The 6th edition of the Deauville Green Awards are kicking off with a sneak-peak of Wonders of the Sea by Jean-Michel Cousteau. Together with his co-director Jean-Jacques Mantello he shows an underwater world as never been seen before. Fot this documentary the team was travelling from Fiji to the Bahamas. The film was shot in 3D, 4K, high speed with macro lenses.
"With this new technology we are now able to show the public things that after my 72 years of scuba diving I am not able to see by myself with the naked eye. We filmed in slow motion, came close to microscopical things and put it on a big screen", says Jean-Michel Cousteau. "We had to bring that back to the boat, put it on a small screen and take a look at it. If the material was not good, we had to go back diving. We needed to have a tripod and lights in place. It took a long time and we had to be very patient. We also had two scientists who were looking for interesting creatures and then they told us where we need to go.
After 72 years of scuba diving it is exciting for the ocean explorer to see things on a big screen in 3D which he cannot see with his naked eye in the water. "Bringing that to the attention of the public is one of the privilige thanks to my father I am able to do and thanks to the technology that we are now able to use. My father used to say ‘people protect what they love’ and I kept saying ‘how can you protect what you don’t understand’. We have explored maybe five, six or seven percent of the ocean in the shallow water but we don’t know anyhing about hundred of thousands of species that we have never seen up to now. Now we can go deeper and deeper and discover a lot of species which we have never seen before."
The film was shot the maximum of 90 or 100 feet. But the environmentalist wants to go down and stay much longer. With his diving suit he can go down 1,000 feet in five minutes and spend ten hours down there. "I can move my hands and pick up samples. I have a high definition camera on top of my head and LED lights. With my right leg I can go forward, back, left, right. With my left leg I go up and down. I can adjust the air and make sure the air that I am rebreathing is healthy. I can be back up there in five minutes because I am protected from the pressure."
With Wonders of the Sea, the team will make sure that decision makers in governments and industries understand how we are connected to the environment and how much we depend on it. "It is important to coach them and to reach their heart, their families and their children. We have to help them to bridge between their obligations with the future. We need to keep the ocean healthy and that will allow a lot of people to create new technologies to capture chemicals and heavy metals before it goes into the ocean. By doing this, millions of new jobs are gonna be created for people all over the planet. We need to take care of life support system which is the ocean. If you compare that to business, the planet is our capital. But we are abusing the system and are heading towards bankruptcy", says the ocean explorer.
Nevertheless, Jean-Michel Cousteau is optimistic about the future. "It is our choice. We are the only species on our planet that have the privillege to decide to disappear or not. There is no other species that can say that. Nature was there before we showed up as a species. It can continue without us. A lot of people who will see Wonders of the Sea will say what can I do to help. And that’s what it is all about."
“The time for half-measures and climate denial is over. Unless we move quickly away from fossil fuels, we’re going to destroy the air we breathe, the water we drink, the health of our children, grandchildren and future generations. If we’re going to avoid the worst of the impacts, then we’ve just got to act boldly. And we must act immediately."
Robert Redford
Actor, Director, Producer, Environmentalist
"The media has a powerful role to play in the fight against climate change. Through films, television, and all media outlets, we must continue to deliver the message that solutions are out there and are happening now. We have to make it attractive for people to take action. Movies like Avatar, The Day After Tomorrow, and documentaries like Years of Living Dangerously, which I was proud to be a part of, have been very popular, reaching and inspiring millions of people. And I believe films in particular can really inspire and make people want to take action. It’s great to see some of my film-industry friends working with climate related organizations to push forward those messages."
„It‘s high time to reorganize film production in Germany in a ‚greener‘ and more sustainable way. So far, I am flabbergasted by how much our industry works in environmentally harmful ways.To this very day, it starts with until today one-sided print-outs of scripts, and then it continues with plastic bottles in production offices and lots of plastic waste with every catered meal, and it doesn‘t stop with the limousines that pull up to a red carpet.
For many years, people have sneered at me when I brought my own cup or I declined to eat cheap meat served on paper or plastic plates with plastic knives and forks. It would be great if the Green Shooting Card could change all that.“
Director (Ben X, Time of My Life)
„It’s absolutely great that filmmakers all over the world are trying to clean up their act, and are trying to film as sustainable as we possibly can. Still, I think we shouldn’t underestimate the incredible power of the moving image to also change the hearts and minds of people.
So, apart from trying to be more environmentally aware in our business, I think the big gain lies in how we might make everyone more environmentally aware. Yes, cinema can change the world.
I think filmmakers should start using the powerful weapon in our hands that is the camera.
Let’s not only try to do ‘less bad’. Let’s try to do right, and help drive the change that we all know needs to arrive.“
“We are living in a time in which we can’t afford to behave irresponsibly towards nature. The more important is it that film productions try to work as environmentally friendly as possible. A film team produces every day tons of garbage. I try to avoid using plastic cups on set, I bring my own cup, use ecofriendly cosmetics and avoid needless single rides.”
