Expedition into the unknown

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Television series
Original title Expedition into the unknown
Country of production Germany ,
United Kingdom
original language German
Year (s) September 1958 to August 1962
Production
company		 International Institute for Submarine Research
length about 29 minutes
Episodes 26th
genre Animal film
idea Hans Hass
music Sidney Sager , based on Opening Panoramic of Robert Farnon
First broadcast September 12, 1958 on SDR
occupation

Expedition into the Unknown is a 26-part television series by diving pioneer Hans Hass of the animal film genre , which was made in 1957/1958 during the second expedition with the Xarifa in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Many animal species were shown to the public for the first time, and the technology of underwater television was also used here for the first time for marine biology research.

Content

TV series produced for Südfunk Stuttgart (SDR) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Natural History Unit about the second Xarifa expedition to the Indian Ocean in 1957/58. The first six episodes were cut in 1958, the next twenty episodes in the following year. The SDR began broadcasting on September 12, 1958, and on August 30, 1962, the 26th and final episode of Expedition into the Unknown was broadcast on German television .

These films were made available in whole or in sections for the purposes of scientific film and educational film ( Institute for Film and Image in Science and Education , Göttingen).

episode First broadcast date title description
1 September 12, 1958 Fish among themselves About the work of the scientists on board the Xarifa, about the social life and behavior of fish.
2 4th October 1958 Hotels on the ocean floor About the different habitats of the fish: at an old pier on the coast of the Red Sea, in a symbiosis with a coral stick and in a seagrass meadow off the Farsan Islands.
3 November 22, 1958 Dive with us! About the equipment of the research vessel and the technique of diving. Descent on an outer reef of the Maldives to a depth of sixty meters.
4th December 12, 1958 The birth of an island The formation of coral islands, ice age undercutting, and everyday life in a village in the Maldives.
5 3rd February 1959 Fish portraits The technique of filming underwater - close-ups, lenses, etc. About a poisonous sea urchin.
6th February 21, 1959 Underwater television Technical details of the television system and the observation of tube eels.
7th May 27, 1959 The love riff About the mating behavior of fish: color change in rhinoceros fish, egg-laying in damselfish, brood care in triggerfish.
8th June 15, 1959 In the Addu Atoll How a reef is created. The discovery of a squid clutch and the development of the larvae.
9 4th July 1959 What sunken ships reveal How sunken ships are gradually overgrown by coral and turn into reefs. Demonstration using two wrecks - one about fifteen years old, the other more than a hundred years old.
10 August 1, 1959 Our ancestors, the fish Movement analysis of various bony fish and rays. About the locomotion of the mudskipper on land.
11 September 26, 1959 Unusual excursions Visit historical sites in Sri Lanka and take a dive at the Nicobar Islands.
12 November 28, 1959 Underwater quiz Unusual mud-dwellers on the Nicobar Islands and the behavior of the "well-builder fish".
13 December 19, 1959 Are Sharks Dangerous? The behavior of sharks when encountering divers. Experiences and experiences in the Indian Ocean.
14th 2nd February 1961 The ghost island About the superstitions of the Nicobar people. Sighting a whale shark.
15th March 15, 1961 Strange friendships About the various hiding places of fish and a symbiosis between a goby and a crab.
16 May 6, 1961 Great Nicobar Such as mangroves to silting contribute, on fiddler crabs and a visit to the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands.
17th May 30, 1961 The lamp wreck The discovery and investigation of a sunken British Navy ship near Tillanchong.
18th 5th July 1961 outsider How animals conquer new habitats. The symbiosis between a coral and a worm-shaped, ground-living animal, as well as the reproduction of a flower coral.
19th August 7, 1961 The octopus Behavior and brood care of an octopus that lives in an empty conch shell.
20th October 28, 1961 Experiments On the behavior of an anemonefish.
21st November 25, 1961 Research with obstacles Experiments with anemonefish. The discovery of a symbiosis between a sea urchin and a perch.
22nd December 23, 1961 On the Malay coast Diving in the Strait of Malacca, examining a fish trap, Penang Island, over calcareous algae.
23 January 20, 1962 surprises Watch echinoderms, a sea cucumber and a perch scratching the skin of sharks.
24 February 18, 1962 The secret of the crabs The behavior of different species of crabs and the castles of the pea crabs.
25th March 25, 1962 In the China Sea In Singapore, diving in the China Sea, the behavior of a snipe fish.
26th August 30, 1962 The wreck of the sharks About the balance of the research trip and about experiments with sharks at Gaha Faro in the Maldives.

background

To finance the expedition, Hass had pledged to Süddeutscher Rundfunk and the BBC to make 26 television films, each 30 minutes in length.

Since the film was shot exclusively on 16 mm film material, the cameras were smaller and more manageable than the 35 mm film equipment. Hass had an underwater housing made for the 16 mm Arriflex ST in Vienna by Hornicek. When filming underwater he was mostly seen working with this camera. The film equipment included four Arriflex sets and some 16 mm Bolex H-16 cameras. An underwater television system was used in the Maldives. The engineering office Atlas Elektronik produced a waterproof casing suitable for a water depth of 100 meters for a Grundig "Fernauge". The recording unit was provided with a special supply, remote control and transmission cable from Felten & Guilleaume . The reception system including two monitors with 17 and 43 cm screen diagonal could be installed on board the Xarifa or on land.

The film technology effort was enormous for the underwater research conditions of the time. But the results justified the means. The film about the tube eels and the television technology used is still a highlight among the 26 television films.

With a few exceptions, the film was shot on black and white film material, because color television was hardly available on the European continent at that time.

Lotte Hass was only able to take part in the second stage of the expedition, from Colombo in Sri Lanka to Singapore (July to October 1958) after the birth of her daughter.

The English series title was initially just Adventure and then from episode 7 The Underwater World Of Adventure .

literature

  • Andreas Hantschk, Michael Jung: Research vessel Xarifa. A milestone in modern marine ecology . Natural History Museum, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-900275-70-X .

Web links