Yahoo News David Attenborough producers reveal 'secret door' that has transformed his shows
Asia's bosses Roger Webb and Matthew Wright spoke exclusively to Yahoo about the new David Attenborough wildlife series and the secrets to success.
The producers of David Attenborough's latest BBC documentary, Asia, have lifted the lid on the biggest secrets to the show's success.
Social media has been like a "new secret door" to changing Attenborough's and other wildlife documentaries forever, Asia exec producer Roger Webb has said.
Talking to Yahoo about Asia, he said: "These days the fact that the majority of people are walking around with smartphones capturing incredible things and then posting them on social media. That has opened up a whole new avenue to us as the people who make wildlife documentaries.
"It's like a new secret door that we've been able to unlock and through our own detective work and then getting in touch with people who post their own incredible content, we can go deeper and further and tell often new stories, that we've only heard about or come across because people themselves have anecdotally captured things.
"It's an exciting time as wildlife filmmakers, I think."
Feeling so passionately about the project, Attenborough worked on Asia on his 98th birthday. The national treasure — who has an incredible career spanning eight decades — narrated the "untold stories" of Asia for the latest BBC series.
David Attenborough's Asia's secrets to success
Filmed over the course of four years, the series producer shone a light on what goes on behind the scenes of the BBC show. As well as learning on location, Matthew Wright revealed there is a lot of homework and preparation that goes into the wildlife show to ensure it is a success.
He explained: "The biggest secret to success, I think, for any wildlife series, the first secret is just lots and lots and lots of time in the field because wildlife is always doing amazing things. I've always kind of gutted, lying awake at night, thinking of all the amazing things that are going on in the natural world that nobody's filming.
"But the fact is, they're very hard to see. And by spending an awful lot of time in the field, you obviously massively increase your chances of success because while you're out filming, you learn on location, you can see the animals, and you begin to learn how best to film them.
"And you also just gather you should gain more chances of seeing something successful.
"But then, on top of that, there's a huge amount of work that kind of goes on under the surface before the crews get out on a location where we are desperately trying to find these stories or find clues that there's this behaviour going on by speaking to scientists and citizen scientists and conservationists, or just people on Instagram that have seen something funky that looks like it might be of interest.
"There's this huge amount of homework and preparation you do in advance of the shoot that massively increases your chances of success. You know before you go out that there's something interesting going on and that you've got a good chance of seeing it."
All seven episodes of Asia presented by Sir David Attenborough are available to watch on BBC iPlayer now.
