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
“As the Frozen Planet row highlights, the BBC is becoming an obsession among climate-change deniers ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/14/frozen-planet-polar-bear-bbc
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Congratulations.
The real problems with BBC coverage of CAGW will all be forgotten. All that will be remembered is that a bunch of “deniers” who can’t control their hatred of the BBC nitpicked and ended up looking monumentally stupid by going ballistic over a few shots which made NO %@&$ing difference to the BBC’s bias over CAGW.
It’s as if some people can’t understand the concept of choosing your battles or not shooting yourself in the foot – despite being reminded of the concept several times in this thread alone.
Well, the struggle to make CAGW reporting less biased in the BBC has been damaged, possibly fatally, so I hope you enjoyed your little bit of putting the boot in.
Some people have to ask themselves whether it is more important to them to indulge their pet hates at every opportunity, however counter-productively, or whether they want to end the CAGW scam asap.
Sometimes the two are incompatible.
If they have said “elsewhere, a momma bear snuggles with her newborn cubs”, that would be neutral, and I wouldn’t have objected. However, they said “beneath the same slopes” and highly implied that this was less than a mile from the filming of the papa bear. Not only is it a lie, but it’s a pointless one.
Posted at George’s:
Anthony, you’ve worked in TV, so shame on you for this post. This is absolutely nothing new and such technoques have been a mainstay of natural history programming since the 1960s with the innovations of companies like Oxford Scientific Films.
What’s up WattsUpWithThat? Need to promote a manufactroversy in preparation for episode 7 of the series? Has Attenborough got you worried? Don’t worry, Discovery’s dropped the episode already. But at least 8 million viewers in the UK will get to see it, and probably more now that it’s had even more publicity..
Now I see where all you guys congregate. If you are using this to rubbish climate change and attack the BBC then you really are clutching at straws. Desperate doesn’t even get near to describing it.
Additionally, i hope you guys are going to attack Sky for their forthcoming Attenborourgh penguin programme where they use numerous penguins to show the journey of one penguin? Guess what people, the Tooth Fairy does not exist! Either does Santa or the Easter Bunny! TV has always played tricks of the mind. I would be more upset if they had intruded on an endangered species in the wild at close quarters.
adundeemonkey says:
“Now I see where all you guys congregate. If you are using this to rubbish climate change and attack the BBC then you really are clutching at straws. Desperate doesn’t even get near to describing it.”
Appropriate screen name there, Mr Monkey.
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Adundeemonkey says:
December 15, 2011 at 8:30 am
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You forgot to add “Bah! Humbug!” to your post.
Jim
Some links.
https://sites.google.com/site/myteurastaja/
Sets created for the purposes of getting intimate shots of animals are often cruel environments for animals, as you can see in this video about a National Geographic photographer forcing endangered species to pose for pictures: