Netflix’s hit nature docies is back in Our Planet II, which will be released on June 14. Season 1 followed what has become something of a docies tradition, devoting each episode to a different ecosystem across the globe. Our Planet II takes a different approach, however, and speaks to the rules of the natural world on a scale grander than most similar shows have attempted to tackle.
One of the minds behind Our Planet is producer Huw Cordey, who has a long history of creating media about the natural world. In Our Planet II, Cordey treads new ground in both scope and structure. To Cordey’s knowledge, Our Planet II is the first docies to end an episode on a cliffhanger; while he quickly credited the inspiration to Netflix, the act itself is just one of many ways Our Planet II stands apart from other series; it works, too, ramping up the tension in a way not seen in a nature doc since Planet Earth’s infamous snake chase.
Ahead of the nature docies' return, Huw Cordey spoke exclusively with Screen Rant about making nature docs dramatic, finding stories in the natural world, and more.
Huw Cordey on Our Planet II
Screen Rant: I watched the first episode and had planned to do something else after, but you ended Our Planet II's premiere on a cliffhanger! I had to keep watching. I don't think I've ever seen that in a docies like this before, and the overall tone of the show feels uniquely dramatic. What was the thought process in coming to that choice?
Huw Cordey: Firstly, I'm so glad that you started with the cliffhanger. We were just talking about it. It's something new. You felt you hadn't seen it before, but actually, nobody's ever done it in natural history. It's a very familiar technique for drama, but nobody's ever done it for natural history; they tend to be standalone programs, and you don't have to watch them in a particular order. With season 1, if you like jungles but don't like the Arctic, you can make that decision. In actual fact, it actually came from Netflix.
When we did Our Planet, it did extraordinarily well for them, but one of the things they said was, "How do we keep people watching from one episode to the other, like our drama series?" When we started the series, I was thinking, "How are we going to do this?" In a way, the answer came quite naturally. This is a story about migration, effectively, and about animal movement. Animal movement is really the result of seasonality.
That comes from the tilt of our planet, which is 23-1/2 degrees, which means that you get different conditions in different parts of the world at different times of the year. The grand narrative is the story of the Earth's journey around the sun in 365 days, so each program represents three months. There was a natural arc between all four, so then we had to think, "Well, okay, what are we going to end on that creates some kind of drama?" One of the obvious ways is with predation. "Is the animal going to get killed or not?" I don't know if you've seen episode two; I'm not going to ruin it for you.
I watched it. I had to. I had to see what happened.
Huw Cordey: That's the idea. It became one of our thought processes right at the start of production: "How do we link from one episode to the next? What story should we end on?" And I think the ones we picked seemed to work and were very strong.
You've managed to catch all of these incredible moments and stories on camera, and I imagine that, for example, for every animal escaping something deadly, you're getting a lot of footage of the opposite. Do you have a story in mind before you go to shoot, or do you kind of gather as much footage as possible and then build a narrative from there?
Huw Cordey: Sometimes it's a bit of both. I will say that you have to do a lot of research and a lot of planning. You can't just get on a plane and go on an expensive shoot in the hope that you may or may not film something, so we never even begin that process of spending money without knowing really what we're trying to aim for. We do all the research: the behavior we want, when it happens, and so on and so forth.
Sometimes we write storyboards. But animals don't read scripts, so I have to sometimes have a battle with the teams I'm working with. I want them to tear up the storyboard at the airport, because you do not want to be in the field with a storyboard ticking boxes off. Natural history doesn't work like that. There could be changes to your original thought process or the behavior may go in a different direction, and you have to be ready to adjust what you're doing to what's happening.
These animals are not listening. You're not standing there with a megaphone, telling them what to do. The natural world takes place at its own pace and time, and so while we go with a very clear idea about what we want, the real skill is being able to work with what you're seeing, and then manipulate your story as you go along. And, of course, a lot is being told in the edit room as well.
I appreciated that you focus so much on the impact humans are having on the natural world. Is there anything you would say to people that watch this and are emotionally affected, but not quite sure what to do with those feelings or how to help?
Huw Cordey: Yes. I mean, in some cases, the scale of the problem is so large, it's very difficult for one person to do anything. But if everyone did their bit, it would make a huge difference. If we just talk about the plastic issue — there's an amazing scene in episode 1 with a Laysan albatross, and the story is about how adults feed their chicks plastic which they pick up on the ocean. That island that the albatross are using for breeding is one of the most remote items on the planet, and yet it's absolutely covered in plastic. It's quite sobering to know that humanity, even where it's not present — it's uninhabited, this island — [has a reach that is] far and wide.
[But] the plastic on the beach isn't doing the damage; it's the plastic floating in the ocean. The albatross is adapted to take food off the surface of the water, so it thinks cigarette lighters and printer cartridges are bits of fish scraps, and it scoops it up, eats it, and feeds it unknowingly to its chick. In answer to your question, the human angle of this series is incredibly important. Animals, when they make these journeys, [have] got huge challenges. They've got natural travel challenges like predators and weather and so on, but now they've got this added issue of humanity.
Ships, for whales. Whales dodging ships, fences for pronghorn... the roads, and the planes, and all kinds of things — houses, and habitat destruction, and so on. Although it's an entertaining series, I want people to understand that when you step back and you see the kinds of challenges these animals have to endure, we need to be able to come together to help solve some of the issues and try to understand why populations are declining. Very often, it's because things are happening on the way.
We're very lucky in the UK; we have a lot of migrant birds. But some populations are declining massively because of what's happening on the journey, or where they start. This series takes a step back from Our Planet season 1, which is just looking at habitats, to look at the animals that move between these habitats. I don't think you can tell the story of migration without understanding our part in the challenges of those journeys.
Was there an animal or behavior that you felt especially excited about capturing as you were filming for this?
Huw Cordey: I have to say, I kind of get excited about everything. I love the natural world all its shape and form, and so on, Take the locusts, for example. I was very excited about filming that. I filmed a swarm before, but nothing on this scale. The team that was involved in that should feel very proud, because it's an astonishing achievement in that the scale of it and the way it builds is remarkable.
[It was exciting] filming fresh stories like the little ancient murrelets, these tiny little chicks that come out at night and run to the ocean, following their parents' calls. Nobody's filmed that for 30 years, and when it was last filmed, it was with film, so it looked like it was shot through a sock. Technology has allowed us to tell that story [in a way] that really wasn't possible before, and I'm very excited about bringing that story to a large audience.
There are stories like that in every single episode, even [with] familiar animals like the humble honeybee, which is in one of the opening sequences in episode two. We got shots of a honeybee colony that I don't think I've seen before — and the swarms. Even familiar stuff, I think, is filmed in ways in which perhaps an audience hasn't seen before.
About Our Planet II
From the Emmy Award-winning team behind Planet Earth and Our Planet comes Our Planet II. At any given moment on planet Earth, billions of animals are on the move. Captured with spectacular and innovative cinematography, Our Planet II unravels the mysteries of how and why animals migrate to reveal some of the most dramatic and compelling stories in the natural world.
Our Planet II will be released on Netflix on June 14.