Four years of filming on David Attenborough’s latest series left a big impression on the crew

Published on Wednesday 9 November 2011 12:02

FROM the opening sequence of the first episode, it was clear Frozen Planet was ground-breaking television. A string of awards would surely follow.

It has even been deemed cool, with London rapper Example tweeting: “If you’re going out tonight you’re a d***head. Stay indoors. Frozen Planet. BBC1 9pm. Attenborough is MCing.”

One of the goals of the seven-part series was to produce a record of the natural history of the polar regions before the effects of global warming permanently alter the glaciers, ice shelves and sea ice. Thirty separate teams spent a total of four years in the region, with some onboard the Royal Navy ice patrol vessel HMS Endurance and others working in locations where no one has filmed before, including Antarctica’s active volcanoes and the Russian Arctic.

Here crew members talk for the first time about their life-changing experiences.

Vanessa Berlowitz, 41

Director/series producer

“I’m now unimpressed by British winters,” smiles Berlowitz, who has directed wildlife documentaries for more than 20 years. She spent two and a half months in Antarctica, six weeks in Greenland, a week at the North Pole and seven weeks in the Norwegian Arctic in temperatures as low as -50C.

“We were pioneering through freezing conditions and got to the most remote places. The team was pushed to its limits.” The crew was sent to Svalbard in Norway to train for the trip, learning how to drive on ice and rescue someone from a crevasse. “When we filmed David [Attenborough] in the North Pole, the back of the helicopter got hit heavily by the katabatic wind, which is a hurricane-force wind, and we nearly crashed. It was the closest I have ever come to dying.

“I remember our British pilot saying, ‘I don’t know who’s controlling the helicopter but it’s not me!’ as the American cameraman was screaming, ‘I’m going back to California!’

Filming nature requires patience. “We wanted to shoot a polar bear and her cub and followed one pair for two and a half days. Finally we captured incredible maternal behaviour, which had a resonance for me as I was a few months pregnant at the time.”

Berlowitz, whose husband Mark was also a director on the series, made huge sacrifices, leaving her ten-month-old at home while she returned to Antarctica. “When I came back he hardly recognised me. It was difficult.”

Now three, her son watched the first episode and loved it. “He wants to see the polar bear too.”

Mark Linfield, 43

Husband of Vanessa, zoologist, director and producer

Linfield prepared for the trip by testing his equipment in an industrial food freezer. “Some cables snapped, some cameras stopped after a few minutes. We then knew what could happen in the field.”

But the greatest problem – and danger – came when filming in the warmer seasons. “The ice is thin and snow hides the crevasses. As the sea ice is melting, everything is shifting.”

Linfield was astonished by what he saw: “We went to film the McKenzie River in Canada. It is completely frozen and suddenly starts to break. You can feel the sheer power of nature. The ground shakes and you feel it through your body. The water can rip off trees and sweep cars away. Seeing so much power was unexpected.”

Elizabeth White, 33

Director

White, who has a PhD in animal behaviour, was in the field for two years on and off. “Filming was mind-blowing. I found myself thrown up in a whale’s skin – a traditional ‘blanket toss’, as the Arctic Canadian community calls it. I was doing back flips in the air and they couldn’t stop laughing.”

Some situations were more frightening: “One day, the water was really rough and a thick fog blocked our sight. On the radar we could see a huge dot, coming right at us. And like in a movie, a cruise ship came out of the gloom. We could have been crushed pretty easily and there were a few moments where I thought we weren’t going to make it.

“In north Canada, we waited for six weeks for a school of cod to gather. The birds and the seals were gathering, and the village was waiting for the beluga whales. But one night a massive blizzard blew over the region and the next day it was like the season had turned and all had gone away. You can’t control nature.”

Kathryn Jeffs, 38

BBC producer/director

“To get ready for the extreme diving I watched Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World, where he meets research diver Henry Kaiser. But nothing can prepare you for the vertigo you experience being in such a vast expanse.”

For the first time, the underwater cameramen used a tripod turned upside-down, bolted to the ice to get the steadiest shots. “The divers spent more than 134 hours under the ice. Conditions are extreme and it’s nerve-racking.”

One day they went out into the peninsula to film killer whales hunting seals. “At first the whales were ignoring us but as we followed them they started to circle the boat and came to the surface to look us in the eye. They created small waves to test us. This experience underlined differences between the men and the women in the crew. I was touched by the desperate will of one seal to survive while the men were rooting for the killer whales.”

lFrozen Planet is on BBC1 tonight at 9pm.

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