newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Arctic mini-series “Frozen Planet” that premiered Sunday night has spent four years in production after 6.5 years of field research. This may be the ultimate in a reality series.

“Everything that we film is a complete portrayal of reality,” says Vanessa Berlowitz, "Frozen Planet" producer, according to Christian Post. "And the audience thinks, `Wow, they did that without trained animals!'"

The seven-part series produced by the BBC and the Discovery Channel features penguins, killer whales, and polar bears. But Berlowitz and cinematographer Chadden Hunter came back to film something totally unique known as the “brinicle,” or the “icy finger of death.”

"It's an icy stalactite that grows down from the sea ice to the seabed and kills everything it touches,” Berlowitz said to The Province. “We were able to get some shots from under the ice, and showed it to these scientists who had been working there for 20 or 30 years, and they were blown away.”

Hunter said the brinicle is made up of water with a high salt content in the form of a salt icicle. It grows like a stalactite in a cave, down to the sea floor, and attaches itself to the ice, and traps starfish and sea urchins.

The Sunday night premiere was not without its lighter moments. In the springtime, male penguins compete for the affections of female penguins by building the finest nest. According to an Associated Press report on sfgate.com, we saw one penguin having his collection of stones stolen by a neighbor as fast as he could gather them when he wasn’t looking.

Also on Sunday, elephant seals fought over females, a pack of 25 wolves took down a bison, and a 1400-pound male polar bear found a mate, if only for a short time.

"Frozen Planet" was filmed in both Antarctica and the High Arctic in high-definition. The U.S. version is narrated by Alec Baldwin. It can be seen Sunday nights at 8 p.m. on Discovery.