Readers may recall using photoshopped images of polar bears on CGI ice floes. Here we go again.
Via the GWPF: Frozen Planet Fakery Row: Polar Bear Filmed In Zoo Using Fake Snow
Frozen Planet’s eight million devoted fans will not take kindly to being left out in the cold. It emerged yesterday a key scene from the hit BBC series showing a polar bear tending her newborn cubs was filmed in a zoo using fake snow.
Mixing real Arctic shots with zoo scenes, documentary makers fooled the audience into believing the footage was gathered by intrepid cameramen in the brutal sub-zero wilderness.
It was actually filmed from the comfort of a wildlife park enclosure using bears in a man-made wood den.
During the carefully worded Frozen Planet commentary, Sir David Attenborough’s script failed to explain how the moving scene was made.
The truth behind the trickery is only revealed in a hard-to-find video among dozens of clips on the BBC website.
Yesterday John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport committee, said it was “hugely disappointing” viewers were misled.
He said: “My view has always been that all broadcasters should not seek to give viewers a false impression and it is much better if they are entirely open.
“If this was not filmed in the wild it would have been much better to have made that clear in the commentary.
“It’s questionable how many people would visit the website and find the video clip which explained the circumstances of the filming.”
More than eight million viewers tuned into the fifth episode from the £16million seven-part series on November 23.
It began by showing genuine footage of a male polar bear scavenging for food during the harsh Arctic winter.
As howling blizzards filled the screen, Sir David explained: “He must live on his resources. This is a time to scrape by.” The camera then panned to a frozen hillside, before cutting to a close-up of a female polar bear hibernating with her newborn cubs.
Apparently referring to the same bear family, the naturalist said: “But on these side slopes beneath the snow new lives are beginning. The cubs are born blind and tiny. An early birth is easier on the mother.”
His commentary continued: “In two more months polar bear families will emerge on the snowy slopes all round the Arctic.” The camera then moves from the snowy tundra to the dark nest, watching the cubs nuzzle up to their mother, as he says: “But for now they lie protected within their icy cocoons.”
Viewers marvelled at the crew’s apparently daring exploits. One fan wrote online after the show: “The camera team would be in a whole heap of s*** if mummy had woken up.”
In reality, the den was made of plaster and wood beneath a German zoo’s polar bear enclosure. It was fitted with cameras shortly before the cubs’ birth.
read more at the Daily Mirror
My grandpa frequently reminded me to believe none of what I read in the press and only half of what I saw on TV. I have found it to be sound advice.
[Using multiple screen names violate site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
While I do have an objection to the contamination of David Attenboroughs work with AGW bunk, I do not have a problem with this staged close up. A great deal of nature documentary close ups are filmed in the studio. Over the years David Attenborough has worked hard in many difficult locations to create the best nature documentary in the world. A few bits of footage filmed in controlled circumstances is not an issue for me. It’s not like the execrable rubbish presented as “reality” in the Catlin Arctic expedition.
Oh come on. This is normal practice. They create the news this way, for instance. Just google “reuters beirut”.
Louise says:
December 12, 2011 at 12:37 pm
“Do viewers really expect that all those close ups of e.g. krill and plankton are filmed in the wild and not a petri dish? How is this different? The web site said from the start where this filming took place, there was no subterfuge – it’s part of standard naturalist filming practices.
You’re really scraping the barrel now – there is no great conspiracy.”
– – – – –
Good comment. I was also fooled by this scene, admiring the camarawork, but so what? A lot of documentaries are dramatized anyway. The scene points to something as it really happens in nature, that’s the main topic here, so with me it leaves no feeling of being misled. I’ll save my bullets for better targets.
This just in!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/12/12/pol-kent-kyoto-pullout.html Just heard on the CBC that Canada has pulled out of the Kyoto Agreement.
David Suzuki’s fund raising ad aimed at kids:
SEND ME YOUR MONEY, OR SANTA GETS IT!
Lol – those pesky TV evangelists. On other real news – LIVE: Canada set to announce Kyoto pullout.
Environment Minister Peter Kent is expected to announce Monday that Canada is formally
withdrawing from the Kyoto accord.
The decision to do so will save the government an estimated $7 billion in penalties. The Conservative government says it has no choice given the economic situation.
Kent has scheduled a press conference in the foyer of the House of Commons at 5 p.m. ET.
