Tuesday 3rd March 2020 marked the first World Wildlife Day, and to commemorate the occasion, the UN Headquarters in New York hosted a film festival in partnership with Jackson Hole and CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna). A number of films were screened to those attending the event, raising awareness of both the beauty and fragility of world, and what we can do to protect it.
Those films that best impressed the carefully selected jury, were presented with awards, and I’m pleased to announce that two of the films that I worked on (one of which I edited, and both of which I graded) were selected as the winners of their respective categories.
How to Save Our Planet – Edited and graded by myself – Winner in the Biodiversity Short category
Ocean Farmer – Graded by myself – Joint winner of the Biodiversity Micro Movie category
Still from ‘How to Save Our Planet’. Image courtesy Netflix / WWF
We’re still making content to accompany the Our Planet series that was released earlier this year, but some of our first films just picked up awards at the prestigious Jackson Wild Festival (previously the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival).
How To Save Our Planet – Winner of ‘Best Changing Planet Film – Short Form’ ‘Awarded for the best examination of our changing planet, including human impact, the environment, sustainability and climate change. Sponsored by Smithsonian Channel.’
How To Save Our Planet– Winner of ‘Best Limited Series Film – Short Form’ ‘Awarded to the mini-series with episodes shorter than 20 minutes in length, that most effectively advances a natural history theme. Sponsored by ARRI.’
…and if that weren’t exciting enough, the main series (for which I was edit assistant) also scooped up some great awards as well;
Our Planet: High Seas (main series episode) – Winner of ‘Best Ecosystem Film’ Our Planet: Frozen Worlds (main series episode) – Winner of ‘Best Changing Planet Film’
Now in its twenty-eighth year, the world-famous Jackson Wild Film Festival (previously known as the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival) kicks off on Saturday 21st September 2019, with seven days of sessions, screenings, workshops and exhibitions to entertain and inspire. On the final day, creatives from all over the world will gather for the Grand Teton Awards Gala in the hopes of winning one of the festivals prestigious awards.
This year Our Planet, along with the accompanying online video content that I edited as part of a small team, battled through a list of 1,000 entries to receive no less than eight nominations.
From the Our Planet Series, for which I was edit-assistant…
Our Planet: Jungles – Nominated for Best Animal Behaviour (Long Form)
Our Planet: High Seas – Nominated for Best Ecosystem Film
Our Planet: Frozen Worlds – Nominated for Best Changing Planet Film (Long Form)
Our Planet series – Nominated for Best Limited Series Film (Long Form)
Our Planet: One Planet – Nominated for Best Visualisation Film
From the web-based video content to accompany the series, for which I was an editor…
How to Save Our Planet – Nominated for Best Changing Planet Film (Short Form)
How to Save Our Planet series – Nominated for Best Limited Series Film (Short Form)
What is Biodiversity? – Nominated for Best Micro-Movie Film
The Grand Teton Awards Gala will take place at the Center for the Arts in Jackson, Wyoming at 6pm on Thursday, 26th September. For more information on the festival and other finalists, please visit the official website.
How to Save Our Planet. Nominated for Best Changing Planet Film (Short Form) and Best Limited Series Film (Short Form)
Never have I worked on a project that has been announced with such fanfare and excitement as Our Planet. The series, four years in the making, finally launched on Netflix on Friday 5th April 2019, marked by a special event at London’s Natural History Museum the night before.
Appearing at the event was, of course, Sir David Attenborough, the narrator of the series. Standing on stage before a huge projection screen, he proudly introduced the series to the small audience.
“What really makes Our Planet stand out is the clear driving story that runs through the entire series and the wider communications project. This has been a true labour of love for hundreds of film makers, cinematographers, conservationists, editors, musicians and production teams, all of whom have brought their best work to the most important story that there is – a story that could not be more universal or more timely.”
– Sir David Attenborough
David Attenborough at the launch for Our Planet, introduced by Lisa Nishimura, Vice President of Content Acquisition at Netflix
Amongst those attending the launch were some other well-known faces, such as singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding (who sang the music that features on the closing credits) composer Steven Price (the composer for the series) and world-famous footballer David Beckham and his son, Brooklyn.
Perhaps most headline-grabbing, however, was the attendance of not one, but three members of the royal family – The Prince of Wales, The Duke of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex. Once Sir David had finished his introductory speech, he humbly handed over to Prince Charles, The President of WWF UK, who made the following thought-provoking ten-minute address.
Prince Charles’ Speech at the launch event for Our Planet
All eight episodes of Our Planet are available to stream on Netflix.
Finally, after many, many months of work, and following a star-studded launch party at London’s Natural History Museum, Our Planet is available to watch on Netflix. Eight episodes, all ready to savour or binge in 4K Dolby Vision HDR with surround sound. But if you don’t have a Netflix subscription, the expansive website of content has also launched.
Ourplanet.com already features a great deal of video content, with more yet to come. In the meantime, you can watch a number of videos that I’ve edited with a small team over the past few months. With the voice of David Attenborough, they delve further into the issues affecting the health of our world and how we can fight to conserve it. The pieces were cut in Avid MediaComposer and graded by myself using MediaComposer’s Symphony toolset.
A few weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to sit down with series producers Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill and implement changes to Netflix’s upcoming first main-trailer for Silverback’s series ‘Our Planet’. Netflix have now released that trailer, and I’m very happy to see that most, if not all of those edit suggestions made it through to the final cut. Whilst I can’t claim it as my own work (I think it’s safe to say that someone in Netflix’s team did the bulk of the hard work), I’m incredibly proud to have been involved in such a powerful and eye-catching piece of marketing.
Our Planet is released worldwide on April 5th 2019, but Netflix’s marketing department aren’t waiting around! They’ve been busy poring through the episodes, collating some of the most stunning shots into a commercial which debuted during the Super Bowl, an event that was apparently watched by almost 113 million people this year… which is insane!
In addition to the team-themed trailer, Netflix also dedicated their Twitter stream to the series, posting such gems as this…
everyone who normally helps run this page is busy watching the sports and they told me to "handle it" soooo I'm just gonna post animal GIFs from #OurPlanet all night pic.twitter.com/asrZbB9T0F
With many weeks left until the series floods onto screens worldwide, I’m very much looking forward to seeing what other treats Netflix’s marketing department have in store for us!
It’s with great pleasure that I share the first trailer for a huge project that I have been involved with for many, many months. Our Planet hits screens of all sizes and shapes in April 2019. Let the hype begin!
Charles Dyer 