Author Topic: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.  (Read 11055 times)

gordon taylor

Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« on: 27 October, 2011, 11:24:43 am »
I'm watching a recording of this ATM - but have had to pause for a moment to take up the slack in my jaw.

Brilliant TV. IMHO.

Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #1 on: 27 October, 2011, 11:28:32 am »
yes, us too, absolutely amazing

Rhys W

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #2 on: 27 October, 2011, 12:27:32 pm »
It was made by David Attenborough and the BBC. Did you expect anything less than "amazing"?

I thought that by now, there's nothing really new for me to learn from programmes like this, but wow, so wrong.

LEE

Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #3 on: 27 October, 2011, 01:16:54 pm »
Turns out that Killer Whales are smarter than I gave them credit for (and I knew they were pretty smart).

The technique they used for displodging seals from icebergs was incredible.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #4 on: 27 October, 2011, 03:07:59 pm »
I shall watch this tonight, provided the PVR hasn't thrown another hissy fit like it did a couple of weeks ago.  Any narwhals yet?

Edit: I should also like to plug Origins Of Us.  It'd be interesting even if it were fronted by Father Austin Purcell; that it is instead presented by Dr Alice Roberts is a bonus.  Just don't watch the sequence in episode 2 with the chimpanzee saliva while eating dinner :sick:
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mattc

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #5 on: 27 October, 2011, 03:11:55 pm »
I guess we haven't seen much of this before due to the difficulties of filming in those extreme conditions.

With global warming, hopefully we'll get to see much more coverage of these beautiful landscapes and creatures.
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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #6 on: 27 October, 2011, 03:24:00 pm »
Frozen Planet episode 1 is on iPlayer if you missed it.

I was disappointed not to see more of the Antarctic sub-ice-shelf fauna, such as the gigantic nemertean worms from the BBC's "Life" series. But maybe they will be slithering along in later episodes.

(Life episode 8 is also on iPlayer for another couple of days. Worms galore at 08:50.)

Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #7 on: 27 October, 2011, 04:13:14 pm »
Brilliant. Awesome.

Mr Attenborough is going to be sadly missed when he's no longer able to do these. I find most other nature programmes unwatchable, because they're fronted by attention-grabbing dickheads who think it's about them, not the world around them, & they seem to be getting worse. Springwatch & Autumnwatch, for example, have gone horribly downhill.
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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #8 on: 27 October, 2011, 07:00:23 pm »
Eleven years ago I found myself in at tent with several others in the Simien Mountains in northern Ethiopia. A few hours after our arrival, some trucks arrived and set up camp nearby. It was a BBC film crew making a programme about Africa's mountains.

A young Australian detached himself from the BBC crew and came to join us in our tent. He was studying the social structure of Gelada Baboons, and was acting as an adviser to the programme makers. A programme about the baboons (and their sociology) had been broadcast the previous week - he had written the script for that. He told us that a team of cameramen (he was full of wonderment at their skills) had gone to the Simiens, spent months filming, and gone back with hours of footage of a family group of Geladas, timelapse sunrises, gathering storms etc. Back in Bristol the wildlife unit started to edit it into some sort of narrative, and noticed that one of the very young baboons was walking with a limp. To make things a little more dramatic, they had dummies of young gelada made, flew a film crew back to Ethiopia, stuffed one of the dummies with goats entrails and the like, and placed it on a clifftop, then filmed it all as vultures came down and pecked away at the 'body'. The commentary on the finished film said something about the survival of the fittest, and that there was no place for sentiment, implying that the young gelada had been abandoned to his fate.

This story has been at the back of my mind ever since whenever I see a BBC wildlife programme.

The relevance to The Frozen Planet? I'd forgotten the young Australian's name until I saw the 'making of' bit at the end, and there he was, Chadden Hunter, in an ice cave near Mt Erebus, then watching killer whales surfacing, and appearing in the credits as assistant producer.
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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #9 on: 27 October, 2011, 07:08:41 pm »
Wildlife filming is always full of trickery of various sorts. The usual one is stitching together scenes of several different animals shot at different times in different places to make a single narrative. An example where this probably happened in "Frozen Planet" is the sequence where a pod of killer whales hunts and kills a Weddell seal. Probably three or more hunts have been stitched together here: it would be amazing if the camera team had managed to get into place to capture aerial shots, ground level shots, and underwater shots from the same hunt.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #10 on: 28 October, 2011, 09:53:42 am »
That scene with the bison was the second funniest thing in the entire history of Attenborough evvah.  The funniest being the one in which Generic African Ruminant, hotly pursued by a cheetah, runs head-first into a tree at 60 mph.

A Cheetah: ROFL.  In fact, PMSL.  Om nom nom nom tasty ruminant burp.  LOL.

That Scaryduck has a lot to answer for.
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Tim

Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #11 on: 28 October, 2011, 10:15:27 am »
Very pretty, but I have to say it left me feeling rather cold1 - all very disjointed as though they had a couple of pretty sequences2 that they wanted to show, and so just butted them together and then strung a commentary over the top. It was as though it was made the wrong way round:
1) Send camera teams out for some stunning footage
2) Edit some sequences together
3) Figure we ought to actually put a television program together with it
4) Run out of time/budget without coming up with a better overarching continuity device than "we sent some camera teams to some cold places with a remit to film something pretty".

