‘First Life’ Wins Emmy Hat Trick

First Life with David Attenborough has swept the board winning three Emmy awards at the News & Documentary Emmy® Awards. The programme won in the following categories: ‘Outstanding Nature Programming’, ‘Outstanding Individual in a Craft: Writing’ and ‘Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Graphic Design & Art Direction’.

First Life was produced by Atlantic Productions, with state of the art visual effects by ZOO, in association with international partners including the BBC, Discovery Channel and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The programme was accompanied by a book published by Harper Collins, and the series has been released on DVD by 2Entertain.

First Life’s Emmy success means that Sir David Attenborough has won both a BAFTA and Emmy award this year – a remarkable achievement for a broadcaster who has been at the forefront of documentary film-making for nearly sixty years. First Life marked David’s return to US television screens. In recent years, his voice has been replaced by American actors when his programmes have been shown in the US. With First Life, Discovery Channel chose to retain David’s narration.

Celebrating the awards, David Attenborough commented: “It is a real honour to receive the three Emmy awards for First Life. The series achieved what I had always wanted to do – go back to the very beginning, to tell the story of the first animals that lived on our planet. When I was a boy growing up, I was fascinated by finding fossils in the rocks – and with First Life we were finally able to bring these extraordinary creatures back to life. The team at Atlantic Productions, and at the visual effects studio ZOO, did a breath-taking job with stunning photography and state of the art digital effects to recreate some of these earliest animals. I’m thrilled that the series has been recognised by the News & Documentary Emmy® Awards, and that it continues to get such a positive reception as it’s seen around the world.”

The Emmy success of First Life follows the recent BAFTA award for Flying Monsters 3D with David Attenborough, a groundbreaking stereoscopic 3D film with Sky 3D and National Geographic Entertainment which opens in cinemas and giant screen theatres across the US on 7th October. Atlantic has also recently celebrated an IBC Special Award for the team’s work on Flying Monsters 3D, while the theatrical release feature documentary The Wildest Dream recently won the award for Best Film Produced Non-Exclusively for the Giant Screen at the 2011 Giant Screen Cinema Association Awards.