THE FILMING OF FROZEN PLANET 2

Bertie B, Year 12 writes...

On 24th November, our Geography Scholars attended a lecture at the Royal Geographical Soceity to find out more about the filming of Frozen Planet 2.

The team explained that, before filming Frozen Planet 2, they had to consider how to expand their focus of filming. This led to the idea of filming cold environments. The documentary was based on finding new things, whether this is new organisms or land discoveries. The team explained that they had to find a balance of stories between box office animals and newish organisms.

The lecture was about how the team managed to capture unbelievable and unseen movements of organisms and their behaviour. New camera technology, specifically built for the filming, were used and the total amount of footage gathered was captured over three and a half years.

The team really emphasised the use of drone technology, how they were able to obtain footage that was unreachable for the team. Furthermore, these drones were so advanced that they were able to carry entire cameras. The development of a new drone, called the racer drone, was able to follow a falling avalanche at top speeds of 100mph.

A lot of the documentary was about organisms in the sea close to cold environments. The introduction to the use of rebreathers allowed the team to stay under the freezing water for hours. This meant more footage could be collected and gave the team more time to observe unseen behaviours. A main feature of the rebreather was the lack of bubbles it produced whilst underwater.

Lastly, the crew had one final set back. Covid-19 hit as they were coming to the end of filming. However, this delayed the release of Frozen Planet 2, as well as flights back home. Some of the crew who fell sick with Covid had to quarantine for around five weeks. This meant that, by the time their quarantine ended, they had missed their chance to get back home due to the terrible weather conditions.

Overall, the boys were very enthusiastic about the lecture and many questions were asked towards the end.