Christopher Parsons
Encyclopedia
Christopher Eugene Parsons OBE
(23 August 1932 in Winchester
, Hampshire
– 8 November 2002 in Littleton-upon-Severn
, Gloucestershire
) was an award-winning English
wildlife film-maker and the executive producer of David Attenborough
's Life on Earth, widely regarded as one of the finest and most influential of nature documentaries
. As a founding member and a former Head of the BBC Natural History Unit
, he worked on many of its early productions and published a history of its first 25 years in 1982. Besides television, he was also passionate about projects which helped to bring an understanding of the natural world to a wider audience, notably the Wildscreen Festival
and ARKive
.
, Exeter
, Christopher Parsons joined the BBC
in 1955. He began as an apprentice film editor at the newly-formed West Region Film Unit in Bristol
, England
. Here, he worked on a wide range of programmes in the fledgling medium of television
, including some of the BBC's earliest natural history films. In 1957 he was one of the founding members of the BBC Natural History Unit
, becoming a pioneer of the genre alongside names such as Peter Scott
, Tony Soper
and Eric Ashby. His early work included roles editing and producing Look, the Unit's first series, which was presented by Scott. In 1963 he produced the Unit's first film in colour, The Major, though it was another four years before the programme could be transmitted in colour. Parsons accompanied his friend Gerald Durrell
on animal-collecting expeditions to Australia
and Sierra Leone
to produce the television series Two in the Bush (1962) and Catch Me a Colobus (1966). In 1968, he became series editor of The World About Us, a new strand of nature documentaries commissioned for BBC Two
by then controller David Attenborough. The strand was renamed The Natural World in 1983 and is still on air today.
When Attenborough began commissioning ambitious landmark documentary series for BBC Two on subjects as diverse as science, economics and art history, Parsons decided that natural history
would make an ideal subject for such a venture, and drafted the synopsis of a 13-part series he called Life on Earth. In 1970, he travelled to London
to persuade Attenborough to present the series, only to discover that both of them had had the same idea. Financing and filming challenges delayed production, and it was not until 1979 that Life on Earth finally reached the screen. The series drew widespread acclaim and helped to establish the reputation of the Natural History Unit. When it was rewarded with departmental status in 1979, Parsons became the first official Head of the Unit (previous leaders were called senior producers).
In 1982, he received an award for programme excellence from the Royal Television Society
and was appointed OBE for his outstanding services to broadcasting
. The same year, his history of the first 25 years of the Natural History Unit, True to Nature, was published. After stepping down from his role as Head in 1983, he was appointed to develop commercial opportunities for the BBC by utilising the growing library of archive natural history footage. He set up Wildvision to sell re-packaged programmes and videos internationally, and helped to establish BBC Wildlife
magazine in 1983.
Parsons left the BBC in 1988 to return to film production, making for large-format films for museums, zoos and aquaria. In the 1990s he produced a number of IMAX
nature documentaries, working with the IMAX Natural History Film Unit and West Eagle Films. These included Mountain Gorillas (1992), The Secret of Life on Earth (1992) and Survival Island (1996), the latter a second collaboration with David Attenborough. His final film was a millennium project about his home village of Littleton-upon-Severn
in Gloucestershire
.
in Bristol, a biennial event which recognises and celebrates the achievements of wildlife film-makers, the first of its kind in the world. At the 1990 festival, Parsons was presented with the Outstanding Achievement Award which is now named in his honour. He went on to co-found and become a patron of the Wildscreen Trust
, an educational charity established in 1987 to promote an understanding of the natural world through audiovisual material.
From 1995 to 2000 he was a Director of Wildscreen, overseeing the building of Wildwalk-at-Bristol
, a new visitor attraction in the city. Developed with funding from the National Lottery
, its aim was to raise awareness of global biodiversity
and conservation
issues using a combination of live animal exhibits, videos and interactive displays. Recognition for his achievements came with the WWF International
award for Conservation Merit in 1990 and honorary membership of the Linnaean Society of London, for services to natural history.
