From frozen eggs to stealing chicks ...is the penguin story the most brutal TV ever?
at least without any way out. Temperatures rose above zero only three times during the 337-day shoot, and they faced winds of 80mph in storms that lasted up to eight days.
The sun disappeared entirely for two months during the polar night.
Will says: “It is an extremely challenging place to film. Everything took two or three times longer than we had anticipated. While we attempted to film in some of the winds, a lot of our kit just completely froze solid.”
They needed five layers of clothing to go outside, took vitamin D supplements and use special lamps to make up for the lack of sunlight.
Lindsay says: “It definitely started to get worse once autumn hit. Temperatures started dropping really quick. If fog came through, everything would be covered in ice. When it got to -30C it’s without doubt the most uncomfortable I’ve ever felt. I’m amazed how quickly we adapted.”
But Will admits some days were extremely tough.
He says: “They were the coldest temperatures I’d ever been in, -42C and wind chill took it down to WILL LAWSON PRODUCER DIRECTOR ON DYNASTIES AND
-60C. Very difficult. There were a few days I questioned our own sanity as we sat around waiting for penguins to do something exciting as we very slowly froze. But I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
One day the crew discovered a piece of ice they had been filming on for weeks had broken off and floated away. Will says: “It was a huge wake-up call. We realised that the ice shelf was not as safe and secure as we thought.”
Their hard work in the face of danger paid off as the film made a huge impact on 6.1 million viewers.
One wrote: “I’m sorry but if I were a camera man on #Dynasties – I wouldn’t care for letting nature take its course. I’d run head-first into that snow storm rescue that abandoned penguin chick. Heart broke watching it tumble down like that.”
As we revealed on Saturday, the crew did abandon protocol to try to help penguins trapped in a gully.
In emotional scenes, they desperately dug a ramp in the snow to allow at least some of the penguins and their chicks to make their way out.
Will says: “It was unanimous from the outset that we helped them.
“We hoped when we went back two days later there would be no animals left in that hole, but when we got there it was extremely sad. There were fewer females in the hole, but more chicks that hadn’t made it.
“It was inevitable. There was another storm on the way. That was the choice the mothers had to make. It was the only way they could survive.”
Their decision to intervene has been backed by Sir David.
Yesterday, executive producer Mike Gunton said: “I was speaking to David about it yesterday and he said he would have done the same too.”
While two thirds of the colony survived, there are genuine fears for the future of the penguins and their breeding ground if global warming continues at its current pace.
The Antarctic is covered by ice sheets, but as temperatures rise the ice masses melt, sea levels rise and this puts coastal regions and marine life under threat. Researchers have warned that the Emperor penguin population could drop by a third by the end of the century as melting sea ice impacts the population of krill, their main source of food.
As well as experiencing awful low points as they watched the penguins struggle, there were also amazing highs for the crew, such as when they filmed the colony bathed in the eerie green glow of the Southern Lights.
Swathes of green, yellow, pink and white light rippled across the sky right above the penguins.
Will says: “We were hoping the penguins might be looking up in awe just like we were.
“But they didn’t seem fazed at all while the three of us were openmouthed in utter shock. We were laughing because we couldn’t believe what we were seeing.
“I knew I would never see another natural phenomena that would beat what we had just experienced.”
It’s an extremely challenging place to film. In some of the winds, a lot of our kit froze solid