yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Rockhopper Penguins, Up Close: On Location | Hostile Planet


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Ever wondered how wildlife crews managed to capture the perfect shot right in the heart of the action? Check out the behind the scenes to see the great lengths that the crew went to to film "Hostile Planet."

MATT RICHARDS: Rock copper penguins live in cold, quiet, often brutal conditions. It's a pretty tough location to get to. It's very remote. It's quite near Antarctica. We left about a month, so it was a long trip. And so we really got to spend a lot of time with those penguins.

ANTHONY PYPER: The best thing for us is to be noticed by the species we're filming and get them completely used to us being there so we're just part of the furniture.

MATT RICHARDS: We were filming where the penguins were coming onto shore; essentially it was a sort of boulder field. It's covered in a thin film of guano, which is fine when it's dry, but the second you get any moisture, it essentially becomes like walking on ice.

PETE CAYLISS: It's sunset here on New Islands in the Falklands, and I've just been waiting for penguins to return from the sea. The bit I'm actually trying to film at the moment is where they explode from the water onto the dry land. And to do this, I'm using a high-speed filming rig. I want to time it exactly right. And you get barely any warning at all. [chirping]

MATT RICHARDS: What's on the agenda today? Today we are taking the giant homemade crane right down to the penguins. It's just what we call a pole cam, but a sort of enormous version of that. Really, the whole point of the crane is to have a camera at the end and us as far as possible. So here's the business end of the crane. So far it looks good, so we'll give it a go. [music playing]

Ultimately, we were trying to capture how difficult it was for a penguin to feed its chicks. We wanted to see how they coped in really hostile conditions. And we got lucky because we got the biggest storm in the Falklands that they'd had for 30 years. It was pretty scary, actually. So the storm has kicked in, and the penguins are still coming in. Those 80 mile an hour winds, the waves were getting bigger.

Bit too windy for the drone? It's a bit windy. We didn't know how far these waves were going to come up the shore. We were playing this fine gambling game where you definitely wanted to be safe, but you wanted to try and get that immersive feel of what it's like to be a penguin coming in a storm. The thing that really stands out is how well these animals can cope with some of the most hostile conditions you can imagine. Every time you come back from a shift, you have fresh admiration for these amazing animals. [music playing]

More Articles

View All
Does Pressure Melt Ice?
I’m gonna try to demonstrate something called regelation. Which is where you provide a pressure onto ice and that turns it into water, but after that pressure is removed, it freezes again. So, in order to demonstrate this, I’ve taken apart the high E st…
Are You Lightest In The Morning?
[Applause] So recently a friend of mine says to me, “Derek, you know you’re heaviest at night before you go to bed and lightest in the morning when you wake up.” Okay, but that doesn’t really seem to make sense. “Of course it does. Overnight, you’re not…
Comparing Roman and Byzantine Empires | AP US History | Khan Academy
We already have several videos talking about the Byzantine Empire, which is really just the continuation of the Roman Empire after its fall. They even called themselves the Roman Empire. But what I want to do in this video is a bit of a deep dive to make …
Definite integral properties (no graph): breaking interval | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
We’re given that the definite integral from one to four of f of x dx is equal to six, and the definite integral from one to seven of f of x dx is equal to eleven. We want to figure out the definite integral from four to seven of f of x dx. So, at least i…
Welcome to Earth | Official Trailer #2 - Audio Description | Disney+
A volcano erupts. I’m throwing myself into the unknown. I almost guarantee you’re gonna survive. All right, a six-part Disney Plus original series. There’s a new breed of explorers taking knee to the ends of the Earth to discover hidden worlds that sit b…
Perfect Muzzle Flash Photos - Smarter Every Day 43
Hey, it’s me Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. So, ah, first things first, let me show you that this weapon is unloaded. And I really like to think about firearms because there’s a lot of science involved here. What causes muzzle flash? Alright…