We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story?
Producer and Director Jeremy Monroe, Freshwaters Illustrated: I learned about the ecology these amazing river shrimp as a graduate student studying aquatic ecology, and since making the transition into filmmaking, I've always wanted to produce a film about how these unseen communities contribute to the delivery of clean water. Our partnerships with aquatic scientists at the Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research station and the US Forest Service are what finally allowed us to pursue this story. Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film. JM: Capturing the natural history for this film took weeks of filming over multiple trips. In addition to heavy rains and high river flows that would prevent underwater filming, these streams are some of the most steep, rugged, and slippery we have ever filmed in, and luckily, we didn't hurt ourselves!
How do you approach storytelling?
JM: We focus on immersive documentary films in freshwater ecosystems, so we start with a freshwater place, species/community, or conservation angle, and look for strong, passionate voices that can speak to those, and then we look for the visual narrative that can reveal it. We're always trying to take people underwater in fun and unexpected ways. What impact do you hope this film will have? JM: We hope this film will help shine light on river ecosystems and their values in Puerto Rico and throughout tropical Latin America, and especially the need to maintain the migration connectivity of rivers in this region where many dam projects are currently being developed.
What next?
JM: There are many, many more fascinating stories to share in the world of rivers and freshwater ecosystems. Our organization, Freshwaters Illustrated, is focused on telling these stories, and we have several projects in the works, including a forthcoming feature film on the diverse fish and aquatic wildlife of America's Southern Appalachian mountains.
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We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story?
Co-Director and Producer Susan Todd: Our micro-movie grew out of our experiences and observations in the woods around our backyard in Westchester, NY. We’ve lived in the same place for two decades, and we’ve spent a lot of time with our kids making gardens and exploring the ponds, wetlands, and forest. The spring migration of the spotted salamander and all the other miracles of nature became the subject matter that we wove into this story. As filmmakers, the need to reconnect to our environment is something we felt an urgency to communicate because it’s critical for children to get off their screens and get outside more. Our micro-movie is an introduction to a Giant Screen/IMAX film project and educational outreach called Backyard Wilderness. Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film. ST: Working in snow and freezing temperatures, filming at night, in the rain, 70 feet up in trees, and waist deep in vernal pools; these were some of the challenges of filming this movie. Perhaps the most challenging thing of all was working with the timing of animal births, like the hatching of the wood ducklings. We had to be very patient and calculate gestation periods.
How do you approach storytelling?
ST: We tend to work in two directions. With the animal sequences, we go after the natural behaviors we’ve researched that make for the most drama and important science and ecological impact. For the narrative arc of the story, we wrote a script that incorporates these sequences into the activities of the human family living in their midst. What impact do you hope this film will have? ST: We hope this film will help launch a campaign to get kids to put down their screens and get outside to appreciate the nature around them. There has been a huge increase in obesity, depression, diagnoses of ADHD, and there is clinical evidence that increased exposure to nature actually reduces these problems and helps people heal. We’ve been developing a multi-platform educational outreach and collaborating with other not for profits as a way of expanding our message.
Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share?
ST: The footage in this micro-movie spanned three years and during that time we observed that the Spring seasonal migration of the salamanders and the wood frog breeding came earlier each year. It gave us pause thinking about climate change and the impact our human presence was having on this ecosystem. Anything else you would like people to know? ST: The human family in the movie is actually our family and its our home. Andy and I play the parents in the film and we are very grateful to our kids (Walker, 17, and Clara, 12) for participating in this movie as actors, and having the patience to deal with camera crews in the kitchen!
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story?
The immense size and scale of China and its vast diversity of wildlife...imagine following the lives of several iconic Chinese animals as they each give birth. Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film. We faced a huge array of challenges – from working with a Chinese director with little personal experience or knowledge of wildlife…to getting permits to film rare animals in an array of impenetrable habitats…to producing our first feature film in a foreign language! A long list of unprecedented challenges for us.
How do you approach storytelling?
Always: chose your subject carefully. Do your research thoroughly. Chose the best cameramen to film your story… Watch what happens! What impact do you hope this film will have? We hope that Born in China will inspire the Chinese people to love and respect their wildlife enough to protect it.
Anything else you would like people to know?
