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Producer at Horizon in the 1970s
Such was the power of television in the 1970s (there were only three TV channels in the UK until 1982), that sometimes it was enough to simply look behind the scenes of an institution and see what went on there. Many series attempted this over the years with varying degrees of success. Horizon tried it with producer Christopher La Fontaine’s Horizon: Noah’s Ark in Kensington. The original Radio Times billing for the programme that was broadcast in September 1970, stated:
The Natural History Museum is a place of enthusiasts: the hundreds of children who swarm through the public galleries each day and the 350 naturalists employed by the museum. Their job is to look after and do research on one of the largest collections of living organisms in the world. Tonight's programme is a chance to look behind the scenes of a well-known institution. It is also about the public who visit it and the people who work there.
The Natural History Museum is a place of enthusiasts: the hundreds of children who swarm through the public galleries each day and the 350 naturalists employed by the museum. Their job is to look after and do research on one of the largest collections of living organisms in the world.
Tonight's programme is a chance to look behind the scenes of a well-known institution. It is also about the public who visit it and the people who work there.
A charmingly simple idea, and a charming film, but with a most extraordinary musical score by one of the world’s top modern composers.’ Chris la Fontaine explains.
Before the BBC’s Natural History Unit started making films in any great number, Horizon regularly made forays into the world of wildlife.
Producer Chris La Fontaine is a self confessed ‘people-person’ so working with animals did not come high on his list of film making priorities. However one of his more noted films, which many seem to was A Smile for the Crocodile (Horizon, BBC 2, January, 1977). By all s this was a hair raising and exasperating experience.
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