Executive Producer Mike Gunton talks to The Inside Reel about humor, approach and technology in regards to his new NBC nature docu-series: "The Americas".
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00:00You know, approaching the Americas must be slightly different, or is it in terms of the
00:24approach, the tone, stuff like that?
00:26Because it seems with Hanks, there's a lot more humour that's sort of infused as well.
00:32Could you talk about finding the tone, but also finding the exact right subjects, please?
00:37Well, I think you're absolutely right.
00:41This seemed to me a wonderful opportunity, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something
00:46of this scale in a place that I sort of imagined that this must have been done before, but
00:51it has not been done before.
00:52I thought, people have missed an opportunity because this is one of the most extraordinary
00:56places you could ever make a wildlife series about.
00:59But it was important.
01:00If you have this one chance, I wanted to make sure that we kind of did it right and did it
01:04a bit differently.
01:06So part of the way we've done that is, as you know, a lot of the things we make and
01:10I've made is kind of done by habitat, but a kind of encyclopedic way.
01:15This is much more of a journey.
01:16This is much more of a safari.
01:18This is kind of the ultimate safari, where we're going to all the greatest hotspots in
01:24this extraordinary place.
01:34A raccoon.
01:37Country raccoons are nocturnal, but here they emerge in the daytime as well.
01:44So they must be wary of people, dogs, and cars.
01:51Be kind of street smart.
02:00This female needs to take extra care.
02:03She's a mom.
02:07The wall provides high-rise living for her growing family.
02:15These kits are four months old, and they share their home with an older brother.
02:23He's getting ready to leave home for good.
02:29But raccoons aren't the only ones with a taste for city living.
02:40And when you go there, you get a sense of why it is the way it is, what's there, what
02:45the landscapes are like, but also what the animals like and also how they challenge to
02:49live and how they overcoming those challenges.
02:52So that was a very important part of it.
02:54The second thing was, if you're going to make that kind of journey, you want a guide, you
02:59want somebody who's not just going to stand back and tell you stuff, but actually going
03:02to say, come with me, let me show you something.
03:04And Tom just was the perfect person, because that's exactly how he was.
03:08When I first showed him, he was literally saying to people in the back of the room, guys, come
03:15have a look at this.
03:16You're not going to believe that.
03:17That, I think, is a unique style of presentation, which I don't think it's ever been done in
03:22this kind of show.
03:23So he was an absolutely, he's a key ingredient in that.
03:28Booby pairs are normally set for life, but not all boobies play by the rules.
03:39A quick two-step from someone else catches her eye.
03:46Would this male's feet be even bluer and better than her partner's?
04:00His whistle display shows he's eager.
04:11With a honk of interest, her head's been turned.
04:24And the final thing is, it's the sense of understanding the empathy of us and the animals, understanding
04:32that their lives and our lives are not so different.
04:34We can see the trials and tribulations we face in their lives and vice versa.
04:39And I think that brings an extraordinary kind of kinship between us and nature, which I think
04:44is something we're losing to some degree.
04:48I really hope that that kinship, that sense of belonging and sense of being in it together
04:54comes through from the series.
04:55It's also the historical context, but also in the relationships like, and that happens
05:00on the North Atlantic coast, just off the shore, whether it be the wild horses, whether it be
05:04the sharks, but even the wolf to the fox, it's about those relationships and showing that
05:10empathy.
05:11It's almost, they're animals, but you're placing almost sort of human qualities with it, which
05:16is an interesting dynamic.
05:18Can you talk about that empathy?
05:19But also because the history is such a big part of this and how we as humans are encroaching
05:25too.
05:26So.
05:27Well, it's quite an interesting set up this because we're obviously Brits making a series
05:32about land that is not ours.
05:34This is the land that we are outsiders looking in on.
05:38And we look at it and see, this is extraordinary.
05:42As you say, there's this wonderful romantic history and wonderful romantic landscapes.
05:48You know, we've all watched movies here.
05:49All these places have got this kind of resonance with us.
05:54And it's just a joy to be able to say the stories that are interwoven with this are remarkable.
06:00But now there's going to be trouble.
06:05Her old flame is back.
06:08He seems pleased with the look of his feet, but his partner is looking at somebody else's.
06:20He's not going to stand for that.
06:41It showed him.
06:53Our hero may have seen off his rival, but his relationship looks like it's on the rocks.
07:07One of the things that we've really enjoyed is not just taking people to the real wild
07:11remotest places on this place, you could imagine, you know, the tops of mountains and the bottom
07:16of the ocean, but also into places that are well known people's backyard.
07:21Like raccoons.
07:22Yeah, exactly.
07:24Raccoons in Central Park and these little beautiful, cute little burrowing owls, pygmy
07:31burrowing owls that live in people's lawns in Florida.
07:35This is a great experience for people because they may have seen these animals themselves
07:39and gone, oh, I never knew that.
07:42This is happening in my backyard.
07:43And that, I think, again, brings another relationship with the audience and the world in which they
07:50live.
07:51The history to us, of course, again, as filmmakers, it's been a wonderful subtext, context for
07:58this, because so often the way the animals are now living or the behavior they have or
08:05the situation they find themselves in is connected with a lot of human history.
08:11And the raccoons is a really interesting example of how that's happening right now.
08:15These are animals that are effectively evolving in front of our eyes as they adapt to live alongside us in,
08:22you know, one of the most densely populated places on Earth.
08:26And they're doing very well.
08:27But they're having to change their behavior in a way that is really fascinating.
08:34As the world warms up, something strange happens beneath the surface.
08:51These marbled, four-eyed frogs living in the highest reaches of the Andes have evolved a
08:57remarkable talent, almost beyond belief, and never filmed before.
09:07They can freeze solid and come back from the dead every single day.
09:18Technology.
09:18We always talk about technology.
09:20Did you implement anything new that you're very proud of?
09:24Because it's always about trying to capture things in a new way.
09:27Well, the technology is always important, as you say, but this was really about getting the camera
09:32and therefore the audience into the world of the animals, getting it super close.
09:36And there are lots of ways we did that.
09:38But I think overall, the real game changer was using these micro drones.
09:45You know, we've been using drones.
09:46We've been developing drone technology for quite a long time.
09:48But we kind of hit a kind of sweet spot where the skill of the flyers,
09:54this miniaturization of the drones, the understanding of how you can film animals
09:59using drones opened up a whole new vista of opportunities.
10:03Because you can get the camera to places you can't physically get as a person.
10:06You just literally can't get a camera on a tripod to that place.
10:10But also, you can get the camera into an animal's environment without you being there and disturbing them.
10:15And animals get very used to drones quite quickly.
10:17So suddenly, you're getting a perspective, a privileged view of what goes on in animals' lives
10:23in a way that we have never been able to do.
10:25If we were having this conversation six years ago, there would be at least 20 stories in the Americas
10:30which wouldn't have even made it onto the scripts because we couldn't do it.
10:32Therein, because we can, because of drones.