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December 29, 2004
Mountains of Scotland DVD
I was looking forward to seeing the Mountains of Scotland (Binnein nam Beann) DVD. Unfortunately it’s a disappointment.
Originally shown on Scottish TV/Grampian TV as a six part series, this is a helicopter tour of the mountains (with almost no ground shots), made in variable weather. All the shots were apparently taken at the same time of year (probably summer). There is no snow on any of the hills and no heather in bloom. Image quality is all low resolution: adequate for television, where nobody expects much, but poor for DVD.
While the mountains do hold your attention throughout, in the mist and on overcast days as well as in sunshine, you regret they didn’t re-shoot when the mountains were obscured or the light was poor. (It’s rather like hill walking in bad weather, you enjoy it but you wish you’d picked a different day.)
There is a light-weight television-style commentary with the usual explanations of the names of the mountains and some obvious statements about the views, but little on the fascinating geology of the highlands, and almost no wildlife. All heights are in feet (goodbye foreign audiences!) and there are no subtitles for the notoriously difficult Gaelic names. Those familiar with the hills will learn little new. Those unfamiliar with them will not know what they are looking at. Some technical terms, like ‘corrie’ for example, are also not explained.
The worst feature of the disc is the music, a dreadful generic ‘easy listening’ New Age Music drone repeated again and again, ad infinitum. Possibly bearable in a short television series, in a DVD lasting 150 minutes, it is not!
Our mountains are some of the finest and most interesting in the world, but not well-known abroad - so a significant opportunity has been missed here. The people responsible for this effort need to look at some other nature documentaries that have been produced recently, Jacques Perrin’s ‘Winged Migration’ for example, to see the kind of image quality that is desirable in a DVD. (They might also try to get their website together. At the moment it’s a pig’s breakfast, with type doubled up on top of itself and unwrapped paragraphs.)
[Mountains of Scotland (Binnein nam Beann) is published by Enlightenment Unlimited. Produced and directed by Malcolm McKissock, it is the first in a ‘Window on Scotland’ series of DVDs. It is available through the John Muir Trust who benefit from each sale with a GBP 1.00 donation.]
Posted by Simon Holledge at December 29, 2004 05:27 PM
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Comments
the mountains of scotland dvd would have been beter if shots were shot in the winter as well i still enjoed it thanks .andy
Posted by: andy hagon at January 26, 2005 10:26 PM