BBC Earth

Last updated

Current BBC Earth logo BBC Earth 2023.svg
Current BBC Earth logo

BBC Earth is a brand used by BBC Studios since 2009 to market and distribute the BBC's natural history content to countries other than the United Kingdom. BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the public service broadcaster.

Contents

BBC Earth commercially represents the BBC Studios Natural History Unit, the largest wildlife documentary production house in the world, and the BBC Studios Science Unit. [1] It is part of British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC Earth is responsible for the worldwide marketing and distribution of titles such as Planet Earth , Frozen Planet , Life , The Blue Planet , and Planet Earth II . It has generated sales to over 180 countries.

The BBC Earth brand is used across a range of media platforms, including concert-style documentary viewings with a live orchestra and interactive experiences at museums and theme parks. Its website was relaunched in 2010 incorporating a new consumer-facing site "Life Is" which features a bi-monthly magazine style update and a blog. The brand is also used for new releases of BBC natural history titles on DVD and Blu-ray.

BBC Earth Films

Former BBC Earth logo BBC Earth logo.png
Former BBC Earth logo

In 2010, the brand launched BBC Earth Films, [2] the theatrical arm of BBC Earth. Three new productions were announced at the launch: One Life (2011), Walking with Dinosaurs 3D (2013) and Enchanted Kingdom 3D (2014). In September 2012, BBC Earth Films announced a further three projects, a trio of 3D documentaries produced in collaboration with Giant Screen Films. Amazing Bugs! 3D, Africa: The Wildest Place on Earth 3D and Sharks! Rulers of the Seas 3D will be developed for theatres, museums and visitor attractions. [3] In 2014, Walking with Dinosaurs 3D was rereleased under the title Walking with Dinosaurs: Prehistoric Planet 3D.

Orbi

In 2013, BBC Earth and Sega opened a theme park called Orbi in Yokohama, Japan. The park contains 12 attractions and a 23.4 degree theatre.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Attenborough</span> British broadcaster and naturalist (born 1926)

Sir David Frederick Attenborough is a British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series forming the Life collection, a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canada's Wonderland</span> Amusement park in Vaughan, Canada

Canada's Wonderland, formerly known as Paramount Canada's Wonderland, is a 134-hectare (330-acre) amusement park located in Vaughan, Ontario, a municipality within the Greater Toronto Area. Opened in 1981 by the Taft Broadcasting Company and the Great-West Life Assurance Company, it was the first major theme park in Canada and remains the country's largest. Cedar Fair purchased the park from Paramount Parks in 2006, and they have owned and operated the park since then. In 2019, it was the most-visited seasonal amusement park in North America with an estimated 3.9 million guests. The park still retains this record, with an estimated 3.8 million guests in 2022 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is a department of BBC Studios that produces television, radio and online content with a natural history or wildlife theme. It is best known for its highly regarded nature documentaries, including The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, and has a long association with David Attenborough's authored documentaries, starting with 1979's Life on Earth.

<i>Walking with Dinosaurs</i> 1999 British television documentary series

Walking with Dinosaurs is a 1999 six-part nature documentary television miniseries created by Tim Haines and produced by the BBC Science Unit, the Discovery Channel and BBC Worldwide, in association with TV Asahi, ProSieben and France 3. Envisioned as the first "Natural History of Dinosaurs", Walking with Dinosaurs depicts dinosaurs and other Mesozoic animals as living animals in the style of a traditional nature documentary. The series first aired on the BBC in the United Kingdom in 1999 with narration by Kenneth Branagh. The series was subsequently aired in North America on the Discovery Channel in 2000, with Avery Brooks replacing Branagh.

<i>The Future Is Wild</i> 2002 television miniseries

The Future Is Wild is a 2002 speculative evolution docufiction miniseries and an accompanying multimedia entertainment franchise. The Future Is Wild explores the ecosystems and wildlife of three future time periods: 5, 100, and 200 million years in the future, in the format of a nature documentary. Though the settings and animals are fictional, the series has an educational purpose, serving as an informative and entertaining way to explore concepts such as evolution and climate change.

<i>Walking with Monsters</i> 2005 British television documentary series

Walking with Monsters – Life Before Dinosaurs, marketed as Before the Dinosaurs – Walking with Monsters in North America, is a 2005 three-part nature documentary television miniseries created by Impossible Pictures and produced by the BBC Studios Science Unit, the Discovery Channel, ProSieben and France 3. Walking with Monsters explores life in the Paleozoic era, showcasing the early development of groups such as arthropods, fish, amphibians, reptiles and synapsids. Like its predecessors Walking with Dinosaurs (1999) and Walking with Beasts (2001), Walking with Monsters is narrated by Kenneth Branagh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nature documentary</span> Documentary film genre

A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures. Nature documentaries usually concentrate on video taken in the subject's natural habitat, but often including footage of trained and captive animals, too. Sometimes they are about wildlife or ecosystems in relationship to human beings. Such programmes are most frequently made for television, particularly for public broadcasting channels, but some are also made for the cinema. The proliferation of this genre occurred almost simultaneously alongside the production of similar television series which is distributed across the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Action Theater</span> Motion simulator ride

The Action Theater is a motion simulator ride that debuted in 1993. It is currently only operating at California's Great America. Located formerly at Canada's Wonderland, Carowinds, Kings Dominion and Kings Island. The attraction was previously known as "Paramount Action F/X Theater" before being renamed following the purchase of the Paramount Parks chain by Cedar Fair in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neil Nightingale</span>

Neil Nightingale is a British freelance wildlife filmmaker, executive producer and creative consultant with over 35 years experience at the BBC. From 2009 to 2018 he was the creative director of BBC Earth, BBC Worldwide's global brand for all BBC nature and science content.

