In the world of nature documentaries, wildlife filmmakers had for many years resigned themselves to the fact that their professional lives would be bound to very tight budgets with distribution limited to television and nature film festivals. Not that this would condemn them to inferior product, but the opportunity to express their passion to a large audience utilizing the power of the large screen experience, for the most part, eluded them.
In 2008, Walt Disney Studios formed its Disneynature division for the purpose of bringing nature films back to a mainstream audience in a big way. Disney has a past history in nature documentaries - cute stories of lovable bears or foxes that were both entertaining and fashioned within the mold of Disney family fare. With Disneynature, the studio has returned with several sweeping theatrical productions that are also taking advantage of today's advanced home entertainment technology in the form of high definition Blu-ray and Internet connectivity.
Set for release on October 19th in Blu-ray/DVD combo packs, Disneynature's Oceansand The Crimson Wing are two remarkable films with stunning visuals but different approaches in storylines to motivate audiences to appreciate nature. One engulfs you with the breadth of biodiversity, while the other focuses on a precarious annual journey of survival.
Oceans, a follow up to Earth, Disneynature's first global-oriented release, takes a sweeping look at life in the sea. From majestic humpback whales to quirky, pugnacious mantis shrimp; to humongous, thunderous storm waves; to Isla Guadalupe's great white sharks (some familiar toothy faces from my years filming there), the film ladles one impressive scene atop another to paint a picture of spectacular variety in shape, color size, and temperament. Pierce Brosnan provides a narration that is not too wordy, avoiding competing for attention with the images on the screen.
While many nature film-goers may have seen similar underwater scenes in other films, the sheer variety all brought together in Oceans is overwhelming. As a nature filmmaker, I knew a lot about what went into the making of this film, produced by French-based Galatee Films: high definition video, 35mm film, elaborate underwater lighting rigs, camera cranes arms working from small boats, even remote controlled model helicopters mounted with cameras - enough technical wizardry to make any major action film envious. And yet, knowing this, I still found myself thinking over and over, How did they get that shot?
The Blu-ray transfer of the film is excellent and nothing is modified from the original wide-screen theatrical format - so even on a large flat screen, the video is letterboxed to match the theatrical original. The Blu-ray disc also provides an interesting variation on the "director's comments" found with many DVDs by offering Filmmaker Annotations which provides behind-the-scenes footage and backstory while the video is running.
With such a mosaic of dramatic aquatic images, the film's one weakness is the lack of a more cohesive storyline. The film is literally and figuratively all over the map, from big to small, from one side of the globe to another, there were brief scenes that, while probably taking many days if not weeks to shoot, seemed to be mere placeholders. So the "story" of Oceans is that of spectacular eye candy. It is a marvelous achievement visually and home viewers, particularly those unfamiliar with the ocean's biodiversity, will be as impressed as theater-goers were.
While having advance knowledge of what to expect with Oceans, I was totally unfamiliar with The Crimson Wing. It is the story of Africa's flamingos and their annual migration to the lakes in northern Tanzania to breed and raise their babies. Flamingos? Those goofy-looking pink birds? This couldn't hold my attention as a feature film.
I was more than pleasantly surprised. I was stunned.
Produced by Natural Light Films and Kudo Pictures, The Crimson Wing is a remarkable example of nature filmmaking. Capturing the birds in flight or congregating in the hundreds of thousands, the filmmakers transform the image of a silly plastic ornament on a Florida lawn into a graceful creature determined to flourish in an insufferably hot and hostile environment.
The Crimson Wing focuses on Lake Natron, where flamingos arrive following brief rains that breathe life into the shallow lake in the form of red algae - remarkably, the source of the birds distinctive color. As the summer heat increases, salts separate from the evaporating waters and literally form a salt island where the birds go to build nests; mounds of salty mud. The babies that hatch must then withstand an arduous trek to the lake shore marshes where they will feed, grow and ultimately take flight as the flocks disperse across Africa, only to return again the next year, the cycle repeating itself.