His final project was a long-standing passion to establish an electronic database of all the world’s species, first mooted in the early 1980s before the necessary technology was available. The resulting website, ARKive
, went live in May 2003. Parsons never lived to see the fruition of the project, succumbing to cancer in November 2002 at the age of 70. In 2003, the World Land Trust
, of which he had been a Trustee, dedicated a rainforest
reserve in Ecuador
in his memory.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(23 August 1932 in Winchester
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
– 8 November 2002 in Littleton-upon-Severn
Littleton-upon-Severn
Littleton-upon-Severn is a village in South Gloucestershire near the mouth of the River Severn and is located to the west of Thornbury.The village has a church, village hall, post box and public phone box as well as a popular 17th Century pub called The White Hart.Littleton Brick Pits are an...
, Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
) was an award-winning English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
wildlife film-maker and the executive producer of David Attenborough
David Attenborough
Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS, FSA is a British broadcaster and naturalist. His career as the face and voice of natural history programmes has endured for more than 50 years...
's Life on Earth, widely regarded as one of the finest and most influential of nature documentaries
Nature documentary
A natural history film or wildlife film is a documentary film about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on film taken in their natural habitat...
. As a founding member and a former Head of the BBC Natural History Unit
BBC Natural History Unit
The BBC Natural History Unit is a department of the BBC dedicated to making television and radio programmes with a natural history or wildlife theme, especially nature documentaries...
, he worked on many of its early productions and published a history of its first 25 years in 1982. Besides television, he was also passionate about projects which helped to bring an understanding of the natural world to a wider audience, notably the Wildscreen Festival
Wildscreen Festival
The Wildscreen Festival, an initiative of The Wildscreen Trust is an international festival of film, television and digital media inspired by nature and natural places...
and ARKive
ARKive
ARKive is a global initiative with the mission of "promoting the conservation of the world's threatened species, through the power of wildlife imagery", which it does by locating and gathering films, photographs and audio recordings of the world's species into a centralised digital archive. Its...
.
Film-making career
After obtaining a degree in science from the University College of the South West of EnglandUniversity of Exeter
The University of Exeter is a public university in South West England. It belongs to the 1994 Group, an association of 19 of the United Kingdom's smaller research-intensive universities....
, Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
, Christopher Parsons joined the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1955. He began as an apprentice film editor at the newly-formed West Region Film Unit in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Here, he worked on a wide range of programmes in the fledgling medium of television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
, including some of the BBC's earliest natural history films. In 1957 he was one of the founding members of the BBC Natural History Unit
BBC Natural History Unit
The BBC Natural History Unit is a department of the BBC dedicated to making television and radio programmes with a natural history or wildlife theme, especially nature documentaries...
, becoming a pioneer of the genre alongside names such as Peter Scott
Peter Scott
Sir Peter Markham Scott, CH, CBE, DSC and Bar, MID, FRS, FZS, was a British ornithologist, conservationist, painter, naval officer and sportsman....
, Tony Soper
Tony Soper
Tony Soper is a naturalist, author and broadcaster from Plymouth in England. Born 10 January 1929, he was educated at Hyde Park Elementary School and at Devonport High School, both in Plymouth...
and Eric Ashby. His early work included roles editing and producing Look, the Unit's first series, which was presented by Scott. In 1963 he produced the Unit's first film in colour, The Major, though it was another four years before the programme could be transmitted in colour. Parsons accompanied his friend Gerald Durrell
Gerald Durrell
Gerald "Gerry" Malcolm Durrell, OBE was a naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, author and television presenter...
on animal-collecting expeditions to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
to produce the television series Two in the Bush (1962) and Catch Me a Colobus (1966). In 1968, he became series editor of The World About Us, a new strand of nature documentaries commissioned for BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
by then controller David Attenborough. The strand was renamed The Natural World in 1983 and is still on air today.
When Attenborough began commissioning ambitious landmark documentary series for BBC Two on subjects as diverse as science, economics and art history, Parsons decided that natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
would make an ideal subject for such a venture, and drafted the synopsis of a 13-part series he called Life on Earth. In 1970, he travelled to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to persuade Attenborough to present the series, only to discover that both of them had had the same idea. Financing and filming challenges delayed production, and it was not until 1979 that Life on Earth finally reached the screen. The series drew widespread acclaim and helped to establish the reputation of the Natural History Unit. When it was rewarded with departmental status in 1979, Parsons became the first official Head of the Unit (previous leaders were called senior producers).