<i>Stegosaurus</i> in popular culture

Stegosaurus is one of the most recognizable types among cultural depictions of dinosaurs. It has been depicted on film, in cartoons, comics, as children's toys, as sculpture, and even was declared the state dinosaur of Colorado in 1982. Stegosaurus is a subject for inclusion in dinosaur toy and scale model lines, such as the Carnegie Collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Film</span> Film production company

BBC Film is the feature film-making arm of the BBC. It was founded on 18 June 1990, and has produced or co-produced some of the most successful British films of recent years, including Truly, Madly, Deeply, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, Quartet, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Saving Mr. Banks, My Week with Marilyn, Eastern Promises, Match Point, Jane Eyre, In the Loop, An Education, StreetDance 3D, Fish Tank, The History Boys, Nativity!, Iris, Notes on a Scandal, Philomena, Stan & Ollie, Man Up, Billy Elliot and Brooklyn.

<i>Walking with...</i> Television series

Walking with... is a palaeontology media franchise produced and broadcast by the BBC Studios Science Unit. The franchise began with the series Walking with Dinosaurs (1999), created by Tim Haines. By far the most watched science programme in British television during the 20th century, Walking with Dinosaurs spawned companion material and four sequel series: Walking with Beasts (2001), Walking with Cavemen (2003), Sea Monsters (2003) and Walking with Monsters (2005). Each series uses a combination of computer-generated imagery and animatronics, incorporated with live action footage shot at various locations, to portray prehistoric animals in the style of a traditional nature documentary.

<i>Dinosaurs Alive!</i> 2007 film

Dinosaurs Alive! is a 2007 IMAX documentary produced by Giant Screen Films about various dinosaurs that inhabited the Earth between 251 and 65 Ma. The documentary features animals from the Triassic period of New Mexico to the Cretaceous period of Mongolia, as well as the American Museum of Natural History's research on both periods.

<i>Life</i> (2009 TV series) British nature documentary series

Life is a British nature documentary series created and produced by the BBC in association with The Open University. It was first broadcast as part of the BBC's Darwin Season on BBC One and BBC HD from October to December 2009. The series takes a global view of the specialised strategies and extreme behaviour that living things have developed in order to survive; what Charles Darwin termed "the struggle for existence". Four years in the making, the series was shot entirely in high definition.

The following is a chronological list of 148 television series and individual programmes in which Sir David Attenborough is credited as a writer, presenter, narrator, producer, or interviewee. In a career spanning eight decades, Attenborough's name has become synonymous with the natural history programmes produced by the BBC Natural History Unit.

<i>Walking with Dinosaurs</i> (film) 2013 film

Walking with Dinosaurs is a 2013 live-action/animated family film about dinosaurs set in the Late Cretaceous period, 70 million years ago. The production features animated dinosaurs in live-action settings with actors John Leguizamo, Justin Long, Tiya Sircar, and Skyler Stone providing voice-overs for the main characters. It was directed by Neil Nightingale and Barry Cook from a screenplay by John Collee. In the film, an underdog dinosaur named Patchi must find his courage to become the leader of his herd as well as become a hero for the ages.

<i>Planet Dinosaur</i> 2011 six-part documentary television series

Planet Dinosaur, is a six-part documentary television series created by Nigel Paterson and Phil Dobree, produced by the BBC, and narrated by John Hurt. It first aired in the United Kingdom in 2011, with VFX studio Jellyfish Pictures as its producer. It was the first major dinosaur-related series for BBC One since Walking with Dinosaurs. There are more than 50 different prehistoric species featured, and they and their environments were created entirely as computer-generated images, for around a third of the production cost that was needed a decade earlier for Walking with Dinosaurs. Much of the series' plot is based on scientific discoveries made since Walking with Dinosaurs, with episodes frequently stopping the action to show fossil evidence and the assumptions based on them. The companion book to Planet Dinosaur was released on 8 September 2011, and the DVD and Blu-ray were released on 24 October 2011. Planet Dinosaur is highly praised for its stunning graphics and 3D animation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">London Resort</span> Proposed theme park in Kent, United Kingdom

The London Resort was a proposed theme park and resort in Swanscombe, Kent, first announced on 8 October 2012 and since repeatedly delayed.

Planet Earth is a television and film documentary franchise produced and broadcast by the BBC. The franchise began in 2001 with the success of The Blue Planet. As of 2017, The Blue Planet has spawned 5 series and one feature film.

References

  1. "IAWF Directory". IAWF. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
  2. "Why BBC Earth Films?". BBC Studios. Archived from the original on 17 January 2013. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
  3. Kemp, Stuart (18 September 2012). "BBC Earth Announces Three New 3D Projects". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 17 October 2012.