While there are plenty of Disneyesque scenes of cute baby flamingos stumbling through their first steps or nestling with their mothers, the film doesn't pull its punches in showing the precarious nature of their lives. Stalking predators like giant storks or a hungry mongoose are shown taking their fill - a reminder of the cold brutality of survival. Not avoiding this hard reality of nature only adds to the mystery and miracle of the migration, and the filmmakers succeed in maintaining a balance in tone: beauty in the face of severity.
While containing stunning visuals, The Crimson Wing also benefits from a more cohesive and personal story, one that is propelled by chronological events. The close interaction between mother and chicks helps to maintain focus as these flamingos go through their own "Circle of Life" - to borrow from another Disney film. Again, the Blu-ray transfer is excellent and so you have an entertaining combination of state-of-the-art visuals with a compelling story. This is what one would hope all nature films could attain.
In addition to the video of the original theatrical release and the Filmmaker Annotation feature previously mentioned, both Oceans and The Crimson Wing offer interactive menu features that, when the Blu-ray player is linked to the Internet, provide additional nature and conservation information that is updated via the online connection. Part of the strategy to promote adoption of the Blu-ray standard is the incorporation of the Internet - in essence, your Blu-ray player becomes a computer - and I expect we will see more and more creative uses of this interactive capability in the future.
Disneynature's Oceans and The Crimson Wing are worthy reasons for adopting Blu-ray as the next home video format. Enlightening viewers to the beauty, importance, and fragility of nature is a worthwhile mission for technology. As a conservationist, I am hoping that technology will provide solutions to help protect the planet. It can also help by simply showing us what we can not afford to lose.
After 10 years of study, involving 2,700 scientists from 80 nations, the results from the Census of Marine Life was released today. Ocean animals were cataloged, photographed, tagged and tracked or whatever was needed to be able to get a more accurate picture as to the size and scope of marine life worldwide. And the results are both a source of awe and inspiration and a reason for concern.
Scientists have identified around 250,000 marine species but estimate that the total number is probably closer to one million. The census collated data on nearly 17,000 species of fish but scientists estimates there are another 5,000 yet to be discovered. And that's excluding the oceans vast array of microbes, which are estimated alone to total up to a billion.
Over the study's ten-year period, scientists explored shallow reefs and some of the ocean's deepest canyons, from frigid Arctic waters to warm lagoons. Much was learned and much was realized to be, as yet, undiscovered. One of the cornerstone's of the study's research is the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), a central database of observations dating back centuries which forms a baseline of data constructed from 28 million observations and growing by approximately 5 million observations each year.
"The census enlarged the known world. Life astonished us everywhere we looked. In the deep sea we found luxuriant communities despite extreme conditions,"said Myriam Sibuet, vice-chair of the study's Steering Committee.
As I had mentioned in a previous post on the Marine Census, the amazing pictures that we will be seeing in the news, magazines, and books in the weeks and months to come will portray an ecosystem that is vibrant with life of all kinds. But we must not think that with this multitude of life that all is well in the seas.
Jesse Asubel, co-founder of the Census, said, "The Census encountered an ocean growing more crowded with commerce and transparent through technology. Setting out to draw baselines of the diversity, distribution, and abundance of species, the first Census of Marine Life documented a changing ocean, richer in diversity, more connected through distribution and movements, more impacted by humans, and yet less explored than we had known."
The Census of Marine Life is a major milestone in ocean biology. Future census studies will add more data and uncover more surprises. There's much we know, much more we need to learn, and all of it we need to conserve and protect.
In the complex web of evolution, one of the pivotal moments occurred with the transition from aquatic animals to land animals - an event marked by the change from fins to limbs. While fossils have shown us evidence of this transition, the actually biological processes, what accomplished this change, has not been clear.
In a report recently published in Nature, a research team from the University of Ottawa conducted experiments that could shed some light on evolutionary change. Their studies identified a group of genes responsible for the supportive fibers found in fish fins, not found in tetrapods (land animals). These genes, known as actinodins, were found in both the researchers' primary laboratory specimen, the zebrafish, and in the elephant shark - an example of an ancient fish that has changed very little from its millions year old ancestors.
