Disneynature's Earth: Q&A with the Directors

Critically acclaimed duo Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield's latest endeavor is a grand undertaking, to say the least. You likely know them as the filmmakers who brought you the BBC series Planet Earth—the highest selling HD DVD set to date. Their next project was directing Disneynature's Earth, which was commissioned alongside the TV series. The movie, filmed over the course of five years, opens nationwide on Earth Day (April 22). It's a beautiful experience both visually and audibly—the surround sound enables the audience to hear the noise of a flower blooming, and James Earl Jones' voice resonating throughout; the wide screen HD format engulfs viewers and brings them to locations so isolated they may never have the chance to see them first hand. The directors took a few minutes for a Q&A session via phone.

AD: What challenges and restrictions did you face, if any, directing and producing for such a broad audience?

Mark Linfield: I think the first thing is obviously we wanted it to be a movie for all of the family. I didn't really think that that placed any restrictions on it at all. One of the things we were very careful about is we didn't want gratuitous blood and gore. If you take, for example, the wolf hunting the caribou, or the cheetah hunting the gazelle, we include all the interesting bits—all the strategy of the chase and the hunt—right up to the moment where quite clearly the end has come for the prey animal, and then we move on because we felt that you've seen the interesting bit. You don't really need to see what it looks like when an animal is cut up and the predator has blood all over its chops. And we just thought it would be a real shame if any parent thought that Earth wasn't suitable to take their child to because Alastair and I both feel that Earth's got a lot in it for children and that it's a great chance for them to see what's at stake in their planet and what a beautiful world they live on, and hopefully show them things that they may never see however long they live and however much they travel. So we didn't want to exclude anybody. That's the only, if you like, editing, that we did. However, I should also say that we there was no pressure to Disney-fy it in terms of having no hunting either. We did want to show the circle of life, and we didn't shy away from that, but we did feel there was a limit.

AD: Could you speak about why you chose the story of the sun and the three animals as the narrative?

ML: Obviously the Earth is an enormous topic and the one thing that touches every creature on Earth, wherever they are, is the sun. It's this great unifying presence across our planet and we felt that because the sun brings seasonality and drives migrations and the journey that the sun takes every year north to south was an obvious thread. And then we wanted to choose animals in key parts of the world that were especially touched by the sun.

Now, the polar bear easily stands for the north of our planet because its life is deeply influenced by sun, and not only do they hibernate their mothers and the cubs throughout the winter when it's black and there's no sun at all, but in the summer of course they run the risk that the ground literally melts beneath the feet, which is a great danger to them entirely driven by the sun in the middle of the planet close to the equator.

The elephants were chosen because they undertake these massive migrations in search for water, and of course they're very endearing and engaging animals that people can relate to. And that was obviously important in the cinema.

And finally the humpback whale and her calf were sort of a way of taking people from the equator down to the south of our planet, down to the Antarctic waters. Again it's a journey that's driven by the sun but it gives us a chance to also show people the diversity and richness of life in those southern seas. So the key animals were chosen because of the way they relate to the sun, but also because they're engaging, too. You'll probably notice, they were all traveling with calves or cubs or their offspring, and we wanted that subtle nod to the future that that gave.

AD: Why did you choose James Earl Jones to narrate?

Alastair Fothergill: We worked with Disney to choose James Earl Jones and we're very delighted that he agreed. I think principally because its an epic voice for an epic subject. It's a big strong voice to suit a movie about the whole planet that needed that sort of epic voice to suit the subject matter.

AD: Could you tell me what was your favorite country to film in?

AF: For me, my favorite place was Svalbard, which is an archipelago of islands east of Northern Greenland. It's very special because you're only 700 miles from the North Pole but you can fly there from London in a day. It's got extraordinary logistics. You get off your plane in a tiny town of a 1,000 people, jump on your Skidoo, your motorized sled, and you're into, within a matter of minutes, into an extraordinary, unique wilderness with an wonderful density of polar bears. That was probably my favorite place of all.

ML: Probably mine would be the Upper Okavango Delta in Botswana, which is where we filmed the elephant story. I love it because it's one of those archetypal African places where you see a lot of African game that you'll be familiar with, but there were just no people so you really do feel like you've been transported back in time. And the other great thing about the Upper Okavango is that it goes through an annual cycle where it's transformed from being an virtual desert to a rich wetland. It's just got two very different sides for it which makes it an interesting rich place. When all the animals come during the wet season it's just like a little paradise.

AD: Was there any overlap in the footage from the TV series [Planet Earth]?

AF: The movie was commissioned at the beginning along side the TV series, and we worked in parallel and we always kept the original script with the key characters and new material of those particular characters, and also wide angles, time lapse...things that we knew would only work well on the big screen. But yes, there is some common footage—the birds of paradise, numbers of behavioral sequences—which are in both. They were completely re-edited for both for the big screen, new soundtrack, new music score. But had the whole of Earth been shot independently of the TV series, the budget would have been just extraordinarily large. Basically, the two projects benefited off each other and allowed us to make a global epic movie of the planet with a budget that was reasonable. What we found in Europe and Japan, where the movie is already released, is that even people who have seen every frame of the DVD and the TV series have loved the movie, partly because it's a very different story, but also because the images are so much more powerful on the big screen and the surround sound is so special—you just can't get that experience at home.

AD: Did you have any idea that the TV series would be as successful as it was?

AF: You know, it's funny. You work on something like that—we worked on the project for five years—and I specifically remember we had a party the night before it aired in the UK for the first time, and said to everybody who came, a lot of people who had worked at the series, that I personally had no idea. And it was a phenomenal success in almost every country it's shown in. The real pleasure has not been just the initial broadcast on TV but the sales of the DVD. It's the highest selling HD DVD ever, and we get lovely feedback from people. Often it's saying 'My children have watched the DVD time and time again.' It's extremely satisfying because you know, in your own little way, you've changed peoples lives. So no, we didn't expect it, but we're delighted with the way it went.

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Earth opens nationwide today. For every moviegoer who sees the film in the first week, Disney will plant a tree in the Atlantic forest in Brazil. The New York Times estimated that the total could reach upwards of 550,000 trees.