Around the world for $1
If you’ve never seen the documentary “Earth,” take time to rent or borrow the DVD soon. It will make you appreciate the arriving days of spring—and our earth—even more.
For $1 you can travel to places and see things you will likely never have the chance to go and see. Many millions of dollars—apparently the most expensive documentary ever made—were spent filming polar bears in the Arctic, humpback whales migrating 4,000 miles from the tropics to the Antarctic and back again, bar-headed geese struggling to fly over the Himalayas in their migration to southern climes, elephants and their calves plodding through barren wasteland to find a watering hole. The film keeps you on the edge of your couch wondering, will these various animals make it?
This is far more than an expanded episode of Animal Kingdom or Planet Earth. I learned things I had forgotten or never knew, leaving me more in awe of our Creator. We know such small parts of the earth, even if we have had the opportunity to travel. Like, did you know desert covers more than one third of our land mass around the world? That water covers another 70 percent of the earth’s surface? That around the top of the upper hemisphere, vast acreage of boreal/taiga forest is space where very few animals or humans can live because the ground is frozen all year and pine needles don’t make good eating for critters?
Having been a small part of documentary crews for some of our own very low budget projects at Third Way Media, I wanted to watch the bonus material about the filming of “Earth.” The film was five years in the making, used 45 of the best camera people on earth, employed the most highly skilled helicopter pilots in the world, accessed local experts on habitat such as a polar expert. They visited 62 countries on all seven continents and filmed 2,000 days. Those who worked on the project were clearly inspired by its premise—if daunted at times. They faced a huge pride of hungry lions at night, starving polar bears eager to get food from their camp, fierce winds flying through some of the most extreme environments on the planet, not to mention enduring temperatures many degrees below zero. When weather did not cooperate, the producers also dealt with weeks of highly paid crew just sitting around camps or playing games.
But their patience and diligence was always rewarded with shots that were “fantastic!”—as the many British-accented filmmakers exclaimed when a shot they’d tried to get for weeks finally worked out (bonus material). They used an extremely high speed camera capturing 1,000 images a second, and another that could pan 360 degrees, which was bolted to the outside of a helicopter. From high up they could film animals undisturbed, which also visually placed the animals in a much larger environment.
I haven’t revealed nearly all the behind-the-scenes details that to me bring even greater appreciation of the movie. Having dealt a little with demanding producers, I could grasp the frustration of a helicopter pilot who explained, “You’ve got a demanding producer on board and a cameraman who can’t really see what he is filming, while piloting your helicopter through some of the most extreme environments and weather in the world, and they are asking, ‘Can’t you move over just a bit so we can catch THAT?!’”
For children under five or particularly sensitive types, there were times that both my daughter and I averted our eyes because we knew the inevitable kill was coming. An animal higher on the food chain was closing in for his or her dinner. But the starving and emaciated father polar bear captured our sympathy so much that when he tries desperately to attack an unwieldy but still fierce walrus, we root for the bear. Spoiler alert: If you know the shrinking history of the polar bear population, you can guess the end of that particular scenario.
The producers at the end of their commentary noted that such a piece may not even be possible to film in another 20-30 years. But I can’t help be reminded of the beautiful covenant God made with Noah after the flood had completely destroyed the world as they knew it many years ago: “I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh: and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh” says Genesis 9:15.
Whether polar bears actually become extinct I do not know—nor do I have the expertise to judge whether the melting polar ice cap is the result of natural climate changes or by people and our environments emitting too much carbon. But I do believe this: our creator God will be with us and perhaps guide us to new discoveries, new ways of coping, new ways of keeping our world majestic and—fantastic!
You can read another review of “Earth” at the website, Third Way Café under Media Matters http://www.thirdway.com/MM/?Page=4295%7CEarth or I would be happy to send it to you by regular mail. Send to Another Way, Box 22, Harrisonburg, VA 22803. Sign up for free weekly media reviews by e-mail at http://www.thirdway.com/subscriptions/
Melodie Davis is the author of nine books, most recently Whatever Happened to Dinner and has written Another Way since 1987. She is also the producer and cohost of the Shaping Families radio program, airing nationally.
