Channel 4 commissions Japan's Tsunami: Caught on Camera

Channel 4 Specialist Factual Commissioning Editor Tanya Shaw has commissioned ITN Productions to make Japan's Tsunami: Caught on Camera, a 1 x 60-minute documentary that captures the devastating impact of the earthquake and tsunami - using amateur footage filmed by those caught up in the disaster.

Featuring never-before-seen footage, the programme features accounts from eyewitnesses and amateur photographers and filmmakers, taking them back to the locations where they filmed the tsunami, and examines the reasons why the instinct to record is often as strong as the instinct to survive.

Tanya Shaw says:  "The most heartfelt accounts of disaster often come from the ordinary survivors, who are increasingly capturing history by creating their own personal video records of the events that changed their lives forever. This film is a testament to their courage."

Executive Producer Chris Shaw says: "The eyewitness film of the Japanese tsunami captured some truly apocalyptic images of the wave's destructive power, much of which never reached our TV screens at the time."

The film follows previous Channel 4 films, the Bafta -nominated Tsunami: Caught on Camera (2009) and Hurricane Katrina: Caught on Camera (2010) which provided poignant portraits of those disasters via the people who actually experienced it first-hand.

The executive producer is Chris Shaw (Sri Lanka's Killing Fields), and the producer/director is Peter Nicholson. Japan's Tsunami: Caught on Camera is due to TX in the autumn.