The New York Times called it "an eye-catching, years-in-the-making chronicle of animal life ..." and the New York Post boasted, "Nature films don't come any more spectacular than this." Now, after a limited theatrical release in the United States, Nat Geo WILD presents the exclusive broadcast premiere of the cinematic natural history documentary One Life on Sunday, December 8, 2013, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, offering intimate, never-before-captured sequences of animal behavior, stunning habitats and breathtaking scenery. (For more information, visit www.natgeowild.com and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/NGC_PR.)
Narrated by actor Daniel Craig, One Life delivers Bond-style action, romance and cutting-edge gadgets. Vivid close-ups of a chameleon's tongue snapping up a praying mantis, and a Venus flytrap devouring its miniscule prey are captured in beautiful detail. While an epic, action-packed battle among ten 40-ton humpback whales plays out with striking clarity.
Culled from more than 10,000 hours of footage, filmed throughout 12 countries on every continent, One Life celebrates the journey taken by all living things, from the moment they are born to that most important achievement, their vital goal: the successful delivery of youngsters of their own - the next generation. Witness the
Epic journey of a tiny strawberry poison frog, scaling impossibly high trees to feed her tadpoles in the canopy. Tucked in her shadowy cave an octopus mother makes the ultimate sacrifice. She cares for her eggs over many weeks, keeping them safe and blowing oxygen- and nutrient-rich water over them, while she slowly starves. Her final glimpse may be of her eggs hatching and hundreds of baby octopi swimming off into the ocean.
Using specially developed filming techniques, One Life captures an astonishing 15 filming firsts:
· New camera tracking system, "yogi cam," to track elephants
· Capuchin monkeys cracking palm nuts in super slow-motion
· Red foxes hunting Nubian ibex
· Gyro-stabilized aerials of lammergeyer and red-billed tropicbirds in flight
· Three cheetahs hunting cooperatively, bringing down ostriches
· Gyro-stabilized aerials of bottlenose dolphins mud ringing
· Tracking time-lapse of a Venus flytrap and how it deals with pollination
· Komodo dragons hunting buffalo
· Rufous sengi (elephant-shrew) running at
SPEED on its trails in super slow-motion
· Pebble toads of Mount Roraima
Bounce down the cliffs to avoid tarantulas
· Jesus Christ lizard "walking on water" in super slow-motion
· Flying fish "flying" in super slow-motion
· Sailfish feeding on bait ball in super slow-motion
· Darwin's beetles fighting in the tree tops
· First complete sequence (including aerials, underwater and topside) of humpback whale mating contest, "the heat run"
Directors Michael Gunton and Martha Holmes felt it was increasingly important to share the complexities of the animal kingdom and the stories of its endangered and threatened creatures in a new light. "With the filming technology available to us now we can get our cameras into places that give new and high impact perspectives on the drama of animal survival. We wanted to fly, run, swim, hunt and fight alongside our animal stars, letting the audience feel they are right there with the animals, experiencing the drama of their everyday lives."
One Life celebrates life's challenges, triumphs and beauty, reminding audiences that we are all connected, sharing one planet and one future.
One Life is produced by BBC Earth. For BBC Earth, executive producers are Amanda Hill, Neil Nightingale and Joe Oppenheimer. For
National Geographic Channel senior
Vice president of production and development is Janet Han Vissering and general manager is Geoff Daniels.
About Nat Geo WILD
For more than 30 years, National Geographic has been the leader in wildlife programming. The networks Nat Geo WILD and Nat Geo WILD HD, launched in 2010, offer intimate encounters with nature's ferocious fighters and gentle creatures of land, sea and air that draw upon the cutting-edge work of the many explorers, filmmakers and scientists of the National Geographic Society. Part of the National Geographic Channels US, based in Washington, D.C., the networks are a joint venture between National Geographic and
FOX Cable Networks. In 2001,
National Geographic Channel (NGC) debuted, and 10 years later, Spanish-language network Nat Geo Mundo was unveiled. The Channels have carriage with all of the nation's major cable, telco and satellite television providers, with Nat Geo WILD currently available in over 58 million U.S. homes. Globally, Nat Geo WILD is available in more than 144 million homes in 140 countries and 28 languages. For more information, visit www.natgeowild.com.