“Perhaps there is actually no Sir David Attenborough.”
Sir David Attenborough is actually a character created by Sasha Baron Cohen.
We did it! We’re officially OUT! What a great day to be a Canadian! Canada is formally withdrawing from the Kyoto accord, Environment Minister Peter Kent said Monday.
The decision to do so will save the government an estimated $14 billion in penalties, Kent said.
The Conservative government says it has no choice given the economic situation.
Blaming an “incompetent Liberal government” who signed the accord and then took little action to make the necessary greenhouse gas emission cuts, Kent said he was formalizing what the Conservative government has been saying for weeks.
aslbertalad,
I’m jealous! We have eco-lunatics running things down here.
davidmhoffer says:
December 12, 2011 at 1:58 pm
You mean like “so what if Al Gore faked his on air experiment?”
So what, like that?
The moment we say “so what” to documentaries that are not explicit in terms of how they illustrate their subject matter, we’re expose ourselves to deception. I grew up firmly believing that lemmings migrate en masse to the edge of a cliff every year, and commit suicide by throwing themselves into the sea. It had to be real, because I saw it on Walt Disney. Turned out it was a massive fake with lemmings being pushed from behind over a cliff in Calgary and falling into the Bow River, where many of them drowned. The type of lemming in the film doesn’t even migrate at all!
No, not like that at all. I made clear the boundaries in my disclaimer: IF the sequence was accompanied by some narrative which pushed the AGW agenda, or even some other agenda, then it’s wrong, no question. Otherwise, it’s just television. Gore’s faked “experiment” was something else entirely, since it was intended to mislead.
ThePowerofX says:
December 12, 2011 at 2:06 pm
What other possible explanation is there? Anthony is merely anchoring the word “bogus” and “fakery” to the BBC because he dislikes how they report AGW?
It is natural for us to want to criticise the BBC because of the clear bias they have towards the AGW agenda, and their censorship of dissenting voices. I just think we ought to pick our battles more carefully. This is just “TV magic”. Some shots are impossible to get by “authentic” means, so they have to use camera trickery or even staged shots.
To both: I am unforgivingly critical of the BBC’s censorship of the sceptical view of AGW. Polar Bears, for their sins, have become an icon for the AGW agenda (even though their status is badly misrepresented to support the Warming Cause) so it is understandable that there is a knee-jerk reaction to any programme which includes them. But in reality, not every use of them is warmist propaganda, and hence it doesn’t mean that using a captive animal/family of bears is necessarily part of a warmist plot.
Should Attenborough have said “We faked this shot for TV?” Maybe. But that’s an editorial decision, not part of a “dirty commie watermelon warmist plot”, *unless* he also pushed the warming agenda, and used the shot as an illustration. I repeat, I didn’t see the programme, so it is possible the narration did do this, in which case I would withdraw my objection.
Did you see the programme? Did he do this?
Sorry this comment is so long.
Attenborough’s doing his best, regardless of the usual studio tricks, but why not attempt to see this from the perspective of the convinced eco warrior? It would be helpful to try to understand what lies they’ve swallowed, what subtle aims they intend, what danger they represent. For there are many for whom the siren call is persuasive – the relentless outpourings of the BBC and most MSMs, all predicated on a shared acceptance of AGW and no longer interested in discussing any other world view, and they are having a disproportionate influence on the new generation.
Let me say this clearly, “Whatever we should do to help reduce man-made climate damage, reducing CO2 is NOT the most urgent issue”.
Off-topic:
As an oldie, I find it shocking that some younger people know nothing about the 2nd World War, or the Falklands, or the break-up of Yugoslavia, or even the 1st Gulf war/Kuwait.
“My party’s position on the Kyoto Protocol is clear and has been for a long time. We will oppose ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and its targets. We will work with the provinces and others to discourage the implementation of those targets. And we will rescind the targets when we have the opportunity to do so”
“Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.”
“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.”
“As economic policy, the Kyoto Accord is a disaster. As environmental policy it is a fraud”
Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada.
A politician that stuck to his word against all the NGOs, the media and the consesus of the seven.
(The NGOs Really hate the Canadian government 🙂
It’s ok to fake something like this when it raises awareness and generate public discussion /common sense…
Terry says:
December 12, 2011 at 1:22 pm
As far as I recall, the Russian word for “truth” is “pravda”.
