Living history

In his underground bunker a depressed Adolf Hitler, plagued by bad dreams and the continual sound of the housecleaner's broom, tells his physician he can't sleep.

Franklin Roosevelt, already in ill health and confined to a wheelchair, has a heart attack on a train. A cantankerous Winston Churchill stays in bed for several hours after waking, while London suffers aerial strikes.

A haggard-looking Josef Stalin confides his fears that Britain and the US might enter a separate deal with Nazi Germany against the USSR.

A day in the lives of four tired, aging, melancholy men carrying the burden of decisions that will affect most of humanity as a world war draws to its close. But what we'll see when the Discovery Channel premieres its Virtual History series next weekend isn't a feature film with actors playing scripted roles.

And yet, it isn't just another documentary with newsreel footage either. "The Secret Plot to Kill Hitler" is an attempt to recreate exactly the events of July 20, 1944 "" considered a pivotal day in WWII "" by combining meticulous research with computer technology.

"We have brought together cutting-edge technologies and little-known historical documents to recreate important moments in history that have never been recorded on camera," says Pankaj Saxena, vice president-programming, Discovery Networks India.

What this means, for instance, is the transposing of the real features of historical figures onto the faces of the actors saying their lines. CGI (computer-generated imagery) was used to create digital copies of the faces of Hitler, Stalin etc.

During the live-action shoot, the actors wore specially designed rigs with markers, which allowed for the subsequent tracking of their heads and the "replacement" of their faces with the CGI versions.

Result: you see Hitler and Stalin as they really were, talking and moving about in colour footage made to look slightly grainy "" presumably to make it seem more authentic (though surely that is itself a deception of sorts).

In association with the UK-based Tiger Aspect Productions, Discovery Channel spent three years in developing the programme.

The team consulted 15 experts, 150 historical collections in Germany, Russia, the US and the UK, over 250 academic books and located 2,500 historical stills. "Meticulous attention has been paid to accuracy in all elements of the programme," says Saxena.

But can research, however exhaustive, be foolproof? What about the ethical issues involved in "appropriating" history "" in claiming to present events exactly as they happened?

Saxena sidesteps the question, except to point out that this is the first time historical events have been presented in this style and format. "Naturally, it will attract reactions. But we are confident it's a step in the right direction."

He adds, confidently: "Virtual History will pioneer an entirely new genre of documentary making. It can revolutionise the way viewers watch historical documentaries in future."