Following David Attenborough as he travels the globe to film his new series, David Attenborough's First Life, in which he explores the very origins of life on Earth. David journeys to the parts of the world which have had special meaning to him during his 50 years of broadcasting. Beginning near his boyhood Leicestershire home, where he first collected fossils, he then travels to Morocco's arid deserts, the glaciers of Canada and crystal clear waters of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. As a prelude to the First Life series, Attenborough's Journey provides a unique insight into the mind and character of one of the world's most iconic broadcasters as he shares his passions for the natural world. Combining his global journey for First Life and archive material looking back at his illustrious career both as a programme maker and a controller of the BBC, the film reveals what makes him tick. (bbc.co.uk)
David starts his journey in a forest near the home he grew up in Leicester, where a fossil discovery transformed our understanding of the evolution of complex life. He then travels to Newfoundland and the Australian outback, where he unearths the earliest forms of animal life to exist on the planet.
Attenborough explores the Burgess Shale in Canada’s Rocky Mountains, where there is fossil evidence of an event 542 million years ago which saw animals increase in number, diversity and size as never before. These ancient rocks reveal the world’s first large predator, the first defences and the emergence of an animal group that would conquer the oceans: the hard-shelled arthropods.