I think it would have been better if it had been edited for and shown as a selection of ten minute shorts spread throughout the week.

1 Coat please
2 Indeed very very pretty

Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #12 on: 28 October, 2011, 10:30:27 am »
That scene with the bison was the second funniest thing in the entire history of Attenborough evvah.

+1! ;D
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LEE

Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #13 on: 28 October, 2011, 01:25:44 pm »
I guess we haven't seen much of this before due to the difficulties of filming in those extreme conditions.

With global warming, hopefully we'll get to see much more coverage of these beautiful landscapes and creatures.

I hope for this as well.  It's simply frustrating when glaciers and icebergs obscure the view of the natural scenery.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #14 on: 31 October, 2011, 12:15:22 pm »
Having had a quick look at the accompanying book the other day, it seems that narwhals should be putting in an appearance.  RAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRR!
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mattc

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #15 on: 31 October, 2011, 12:45:46 pm »
Wow. The only whinge I can concoct is the lack of a "Sexual content" warning :P

v good from start to finish. The standout part for me was the footage of iceberg formation; a really good use of those expensive cameras.

But it was all good. Even the shagging.
Has never ridden RAAM
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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #16 on: 31 October, 2011, 07:25:18 pm »
Very pretty, but I have to say it left me feeling rather cold1 - all very disjointed as though they had a couple of pretty sequences2 that they wanted to show, and so just butted them together and then strung a commentary over the top. It was as though it was made the wrong way round:
1) Send camera teams out for some stunning footage
2) Edit some sequences together
3) Figure we ought to actually put a television program together with it
4) Run out of time/budget without coming up with a better overarching continuity device than "we sent some camera teams to some cold places with a remit to film something pretty".

I think it would have been better if it had been edited for and shown as a selection of ten minute shorts spread throughout the week.

1 Coat please
2 Indeed very very pretty

I suspect it'll settle down this week. I've noticed with the last couple of big wildlife series that the first one is often a sort of whistlestop introduction, and that later episodes are more focussed.
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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #17 on: 02 November, 2011, 09:19:49 pm »
And its just featured a narwhal fight.  Life is good.
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Eccentrica Gallumbits

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #18 on: 02 November, 2011, 09:21:24 pm »
RARRRRRRRRRRR! I looked up and there were just horns poking out of the water.
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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #19 on: 02 November, 2011, 09:21:53 pm »
Damn, you beat me by seconds!

NARWHALS!

(And it was more of a traffic jam, than a fight).

My licence fee has been justified already by this episode. I literally LOLed at the thieving Adele penguin.
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Tim Hall

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #20 on: 02 November, 2011, 09:25:23 pm »

NARWHALS!

(And it was more of a traffic jam, than a fight).


AINT NO CONFLICT ON THOSE BITCHES. (they just find a way round)

Quote
My licence fee has been justified already by this episode. I literally LOLed at the thieving Adele penguin.


Well done the BBC, another winner.

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #21 on: 02 November, 2011, 10:05:36 pm »
Amazing shot of the pod of orca skyhopping. Could have be aliens on some other planet.

And I loved the 10 minute making-of film this week. You have to be dedicated to do that job!
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Rhys W

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #22 on: 02 November, 2011, 10:22:04 pm »
An Elephant Seal could totally pwn a Narwhal in a fight!

citoyen

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #23 on: 03 November, 2011, 11:38:10 am »
Very pretty, but I have to say it left me feeling rather cold1

Glad it's not just me. I watched it last night after reading the rapturous reviews of last week's episode and was frankly a bit disappointed. Lots of pretty pictures to look at, but the silly music really got on my nerves and the narrative was cliché-ridden nonsense.  :sick:

That said, the narwhals were brilliant.  :thumbsup:

Quote
- all very disjointed as though they had a couple of pretty sequences2 that they wanted to show, and so just butted them together and then strung a commentary over the top. It was as though it was made the wrong way round:
1) Send camera teams out for some stunning footage
2) Edit some sequences together

I suspect that's largely down to the fact that Attenborough's role these days is principally as a figurehead. This isn't a true Attenborough series in the same way that Life On Earth was, for the simple reason that his main involvement is being back in the studio reading a script. OK, he probably has some involvement in the commissioning and editing process as well, but it lacks the impact of seeing him larking about with gorillas.

It's really time for him to had over the baton to someone younger who can actually get out there and do the job hands-on - I reckon Steve Backshall would be a brilliant natural successor to Attenborough. Backshall's Deadly 60 is by far the best natural history prog on telly at the moment.

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Re: Frozen Planet. Another ace from the BBC.
« Reply #24 on: 03 November, 2011, 11:45:09 am »
Wildlife filming is always full of trickery of various sorts. The usual one is stitching together scenes of several different animals shot at different times in different places to make a single narrative. An example where this probably happened in "Frozen Planet" is the sequence where a pod of killer whales hunts and kills a Weddell seal. Probably three or more hunts have been stitched together here: it would be amazing if the camera team had managed to get into place to capture aerial shots, ground level shots, and underwater shots from the same hunt.

Regardless, the Orca seal hunt section was off the scale fantastic. I've never seen anything like it. The Orca raising it's head out of the water to eyeball the seal on the ice was straight out of 'Alien'.