The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Acclaimed polar film-maker reflects on a 40-year career
AFife-born filmmaker has heaped tribute on Sir David Attenborough for the influence he has had on his four-decade career.
Planet Earth, Blue Planet and Life In The Freezer are just a few of the series for which wildlife film-maker and cinematographer Doug Allan has won acclaim.
He has picked up Bafta and Emmy awards for the footage he has shot, often in the most extreme environments and often at great personal risk.
Doug, from Dunfermline, has just marked the milestone moment that started it all – an encounter with Sir David.
The diver and photographer was working at a British Antarctic Survey base in 1981 when Sir David visited with a small film crew.
“I hadn’t even picked up a movie camera at that time,” said Doug. “But when I looked at what he and the team were doing it made me think that was a side of photography I’d love to experience.
“David appreciated the help I gave the crew and said that if he returned to Antarctica, he’d come to me for advice. He’s a wonderfully generous man.”
He added: “When I realised a few weeks ago that it was 40 years since that first meeting, I wrote him a letter thanking him.
“He replied saying how kind it was of me to remember and he was glad to have been an encouragement.”
Doug turned to full-time film-making and has travelled the globe.
Hairy moments along the way include being grabbed by a walrus and being caught in the open just metres away from a prowling polar bear.
Much of his work has been at the polar regions and it is 45 years since his first visit to the Antarctic, where he has seen it stay dark for 100 days and had temperatures fall to -50C.
“When I first went, we were given an allowance of just 100 words per month which we could send by Telex to stay in touch with home,” he said.
“In those days we’d go out half-an-hour before lunch to cut blocks of snow to melt to get our water.
“No base runs like that now.
“The bases themselves are ultra-modern and are often modular, shipped down and put together there.
“I sometimes wonder if, in 10 years’ time, it’ll be like living in a Best Western hotel, no matter where you are in the Antarctic.”
Doug has always been passionate about environmental and conservation matters, and climate change remains a major concern.
He is hoping to be a part of COP26, the major UN climate change conference rescheduled to take place in Glasgow in November.
Over the past four decades he has seen the impact of global warming, with sea ice breaking up irregularly and periods of unprecedented high temperatures.
“Climate change is affecting the poles more than almost anywhere else,” said Doug, who wrote an illustrated book of his adventurous life, Freeze Frame.
“We are moving in the right direction, but we’re not moving fast enough,” he added.
“If we don’t get a handle on climate change then we’ll lose the poles as they are right now.”
Doug turns 70 this summer but is showing little sign of slowing down and is currently quarantining in a hotel in Kathmandu before working on a feature film being shot in the Himalayas.
He said: “I don’t want to look back in 10 years’ time and regret things I haven’t done.”