By chemically suppressing the actinodin genes in zebrafish embryos or in adults that were regenerating new fins, the resulting fins lacked the supporting fibers. What could not be tested is the causal event that might have triggered the gene change millions of years ago or whether the gene loss occurred as the instigator of change or as a reaction to some other evolutionary biological process.
"It's a very nice example of how changes in one or two genes can be responsible for a huge evolutionary transition,"says Axel Meyer, a evolutionary biologist at the University of Konstanz. "We tend to think that new genes bring new functions, but this study shows that the presence of genes constrains or directs development in certain directions. Gene loss is actually a creative force in evolution."
Evolution is an incredibly complex process that not only provides historical insight but has the potential for unlocking secrets into the processes that impact species today in their ability to alter or adapt to changing circumstances. While some people do not subscribe to theories of evolution for religious reasons, I find that, if there is a higher power, there is no clearer evidence than in the intricacies of evolution, from single-celled organisms eons ago to the diversity of life that graces this planet today - a diversity that is being threatened by one of its most successful species. Read more about the study in Scientific American.
Well, I'm back from a very successful trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Hopefully I will have impressed a few listeners before they watch shark television programming that seems to be obsessed with one thing this year: shark attacks.
I caught two interesting news bits on invasive species. The introduction of foreign animal and plant life into an ecosystem can have disastrous effects either on the ecosystem itself - as in the case of invasive seaweeds or predators like the lionfish - or on our man-made infrastructures - like the damage caused to water pipes from freshwater mussels.
1. Speaking of lionfish: their population has been exploding in the warm waters off Florida and the Caribbean, ever since their introduction by aquarists who could no longer care for them at home and released them into the wild. Voracious by nature, the beautiful lionfish was thought to possibly be held in check through predation by larger animals like groupers. While that still may be the case someday, at the moment it's a losing battle. One that has prompted the development of "lionfish tournaments" which have netted as many as 1200+ lionfish in a single event.
2. TIME magazine just reported on a government-sanctioned program to rid the Florida Everglades of exotic Asian pythons - again, introduced into the wild by owners who could no longer manage them at home. These reptiles, like the Burmese python, can reach a length of up to 18 feet and can disrupt the Everglade's predator-prey hierarchy by feeding on everything from small rodents all the way up to the typical apex predator of the Everglades, the alligator. Officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation are working with snake experts to round up some of the estimated 150,000 pythons and are considering even issuing bounty hunter permits.
It's a sad price that has to be paid by all invasive species, whether plant or animal, when the result is their wholesale destruction. But the real villain lies with man either through his thoughtlessness, negligence, or perverse need to own exotic animals as pets. And because of it, we must then cover our tracks at the end of a spear or the barrel of a gun.
Another great article in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times from Ken Weiss (read online version). Ken has a great knack for taking scientific data and putting into laymen's terms while also fairly presenting all sides of an issue.
Here we have a study from the International Coral Reef Symposium that documents that the Hawaiian Islands are clearly showing reef fish in decline, with as much as 75% of the species critically affected. The populations of reef fish play a critical role in maintaining healthy coral reefs "by grazing on algae that can quickly overgrow the stony corals and cause them to collapse." The primary culprit appears to be overfishing. Of additional concern is the fact that international authorities and local governments have not been effectively monitoring the take by recreational and small-scale subsistence fishermen, only the commercial operations - a bit like monitoring gas consumption among commercial trucks and ignoring the passenger vehicles.
If ever there was a need for better regulations and setting aside protected reserves, this is it. Then of course there is one of my favorite solutions: investing in more and better aquaculture. If you're a US citizen, remember: Hawaii is our 50th state, part of the team. So, check with the Oceanic Institute and NOAA to see what you can do to help our Pacific Paradise maintain its aquatic beauty.
In the world of nature documentaries, wildlife filmmakers had for many years resigned themselves to the fact that their professional lives would be bound to very tight budgets with distribution limited to television and nature film festivals. Not that this would condemn them to inferior product, but the opportunity to express their passion to a large audience utilizing the power of the large screen experience, for the most part, eluded them.