We were honored to work with some of the world’s best cameramen, including Shane Moore (from Jackson, Wyoming) who faced the enormous challenge of filming an elusive and magical cat – (the snow leopard) - in a vast mountain-scape… A feline needle in a Himalayan-sized haystack. Would he find the snow leopards, let alone be able to film them? In the end, we managed to obtain the very first images of a snow leopard family in its natural setting. What next? We’d love to film another Disneynature story!
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them questions about the experience of making their films.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
We made this film as a part of a new filmmaking workshop sponsored by the International Wildlife Film Festival, called IWFF Labs, with Days Edge Productions. The group selected for this workshop comprised biologists, filmmakers, and journalists. We were formed into 4-person groups with mixed expertise, and paired with a scientist local to the University of Montana. Then we had half a day to plan, 1.5 days to shoot, and 2 days to edit this film. We had to quickly adapt to a new group dynamic, delegate and prioritize tasks, divide and conquer. The scientific discovery was deceptively simple: 3 symbiotic partners in lichen instead of 2. But because we were excited and immersed in the science, we wanted to add in a lot of details about the scientific methods that completely muddled the story. We had to overcome our interest in the details to tell the larger story. How do you approach storytelling? Our team is diverse in its approach to storytelling, however, one common theme was humanizing science. We filmed the scientists in the woods and in their homes, so we could convey a human story of discovery. We wanted our main characters to be scientists, as the relatable people they are, outside of the categorical nerd or professor role. We loved telling this story about people and lichens in the woods, with all of the magic found in sunrises, cabins, and dewy trees.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
The scientists didn't want the story to be about them, but rather about the process of discovery. We decided to focus on the idea that a world-wide group of scientists helped each other question their assumptions to make this discovery. Through teamwork, persistence, and creativity, they discovered something incredibly important about organisms that they see every day. Hopefully young scientists will see this film and feel emboldened to question the status quo and seek out symbiotic collaborations. Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? At one point, we wanted to make an analogy of a lichen, by showing all the different components on a pizza: basidiomycetes represented by chanterelles, ascomycetes represented by morels, and algae represented by nori. Tim, whose cabin we shot at, ended up having all of these components, and they made mushroom-related food for us whenever they weren't on camera. Mushroom omelettes for breakfast, mushroom pizza for lunch, etc. Even though we didn't end up using the analogy, we felt like we were becoming one with the fungi.
Anything else you would like people to know?
Lichen scientists are incredibly lichen-able! We lichened hanging out with them while making this story. They really are a bunch of fun-guys. Not mushroom to discuss more. What next? We are hoping to tell more stories with John McCutcheon’s lab. Stay tuned! What inspired you to tell this particular story? What did you learn during the making of this film? We were inspired by the collaborative scientists studying symbiosis. We learned so much doing this, really. It was part of a course that taught some of us more technical skills, while others more storytelling. We learned from each other mostly, each person pitching in with their expertise and helping others with less experience. Any surprises? Lichens are charismatic! Lich, who knew?
How do you foresee this nomination impacting the life of your film and your career as a filmmaker?
Kate - Confirmation that we have the skills we need moving forward. I am transitioning to full time science media, and this nomination is an important, well timed confidence booster. Talia - This nomination has opened my eyes to the huge impact a short film can have. I am currently applying for professorships and plan to incorporate outreach filmmaking into my research program, especially since my biomechanical studies involve lots of high-speed video. Chris - This film was an exploration into the minute and often overlooked world of lichens. Having the film nominated was a wonderful reassurance that the little things in nature can also share a spot in the wildlife media limelight. I hope this film becomes part of a growing body of high quality media that showcases the "smaller majority." Now, more than ever, I'm looking forward to watching that growth and being a part of it myself! Andy - For me, it was thrilling to get to meet and work with these other young, excited filmmakers and scientists. To have the fruit of that whirlwind effort invited to screen at Jackson Hole is a real inspiration to continue these kinds of collaborations with peers in this amazing world of science and natural history film.
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them questions about the experience of making their films.
How do you approach storytelling?
