Touch of the Blues

DAVID Attenborough may be recognised as the voice of BBC wildlife programmes but was told his services weren't required when Deep Blue, a natural history of the oceans, was put together.

Director Alastair Fothergill had the task of telling Attenborough that the big screen version of his TV series Blue Planet wasn't going to use his commentary.

He had to ring him up and break the news that someone else - actor Michael Gambon, the new Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies - was going to do the narration.

The decision was a deliberate one to distance Deep Blue from its television origins. Attenborough appears to have taken the decision well. "He's seen Deep Blue and likes it very much, " says Fothergill.

Deep Blue is a recycling of the BBC's The Blue Planet, one of the most internationally successful nature series ever produced. The eight-part series has been condensed and reshaped into a 90minute cinema documentary.

Fothergill emphasises that the cinema version is a very different experience. BBC Worldwide was spurred on to support the idea following an autumn 2001 concert at London's Royal Festival Hall during the broadcasting of the TV series.

"Footage was projected on to a massive screen and the orchestra played live, " he recalls. "It was a complete sell-out and led to concerts around the world. We sold out twice at the Hollywood Bowl with our fish concert.

"A lot of people said it was a completely different experience watching on the big screen than the telly. It was that which really creatively fuelled us to see if it would work."

Directors Fothergill and Andy Byatt returned to the original material, which meant sifting through 7,000 hours of footage shot in more than 200 locations around the world over five years.

The cast of the film includes dolphins, sharks, blue soldier crabs, killer whales, sea-lions, polar bears and emperor penguins in a series of remarkable and stunning sequences showing nature at its most beautiful and barbaric.

To this has been added a score by five-time Oscar nominee composer George Fenton.

"The most important thing in my mind was the need to be an emotional experience rather than a didactic one, " explains Fothergill.

"The TV series was, I hope, entertaining and informative. We went for things in the film that we felt were emotional rather than anything else. We wanted it to be constantly changing. We didn't want people to get bored."

One problem was that a number of small DV cameras were used in the underwater sequences because there was often the need to get into the water quickly to capture marine life and bigger cameras were too bulky to be used.

This meant the film quality was not so good.

"We tried not to let the technical things stand in the way of our selection. We got away with it more because it's underwater and murky. But there were some sequences we chose not to use because they would not make it up to 35mm.

"The TV series and the DVD have been very successful but it's a very different experience in the cinema. I can't get away from the fact that it's the same footage. We went back and spent a lot of time editing, and there are sequences that weren't on TV."

Although some sequences look dangerous for the cameraman, Fothergill feels the danger is overrated. "They certainly have to be patient, " he says. "There's a lot of animal behaviour in Deep Blue that's never been filmed before. If you understand animals, it's not that dangerous. One good thing of working in water is that you can always get out.

"Ten cameramen did 90 per cent of the material. One guy was a shark specialist. There were hundreds of sharks and he was being bashed by them. But no one got hurt by the animals."

The narrative was the hardest part. Originally there was a lot more Gambon commentary, which was eventually cut. "We needed emotion to be the main thing. If we put in more commentary we are breaking the mood.

We had to find the right balance, " says Fothergill.

In Germany, the narrator is "the German Robert De Niro" and in America, where Miramax has bought the film, Tom Cruise will narrate.

The success of the computergenerated movie Finding Nemo, which is set underwater with a fishy cast, has had an unexpected benefit for Deep Blue - which is being promoted as The Real Finding Nemo in Europe.

The film has done "amazingly well" in Europe, where box-office records were broken in Germany and Switzerland. It's done well in both art house cinemas and with family audiences. Only France was a disappointment where the distributor released the film on 350 prints hoping for two million admissions, but only achieved half that figure.

Fothergill is now working on a new BBC series, Planet Earth, which looks at the whole of our planet in the style of Blue Planet.

An 11-part series is being shot for TV, with a cinema version being made at the same time.

Deep Blue (12A) is now showing in cinemas.

Published: 19/06/2004