''First Life'' is a 2010 British

nature documentary A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or television documentary, series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures. Nature documentaries usually concentrate on video taken in the subject's nat ...

series written and presented by

David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and writer. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Studios Natural History Unit, the nine nature d ...

, also known by the expanded titles ''David Attenborough's First Life'' (UK) and ''First Life with David Attenborough'' (USA). It was first broadcast in the US as a two-hour special on the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

on 24 October 2010. In the United Kingdom it was broadcast as a two-part series on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

on 5 November 2010. ''First Life'' sees Attenborough tackle the subject of the

origin of life Abiogenesis is the natural process by which life arises from abiotic component, non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to organism, living entities on ...

on Earth. He investigates the evidence from the earliest

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s, which suggest that complex animals first appeared in the oceans around 540 million years ago, an event known as the Cambrian Explosion. Trace fossils of multicellular organisms from an even earlier period, the

Ediacaran biota The Ediacaran (; formerly Vendian) biota is a taxonomic period classification that consists of all life forms that were present on Earth during the Ediacaran Period (). These were enigmatic tubular and frond-shaped, mostly sessile, organis ...

, are also examined. Attenborough travels to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, 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 filming ''First 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.

Production

The series was directed by freelance film-maker Martin Williams and series produced by Anthony Geffen, CEO and Executive Producer of

Atlantic Productions Atlantic Productions is a British production company based in London that produces television programmes for broadcasters in Europe and the United States. Overview Founded in 1992, Atlantic Productions leads a group of companies which make telev ...

, with whom Attenborough has collaborated on a number of 3D documentaries for the satellite broadcaster

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

. It was produced in association with the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, the Discovery Channel and the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is ...

. During production, it had the working title ''The First Animals''.

Reception

At the

News & Documentary Emmy Award The News & Documentary Emmy Awards, or News & Documentary Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the National Academy of Television Arts and Scien ...

s in 2011, ''First Life'' won in all three categories it was nominated in, for writing, graphic design and art direction and nature programming. The series was nominated for its photography and editing at the

BAFTA Craft Award The British Academy Television Craft Awards is an accolade presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), a charitable organisation established in 1947, which: "supports, promotes and develops the art forms of the moving ima ...

s earlier the same year.

Episodes

''David Attenborough's Rise of Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates''

In December 2011, a second series of ''First Life'' was announced by media website Realscreen. The new series focused on the evolution of the earliest fish, reptiles, amphibians and mammals, and aired on the BBC in 2013, as '' David Attenborough's Rise of Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates.''

References

External links

Official website
for ''David Attenborough's First Life'' *
''First Life''
on the Eden website *
First Life
' at the BBC Press Office website (see "Nature" panel on right hand side of page) * {{David Attenborough 2010s British documentary television series 2010 British television series debuts 2010 British television series endings Documentary television shows about evolution First Life Documentary films about nature Documentary films about prehistoric life Discovery Channel original programming News & Documentary Emmy Award–winning programs