Coral Reef IMAX Film Shot in Palau, Bahamas & Elsewhere On Screen Now . . . .
Review: The Last Reef 3D
BY KATHRYN GREENAWAY, THE GAZETTE MARCH 15, 2012
MONTREAL - The IMAX film The Last Reef 3D presents a breathtaking portrait of the planet’s coral reefs. The movie, written and directed by Luke Creswell of STOMP fame and Steve McNicholas (IMAX Wild Ocean), is at the IMAX Cinema at the Montreal Science Centre.
Shot around Palau, Vancouver Island, French Polynesia, Mexico and the Bahamas, the film is as compelling as it is gorgeous.
We learn from narrator Jamie Lee that the reefs are as important to the health of the planet’s biodiversity as the rainforests. Pollute the water or poison the air and the reefs will soften, crumble and die.
Coral reefs support one-quarter of the planet’s marine species, offering shelter, protection and sustenance.
But human behaviour is threatening their existence. Our carbon footprint is massive and deadly. The call for a cut in carbon emissions hits home and hard.
Lee describes coral reefs as underwater cities, every bit as densely populated and frenzied with activity as a hub like New York City.
Images are juxtaposed. We see cars zooming at hyper speed along New York’s traffic arteries one moment and a mammoth school of fish circulating in the shadow of a coral reef the next. People chow down in a crowded cafeteria. Teaming fish suck up plankton.
The macro shots (extreme close-ups) used to introduce the audience to tiny coral dwellers are astonishing.
The two directors worked with underwater cinematographer DJ Roller to come up with a new macro 3D shooting contraption that captures, at super-close range, such creatures as the delicately decorated nudibranch (think coral slug) with its black-trimmed back frill and jet-black antennae and the paper-thin, multicoloured flat worm, which looks more like a floating silk scarf than a garden-variety non-anthropoid invertebrate.
There are many exquisite moments, but the shots of British sculpture Jason deCaires’s human forms, installed on the ocean floors around Cancun and Belize, are positively otherworldly. Seeing the outline of a human face looking heavenward from the bottom of the ocean is beyond haunting - as if we have managed to establish ourselves, yet again, where we have no right to be.
The film’s dynamic music is a major player, helping convey the sense of urgency we should all be feeling as our planet sags under the weight of bad human behaviour.
The Last Reef 3D is playing at the IMAX Cinema at the Montreal Science Centre
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Review+Last+Reef/6308896/story.html#ixzz1pLDRy9TK
BY KATHRYN GREENAWAY, THE GAZETTE MARCH 15, 2012
MONTREAL - The IMAX film The Last Reef 3D presents a breathtaking portrait of the planet’s coral reefs. The movie, written and directed by Luke Creswell of STOMP fame and Steve McNicholas (IMAX Wild Ocean), is at the IMAX Cinema at the Montreal Science Centre.
Shot around Palau, Vancouver Island, French Polynesia, Mexico and the Bahamas, the film is as compelling as it is gorgeous.
We learn from narrator Jamie Lee that the reefs are as important to the health of the planet’s biodiversity as the rainforests. Pollute the water or poison the air and the reefs will soften, crumble and die.
Coral reefs support one-quarter of the planet’s marine species, offering shelter, protection and sustenance.
But human behaviour is threatening their existence. Our carbon footprint is massive and deadly. The call for a cut in carbon emissions hits home and hard.
Lee describes coral reefs as underwater cities, every bit as densely populated and frenzied with activity as a hub like New York City.
Images are juxtaposed. We see cars zooming at hyper speed along New York’s traffic arteries one moment and a mammoth school of fish circulating in the shadow of a coral reef the next. People chow down in a crowded cafeteria. Teaming fish suck up plankton.
The macro shots (extreme close-ups) used to introduce the audience to tiny coral dwellers are astonishing.
The two directors worked with underwater cinematographer DJ Roller to come up with a new macro 3D shooting contraption that captures, at super-close range, such creatures as the delicately decorated nudibranch (think coral slug) with its black-trimmed back frill and jet-black antennae and the paper-thin, multicoloured flat worm, which looks more like a floating silk scarf than a garden-variety non-anthropoid invertebrate.
There are many exquisite moments, but the shots of British sculpture Jason deCaires’s human forms, installed on the ocean floors around Cancun and Belize, are positively otherworldly. Seeing the outline of a human face looking heavenward from the bottom of the ocean is beyond haunting - as if we have managed to establish ourselves, yet again, where we have no right to be.
The film’s dynamic music is a major player, helping convey the sense of urgency we should all be feeling as our planet sags under the weight of bad human behaviour.
The Last Reef 3D is playing at the IMAX Cinema at the Montreal Science Centre
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Review+Last+Reef/6308896/story.html#ixzz1pLDRy9TK