The movie Earth is a captivating tale narrated by James Earl Jones. Jones says, About one year in life of the creatures that share our planet. http://disney.go.com/disneynature/earth/
It takes us up close and personal with three families; a humpback whale and her new calf, as they make the longest migration of any marine mammal across the planet, an elephant and her newborn traveling through the Calahari desert in search of water, and in the Arctic North, a polar bear and her two cubs go in search of food after a long winter hibernation.
Mark Linfield, Director for the film says, Earth is a portrait of our planet in the 21st century. It really encapsulates all that is great about our planet and also all that we stand to lose.
It took 5 years to shoot, covering 64 countries, and 200 locations. The breath taking landscapes are majestic, and the animals and their surroundings tell the story of how the world is changing. Alastair Fothergill, another Director says, Everyone realizes our planet is extraordinarily fragile. By having 40 camera crew out there seeing the effects of global warming on a daily basis, it?s not just a theory, it?s happening.
So what are North Texans doing to reduce their carbon footprint. Charlotte Elliott says, We only use Green Mountain Energy, so it is only renuable energy in the house. I recycle everything I can. I try to by organic, in season and local. Sara Hale says, I try not to drive too much, use too much packaging have a low, small footprint. And Disney is doing their part too. For every Earth ticket sold through Tuesday, they will plant a tree in your honor.
This movie pulls at your heart strings, especially when the polar bear, the largest carnivore, watches the ground beneath him melting. And the film makers hope it inspires you to preserve our planet and it?s spectacular wildlife.
Alastair says, We need to take care of the Earth. It is a beautiful Earth and it is just a great way to honor God our creator.
The movie is rated G, but take into consideration that this is a nature movie, dealing with life and death issues, and may not be appropriate for all ages.
Disney film crews headed to the wilds of the World for “Earth”
In 2005, this little French nature documentary came along and changed the box-office rules. March of the Penguins earned $77 million in U.S. theaters. And Disney, which distributed the film in some countries, including France, took notice. The studio that invented the modern family-friendly nature film, with its True Life Adventures in the 1940s through the ’60s, has been in and out of nature filmmaking. It was time to send Disney crews into the wild again.
“It seemed like a natural, without playing on words, to carry on this Disney tradition,” says Jean-Francois Camilleri, executive vice president and general manager of Disneynature, the studio’s new documentary division. “Most of the people who are filming in the wild as we speak were inspired by those early Disney films.”
That’s certainly true of Mark Linfield. The co-director of the BBC’s acclaimed Earth series, he co-directed Disneynature’s first feature film. Earth opens in theaters on Wednesday: Earth Day.
“My earliest wildlife-film memories was watching black and white TV of Perri the squirrel, beavers and nature films in the living room with my family,” Linfield says. “Those were Disney True Life Adventures, which were shown in the U.K. when I was growing up. They must have been quite formative because I had an enthusiasm for wildlife from a very early age.”
Earth is an introduce-the-new-studio film, says Camilleri, a movie that covers “all the Earth.” Earth ranges from pole to pole, through forests, deserts and even into the ocean. It is built on footage (some never broadcast) from the BBC series that Linfield and Alastair Fothergill directed. Camilleri says that the plan “was to launch our first film on Earth Day. The movie we wanted to launch this studio with should be about everything in nature, all parts of the world. The second film will be about the oceans, then film by film we will focus in closer on some details of natural life — chimpanzees, for instance, lions, pollinators.”
The Earth team spent 2,000 days filming, with four or five crews in the field at any given time, says co-director Fothergill. “We literally filmed from pole to pole, from the top of mountains to the bottom of the ocean. Over-wintering with emperor penguins at minus 70 degrees centigrade was demanding. Diving with sailfish — 75-mph fish with javelins on their noses — was tricky. Working with elephants in the sandstorm the helicopter almost crashed.”
All in pursuit of images never before seen on screen — sailfish sweeping their sword-like bills through schools of baitfish, stunning them, lions tackling an elephant, birds of paradise offering their courtship displays.
“We have to be innovative,” Camilleri says. "For big-screen versions of these films, you have to be a little bit more on the edge. Alastair and Mark came to us three years ago [the film was commissioned at the same time as the TV series] and are doing films for us. They are probably the best in the world at this genre. We are doing a chimpanzee film and an African cats on the Serengeti film with them.
“Luc Jacquet who directed March of the Penguins is doing a film for us. Jacques Perrin who did Winged Migration is doing Oceans for us. We have the best nature filmmakers in the world making movies for us.”
The idea, Camilleri says, is to release one Disneynature film a year — Oceans in 2010, Naked Beauty: A Love Story that Feeds the Earth (about insects and animals that pollinate) in two years, African cats in three years, chimpanzees in 2013.
Will it pay off? Maybe, says Brandon Gray, president and publisher of the movie-biz Web site Boxofficemojo.
“There’s always room for family films, and nature documentaries are part of Disney’s brand,” Gray says. “As long as their expectations are kept in check — it will be hard to match March of the Penguins, but they could certainly do Winged Migration business [$11 million] — they’ll do well.”
Fothergill says that making family-friendly documentaries for the big screen meant that they wouldn’t be “getting up on our soap box.” The environmental message of the movies would be more subtle, “this is what’s still out there and worth saving.”
And they’d always have that entertaining Disney touch.
“This big cat movie we’re doing is all drama and intrigue, a real Serengeti soap opera,” Fothergill laughs. “And the chimpanzees? They literally are writing their own script. If they get their hands on a typewriter, look out!”
Educators can go to disney.go.com/disneynature to find 58 pages of support materials about great migrations, predators and prey and other phenomena depicted in Earth.
• EARTHOPENSWEDNESDAY: Find a review and which theaters are showing Disney’s new nature documentary online next week. OrlandoSentinel.com/movies.
Roger Moore can be reached at 407-420-5369 or rmoore@orlandosentinel.com.
Disney nature films on DVD
You can find copies of the classic films of Disney’s earlier foray into nature documentaries at your favorite video store.
The True Life Adventures Legacy Collection, on DVD, includes:
• The Living Desert
• Secrets of Life
• Islands of the Sea
• Beaver Valley
• Seal Island
• Perri
• White Wilderness
Planet Earth on DVD
The original BBC documentary series that Earth was partially built from, Planet Earth, was narrated by David Attenborough and is on DVD and Blu-ray. Prices range from $47.99 to $80 for the complete set.
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