Continuity Booth - Television News and Nostalgia » TV Documentaries

BBC Amazonian tribe documentary criticized

Alan — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 02:55:55 +0000

A series that aired on the BBC about an Amazonian tribe has been accused of mistranslating certain interviews and faking scenes to portray the tribe negatively as being sex-obsessed mean savages. The show’s title is Mark & Olly: Living with the Machigenga. It aired in South Africa on BBC Knowledge in June and July 2010 and in the US in 2009 on the Travel Channel. Cicada Productions based in Paddington made the documentary.

Olly Steeds and Mark Anstice were followed in the six part series as they journeyed to life in the remote Amazon rainforest in the Matisgenka Indian village for a period of several months.

Nevertheless the showed has been dubbed false, staged, distorted and fabricated by an anthropologist Dr. Glenn Shepard who has for 25 years worked with the tribe and speaks fluently their language and by Ron Snell who as a son of missionaries from the US grew up with the tribe and also is fluent in their language.

In the most recent Anthropology News, Dr. Shepard wrote an article the outlines his alleged misrepresentations and on his blog, in a longer piece says the show is nothing but reality TV going to new extremes of irresponsibility.

He says the show fabricated many of the translations so as to create an insulting and false portrayal of the tribe. Two examples they referenced inaccurately are the tribe’s sex life and their hostile demeanour towards outsiders.

Plus there were staged events like a pig dance that he says he had never be a part of or heard about in 35 years living in and around the villages of the tribes. As well as initiation trials that required the tribe to sleep outside and take a psychoactive drink and them go on a phony pilgrimage.

The doctor said how shocked he was of the narcissistic antics of Mark & Olly and how the Matisgenka culture was so grossly misrepresented not thinking of the consequences inflicted upon these kinds of native communities.

BBC Worldwide announced in a statement that they had acquired the show via Fremantle Media and the network had no further plans to air the program again. They also said they will examine the claims since they are committed to editorial standards of the highest quality.

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Alan Titchmarsh king of TV gardeners

Alan — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 02:11:19 +0000

An average of 4 million viewers were attracted to the new ITV 1 show, Love Your Garden with Alan Titchmarsh accounting for almost 20% of the available audience. Gardener’s World, his former BBC 2 show that is now presented by Monty Don, had a 2.2 million or 10% share. Titchmarsh started the series off with a celebration of the classic suburban garden by explaining to his green fingered audience how to make a lovely lawn.

A scheduling clash with Gardener’s World was avoided when Titchmarsh’s show went on at 8pm for the half hour slot before this competitors show was to start. But it may have worked better for him to have started earlier it seems many viewers may have had their limit of gardening by the time Gardener’s World started from 8:30pm.

Chris Day a garden writer and former broadcaster expressed his pleasure in watching Love Your Garden and said his conclusion was that between the two shows over six million watched gardening what a success, especially on a Friday night. It is not like Ground Force but it is proper gardening with the bar having been raised.

The two shows are head to head this Friday because of an hour long special Gardeners World and from Herefordshire garden Don will be broadcasting. Titchmarsh presented for six years Gardeners World and today continues to cover the Chelsea Flower Show as anchor for BBC 2’s coverage. Don replaced Titchmarsh on Gardeners World but left in 2008 due to a stroke but returned again this year.

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American TV jumps on Royal Romance drama

Alan — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 02:33:07 +0000

The Hallmark Channel is turning Kate Middleton’s romance with Prince William into a small screen biopic, making her a “queen” of TV before she is even a princess, to be called William & Kate: A Royal Love Story it will air August 13 and includes the nuances of a modern monarchy.

The love story chronicles the couple as students at St. Andrews, William’s Army training at Sandhurst Military Academy, their separation, reunion, engagement and the planning of the marriage which all comes to a conclusion on April 29, 2011 for the biggest royal wedding since Charles and Diana.

Linda Tellen is the executive producer of the film that has yet to be cast and she wrote the 1982 CBS TV movies The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana. On Lifetime’s William & Kate, Brit newcomer Camilla Luddington and Nico Evers-Swindell of NCIS Los Angeles fame will play the royal bride and groom and the movie is set to air in the weeks close to the actual royal wedding.

