英语听力—环球英语 1138 Vanessa Berlowitz: Female Television Producer

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　　Welcome to Spotlight¹. I’m Liz Waid.

 

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　　And I’m Ryan Geertsma. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.

 

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　　It is four o’clock in the morning. A helicopter flies low over the ice. Attached to the helicopter are several cameras. The helicopter also carries a camera crew.  The crew members look out across kilometers of ice and snow.  They are looking for something particular.  And they have been looking for a very long time. They are ready to give up - to stop looking and go back to their camp. Suddenly, the pilot shouts:

 

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　　“I think I see one!”

 

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　　The helicopter flies closer. It circles over the snow and ice. The camera crew begins filming a rare appearance. It is a large, white mother polar bear.  And she is playing with her baby cubs².

 

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　　This is the crew that filmed the television documentary³ series Frozen⁴ Planet⁵. Together they travelled to many extreme parts of the world.  They filmed animals in some of the coldest natural environments.  The crew’s producer was Vanessa Berlowitz.  She led and managed many of the difficult parts of this filming process.  Today’s Spotlight is on Berlowitz and her life as a television producer.

 

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　　Vanessa Berlowitz is from England. She studied science at Oxford⁶ University. Soon after, she began working in documentary television. Now, she works⁷ as a producer for the BBC. She manages crews that film real images of animals and their environments.

 

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　　Berlowitz has worked on many nature documentaries⁸. She has travelled to India to film wild tigers. She has travelled to Antarctica to record sea lion animals and penguin¹⁰ birds. And she has travelled high into Pakistan to capture¹¹ the beauty of the Karakoram Mountains.

 

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　　Bertlowitz worked on one of the most famous nature documentaries ever - the 2006 BBC program Planet Earth. For this series, she travelled around the world to film the world’s greatest mountains.

 

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　　After Planet Earth, the BBC and Discovery Channel asked her to be the series producer for Frozen Planet. Frozen Planet is a seven part series. It explores what life is like on the North and South Poles. Berlowitz managed all seven parts.

 

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　　The job of series producer is very complex. For Frozen Planet, Berlowitz had to decide when and where to film. She also had to decide how to tell the story.  During the filming process, Berlowitz travelled to the Arctic⁹, Russia, Canada, Antarctica, Alaska and Greenland. Every day, she helped set up the cameras - a process that can take hours. With the crew, she often spent hours quietly looking or waiting for animals.

 

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　　But Berlowitz also had another responsibility. During the filming for Frozen Planet, Berlowitz was pregnant¹² with her first child. Pregnancy¹³ made things more complex. She told Slate¹⁴ magazine:

 

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　　“I have spent most of my working life in the field. It is my office job. So I was not worried about being in a faraway place. If I needed to get to a hospital, I could have had an emergency helicopter come and get me within an hour. …But, when I was there, I was tired and often had a bad attitude. My back hurt…I was sitting in a helicopter for twelve or fourteen hours a day in very cold weather.”

 

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　　Pregnancy made producing more difficult.  But for Berlowitz, the positive parts of filming made the struggle worth it. She told Entertainment Weekly magazine about the day the crew finally found the polar bear and cubs.

 

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　　“It was one of the most important times in my life. I got to look into a mother polar bear’s life…She is having a hard time finding¹⁵ food for her cubs. But the little cubs are thinking, ‘Mother, this is fun!’ They are playing…And they are making her hunt difficult…I was crying with laughter when she put one of the little cubs in a hole.  She was trying to keep him quiet so she could hunt…I thought, this is what polar bear mothers do! This is what I am going to have to do!”

 

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　　After Berlowitz had her son, she returned to work and finished filming Frozen Planet. This was even more difficult than filming while pregnant. Berlowitz told Slate magazine:

 

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　　“When my son was 10 months old, I went to Antarctica for two and a half months. That was very hard as a new mother. I had to leave my ten month old son behind with his father. I was a little bit worried … Would his father be able to take care of him? And of course, when I came back two and a half months later, they were just fine!”

 

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　　Berlowitz was not the only woman working on the program. There were two other female¹⁶ producers. But most film producers are still men. Berlowitz hopes more women will become producers in the future. She told Slate magazine:

 

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　　“There are a lot of men who work as producers. It is getting better, but there are not a lot of women in positions with power. I am one of very few series producers. It has been hard…Producers have to be very strong. You do not have to be very physical, but you have to be happy to go to extreme areas.”