Creator and Producer Erin Champman: Unlike many of our adventurous colleagues at Jackson Hole, the Shelf Life team rarely leaves the four square blocks of Upper West Side Manhattan that make up the American Museum of Natural History. When producing episodes, we look for the exciting stories and personalities in our own backyard—stories based here, but far-reaching in their scope. This process involves lots of one-on-one conversations, plenty of reading, and hours of detective work inside the Museum’s archives and scientific collections. Conversations with researchers often lead to big picture ideas we then explore through the lens of a particular narrative. For example, in the tale of our giant squid’s journey to New York, we interwove the concept of how scientific taxonomy changes over time. To support these themes and stories, we find charismatic ambassadors amongst our staff and researchers, and look for ways to share their stories with creativity and a bit of fun. We aim to combine rigorous scientific filmmaking with imagination and humor.
What impact do you hope this series will have?
EC: In the course of filming, our Ichthyology Curator Melanie Stiassny told me, “Look, even if I had all the money in the world, even if I could travel to every corner of the globe, I could never reproduce what we’ve got here [in the collections] because the world has changed.” That’s a powerful statement. The collections at the American Museum of Natural History (and other museums around the world) are simply irreplaceable. They’re a time capsule of life, teaching us about its history and our future. One of the most important missions at the Museum is active scientific research, and one of its greatest scientific resources is its world-class scientific collection of more than 34 million specimens and artifacts. We want to upend the perception of museums as simply storehouses for big bones gathering dust. Instead, we want our audience to see natural history collections as dynamic places of discovery where new species are revealed, surprising relationships come to light, and researchers learn new questions to ask. I also hope to convey a message of inclusive science. We try to mirror who we want our audience to be by highlighting diverse voices from around the Museum. Ideally, some of those voices would inspire viewers to maintain a lifelong interest in science, or even to become a scientist themselves.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
EC: For our Shelf Life episodes, we can’t simply film specimens in a cabinet. Each episode forces us to come up with a new way to tell the story of a museum collection. For some projects, this involves spending hours in the Museum’s archives—deciphering 19th-century handwriting scribbled in the rainforest, or scanning thousands of expedition photographs to find just the perfect shot. For others, we’ve had to creatively visualize unseen phenomena or unknown organisms—how do you show the application of gene sequencing techniques to historical linguistics or evoke an organism known from a single tooth—all while maintaining scientific rigor. Those kind of challenges stretch our imaginations and are some of the many reasons we love producing this series. Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? EC: We’ve been pleasantly surprised to hear that Shelf Life has actually inspired some scientific inquiry and collaboration. It’s exciting to have the general public watch our series, but there’s an extra thrill knowing that researchers also have an eye on the videos. In one instance, a cell biologist saw our video on salamander-algae symbiosis and contacted our curator with information about what may be a related type of relationship in other organisms.
What next?
EC: We’ve entered our second season of Shelf Life and have been excited about our new slate. Our first set of 12 episodes was a kind of Museum Collections 101, exploring fundamental ideas about organization, preservation, technology, and the importance of historical specimens to current research. In our second season, we’ve been expanding on those ideas, and linking each episode to a particular expedition from the American Museum of Natural History. These expeditions—from 1920s paleontological digs in the Gobi Desert to 21st-century collaborative research in Cuba—take our viewers along on a specimen’s journey from field to lab, and the science that happens along the way. As a part of this new slate, we’ve begun producing 360 videos (one of which is a finalist in the VR category) that aim to embed our audience inside historic expeditions. It’s a whole new way of bringing archival materials to life, and we’re looking forward to continued innovation in the 360 medium.
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story?
Director, Writer and Photographer Richard Ladkani: The idea came from an article in the New York Times, that Richard Ladkani read in early 2013, about the possible extinction of elephants within ten years. It was unbelievable to him that neither he nor anybody he consecutively asked about it, had ever heard about this problem. Something had to be done to raise awareness and what filmmakers can do is make a film with the hopes of having an impact. He teamed up with his good friend and colleague Kief Davidson as co-director and they pitched the film to Terra Mater Factual Studios, as well as Vulcan Productions, who both agreed to produce it. The goal from the beginning was to make a film for the widest possible audience, have a global reach and try to pressure China to ban the trade in ivory. All of us were very focused on those goals and gave our everything to achieve what we set out to do.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
RL: The biggest challenge on this film was to keep up with our characters without interfering in their work. This was one of the mandatory requirements they gave us, to never hold them back. There could never be any repeats, everything needed to be captured as it happened with no second chances. It took an immense effort to stick to those rules but this type of approach also had a very positive impact on the look’n feel of the film. With a camera always hovering around, we were able to capture very special moments of emotion, danger and success that ultimately contributed to the success of the film and its impact around the world. Questions for Specific Categories: Impact What do you see as the impact of the individual, group or movement featured in the film? What real tangible impact do you hope to achieve? RL: We wanted to create a film for the widest possible audience, which was one of the reasons we chose a very thriller like approach when making the film. Our audiences should feel embedded with our characters and experience first hand, what it must be like to try to save a species from possible extinction. With over 100 million subscribers, Netflix was also part of the impact strategy as we wanted to reach a vast global audience upon release of the film. When China declared to ban the ivory trade only two months after our global launch date, we really felt empowered, especially as we were invited to open the film at the Beijing Int. Film Festival only two days after the announcement was made and later won the top award for best documentary feature. Even if our film only had a fraction of an influence for this ban to be put into place, it shows that films can make a difference and that it is worth fighting for what you believe in.