For $1 you can travel to places and see things you will likely never have the chance to go and see. Many millions of dollars—apparently the most expensive documentary ever made—were spent filming polar bears in the Arctic, humpback whales migrating 4,000 miles from the tropics to the Antarctic and back again, bar-headed geese struggling to fly over the Himalayas in their migration to southern climes, elephants and their calves plodding through barren wasteland to find a watering hole. The film keeps you on the edge of your couch wondering, will these various animals make it?
This is far more than an expanded episode of Animal Kingdom or Planet Earth. I learned things I had forgotten or never knew, leaving me more in awe of our Creator. We know such small parts of the earth, even if we have had the opportunity to travel. Like, did you know desert covers more than one third of our land mass around the world? That water covers another 70 percent of the earth’s surface? That around the top of the upper hemisphere, vast acreage of boreal/taiga forest is space where very few animals or humans can live because the ground is frozen all year and pine needles don’t make good eating for critters?
Having been a small part of documentary crews for some of our own very low budget projects at Third Way Media, I wanted to watch the bonus material about the filming of “Earth.” The film was five years in the making, used 45 of the best camera people on earth, employed the most highly skilled helicopter pilots in the world, accessed local experts on habitat such as a polar expert. They visited 62 countries on all seven continents and filmed 2,000 days. Those who worked on the project were clearly inspired by its premise—if daunted at times. They faced a huge pride of hungry lions at night, starving polar bears eager to get food from their camp, fierce winds flying through some of the most extreme environments on the planet, not to mention enduring temperatures many degrees below zero. When weather did not cooperate, the producers also dealt with weeks of highly paid crew just sitting around camps or playing games.
But their patience and diligence was always rewarded with shots that were “fantastic!”—as the many British-accented filmmakers exclaimed when a shot they’d tried to get for weeks finally worked out (bonus material). They used an extremely high speed camera capturing 1,000 images a second, and another that could pan 360 degrees, which was bolted to the outside of a helicopter. From high up they could film animals undisturbed, which also visually placed the animals in a much larger environment.
I haven’t revealed nearly all the behind-the-scenes details that to me bring even greater appreciation of the movie. Having dealt a little with demanding producers, I could grasp the frustration of a helicopter pilot who explained, “You’ve got a demanding producer on board and a cameraman who can’t really see what he is filming, while piloting your helicopter through some of the most extreme environments and weather in the world, and they are asking, ‘Can’t you move over just a bit so we can catch THAT?!’”
For children under five or particularly sensitive types, there were times that both my daughter and I averted our eyes because we knew the inevitable kill was coming. An animal higher on the food chain was closing in for his or her dinner. But the starving and emaciated father polar bear captured our sympathy so much that when he tries desperately to attack an unwieldy but still fierce walrus, we root for the bear. Spoiler alert: If you know the shrinking history of the polar bear population, you can guess the end of that particular scenario.
The producers at the end of their commentary noted that such a piece may not even be possible to film in another 20-30 years. But I can’t help be reminded of the beautiful covenant God made with Noah after the flood had completely destroyed the world as they knew it many years ago: “I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh: and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh” says Genesis 9:15.
Whether polar bears actually become extinct I do not know—nor do I have the expertise to judge whether the melting polar ice cap is the result of natural climate changes or by people and our environments emitting too much carbon. But I do believe this: our creator God will be with us and perhaps guide us to new discoveries, new ways of coping, new ways of keeping our world majestic and—fantastic!
You can read another review of “Earth” at the website, Third Way Café under Media Matters http://www.thirdway.com/MM/?Page=4295%7CEarth or I would be happy to send it to you by regular mail. Send to Another Way, Box 22, Harrisonburg, VA 22803. Sign up for free weekly media reviews by e-mail at http://www.thirdway.com/subscriptions/
Melodie Davis is the author of nine books, most recently Whatever Happened to Dinner and has written Another Way since 1987. She is also the producer and cohost of the Shaping Families radio program, airing nationally.
Published: March 16, 2011