 

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　　Berlowitz loves her work. She enjoys seeing new parts of the world.  And she enjoys filming things many people have never seen before.  But sometimes the best part of her work is hearing from the people who watch her documentaries.  She told Parentmap magazine,

 

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　　“The most rewarding part of the experience is when the films play on television.  Then you hear positive things from the people who watch it. I got a wonderful email from an eleven year old girl from Iran.  She watched an episode¹⁷ of Frozen Planet. She was so excited that women do jobs like mine.  She wants to try and follow my example. She wrote me a beautiful poem. The poem was about the polar bear film she watched.  It made me cry with joy.”

 

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　　The writer of this program was Dianna Anderson. The producer was Mark Drenth. The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet at http://www.radioenglish.net This .program is called, “Vanessa Berlowitz: Female Television Producer.”

 

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　　You can also leave your comments on our website. Or you can email us at [email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook - just search for spotlightradio.

 

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　　We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.

1 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

2 cubs   

n.幼小的兽，不懂规矩的年轻人( cub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a lioness guarding her cubs 守护幼崽的母狮
• Lion cubs depend on their mother to feed them. 狮子的幼仔依靠母狮喂养。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 documentary   

adj.文献的；n.纪录片

参考例句：

• This case lacked documentary proof.本案缺少书面证据。
• I watched a documentary on the Civil War.我看了一部关于内战的纪录片。

4 frozen   

adj.冻结的，冰冻的

参考例句：

• He was frozen to death on a snowing night.在一个风雪的晚上，他被冻死了。
• The weather is cold and the ground is frozen.天寒地冻。

5 planet   

n.行星

参考例句：

• Neptune is the furthest planet from the sun. 海王星是离太阳最远的行星。
• Rubbish, however, is only part of the problem of polluting our planet. 然而, 垃圾只是我们这个星球的污染问题的一个方面。

6 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

7 works   

n.作品，著作；工厂，活动部件，机件

参考例句：

• We expect writers to produce more and better works.我们期望作家们写出更多更好的作品。
• The novel is regarded as one of the classic works.这篇小说被公认为是最优秀的作品之一。

8 documentaries   

n.纪录片( documentary的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• As for 'documentaries', these too are not altogether new. 至于“资料性文学”那也并不完全是新鲜事。 来自辞典例句
• These are not just animations live-action films, comedies, dramas and documentaries. 这些不仅仅是动画片，还包括表演摄制影片，喜剧，戏剧以及纪录片。 来自互联网

9 Arctic   

adj.北极的；n.北极

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• The sort of animal lived in the Arctic Circle.这种动物生活在北极圈里。

10 penguin   

n.企鹅

参考例句：

• The penguin is a flightless bird.企鹅是一种不会飞的鸟。
• He walked with an awkward gait like a penguin.他走路的步子难看得就像企鹅。

11 capture   

vt.捕获，俘获；占领，夺得；n.抓住，捕获

参考例句：

• The company is out to capture the European market.这家公司希望占据欧洲市场。
• With the capture of the escaped tiger,everyone felt relieved.逃出来的老虎被捕获后，大家都松了一口气。

12 pregnant   

adj.怀孕的，怀胎的

参考例句：

• She is a pregnant woman.她是一名孕妇。
• She is pregnant with her first child.她怀了第一胎。

13 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

14 slate   

n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订

参考例句：

• The nominating committee laid its slate before the board.提名委员会把候选人名单提交全体委员会讨论。
• What kind of job uses stained wood and slate? 什么工作会接触木头污浊和石板呢？

15 finding   

n.发现，发现物；调查的结果

参考例句：

• The finding makes some sense.该发现具有一定的意义。
• That's an encouraging finding.这是一个鼓舞人心的发现。

16 female   

adj.雌的，女(性)的；n.雌性的动物，女子

参考例句：

• We only employ female workers.我们只雇用女工。
• The animal in the picture was a female elephant.照片上的动物是头母象。

17 episode   

n.（作品的一段）情节，插曲，系列事件中之一

参考例句：

• The episode was a huge embarrassment for all concerned.这段小插曲令所有有关人员都感到非常尴尬。
• This episode remains sharply engraved on my mind.这段经历至今仍深深地铭刻在我的心中。