“Innovative wildlife filmmaker John Downer uses covert digital technology to bring human audiences astonishingly close to the most reclusive wild animals. With elephants and tigers as previous subjects, Downer’s latest offering is focused on the beautiful but endangered maritime species in Polar Bear: Spy On The Ice.
Downer employs three types of cameras to track the lives of two mother bears as they lead their clubs across Arctic Norway in search of seal hunting grounds for the den’s survival. Not letting any of the frozen conditions get in the way of filming, the three cameras each offered a unique way of capturing the bears. The Snow-cam, disguised as a lump of snow, was equipped with four-wheel drive and tundra wheels to get across land and ice. The Blizzard-cam is rigged with propellers, allowing it to reach speeds of 37 mph, while the Iceberg cam was thoroughly waterproofed to maneuver between sheets of ice and under water to capture the polar bears swimming under the ice.”
