YOU will remember the stushie over the BBC and the polar bears.
They showed touching scenes of a baby bear being born but omitted to say the event had taken place not in a den near the North Pole but at a Dutch zoo in a pit with fake snow and white walls. It was artex not Arctic.
Now, a London-based newspaper informs us: "The BBC fake wildlife shots all the time." I had imagined the newspaper would go on to substantiate this heading with shocking revelations such as:
l David Attenborough's famous close encounters with gorillas in the Life on Earth series was filmed in the BBC Beechgrove Garden in Aberdeen with presenters Jim McColl and George Barron in convincing furry suits.
l Due to budgetary restrictions on the Great White Shark Living Legend documentary last year, the leading role was played by a sardine with a set of specially made dentures. Similarly, the blue whale (largest mammal in the world) was a large cod in a Rangers top.
l Those scenes with Sir David meeting the giant tortoises in the Galapagos Islands were cleverly shot at BBC TV Centre with Freda, the Blue Peter tortoise.
l The programme Wild Stallions of the Pampas was actually filmed on Clapham Common with Bill Oddie in the front end of a pantomime horse with a researcher bringing up the rear and who would be able to tell his grandchildren about the worst job he ever had in television.
l The same panto horse, painted black and white, featured in Zebras of the Serengeti, shot on location on a bit spare ground just off the M25.
None of the above is true, of course. The headline about the BBC faking wildlife shots "all the time" is loosely based on comments by cameraman Doug Allan whose book Freeze Frame: A Wildlife Cameraman's Adventures On Ice is in the shops.
But Allan, the Scot rated by Attenborough as his best cameraman ever, wasn't talking about polar bears and other big beasts. He was referring to species "smaller than a baby rabbit" which are filmed under controlled conditions, rather than in the wild.
"You can't make a film about mice just by going out into a meadow. You need to introduce them to a safely-built set in which they will be happy." Like the Big Brother house but more interesting.
It's the same in newspapers. Sometimes a fake headline is required to sex up a story.
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