| First Life | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Documentary |
| Narrated by | David Attenborough |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 2 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Release | 5 November (2010-11-05) – 12 November 2010 (2010-11-12) |
First Life is a 2010 Britishnature documentary series written and presented byDavid Attenborough, also known by the expanded titlesDavid Attenborough's First Life (UK) andFirst Life with David Attenborough (USA). It was first broadcast in the US as a two-hour special on theDiscovery Channel on 24 October 2010. In the United Kingdom it was broadcast as a two-part series onBBC Two on 5 November 2010.First Life sees Attenborough tackle the subject of theorigin of life on Earth. He investigates the evidence from the earliestfossils, which suggest that complex animals first appeared in the oceans around 540 million years ago, an event known as theCambrian Explosion. Trace fossils of multicellular organisms from an even earlier period, theEdiacaran biota, are also examined. Attenborough travels toCanada,Morocco andAustralia, using some of the latest fossil discoveries and their nearest equivalents amongst living species to reveal what life may have been like at that time. Visual effects and computer animation are used to reconstruct and animate the extinct life forms.Attenborough's Journey, a documentary film profiling the presenter as he journeyed around the globe filmingFirst Life, was shown on BBC Two on 24 October 2010. A hardback book to accompany the series, authored by Matt Kaplan with a foreword by Attenborough, was published in September 2010.
The series was directed by freelance film-maker Martin Williams and series produced by Anthony Geffen, CEO and Executive Producer ofAtlantic Productions, with whom Attenborough has collaborated on a number of 3D documentaries for the satellite broadcasterSky. It was produced in association with theBBC, the Discovery Channel and theAustralian Broadcasting Corporation. During production, it had the working titleThe First Animals.
At theNews & Documentary Emmy Awards in 2011,First Life won in all three categories it was nominated in, for writing, graphic design and art direction and nature programming.[1] The series was nominated for its photography and editing at theBAFTA Craft Awards earlier the same year.[2]
| No. | Title | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Arrival" | 5 November 2010 (2010-11-05) | |
The first ancient living being mentioned in the episode isCharnia, anEdiacaran lifeform[3] whose fossil was first found inCharnwood Forest.Stromatolites,[4] which still live inWestern Australia are also shown. With thepalaeontologist DrGuy Narbonne, Attenborough visitsMistaken Point where there are hundreds of fossils ofCharnia and other animals of which the most common isFractofusus (thousands of specimens).[5] In theEdiacara Hills Attenborough is shown bypalaeontologist DrJim Gehling fossils ofDickinsonia.[6] In the same place there are also fossils ofKimberella, aslug-like animal[7] andSpriggina.[8] These animals are the first to have been mobile and havebilateral symmetry,Spriggina being the first to clearly have a head and a tail. In the same hills palaeontologist DrMary Droser showsFunisia[9] the first animal for which there is evidence ofsexual reproduction. InSwitzerland Attenborough visits a very largesynchrotron which is used by ProfessorPhilip Donoghue to take microscopic3-dimensional pictures of the interior of fossilizedembryos, includingMarkuelia[10] an animal which lived 20 million years after the animals of Ediacara and one of the first to have agut. | |||
| 2 | "Conquest" | 12 November 2010 (2010-11-12) | |
One of the first bigpredators wasAnomalocaris,[11][12] found in theBurgess Shale in theCanadian Rockies. Its prey probably included animals such asOpabinia,[13]Wiwaxia,[14]Hallucigenia.[15] Professor Justin Marshall showsmantis shrimp,[16] which are similar toAnomalocaris. One of the most successfularthropod groups were theTrilobites.[17] Some of the biggest were theEurypterids, or sea scorpions, such asPterygotus,[18] of which a large fossil exists in the vaults of theNational Museum of Scotland inEdinburgh.Aysheaia[19] is thought to be the ancestor of the first land animal. A very similar land animal, thevelvet worm, still lives in the tropics including therainforest inQueensland, Australia.[20] The oldest known fossil of an air-breathing arthropod is the 428 million-year-oldPneumodesmus,[21] amillipede.[22]
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In December 2011, a second series ofFirst Life was announced by media websiteRealscreen. The new series focused on the evolution of the earliest fish, reptiles, amphibians and mammals, and aired on the BBC in 2013, asDavid Attenborough's Rise of Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates.[23]
