Bang Goes the Theory
Production Title: Bang Goes the Theory
P/D: Nikki Seare
Production Company: BBC
Broadcaster: BBC1
Prime time, presenter-led science strand, investigating the science behind the headlines.
Gold Rush
Production Title: Gold Rush (Season 3)
Director: James Bates (Show Runner)
Production Company: RAW TV
Broadcaster: Discovery
Gold Rush has the highest ratings in the history of the Discovery Channel. The show is now in its third series and continues to be hugely successful in the USA and UK. I was the DOP on this (the programme is also shot with a number of shooting PDs). Gold Rush follows a team of miners risking everything to escape the recession and make it big in the Klondike. Shot in the Yukon and Alaska. Below is a low res clip from the first episode of season3.
Horizon: Out of Control?
Production Title: Horizon - Out of Control?
Director: Ben Lawrie
Production Company: BBC - Horizon
Broadcaster: BBC 2
This programme takes a look at the processes that are at work in our unconscious. We all think that we are in control of what we are doing, but according to scientists, a lot of our decision making goes on at an unconscious level.
Reviews:
Pick of the day in the following: Independent, Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Radio Times, Time Out.
- Times (“mind-expanding… not one for control freaks”)
- Guardian (“an incredible documentary in which scientists explore the secret world of the unconscious mind… Yet further proof that science can be discussed in an eye-catching, brain-pleasing manner”)
- Radio Times (pick of the day) – (“There’s a lovely scene in this Horizon where the director gives each of the brain scientists he interviews a marker pen and a sketch pad. Then he asks each of them to show on paper how much of what the brain does is conscious, and how much unconscious, in their view. They vary: one shades in a tiny square, which he says is the conscious brain’s contribution; another shades off about a tenth of the page. But they all agree that, like an iceberg, the great majority of our brain activity lies below the surface. The sense we are consciously in control is an illusion – and the programme goes on to illustrate this with wonderful experiments involving golf, knitting and chasing toy helicopters.”)
Children In Need
Production Title: Children In Need
Director: Lucy Cutler
Production Company: BBC
Broadcaster: BBC 1
A short film to be used as a VT for the Children In Need programme. Alesha Dixon takes a trip around an economically depressed area of South Wales, looking for disadvantage youths and inviting them along to a local youth project partly funded by the charity. (Shot on Canon 7d)
Horizon
Production Title: Horizon: How to Survive a Car Crash
Director: Ben Lawrie
Production Company: BBC - Horizon
Broadcaster: BBC 2
This episode looks into the damage car accidents can cause the human body, and how some car manufacturers are greatly reducing these risks using ground breaking scientific and technological discoveries. I shot the brain in the scene below on a Canon 7d, see how it holds up against the Panasonic Vari cam.
Story of Earth
Production Title: Story of Earth- Behind the Scenes
Production Company:Pioneer Productions
Broadcaster: National Geographic
A behind the scenes look at how CGI graphics were used by scientists to help tell the "Story of Earth".
Witness Disaster
Production Title: Witness Disaster
Director: Sam Taplin
Production Company: Pioneer Productions
Broadcaster:National Geographic USA and National Geographic International
This programme hears the stories of those who have witnessed huge scale natural disasters first hand.
Tonight Election Special
Production Title: Tonight - Election Special
Director: Tom Stone
Production Company: ITV
Broadcaster: ITV
Election special in which political editor Tom Bradby takes a look at the difference between the parties. To illustrate the countries current debt issues he pushes a wheel barrow of one pound coins across the millennium bridge to St Paul's Cathedral. The wheel barrow holds the amount of money the Labour government were going into debt each second, and Bradby works out by Christmas they would have filled St. Paul's.
Britain's Big Freeze
Production Title: Britain's Big Freeze (2010)
Director: Becky Lee
Production Company: Pioneer
Broadcaster: Channel 4
A programme analysing the weather conditions that lead to the "big freeze" at the beginning of 2010 and how this relates to the overall trend of global warming.
Ring of Fire
Production Title: Ring of Fire
Director: Ben Lawrie
Production Company: Pioneer
Broadcaster: History Channel USA
The Ring of Fire is part of the Emmy Award winning series "How the Earth Was Made". The Ring of Fire follows top US geologists to the volcanoes that line the pacific rim, discovering evidence that helps to explain the creation of the earth as we know it today. Using every method of transport conceivable, from float planes to helicopters and boats, the scientists access some of the remotest locations on the planet. Often the journey is as interesting as the story.
Animal Cops Miami
Production Title: Animal Cops Miami
Producer: Norma Fraser
Production Company:Granada (ITV Studios)
Broadcaster: Animal Planet USA
Animal Cops Miami is a long running observational documentary series following various agencies rescuing animals across Florida. Shot on HD XDCAM the programme includes a variety of both wild and domestic animals: from alligators and snakes in the Everglades to fighting pit bull dogs in Miami's ganglands. In the clip below wildlife expert Bob Frier returns an alligator to the wild after having rescued it from an attack by another alligator.
Massacre at Virginia Tech
Production Title: Massacre at Virginia Tech.
Director: Jonathan Hacker
Production Company: ORTV
Broadcaster: BBC 2
Massacre at Virginia Tech is a thought provoking documentary about the psychology of the Korean student who shot and killed 32 of his fellow students and injured many others before committing suicide. Critics choice of the week - Sunday Times.
Press:
"Excellent" Critics choice of the week The Times
"Articulate & Carefully Argued" The Daily Telegraph
"Must see TV - Five Stars" Mail on Sunday
"Chilling" Time Out
Awards:
CINE Golden Eagle
Bronze World Medal, NY Television Festival
Silver Chris Award, Columbus International Film Festival
Catastrophe Birth of the Planet
Production Title: Catastrophe - Birth of the Planet - Humans
Director: Ben Lawrie
Production Company: Pioneer
Broadcaster: Channel 4 / Discovery
Tony Robinson explores the series of global catastrophes that ultimately determined how the world we live in came to be. In this episode the focus is on catastrophes that effected humans.
"Creationism takes a back seat to science at its most spectacular as Tony Robinson explores the “miracle” of life on Earth in a superb five-part series about how massive natural disasters have influenced evolution on our planet – not always for the bad." The Daily Telegraph
"Catastrophe is a triumph." The Guardian{vimeo width="640" height="480"}6277840{/vimeo}
Dispatches The Credit Crisis
Production Title: The Credit Crisis - Dispatches
Director:Nicky Bolster
Production Company: Wall to Wall
Broadcaster: Channel 4
An analysis of Britain’s borrowing habits and the onset of the “credit crunch”.
Dispatches The Lost Children
Production Title: The Lost Children - Dispatches
Director: Karen Edwards
Production Company: Wall to Wall
Broadcaster: Channel 4
A programme about education in Britain's large secondary schools, and the new teaching techniques being pioneered in the USA with smaller "learning communities."
Dispatches Why the Banks Always Win
Production Title: Why the banks Always Win - Dispatches
Director: Mike Wakely
Production Company: Wall to Wall
Broadcaster: Channel 4
This episode asks if the banks are responsible for the credit crunch and if their charges are fair. One man's crusade against the major banks and his ideas for cooprative banking.