David Attenborough's What a Wonderful World: The BBC One Nature Trailer

Sir David Attenborough never sings a note in this film. He simply speaks the words of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World", line by line, while the BBC's natural-history footage plays beneath his voice. The result, first shown on BBC One in 2011, is a short celebration of life on Earth.

The BBC One "Wonderful World" trailer

The film was made as a channel trailer for BBC One at the time of Frozen Planet, Attenborough's polar series, which ran on BBC One from 26 October to 28 December 2011. It closes with the line "It's a Wonderful World, watch it with us. BBC1."

The trick is in the edit. Rather like a puzzle, short phrases of Attenborough's narration are cut together so that, joined with the music, they form the song's lyrics. The trailer was created by the London agency RKCR/Y&R, with creative director Mark Roalfe, writer Ted Heath and art director Paul Angus, who also directed it. Red Bee Media produced the film and Thomas Ioannou edited it.

The advertising industry noticed. In 2012 "Wonderful World" won pencils at the D&AD Awards, one of the most respected prizes in creative advertising.

The song behind the montage

"What a Wonderful World" was written by Bob Thiele (credited as George Douglas) and George David Weiss. Louis Armstrong recorded it on 16 August 1967 in Las Vegas, and ABC Records released it that September.

It sold poorly in the United States at first, but in Britain it went to number one in April 1968 and became the country's best-selling single of the year. Armstrong became the oldest man to top the UK chart. The song found a second life in the 1988 film Good Morning, Vietnam and has been covered by artists from Israel Kamakawiwo'ole to Katie Melua and Eva Cassidy.

David Attenborough and the BBC

Few voices are better suited to the job. Born on 8 May 1926 in Isleworth, Middlesex, Attenborough was controller of BBC Two from 1965 to 1969 before returning to film-making. Life on Earth (1979) launched his landmark "Life" series, and later came The Blue Planet (2001), Planet Earth (2006), Frozen Planet (2011) and Blue Planet II (2017). He was knighted in 1985.

Frozen Planet and the footage

The snowy, icy scenes in the montage fit the moment it was made. Frozen Planet was a seven-part series from the BBC Natural History Unit, co-produced with Discovery Channel, Spain's Antena 3, Germany's ZDF, the Greek broadcaster Skai and The Open University. Filming ended in 2010, after crews had worked in the Arctic and Antarctic, from the break-up of the Hay River in Canada's Northwest Territories to the active volcanoes of Antarctica.

The crews used stabilised long-range aerial cameras such as the Cineflex, which film wildlife steadily from a distance without disturbing it. George Fenton composed the series score, played by the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Watch the trailer twice: once for the voice and once for the cuts. Each phrase lands on a new image, and the pairing of words and pictures is what gives the short film its warmth.

Related reading

• Elena Shumilova’s Children and Animals: Light, Seasons and Rural Photography
• Unity Is Strength: Penguin Animation and How Real Penguins Huddle
• Animals in Snow: Winter Photographs, Food, Rest and Movement
• Keith Hopkin’s smaller-scale animal montage
• Landscape storytelling in Yosemite HD II

Sources