CHICK-NAPPED!
The penguins episode was the most challenging of all the long and difficult film shoots for Dynasties. The crew were there filming for nearly 11 months. Executive producer Mike Gunton explains: ‘If somebody had fallen ill, we would’ve been undone, as we couldn’t have got anybody in or out for eight months, such is the Antarctic weather. ‘The crews could only film for, say, 40 minutes before the camera shut down because of the cold. The film crew recorded a video diary, but people could barely speak for the cold. Their eyelashes were covered in ice. But despite the terrible conditions, the team became attached to the place. The penguins appreciated their human visitors too. Emperor penguins are inquisitive birds, with little visual variety in their habitat, so anything different including the team’s skidoos – drew their attention.’ Camera assistant Stefan Christmann, a young German naturalist and photographer, recalls the first time the team caught sight of the birds: ‘When we arrived at the edge of the ice shelf, we could hear the calls of the emperor penguins. Not just a single call but hundreds in unison, mixed into what many people might describe as a cacophony.’ For Stefan, the sound was both haunting and beautiful. On May 21, the ‘polar night’ began. For the next eight weeks, the sun never rose, with just a couple of hours of twilight each day to film in, using special light-sensitive cameras. Temperatures dropped to below -50°C. Thanks to patience and tenacity, the team filmed
extraordinary scenes. They watched as one penguin pair with a healthy chick began passing their baby from the male to female, so she could feed it. As they began, a group of unpaired birds, desperate for a chick of their own, descended on them and tried to grab the helpless chick. ‘The chick scrambled to find safety, with the kidnappers’ beaks coming down like spears. It was harrowing,’ director Will Lawson recalls. ‘Only a few days old, this chick was fighting for its life.’ Moments later, this scrum of birds separated to reveal the parents facing one another, pouches empty. A few feet away, the kidnapper unfurled its pouch to reveal the rattled chick and shuffled away, a different and sinister side to colony life.