These 360° videos put “Planet Earth” in a whole new dimension
As someone who regularly watches episodes of Planet Earth (and Life, and Blue Planet), the arrival of Planet Earth II this fall has been a BOON. But if the BBC’s latest audio-visual wonder isn’t quitebringing the splendor of nature into the digital device of your choice, you’ve got another option.
The BBC’s YouTube page is full of 360° videos of several location shoots from Planet Earth II, and they are absolutely breathtaking.
Want to check out the Galápagos Islands in their full beauty? Check out behind-the-scenes shots of the crew as they cavort with sea birds and seals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3xMmcDOIZY?feature=oembed
Check out the absolutely breathtaking, flood-ravaged vistas in the Arizona desert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZATe6GDdSqA?feature=oembed
Revel at the incredibly isolated habitat of snow leopards (and watch a bunch of crew members look alternately worried and ecstatic):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwKytZ-SJ7s?feature=oembed
And my personal favorite view: From the Costa Rican jungle, verdant and vibrant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhISnxlonxI?feature=oembed
Looking at these videos, it’s clear how much freaking work these crew members put in to isolate specific species and interactions. After all, to laypeople’s eyes, all of these habitats are just a mess of sensory information, indecipherable to untrained eyes. But for the filmmakers behind the Planet Earth series (and all nature docs, to be quite honest), they have to pull specific gems from footage out of a tangled, literally natural mess.