Photo ® Maddalena Arosio
Darren Aronofsky, Director, Noah / Jury President, 65th Berlin International Film Festival
“When we did Noah we knew we were making a film about the first steward of the earth, so we wanted to be good stewards ourselves. There’s so much waste on film sets. Because of groups like Earth Angel, we were able to change that a little bit.”
"As a TV and film producer I try to incorporate environmental storylines into my projects as much as possible. But it’s just as important, if not more, to ‚go green‘ behind the scenes! Therefore, I help run the Producers Guild of America’s Green Initiative.
We provide resources such as a Best Practices and a Carbon Calculator to help producers green their productions. We also partnered with all the major studios to create www.greenproductionguide.com which is a free green vendor database with over 2,000 vendors offering sustainable production solutions worldwide!"
‚Green screens excepted, we will do everything in our power to be as innovative as we can in order to make our production as green as possible.‘
Photo: (c) herbXfilm Dieter Mayr
Lars Jessen
Director (Fraktus, Dorfpunks, Am Tag als Bobby Ewing starb)
‘It is somewhat embarrassing that green filming is only now becoming an issue in our industry because there have long since been many possibilities to shoot more efficiently.
Technical innovations such as energy efficient lighting are as much a part of this as the awareness of every crew member.’
I do work with a company in the States called Sungevity that leases solar panels to homes. They figured out how to move forward environmentally and how to make it economically successful.
So that’s my small but steadfast global contribution. I think everybody doing a little bit is all that’s made any difference, ever.‘
Producer, Director and Visual Effects Supervisor (2001: A Space Odysee, Blade Runner)
"Trumbull Studios in Massachusetts is dedicated to being green as much as possible, including the use of LED lighting, solar power, and solar laptops. This is not just because our location has limited amperage and no three-phase, we believe we have a responsibility to our community and our planet to be a clean industry.
We are planning for digital photography in 3D 4K at 120 frames per second from remote and inaccessible locations that will not have available power. Solar is the way to go."
Dieter Kosslick, Director Berlin International Film Festival
„The Berlinale is already actively addressing the sustainability subject since years. We appreciate it very much that a growing number of filmmakers, among them this year‘s jury presiden Darren Aranofsky, is following green guidelines on set.“
Benoit Delhomme
Director of Photography (A Most Wanted Man)
‘I never have been told precisely what the rules are for shooting a green movie, but we are trying to do it. This is something new for me. Sometimes people overlight scenes at night. I don’t. If I can see with my own eyes, then it is enough for the film. In that sense I am a green DoP.’
Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons who stars in the Berlinale Competition entry The Night Train To Lisbon is a fan of source segregated recycling. „Especially in Germany you have done a lot for that. You are examplary in the matter of waste separation.“
The Hollywood actor travelled around the world to promote the environmntal documentary feature film Trashed by Candida Brady which deals with the global garbage problem: „We buy it, we bury it, we burn it and then we ignore it“, says Brady. „With Jeremy Irons as our guide, we discover what happens to the billion or so tons of waste that goes unaccounted for each year.“
Since the world premiere at the International Cannes Film Festival in 2012 Trashed picked up various nominations and awards at international festivals.
After 72 years of scuba diving it is exciting for the ocean explorer to see things on a big screen in 3D which he cannot see with his naked eye in the water. "Bringing that to the attention of the public is one of the privilige thanks to my father I am able to do and thanks to the technology that we are now able to use. My father used to say ‘people protect what they love’ and I kept saying ‘how can you protect what you don’t understand’. We have explored maybe five, six or seven percent of the ocean in the shallow water but we don’t know anyhing about hundred of thousands of species that we have never seen up to now. Now we can go deeper and deeper and discover a lot of species which we have never seen before."
The film was shot the maximum of 90 or 100 feet. But the environmentalist wants to go down and stay much longer. With his diving suit he can go down 1,000 feet in five minutes and spend ten hours down there. "I can move my hands and pick up samples. I have a high definition camera on top of my head and LED lights. With my right leg I can go forward, back, left, right. With my left leg I go up and down. I can adjust the air and make sure the air that I am rebreathing is healthy. I can be back up there in five minutes because I am protected from the pressure."
Robert Redford
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Hannes Jaenicke
Nic Balthazar
Nadeshda Brennicke, Actress
Darren Aronofsky, Director, Noah / Jury President, 65th Berlin International Film Festival
Tim Bevan
Thekla Reuten
Rachael Joy
Nikola Rakocevi
Nadja Schildknecht
Michael Bully Herbig
Lars Jessen
Helen Hunt
Douglas Trumbull
Dieter Kosslick, Director Berlin International Film Festival
Benoit Delhomme
Jeremy Irons