What was frozen planet shot on

Spring 58 mins. Spring arrives in the polar regions, and the sun appears after an absence of five months; warmth and life return to these magical ice worlds - the greatest seasonal transformation on our planet is under way. Summer 59 mins. It is high summer in the polar regions, and the sun never sets. Vast hordes of summer visitors cram a lifetime of drama into one long, magical day.

Autumn 58 mins. We follow a pair of courting polar bears, which reveal a surprisingly tender side. Next stop is the giant Greenland ice cap, where waterfalls plunge into the heart of the ice and a colossal iceberg calves into the sea.

Humpback whales join the largest gathering of seabirds on earth to feast in rich Alaskan waters. Further south, the tree line marks the start of the Taiga forest, containing one third of all trees on earth.

Here, 25 of the world's largest wolves take on formidable bison prey. At the other end of our planet, the Antarctic begins in the Southern Ocean where surfing penguins struggle to escape a hungry sea-lion and teams of orcas create giant waves to wash seals from ice floes -a filming first.

Diving below the ice, we discover prehistoric giants, including terrifying sea spiders and woodlice the size of dinner plates. Above ground, crystal caverns ring the summit of Erebus, the most southerly volcano on earth. From here we retrace the routes of early explorers across the formidable Antarctic ice-cap — the largest expanse of ice on our planet.

Finally, we rejoin David at the South Pole, exactly one hundred years after Amundsen then Scott were the first humans to stand there. Produced by Vanessa Berlowitz.

Spring arrives in the polar regions, and the sun appears after an absence of five months; warmth and life return to these magical ice worlds — the greatest seasonal transformation on our planet is underway.

Male Adelie penguins arrive in Antarctica to build their nests — it takes a good property to attract the best mates and the males will stop at nothing to better their rivals! But these early birds face the fiercest storms on the planet.

In the Arctic, a polar bear mother is hunting with her cubs. Inland, the frozen rivers start to break up and billions of tons of ice are swept downstream in the greatest of polar spectacles. This melt-water fertilizes the Arctic Ocean, feeding vast shoals of Arctic cod and narwhal. The influx of freshwater accelerates the breakup of the sea-ice — an area of ice the size of Australia will soon vanish from the Arctic.

On land, a woolly bear caterpillar emerges from the snow having spent the winter frozen solid. Caterpillars normally become moths within months of hatching, but life is so harsh here that the woolly bear takes 14 years to reach adulthood. Once mature it has only days to find a mate before it dies! Alongside the caterpillars white Arctic wolves race to raise their adorable cubs before the cold returns. In Antarctica vast numbers of seabirds arrive on South Georgia joining the giant albatross and king penguins that have been there all winter.

Elephant seals fight furious battles over females on a beach that contains the greatest mass of animals on the planet. Finally, the female Adelie penguins arrive, chased from the water by killer whales.

Mating and chick rearing lie ahead of them. The final part of the programme shows how some of the filming was done, at Cape Crozier, where the Adelie penguin colony was filmed, the crew survived tremendous storms, reminiscent of the storms survived by members of Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition in the same area, as documented in The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard.

Produced by Mark Linfield. It is high summer in the polar regions, and the sun never sets. Vast hordes of summer visitors cram a lifetime of drama into one long, magical day; they must feed, fight and rear their young in this brief window of plenty. Summer is a tough time for the polar bear family, as their ice world melts away and the cubs take their first swimming lesson. Some bears save energy by dozing on icy sun beds, while others go egg-collecting in an Arctic tern colony, braving bombardment by sharp beaks.

The tundra is home to snowy owls, with a male catching lemmings for his mate and chicks, while she guards them from Arctic skuas. There are even bigger battles on the tundra; a herd of musk oxen gallop to the rescue as a calf is caught in a life and death struggle with a pair of Arctic wolves.

But summer also brings surprises, as a huge colony of , king penguins cope with an unlikely problem — heat. The adults go surfing, while the woolly-coated chicks take a cooling mud bath. Nearby, a bull fur seal is prepared to fight to the death with a rival. Fur flies as the little pups struggle desperately to keep out of the way of the duelling giants. Further south, a minke whale is hunted amongst the ice floes by a family of killer whales. The dramatic chase lasts over 2 hours and has never been filmed before.

The killers harry the minke whale, taking it in turns to wear it down. Eventually it succumbs to the relentless battering. Finally, comical adelie penguins waddle back to their half a million strong colony like clockwork toys. The fluffy chicks need constant feeding and protection as piratical skuas patrol the skies. When an unguarded chick is snatched, a dramatic "dogfight" ensues.

Produced by Miles Barton. For the animals in the polar regions, autumn means dramatic battles and epic journeys. Time is running out — the Arctic Ocean is freezing over and the sea ice is advancing at 2.

Plus: Check out exclusive behind-the-scenes video. The crew of Frozen Planet knew that shooting with regular equipment probably wouldn't cut it at the extreme temperatures at the poles, and they couldn't risk malfunction because of the remote filming locations. And things with oil-based lubricants would stiffen so much you couldn't pan the tripod head.

Challenge: Staying Safe while Filming. Frozen Planet 's crews took a plane, helicopter, or icebreaker to a location, then traveled over the ice on Ski-Doos. That would be polar bears, which are a major part of Frozen Planet. The crew relied on local guides to help them find the bears, and many of the shots were filmed by mounting a gyrostabilized Cineflex camera with a telephoto lens to a helicopter.

That system let them film from a distance that wouldn't distract the bears, but still get closeups that weren't wobbly. Some shots, however, had to be captured from the ground—a task left to some very brave cameramen.