In 1982, he received an award for programme excellence from the Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...
and was appointed OBE for his outstanding services to broadcasting
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
. The same year, his history of the first 25 years of the Natural History Unit, True to Nature, was published. After stepping down from his role as Head in 1983, he was appointed to develop commercial opportunities for the BBC by utilising the growing library of archive natural history footage. He set up Wildvision to sell re-packaged programmes and videos internationally, and helped to establish BBC Wildlife
BBC Wildlife
BBC Wildlife is a British glossy, all-colour, monthly magazine about wildlife, founded by BBC Worldwide and published through the BBC Magazines Bristol division, also trading as Bristol Magazines Ltd....
magazine in 1983.
Parsons left the BBC in 1988 to return to film production, making for large-format films for museums, zoos and aquaria. In the 1990s he produced a number of IMAX
IMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
nature documentaries, working with the IMAX Natural History Film Unit and West Eagle Films. These included Mountain Gorillas (1992), The Secret of Life on Earth (1992) and Survival Island (1996), the latter a second collaboration with David Attenborough. His final film was a millennium project about his home village of Littleton-upon-Severn
Littleton-upon-Severn
Littleton-upon-Severn is a village in South Gloucestershire near the mouth of the River Severn and is located to the west of Thornbury.The village has a church, village hall, post box and public phone box as well as a popular 17th Century pub called The White Hart.Littleton Brick Pits are an...
in Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
.
Other projects
In 1982, Parsons and Peter Scott co-founded the Wildscreen FestivalWildscreen Festival
The Wildscreen Festival, an initiative of The Wildscreen Trust is an international festival of film, television and digital media inspired by nature and natural places...
in Bristol, a biennial event which recognises and celebrates the achievements of wildlife film-makers, the first of its kind in the world. At the 1990 festival, Parsons was presented with the Outstanding Achievement Award which is now named in his honour. He went on to co-found and become a patron of the Wildscreen Trust
Wildscreen
Wildscreen is an educational charity based in Bristol, England, working globally to promote the conservation of nature, and the public’s appreciation of biodiversity, through wildlife imagery....
, an educational charity established in 1987 to promote an understanding of the natural world through audiovisual material.
From 1995 to 2000 he was a Director of Wildscreen, overseeing the building of Wildwalk-at-Bristol
At-Bristol
At-Bristol is a public science and technology "exploration" and education centre and charity in Bristol, England.As a visitor attraction, At-Bristol has hundreds of hands-on exhibits, and a Planetarium with seasonal shows for the over fives, and a 'Little Stars' show for children aged five and under...
, a new visitor attraction in the city. Developed with funding from the National Lottery
National Lottery (United Kingdom)
The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man.It is operated by Camelot Group, to whom the licence was granted in 1994, 2001 and again in 2007. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established by the then...
, its aim was to raise awareness of global biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
and conservation
Conservation biology
Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction...
issues using a combination of live animal exhibits, videos and interactive displays. Recognition for his achievements came with the WWF International
World Wide Fund for Nature
The World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States...
award for Conservation Merit in 1990 and honorary membership of the Linnaean Society of London, for services to natural history.
His final project was a long-standing passion to establish an electronic database of all the world’s species, first mooted in the early 1980s before the necessary technology was available. The resulting website, ARKive
ARKive
ARKive is a global initiative with the mission of "promoting the conservation of the world's threatened species, through the power of wildlife imagery", which it does by locating and gathering films, photographs and audio recordings of the world's species into a centralised digital archive. Its...
, went live in May 2003. Parsons never lived to see the fruition of the project, succumbing to cancer in November 2002 at the age of 70. In 2003, the World Land Trust
World Land Trust
The World Land Trust is a UK-based nonprofit environmental organization established in 1989. Its primary aims are to ensure conservation of plants, animals and natural communities in areas at risk...
, of which he had been a Trustee, dedicated a rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
reserve in Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
in his memory.
Film and TV Credits
The following is a list of Parsons's main productions:- Survival Island (IMAX) (1996) – producer
- The Secret of Life on Earth (IMAX) (1994) – producer
- Mountain Gorillas (IMAX) (1992) – producer
- Life on Earth (1979) – executive producer
- The World About Us (1968–1976) – series editor
- Their World (1973) – presenter and producer
- Animals in Action (1973) – producer
- The Man Who Loved Giants (1971) – producer
- Animal People (1967) – producer
- Catch Me A Colobus (1966) – producer
- A Bull Named Marius (1966) – producer
- Look (1955–1964) – editor and producer
- Unarmed Hunters (1964) – producer
- Two in the Bush (1962) – producer
- The Major (1963) – producer
- The Unknown Forest (1960) – producer