Frozen Planet - Excellence in broadcasting or a sign of our moral turpitude?

[sp1814]

Cards on the table - I thought the BBC's 'Frozen Planet' was one of the best programmes of the year.

However Mental Mel (or Melanie Phillips to her acolytes), has launched an condemnation on the programme for tricking viewers into thinking that the birth of polar bear cubs was filmed live in the snowy tundra of the Artic.

Not being funny - but I saw that episode and not once did I feel conned...just impressed.

Are the right wing press scraping the bottom of the barrel in their anti-BBC quest, or is this a legitimate complaint?

http://phillipsblog.d...11/12/frozen-con.html

I'll hold my hands up and admit that I think Phillips is...a word that is rarely used in polite society...at least not outside a kennel club.

[slinkycat]

I don't think its a legitimate complaint at all. In hindsight I imagine the Beeb wished they had explained the filming methods in the section at the end of the programme, but they hardly hid their methods, it was on their website for all to see.

[rockyracoon]

I haven't seen them yet, they're all on the planner. I don't think I'll be bothered that the polar bears were not actually filmed there, but them I'm more interested in the landscape of it. The BBC are in for a battering I think because it's not the first porky they have told, didn't Panarama come in for stick regarding Primark and child labour.

[sp1814]

rockyracoon

It's quite literally the best thing I've seen on telly since...well, since the last BBC natural history series.

[jno]

I loved the series but I said on another thread somewhere that I thought they should have made it clear on the programme itself that it had not been filmed in the Arctic, rather than by fudging Attenborough's commentary. (It's worth pointing out that they raised the matter themselves, though not during the screening; it wasn't some brilliant scoop by Mr Phillips.)

Just the simple truth - "filming newly born cubs in their native habitat is dangerous/impossible, so we had to make this film in a zoo" would have done. After all there is a segment at the end of each programme detailing the lengths the camera crew went to; to my mind it left the very clear implication that the whole programme was filmed in the polar zones, at great risk to life and limb; and this wasn't as transparent as it should have been.

But to claim that this made the series a "fraud" - and, er, somehow made our whole society a fraud except Ms Phillips and the other illuminati... well, piffle.

[rockyracoon]

sp, I'm very much looking forward to watching them over Christmas, it's probably one thing that me OH and the kids will sit and watch together.

[ichkeria]

"Are the right wing press scraping the bottom of the barrel in their anti-BBC quest"

Yes.

[old-wos-is-name]

Some people are never happy. those cameramen risked their lives and lived in terrible conditions for nearly all of the filming. I thought the bit with the penguins popping out of the water and landing all over the film crew was magic. best thing on the box.

[webbo3]

I heard an interview and It was either David Attenborough or one of the crew that said " had they tried to film a real bear it would have resulted in either some dead baby bears or a dead cameraman".


Dave.

[HonestJezza]

standard brainless b1tch, perhaps she'd rather the bear ate it's own cub and the camerman. So she could feel good about herself.

[lcg]

i didn't feel cheated at all. how on earth are they meant to get a shot of that in the wild, anyway? i'd rather see it like that...than not at all, and anyone who complains frankly has more time on their hands than they should. pathetic, imo.

[LazyGun]

Fantastic show, awesome photography, and the inestimable David Attenborough commentating. 7 50 minute shows, and these buffoons complain about what ? 2 minutes worth of coverage?

Who in their right minds thinks it would be a good idea to send a camera crew to intrude into the den of a polar bear with new born cubs? For that matter, who actually thought that was what had happened?

Its just hysterical hand waving, a means for some commentators to attempt to score points from the Beeb. Loons.

[sp1814]

Lazy gun

I wholeheartedly agree with you. In the past year, I've had to start wearing glasses, and it's now become a pleasure to put them on to watch shows like 'Frozen Planet', 'Yellowstone' and 'Nature's Great Events'.

Yes, the BBC as a public service organisation should be held accountable, but not (in my opinion) by rabid little amoebas like Ms Phillips.

[birdie1971]

The problem is, when you're making a factual documentary, you must always ensure that you're not telling lies, half-truths or deliberately misleading your audience by unspoken suggestion. The reasons for this are obvious – if you're discovered telling even small porkies then you run the risk of undermining all your previous good works no matter how voluminous and laudable they may be.

This is precisely what has happened and it could have been so easily avoided. By simply having Attenborough state, as Jno suggests, that this particular sequence was too dangerous or impossible to film in the wild, none of this would have happened.

What it suggests (rightly or wrongly) is that the BBC, its employees and even Attenborough are willing to be dishonest or mislead their audience in order to not break up the 'flow' of a documentary (which is the excuse that Attenborough used when he was questioned about this).

Some may think that it's a trivial matter. But when your credibility as a public service broadcaster is at stake, getting caught out being anything less than honest is never trivial.

[NOX]

It really doesn't matter, it would have disrupted the flow of the programme and is in my opinion 100% irrelevant. No-one was conned, defrauded or otherwise hoodwinked- something was simply omitted.
Melanie Phillips is without doubt one of the most unpleasant, moronic , self centered, attention seeking, self agrandising, right wing halfwits it has ever been my misfortune to encounter- so anything she says I pretty much assume is total rubbish before I even hear about it, since I don't think at her age she's likely to change her spots. The only thing of hers I ever will read with any pleasure is her obituary.

[LazyGun]

@Birdie - In general, I would agree that evidence and fact needs to be stated and obvious - sources documented etc. But this was not a factual record but part of an entertainment series about the natural world.

Do people think that the sound effects, for instance, are all genuine? During the broadcast, do people automatically assume that each sequence of events shown is a true chronological record? Well, not if they think about it for a moment they dont.

I suppose it might come as a surprise to some of the audience - but the level of media comment and the hysteria of some commentators is entirely undeserved.

[emmie]

as someone has pointed out, it's not the first time that the BBC has been caught out faking footage. I did think it was the best programme i had seen for years, so no quibble there. But a sequence at the end of each programme, where cameramen are shown in the Arctic conditions has them battling the elements to get that special shot, footage, why couldn't the BBC have just added that the sequence of the family of polar bears wasn't filmed in the wild due to the danger to the cubs and the film makers.

[Slapshot]

Phillips is a clown, pretty simple...I've left a small deposit on her blog comments to outline my contempt, doubt it'll see the light of day ;-)

Frozen Planet will go down as the greatest series Sir David Attenborough has ever been connected with, it was sheer genius.

[Ankou]

i agree with nox. it was just some footage of polar bears. what does it matter where they actually were ? just enjoy the imagery. and move on.

[Gromit]

The Daily Mail Group have competing media interests to the BBC. Attacks on the BBC should viewed like Pepsi slagging off Coke or Microsoft attacking Apple. Just one side of a commercial rivalry.

That is not to say Melanie Phillips is not a total nutcase.