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Disneynature and Galatee Films makes Oceans The Movie in Osa's Blue Water Pelagic far offshore of Caņo Island Biological Reserve and Corcovado National Park in one of Costa Ricaīs least known ecosystems.
by Shawn Larkin. A version of this article appeared in The Tico Times, Central Americas top English language newspaper, in 2008. Check out www.ticotimes.net.
There is perhaps no other ocean mammal that packs so many animals so close together, so much of the time, in such clear waters as the spinner dolphins here in Costa Rica. So when Galatee Films heard about these amazing dolphins the first thing they wondered about is how well these creatures would look and perform on the biggest screens in the world, filmed with the best cameras in the world. Were the spinner dolphin groups big enough to fill an IMAX screen? Could they hold their own with the most spectacular big screen ocean footage ever captured in a movie? Would they help the mission of the film and inspire the world to conserve the oceans?
The production team had already spent years scouring the globe for spinner dolphins on a grand enough scale. They went to Hawaii and Polynesia, Brazil and more, and still no spinner dolphins shots worthy of their upcoming movie Oceans. The original movie had been conceived of by Oscar winning veteran producer Jacques Perrin with spinner dolphins in mind. His team had already scored the best shots ever of myriad ocean creatures and phenomenon from around the planet. Perhaps spinner dolphins no longer existed anywhere in big enough numbers to fill the big screen. Maybe there would be no spinners in the movie.
Still Galatee Films send scouts around the globe to check again. The scouts came up with the offshore Osa. In 2007 former Cousteau underwater cameraman, and the top Blue Planet underwater cameraman Diedeir Noirot, came with Project Coordinator and Diving Security Chief Nico Gernsinith, who also was top diver for the the famed Undersea Hunter dive fleet, and decided Costa Ricaīs spinner dolphins had the right stuff. Noirot and Gernisnith hired your correspondent as chief dolphin and pelagic ecosystem guide for the duration of the project, and some excellent shots were taken back to Paris.
2008 brought Galatee Films back in force with more extremely talented people, more cameras, more boats and more money. A giant pole cam containing one of the huge special cameras was affixed to a large yacht. Another big camera was pushed by a diver. Another massive camera was towed in a giant torpedo. A special boat named Thetis came with an incredible gyroscopically stabilized crane that provided the steadiness to film jumping dolphins with a giant camera from a moving boat for very large screens.
A cool air-conditioned dark screening room below decks on one yacht showed real time underwater footage on a giant hi definition plasma screen. The room looked like the bridge of a spaceship and was full of glowing gadgets and screens checking all kinds of things. The contrast between swimming with the dolphins in the bright blue light by the sunlight and then watching them on the giant hi definition plasma screen in the dark theater like control room a few moments later struck me profoundly as being totally cool.
We spent close around two hundred hours with the spinners and they delivered a wish list of dream shots to some very serious movie makers. From spectacular shots of countless dolphins flying into the setting sun, to filming one spinner dolphin jump ten times-from underwater. Shots of great numbers of dolphins swimming through enormous bait balls of tiny fish with shredded scales glistening in the water like stars. The team shot dolphin sex and surfing and spinning. They filmed interactive close ups with playful smiling spinner dolphins.
Sadly the best cameras in the world also filmed dead dolphin and other dead marine life in the wake of commercial tuna boats. They filmed big ships and helicopters doing mean things to the panicking spinner dolphins. So now Costa Ricaīs dolphins are poised to swim into international consciousness on big screens and DVDīs in 2010. Disneynature has now partnered with Galatee Films to bring the film to the world and it promised to be, like its topic, big. What will the world think?
Hopefully by then Costa Ricaīs dolphins will be spinning in a park like they do in Hawaii and Brazil. Costa Ricaīs incredible spinner dolphin footage in the Oceans movie will certainly soon splash these dolphins into world view. Costa Rica could still write itself a happy ending, instead of a tragic one, to go with the dolphins dancing into the sunset.
The country known for peace can still show the world it can make peace with nature. Maybe a new Blue Water Spinner Dolphin Pelagic Park would make everybody feel warm and fuzzy inside, as they walked out of movie theaters around world.
Copyright 2009 Shawn Larkin
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