Frozen Planet - Filming

Filming

Filming finished in 2010 and focused on the challenges facing polar bears and arctic wolves in the north and adelie penguins and wandering albatrosses in the south, although many other storylines are developed. After an introductory episode, the subsequent four episodes depict the changing seasons at the poles, before an episode focusing on mankind’s activities there. The final episode, "On Thin Ice", examines how global warming is affecting the polar regions. Filmmakers worked in new locations, including Antarctica’s active volcanoes and the Russian Arctic. Sequences captured include migrating eider ducks, footage of a fur seal colony from the air, and pack hunting of seals by orca. The aerial photography used the Cineflex and Gyron cameras pioneered on Planet Earth, which enable steady footage to be captured from long-range without disturbing the animals.

From late April to early May 2009, BBC crews were in Hay River, Northwest Territories, Canada filming the annual breakup of the river of the same name, which flows into Great Slave Lake.

The BBC was accused of staging after it was reported that one scene of a polar bear giving birth was filmed in a Dutch (initially reported as German) animal park. The BBC defended the shots, explaining that it would have been impossible to film the event in the wild without endangering the cubs, that the commentary was careful not to mislead the audience, and that the Frozen Planet website had already explained how the scene was captured before the story appeared in the media.