from the giant anteater and the armoured armadillo to bats, which have evolved into complex and effective hunters. "Plant Predators" demonstrates the particular (and often peculiar) adaptations of herbivores, while "Chisellers" is about those mammals who feed primarily on roots and seeds, ranging from tree-dwelling squirrels to opportunistic mice and rats. "Meat Eaters" talks about the evolutionary arms race that exists between predators and prey, and the unique adaptations of both individual and pack hunters. Omnivores are explored in "Opportunists"--mammals like bears and raccoons, whose varied diet allows them to occupy nearly any environment. "Return to the Water" discusses those mammals such as whales, seals and dolphins that have left behind life on dry land and adapted completely to life in the sea, existing at the top of the food chain. The last three episodes--"Life in the Trees", "Social Climbers" and "Food for Thought"--take the viewer through the development of primates, eventually culminating in that most successful mammal: man.
DVD Features:
- Main Language: English
- Behind The Scenes Footage
- Original Score
- Picture Gallery
- Fact Files
- Video Montage
The Life of Birds
Like the albatross glimpsed in the beginning of this 10-part series The Life of Birds quickly takes flight. Sir David Attenborough hosts this unprecedented and extraordinary global look at the magnificent and often curious winged species with which we share our planet. Like the best wildlife shows, The Life of Birds offers a fresh and accessible view of creatures we may take for granted (didn't Alfred Hitchcock warn us about that?). The focus of this series is not on the different bird species, but on bird behaviour. Remarkable and awe-inspiring footage preserves the wide range of tools and techniques with which birds fly, hunt for food, attract a mate, hatch their chicks and defend themselves against predators. Attenborough pops up in the most remote, most exotic locales, with occasional comic effect: at one point, night-vision cameras capture the rare sight of the nocturnal kiwi as it forages for food on a New Zealand beach; the camera pans to reveal scant paces away our guide shining a flashlight on the nonplussed bird.
DVD Features:
- Main Language: English
- Available Audio Tracks: Dolby Digital
- Sub Titles: Arabic, English
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Additional Footage
- Scene Selection
- Graphical Menu
Life on Earth
Life on Earth (1979) is an epic 13-programme series, presented by David Attenborough, offering a chronological account of the flora and fauna of planet Earth over a period of 3,500 million years. Whether recounting the first journey from the sea to the land, the development of insects and flowers, or "The First Forests" and "The Lords of the Air", Attenborough's enthusiasm is infectious. He guides us through "The Infinite Variety" of life from microbes to marsupials, via an unforgettable meeting with mountain gorillas, to conclude with "The Compulsive Communicators", mankind itself.
Three years in the making, involving 1.5 million miles of travel and featuring some of the most beautiful, breathtaking and ambitious photography then seen on television, Life on Earth was the first natural history blockbuster. It redefined TV by showing that an epic, serious wildlife documentary could be a massive success. As such, it remains a true television landmark and paved the way for Attenborough's The Living Planet and further entries in what became known as his "Life" series.
Life in the Freezer
At one and a half times the size of the United States, it has a year-round population of only 800 people. Three quarters of the world's fresh water envelops it in a layer of ice so thick it conceals mountain ranges as vast as the Alps. And with temperatures below seventy degrees centigrade and winds of up to 120 mph, Antartica is the coldest, loneliest place on Earth. But it is also a place of majestic beauty which can support astonishingly rich and varied forms of wildlife. Presented by David Attenborough, Life in the Freezer reveals incomparable standards of natural history filming to trace Antartica's seasonal cycle from the long winter months when the formation of ice almost doubles its surface area, to the brief summer when the race to breed really heats up.
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