Editing
What tone did you try to capture through the editing this program? Editor Verena Schoenauer: For editing "THE IVORY GAME“ the main goal was to show the urgency of the poaching crisis, which seems so far away for most of us, and give it a face. Getting as close as possible to those people, who fight and risk their lives everyday for the survival of elephants, and telling these scenes in a very rough style renouncing any mitigating details shows this cruel undercover war in all its brutality. It was a thin line to not leave the audience behind completely hopeless and desperate. Creating a sense for the elephants as intelligent individuals with very different characters was essential to make the audience understand what we are about to loose and that it is worth fighting for the survival of these magnificent animals. Besides unveiling the ruthlessness of the ivory trade as an international crime, the emotional approach was always an important factor. Only if people understand – not only intellectually but emotionally – what we are about to loose, they will support those people in the front-line who cannot win this fight alone. Because you only fight for what you love.
Writing
What were the biggest influences on how you approached writing this project? RL: Our characters really believed to fight for a higher cause and we wanted our audiences to share that feeling with them. We chose to write a Jason Born type eco-thriller that evokes a feeling of immediacy, of being in the middle of the action at all times. We wanted to create some sort of reality you rarely see on the big screen. Nothing in our film was scripted and yet when we wrote it, we envisioned our film to play out exactly as it ultimately did. With some exceptions of course: Nobody could have anticipated that the largest poacher in East Africa aka “the Devil" would ultimately be caught on camera or that Kenya’s stockpiles would ultimately be burned. This was wishful thinking but quite a pleasant surprise when it became true.
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them questions about the experience of making their films.
Answers by Otmar Penker, Director and Director of Photography.
(Answers are provided first in German, then English.) What inspired this story? Bereits seit meiner Kindheit, welche ich in und mit der Natur verbringen durfte, hat mich die Faszination um diese majestätischen Vögel nicht mehr losgelassen. Während meiner Ausbildung zum Kameramann reifte, bei wochenlangen Dreharbeiten an einem Adlerhorst, in mir der Gedanke, über diesen Vogel einen Film zu machen. 2004 hatte ich bereits die erste Idee zu einer Dokumentation, welche im Jahr 2009 gemeinsam mit Gerald Salmina zu einem Kinofilm umgearbeitet wurde. An enormous fascination for eagles, these majestic birds, accompanied and captured me since my childhood, which I spent in and around nature. During my apprenticeship to become a camera operator I spent several weeks filming around an eyrie. It was this experience that made me wish to make a film about these fascinating birds. I developed the first idea to shoot a documentary in 2004, and I realised it together with Gerald Salmina as a cinema film in 2009.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
Für uns war es eine große Herausforderung den dokumentarischen Naturdreh mit der fiktionalen Handlung zu verbinden, ohne dass der Zuschauer einen Bruch zwischen den beiden Ebenen spürt. Aus diesem Grund musste erst eine Kamerasprache entwickelt werden, welche die Wildtiere zu echten Schauspielern werden ließ. Bei den Wildlifedrehs, welche uns in das unwegsamste Gelände auch bei widrigsten Wetterverhältnissen führten, war es eine große Herausforderung die über 30kg schweren Kamerarucksäcke mit dem Equipment vor Ort zu bringen. Wir mussten uns teilweise über 200 Meter hohe Felswände abseilen um spezielle Kameraeinstellungen zu bekommen. Steinschlag im Sommer und Lawinengefahr im Winter waren unsere ständigen Begleiter. It was a great challenge for us to connect the natural history parts with the fictional storyline; the viewer should not experience any kind of disharmony, but should at the same time be able to connect both levels of the movie. Therefore, we first needed to create a very special visual language to allow these wild animals to be the movie’s true actors. Another challenge was the logistics. During the making of the film we had to cross rough terrains under the most adverse weather conditions in order to get our camera backpacks, which at times weighed more than 30 kilos a piece, and all equipment, on site. To obtain specific shots we had to rope down 200m high cliffs. Falling rocks during summer and continuous avalanche danger in winter were our permanent companions during this time.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