It’s high time for the BBC to learn at least one foreign word (besides insulting German terms ca.1933-45, that is) and rename itself.
If the late Steve Irwin was Steve Attenborough, he would have jumped on rubber crocodiles lol
But seriously, I don’t have a problem with doctored shots so long as the scene doesn’t misrepresent reality a la’ the Disney lemmings.
Not every naturalist is expected to be brave to the point of stupidity. It could result in the loss of ones life, (as Steve will tell you from up above. RIP)
This is a sin by omission if you will. The programme could have explained how they got the shot without it interrupting the story of that segment.
In recent years the BBC’s documentaries on wildlife have been spending the final 5 or 10 minutes of programmes showing how shots were got and the conditions the camera crews can be working in. It’s quite fascinating at times and iirc they have gone as far as showing how the shots of things like flying insects are achieved (in a studio with the insect stick to a pin with wax and then composited with background footage to make it look like it was filmed on the wing.).
This would have been one such case where they could have demonstrated some behind the scenes techniques and explained that it was simply too dangerous to attempt in the wild – during the broadcast rather than on a website. The addition of fake snow would then have been unnecessary.
Its not the first time the BBC has been caught out filming in the not-so wilds.
Here is the web site of one such place they use…
http://www.britishwildlifecentre.co.uk/
Derek Sorensen;
Gore’s faked “experiment” was something else entirely, since it was intended to mislead.>>>
If you have no idea how the subject matter was faked in the first place, then you are left to assume that it is factual. It could be a fake meant in good faith, it could be a fake that is meant to mislead, and it could be a fake that’s just a mistake. If the documentary is not explicit about which parts were faked and why, then I’m supposed to guess, frame by frame, what is legit, what is misleading, and what is a mistake?
You set your standards too low sir, as do those others who scoff and say “itz done all the time”. By that standard, slavery would still be legal, witches would be burned at the stake, virgins would be thrown into volcanoes to prevent their eruption, and climate science would be dependent upon a single tree in Siberia and a clever computer program from Michael Mann. See what happens when we accept substandard quality on the excuse that “itz done all the time”?
“commieBob says:
December 12, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Just heard on the CBC that Canada has pulled out of the Kyoto Agreement.”
I suspect a really good dose of recession will concentrate a lot of minds and save us from this nonsense as the stark financial realities finally dawn on the masses.
Japan: Out!
Canada: Out!
Dear free world:
You can join the free world, or you can become the 3rd world. Them’s the choices.
Dear 3rd world:
What’s left of the free world that is still in Kyoto is broke. They couldn’t send you a penny no matter how much they wanted to, so you are getting nothing. Wanna get some money? How about you do it the old fashioned way? Work for it. (PS – you’ll find that working for your money is a lot easier if you adopt a free market economy, give your people basic human rights, stamp out corruption, and govern like civilized human beings instead of medieval tyrannies)
Andrew30 says:
December 12, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada.
A politician that stuck to his word against all the NGOs, the media and the consesus of the seven.
Could we borrow him for the next election? There might be a small problem with the birth certificate, but obviously that can be worked around. Our current Clown College Collective of Convivial Candidates can’t muster the cajones to contradict the climate change consensus.
We are always exhorted of the need to “Speak Truth to Power”, when what is really required are leaders who are willing to “Speak Truth to the People”. It would be nice if PM Harper’s example could convince a few of our local boys that that strategy is not a path to certain electoral defeat. Although in a country where Obummer’s “Hope you’ve got some Change left when it’s Over” can be a resounding success, finding an electoral majority that is willing to even consider the Truth is probably a big longshot.
Sorry, I can’t get worked up about this particular instance.
If the footage was depicting something which would have been different if shot in the wild (had it been possible) then I think it would be very wrong, but – correct me if I’m mistaken – this wasn’t the case.
It isn’t like the Gore case where the footage was supposed to be a record of an experiment which wouldn’t work as depicted. As I understand it, the Attenborough programme wasn’t making any contentious point with this particular footage.
I do think that it would cover documentary filmmakers if on their programme website there was a clear link to a “How we made X programme” which could list any potentially misleading shots.
I also think that we need to choose our battles. Nitpicking at any, generally accepted, filmmaking techniques which aren’t misrepresenting how the world works just makes the uncommitted observer think less of our real substantial objections to any misleading film.
to be more precise
Ouwehands dierenpark, Rhenen, The Netherlands