Frozen Planet

I finally had some free time to catch up on a few documentaries this last month and spent part of the past two weeks watching the Frozen Planet series, which was released to DVD and Blu-ray earlier this year. Its quality matches that of the Blue Planet and Planet Earth series, and I was happy to see lots of behind the scene footage included where the film crews must deal with hazardous issues like hurricane speed winds, leopard seals, and killer whales (in one scene a pack teams up against some crew members in a small boat and push a coordinated wave towards them – the same technique they used to also knock seals off ice flows).

Another bonus was an inside look at the new research stations that have been built in Antarctica, which look like they would be fun to work in.





The Endurance

Released in 2000, The Endurance has an old school documentary vibe where it follows the story of Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition. Two great things about it: it includes much of the original footage taken by Frank Hurley and it is narrated by Liam Neeson. It seems to have had a very limited DVD pressing though, and it’s difficult to find affordable copies on the used market – if you can find it for cheap, it’s definitely a decent film to watch for history fans.






Related posts:
Still Life
Historic Polar Images
Shackleton’s Whisky – Revisited
Recent Publications for the Adventurers
Dress to the Occasion