Mit diesem Film möchte ich die Menschen für die Natur und diese majestätischen Vögel begeistern, und einen Beitrag dazu leisten diese Naturwelt nicht nur zu erhalten, sondern sie dafür auch zu sensibilisieren. With this movie I want to raise interest and excitement for nature, and particularly for these majestic birds. It is important for me to contribute to preserving nature by raising people’s awareness for this important subject. Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? Der Natur und ihren Herausforderungen kann sich niemand von uns entziehen. Sie ist Ansporn für Leistung und Abenteuer, sie ist Spiegelbild unbewusster Sehnsüchte, sie ist aber auch Projektionsfläche für Ängste und Leidenschaften und nicht zuletzt Lehrmeister für unser eigenes Verhalten. Man kann auf dem Papier viele Geschichten schreiben, aber in der Natur spielt es oft ganz anders. So ist es uns einige Male passiert, dass sich vor der Kamera Szenen abgespielt haben, sowohl bei den fiktionalen als auch bei den Wildlife-Dreharbeiten, mit denen wir niemals gerechnet hätten. So passierte es einige Male, dass die Tiere ihre Geschichten selber schrieben. We all have to face nature and its challenges. Nature is an enormous incentive for delivering great performances and experiencing thrilling adventures. It is a mirror of our very own unconscious longings and desires; but we also project our fears and passions onto it. We can’t live without nature. You can try to develop your own storyline, your set-in-stone scripts – but nature has it’s own way of storytelling. While filming fictional and wildlife scenes it was not once that we encountered events and saw scenes simply playing out through our camera lenses, not following any script, but multiple times. At times, the animals did their own storytelling – and we followed them meticulously. Their lives and their behaviour – we can study them as much as we can and want, and they still never stop surprising us.
Did the film team use any unusual techniques or unique imaging technology?
Grundsätzlich haben wir mit einer 2K Technologie gearbeitet, aber eine neue Art der Aufnahme wurde mit der sogenannten „EagleCam“ umgesetzt. Hierbei handelt es sich um eine Entwicklung des Fraunhofer Institutes in Erlangen, zusammen mit dem Falkner Paul Klima vom Falkenhof Lenggries und Fritz Sammer. Die Steinadler bekamen einen Rucksack angepasst, der nahezu unsichtbar im Federkleid befestigt und auf dem diese Eagle Cam angebracht war. Diese Flugaufnahmen der Adler ließen eine völlig neue Perspektive und Nähe zum Bild zu. Weiteres arbeiteten wir auch mit ferngesteuerten Kameras am Adlerhorst. Ein selbst entwickelter Remote Head wurde dafür eingesetzt, welchen man mit einem 2,5-MHz-System auf eine Entfernung von zwei Kilometern betreiben konnte. Die Kamera selbst SI2K wurde über ein WLAN System gesteuert. Versorgt wurde das Rig mit einer Brennstoffzelle, wodurch annähernd vierzehn Tage lang Strom zur Verfügung stand. So wurde ein Teil der Nestaufnahmen z.B. An- und Abflüge, umgesetzt. Viele der bewegten Aufnahmen von „unseren Vögeln“ konnten wir auch mit einem 9 Meter Pixy Kamerakran umsetzen. Auch hier war der Transport des rund 400 kg schweren Kranes ins unwegsame Gelände eine Herausforderung. Ein Großteil der Flugaufnahmen wurde mit einem Cineflex System umgesetzt. Für kleinräumige Flüge verwendeten wir auch einen Oktokopter mit einer Red Epic. Most of our work was done with 2K technologies, but we did use a new technique with the so-called “eagle-cam“. This camera was developed by the “Fraunhofer Institutes“ in Erlangen who worked on it together with falconer Paul Klima and the falconry Lenggries and Fritz Sammer. The golden eagles were equipped with eagle cams that were attached to adjusted backpacks, almost invisible between their feathers. The resulting aerial shots allowed us to experience an entirely new, different and, most of all, stunning perspective. We had some remote-controlled cameras at the eyrie. We used a self-developed remote head, which was operated with a 2,5 MHz system from a distance of two kilometres. A fuel cell provided the rig with energy whereby electricity for almost fourteen days was provided. This is how me managed to film many of the birds’ landings and take offs without disturbing them in the privacy of their nest. A 9-meter high Pixy camera crane helped us capture many scenes of our birds. Getting this 400-kilo crane from A to B was a huge challenge on the rough Alpine terrain. The majority of aerial shots was achieved by using a Cineflex system. For shorter distances we worked with a drone that carried a Red Epic.
