“The Green Planet” is a five-part, critically acclaimed documentary and part of the BBC Earth series. It looks at what narrator Sir David Attenborough calls the strange and wonderful world of plants. The production took the BBC Studios Natural History Unit three years to complete and was filmed in 27 countries. The fifth and final episode, Human Worlds, aired on August 6, 2022.
As part of that ambitious project, a three-person crew – two photographers and a producer/director – spent three weeks in California almond country in 2020. They visited the orchards and homes of Christine Gemperle, Brian Wahlbrink, Danielle Veenstra and Kiku Severson to film the wonder of bloom and pollination and to capture the character of almond orchards. These farms feature in the final episode of the series, airing on Wednesday, August 3.
Almond farmer Brian Wahlbrink is a long-time fan of BBC’s Planet Earth and Blue Planet documentaries, so he was thrilled to host the Green Planet production crew at his family’s ranch, Sperry Farms.
But even as a fan, he was surprised and impressed by the planning and careful thought that goes into documentary storytelling for a global audience.
“I’ve watched the behind-the-scenes videos from the making of Planet Earth, but to see it up close is something special – they’re drawing things out on a white board, and they’re planning out a strategy behind the imagery,” he said. “Then they’ll shoot something and get a ton of images and go back to the drawing board and start again. They’re constantly evaluating themselves and putting the time into it.”
Brian said that same approach – without the white boards – is how his team and many almond growers farm. We’re constantly evaluating and adapting to use our resources more efficiently and more effectively and to be better and better growers.”
“We’re doing some cutting-edge things as far as farming practices go,” he said. “We may not have a global audience watching us, but almond growers do feed a global market, and every detail of what we do matters, too. On the other hand, the BBC crew shoots way better images than I ever will.”