Options
Atomic Season - BBC4
Straker
Posts: 79,657 Forum Member
✭✭✭
Not off to a particularly good start with Cousins' film currently airing now. Nothing Adam Curtis hasn't done earlier and better. Music's good though and at least the man who sounds like he's chewing on the words as he speaks them isn't ruining it with a voiceover like he did on his film series for C4.
Other films following through the week.
Other films following through the week.
0
Comments
A season of programmes contemplating the history and future of the nuclear age, from the destructive powers of the atomic bomb to the promise and dread of nuclear power.
Usual level of advertising on the BBC of their own product.
Trailers for Jim Al-Kalili's Sellafield program and nothing else, Doc about Los Alamos tomorrow after Jim at Sellafield anyway.
Gawd knows what else is in the 'season'
You'd think they'd be repeating Threads and The War Game in this season but apparently not.
I have a great DVD Trinity and Beyond all about history of nuclear testing up to when China tested their first bomb
Is that the one sparsely narrated by William Shatner?
They were the first two that came to mind when I read the thread title.
How very odd not to include these creative productions.
War Book tomorrow at 22:00
Drama in which civil servants take part in a regular role-playing game to practise their response to a nuclear explosion leading to all-out nuclear war.
Ben Chaplin and Sophie Okonedo in the cast list.
It is
The Sellafield documentary was excellent, it explained the science at a level that enabled me, as someone who never really "got on" with physics, could understand without turning it into the sort of dumbed down science that we so see much of these days.
This was the sort of programme that BBC2 was set up to make, and that BBC4 has now taken on since BBC2 itself was comprehensively dumbed down.
Great programme. I really like Jim Al-Kallili as a presenter.
Its an astonishing film isn't it?
I found it a mix of wonder, awe and horror. Some of the images look like the birth of a star or the end of the world.
Agreed. It made me realise just how good an actor's (or VO artist's) voice really is. I often used to wonder why Stephen Mangan, Olivia Coleman, et al were used for non-acting and non-comedy jobs. Now I know.
The young lady doing this VO sounded like she was doing a student project. She even used the same rhythm and intonation pattern for sentence after sentence. It just sounded amateurish. I expect (much) better of the Beeb.
Apart from that ...
Great programme !
But as has been said, it isn't a patch on the (two hour ?) Bill Shatner programme.
Agreed about the voiceover - it needed someone with some gravitas.
I too like Al-Kallili as a presenter - he explains things well.
However the programme was a bit of a disappointment to me. Having taken a passing interest in things nuclear over the years, and despite being called 'Britain's Nuclear Secrets', it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.
Seeing some of the interiors was interesting; perhaps I wasn't part of the target audience.
Michael Praed, Paul McGann, Juliet Stephenson and Barbara Flynn are the go-to quartet for quality voiceover work IMO. I imagine they command good money for a days talking.
I reckon this was a US production with an American voiceover and the Beeb wanted to refashion it for this season and imply it was a homegrown film instead by way of a British narration. Unfortunately getting a passing receptionist to chirpily read out the script, including the on-screen captions (FGS, why?!?) was a catastrophic error of judgement and rendered the whole thing bizarre with the juxtaposition of a light female tone overlaid onto some of the most serious subject matter imaginable. Why stop there? Why not get Joe Pasquale or Sarah Millican to do it instead?!?
Such a shame as it was a very slick piece of filmmaking but the narration constantly undercut the grave subject matter to the point where I was distracted throughout. Who could have possibly signed off on that and thought it passed muster?
I came across this documentary some years ago on one of the documentary channels then saw the DVD on Amazon. Totally agree with the footage. Some of it is astonishing. There is another documentary by same team about the camera crews who filmed the tests. I haven't got that one yet.
It found it an interesting well made documentary.
McGann seems to do loads of VO work and undoubtedly earns more now than he did from acting.
I spend quite a bit of time on Sellafield (I can see it from my office window), so I'm really looking forward to it.
Especially the bit where Phoebe Fox hitched up her skirt! She has to be the sexiest woman on the planet at the moment.
The size of the signer image was huge-completely spoilt what looked like a good programme.
Why the hell do the BBC do it like this-why not use selectable sub titles so it does not annoy the vast majority of viewers?
I switched the programme off I'm afraid as any 'signing' on programmes I find intensely annoying and think is completely unnecessary when sub titling should be available for those hard of hearing etc.
After it had finished I kept hearing the guy from Dad's Army shouting "we're all doomed!".