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Fred West, the ‘House of Horrors’ causes concern

Alan — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 05:46:39 +0000

A controversial new drama is in the works from ITV about Fred West, the ‘House of Horrors’ serial killer. “Appropriate Adult” will feature Dominic West, best known for his starring role in US show “The Wire” playing the lead role in the three hour drama chronicling the life of serial killer west from his 1994 arrest up until his suicide on New Year’s Day, 1995.

Former farm labourer Fred West, together with his wife Rose West, killed over 12 women and girls and buried their bodies in the garden of their home in Gloucester, where they remained until discovered by police many years later. Although Rose, convicted of ten counts of murder, remains in custody, her husband Fred committed suicide before trial – robbing the families of the victims the chance to see him stand trial for his crimes.

Focusing on the love triangle between Janet Leach, (Emily Watson), Rose West (Monica Dolan) and Fred West, ITV said the drama would be sobering, and stressed that they had been in dialog with the families of the murdered victims as well as Gloucester Police over the course of its four year research and development stage.

Critics have claimed that the drama risks creating empathy for Fred & Rose west, but producers have said that their only intention is to create a thought provoking piece of sobering drama.

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Chilean miners TV shows on the way

Alan — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 06:14:58 +0000

TV networks were quick to announce charity actions and projects in honour of the trapped 33 Chilean miners as soon as they were safely above the ground again. The miners were trapped in Copiapo, Chile for 69 days before they were rescued this week.

Discovery Channel cameras are already preparing a special set to air on October 28^th covering the large effort to save them and their emotions. The show is being produced by Discovery Channel Latin America and will air in the US and Latin America in October and then the following month in Africa and Middle East.

The show will feature the miners and families of the miners as well as an interview with Andre Sougarett the head of rescue operations. There will also be some footage of engineers, the control room, and the drilling machines.

Spike TV has also announced that they will start to air their newest series entitled ‘Coal’ based on the danger of West Virginia coal mining.

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Virgin goes live with 3D TV

Alan — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:16:29 +0000

Virgin Media and BSkyB have been battling to become the first to introduce commercially available 3D television for domestic viewers. BSkyB has received much of the media attention around domestic 3D television as it prepares to launch the first 3D television channel in Europe 1 October.

In the mean time, it appears that Virgin Media has snuck in and beaten BskyB to the punch with its new service, 3D Movies on Demand. The 3D Movies on Demand choice will give customers the ability to watch movies like StreetDance, Garfield’s Pet Force, Despicable Me, and Disney’s A Christmas Carol.

The 1.2 million households that have a V+ or V HD receiver and 3D glasses can use the Movies on Demand service, which will be run by FilmFlex. The first available 3D movie will be StreetDance with others coming on in the run up to Christmas.

In the competition for 3D this is a bit of a coup for Virgin Media, but a couple of movies do not an entire television channel make. It is expected that 3D offerings will be hotly contested between the two broadcasting providers for some time to come.

For now, Virgin Media says that it is happy to give its customers a taste of 3D in the comfort of their homes.

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Stephen Fry set to mind his language

Alan — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:51:43 +0000

Stephen Fry who already is a regular tweeter, quizmaster of QI, actor, and author is about to take on a new venture for BBC2 in the form of a series that focuses on language.

Fry stated that it has been a secret that he will be working on the five part series, but language is really his passion, which makes him quite interested in the series. He also hinted at the series content, stating that he will be headed to Beijing to interview the man who invented a piece of the Chinese language.

In an interview with Radio Times he explained that he has not seen much documentary work done about where language comes from, the different variations of language, how it is spoken, and if certain languages are starting to die out.

Fry already was declared the most intelligent man in 2006 by readers of RT and stated that his favorite words have an Anglo-Saxon origin and are ‘like bundle.’ He also is known for some other more colorful phrases on his Twitter account treating followers of his account to words such as ‘selfspank,’ ‘brokenated,’ and ‘wowser.’

In terms of language, he also has worked on a two series presentation on Radio 4 about Oscar Wilde warning that language often can limit and shape people’s ambitions because people think of themselves as nouns and thus cannot know what they are doing next, but if they think of themselves as active verbs will experience more freedom.

Fry added that programmes and series are only effective if they are important to you because audiences are smart and they know when a chosen presenter is faking.

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