‘Frozen Worlds’ is one of eight films in the ‘Our Planet’ series for Netflix. The film tells the story of sea ice across the polar regions, explaining its value not just to the animals that depend on it, but to the whole planet.
Filming at the poles is not without its challenges. Each shoot was a cold weather expedition that took more than a year of planning. On average, you lose at least 50% of your days to bad weather, so you need a team that can make the most of the fleeting filming opportunities. We try to maximise time in the fild as much as possible by taking small crews and really thinking about what kit to take with us. Frozen Worlds was filmed in 5 locations (Svalbard, Canada, Russia, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula), over a total of 214 days.
One of the most dangerous shoots was filming narwhal in the Canadian Arctic. We had to camp on the sea ice at the time of year the ice was breaking up. Our safety relied heavily on our local guides and their knowledge of the ice. As cracks started appearing through camp, they would let us know which ones to worry about! Being placed the wrong side of the crack and you could find yourself drifting out to sea before you realise and can do something about it. Local hunters get caught out every year, especially now that the ice breaks up earlier and has become a lot less predictable. The ice did break away on our final evening of filming, but luckily we had moved our camp to the right side of the crack in time. We had to rescue a few local hunters, but thankfully everyone got across the lead (channel of open water) in time.
Despite the precarious camping conditions, we filmed some of the most intimate shots of narwhal underwater that have ever been recorded, but we very nearly came back with nothing. For the first three weeks the narwhal wouldn’t come anywhere near us and we began to think it was impossible. Then one day, for a reason unknown to us, hundreds of narwhals started swimming up a small crack that had opened up. For about six hours they didn’t care about us at all and we were able to get a camera on a pole into the water with them swimming right past it. A magical moment that made it all the sea ice set-backs worthwhile.
Another shoot that sticks out, has to be filming the walrus. Travelling to the far North-eastern coast of Russia was an expedition in itself, but nothing prepared us for what was to come. Anatoly Kochnev (Russian walrus biologist) had written about the largest gathering of walrus on the planet. Over one hundred thousand hauled out on one beach, but we never for one minute thought we would find ourselves sleeping in the middle of it all. They turned up overnight and the next morning, the tiny cabin we were staying in was completely surrounded. On the one hand the spectacle we had come to film was happening, but on the other we couldn’t leave the hut to film it! Eventually there was space to get outside and we got the drone in the air. It was only from this perspective that you could truly appreciate the numbers. Walrus packed so tightly on top of one another, stretching as far as the eye could see. It was a remarkable and humbling sight. Nowhere else in the world do walrus haul out in numbers as high as these. Sadly, this is a recent phenomenon caused by the loss of sea ice that the Arctic now experiences during the summer months.
The loss of sea ice is something we experienced first-hand at each location we filmed. It made filming more challenging and dangerous, as the ice thins, breaks up earlier and is less predictable. Everywhere we went, the story was the same… the ice is disappearing at an unprecedented rate. Our frozen worlds are in peril. Sat watching a polar bear mother hunting out on the sea ice with her cub… I couldn’t help but question - for how much longer will their frozen worlds be a part of life on our planet?
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