UPDATE as of JAN 14, 2020: Due to the fires in Australia, the BBC decided to air their episode first on Jan 18th. The North America episode described below is scheduled to air on Jan. 25th, 9PM eastern.
In the summer of 2019, a film crew shooting for the BBC spent 3 weeks on the preserve. They were capturing footage for a new nature series, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, titled "
Seven Worlds, One Planet". This major film project, following their Blue Planet series, features interesting animal stories from every continent and airs on
January 25th at 9PM Eastern. The film worked in 41 countries with the help of 1500 people. Our film crew came all the way from England to film the magical world of fireflies at the Edge of Appalachia Preserve in the rural hills of Adams County, Ohio to represent North America!
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| BBC filming at the Edge Photo by: Lynn Faust |
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| The crew filming firefly interactions with spiders and their webs. |
How did they end up here? Our friend and firefly expert Lynn Faust sent them our way. Lynn is the person people contact when needing firefly info and she told them about the wonderful firefly displays at the Edge. So two incredible nature videographers, Alastair MacEwen and Olly Jelley, along with producer Sarah Whalley showed up with an SUV full of special cameras that film fireflies twinkling in the night. The goal was to capture footage of carnivorous fireflies (Photuris sp.) feeding on prey fireflies that have been caught in spider webs...and all behaviors in between. After 3 weeks of shooting day and night, only breaking to eat and sleep, they got all the shots they needed.
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| Once a spider web is found with a prey firefly in it, the crew filmed it hoping for a predator firefly to pounce. |
A lot of luck was needed to find fireflies caught in spider webs. But the harder part was predicting whether a carnivorous firefly would fly in to eat it, scaring away the spider that also wants the food. The spider did all the work creating the sticky web trap, but the predator firefly opportunistically steals it away! Luckily, The persistence of the crew paid off.
When the film crew left Ohio there was no guarantee that any of the thousands of hours of footage they filmed would even make it into the movie. We were delighted this year to hear some of their work had made the cut, even if only seconds of footage.
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| The 2 firefly experts, Lynn Faust on left and Laura Hughes on right take a break from scouting for the crew in background. |
The entire series will display wonderful stories from each continent airing on separate nights. North America is the first of the series showing on
Jan. 25th on channels
BBC America, Sundance, IFC and
AMC at
9PM Eastern. The other continents will follow the next 6 Saturday nights. Not all footage of fireflies you might see in the film are from Ohio. They also shot wide landscape footage in Mississippi. But any close-ups of fireflies and spiders should be Edge actors (fireflies).
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| Lynn Faust helping find and capture other unique fireflies while the crew awaits dark. |
Thanks go out to Lynn Faust for this golden opportunity for the preserve to work with the BBC, and witness the hard work it takes to make these unbelievable films. And thanks to the film crew mentioned above. Their incredible work ethic and skill was unimaginable. Even if only 10 seconds of footage makes it into the film, the fireflies of Cincinnati Museum Center's Edge of Appalachia Preserve will be the shining stars we know them to be.
For more information about the "Seven Worlds, One Planet" visit link below:
http://www.bbcamerica.com/shows/seven-worlds-one-planet/video-extras/official-trailer-seven-worlds-one-planet-premieres-january-18-98c
Posted by: Mark Zloba