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story?
Martin Dohrn, Filmmaker: Steve Burns (from CuriosityStream) wanted me to try and make a short film that allowed us to see the world from a different perspective - in this case with the special lenses and cameras we have developed in the past at Ammonite. Since Steve also made clear there was only a small budget available, we decided my back garden was the only place we could afford to make the film.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
MD: Initially, I was worried that we would struggle to find enough dramatic behaviour in my small 10x30 metre city garden, in a short space of time. My fears were unfounded and the miniature garden wildlife performed brilliantly. How do you approach storytelling? MD: Films about insects and small invertebrates are few and far between, so it was no problem to find fresh material. The basic premise was that if you look closely at the world of small creatures, a small 10x30 metre garden can become a huge nature reserve full of lurking predators and spectacular unstudied life forms. Linking the different subjects relating to scale and specific lenses or cameras was a simple process.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
MD: I hope it will inspire people to investigate and value even the smallest piece of land in the most unlikely places. Were there any surprising or meaningful experiences you want to share? MD: Even though I know the garden well, I was surprised how easy it was to record images I had never seen before, and behaviour that probably hasn't been described before.
Anything else you would like people to know?
MD: The world is bigger than you think. What next? MD: We are making a series about the seven living big cats, their prehistory, their history, their present and future, for CuriosityStream. We are also making a film about a giant ant supercolony with David Attenborough for BBC and Terra Mater.
We reached out to our festival filmmakers to ask them questions about the experience of making their films.
What inspired this story?
Africa has some of the most spectacular wildlife and wild places on earth and we’ve all worked there, experienced this and been inspired ourselves. Producing in 3D for giant screens gives us the wonderful opportunity to immerse audiences in these amazing natural worlds, experiencing the wild in a way that is as close as possible to actually being there, and hopefully inspiring many others as we have been inspired ourselves.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
This is probably the most ambitious nature film ever shot in 3D for the giant screen, because of the great variety of camera techniques we had to employ to shoot all the various scenes in the wild, from macro to long lens, to underwater to time-lapse and slow motion. Almost every one needed us to develop and then operate a new 3D rig to capture the images, in some extreme conditions. It was a huge team effort. How do you approach storytelling? As our aim was to immerse audiences in the wild, we needed a simple storytelling structure that gently guided audiences and did not get in the way of the emotional and visual experience. A journey from frozen mountain tops to sea, following water, was a very natural one, and one that also enabled us to educate audiences about how critical water is in all its forms to life on earth. The journey following water also allowed us to give the audience some thrilling moments of travel too, that play to the strength of the giant screen in 3D eg. tumbling over Victoria Falls.
What impact do you hope this film will have?
This film will be seen by large numbers of children, in both school groups and families, in theatres all around the world. As the experience is such a visceral and immersive one in these theatres, the closest you can get to being in the wild, we hope this film will spark a real connection with nature in kids, that will be carried beyond the theatre. For educators who want to build on this experience we also provide extensive educational materials.
Anything else you would like people to know?
What is very pleasing is to see how audiences in many different continents and cultures are enjoying this film. As a theatrical experience, it is currently being successfully shown in North America, Mexico, Europe, Saudi Arabia, China and Japan. It is truly a wildlife experience that works across cultures.
By Abbey Greene
Have you ever wondered which of the BIG CATS you were most like?
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