Image Credit: Discovery Channel/BBC/Chadden Hunter

This Sunday, Discovery premieres what could be the most fascinating hour of its seven-part polar exploration series Frozen Planet — the making-of. We already talked with series producer Vanessa Berlowitz and director Chadden Hunter about how this installment is for them — especially in the case of revisiting the solo bison-wolf battle captured in last week’s “Winter” episode – a therapy session. (“We wanted to basically take the viewer’s hand and say, ‘Okay, this was emotional to watch, but we go through the same emotions when we film it,’” Hunter said.) Now, we probe deeper into what life was like for the crew during the four-year production. Here’s what we learned:

• Though penguins can drive a man mad — watch our exclusive clip below from “The Making of Frozen Planet” — they are still awesome. 

CHADDEN HUNTER: The sun doesn’t set, but you’re trying to sleep on the sea ice. You put your head down, and you can hear the seal voices through the ice. The Weddell seals have this beautiful alien-like song. So you have them going off beneath your pillow while outside around your tent, all the Emperor penguins are coming up to be curious. You can see the shadows on your tent getting closer and closer. [Makes penguin noises.] And of course, they’ll trip over your tent wires. [Makes flustered penguin noises.] They’ll get all grumpy, and then they’ll circle the tent again and trip over the tent wires again.

VANESSA BERLOWITZ: I got harassed by Adélie penguins. We had David Attenborough there, trying to do a piece with him and record sound. I was trying to take some still photographs of David with the penguins, and I put my lens down next to me, and I hear this kind of rolling sound. I look, and a penguin is pushing my lens down the hill toward his nest. He was thinking, This is a really big rock. Clearly showing off for the females. Classic male behavior. The longer the lens. [Laughs] Then I smell this smell next to me, and a penguin has pooed in my still case. That happens all the time. Your gear is covered in poo. We put up a stand with a microphone on it, and in order to stop the wind’s effect, you put something fluffy over it. So I was listening, and I heard this scratching sound. There was a penguin on the microphone, seemingly trying to mate.  READ FULL STORY »