![\"Silent](\"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog-preprod\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2012\/03\/Silent-evolution-Jason-sculpture03.jpg\" "\\"Silent")
<\/a><\/p>\nLa Evoluci\u00f3n Silenciosa<\/em> (The Silent Evolution), an installation of 400 life-size figures 9 meters under the sea off Cancun \/ Isla Mujeres, Mexico, is featured in the new IMAX film The Last Reef: Cities beneath the Sea. Credit, Jason deCaires Taylor<\/a><\/em>.<\/h6>\nWE OPEN with an atomic explosion mushrooming over Bikini Atoll. Historic footage, made 3D<\/a> through the magic of post-production graphic arts, rolls on a projector screen in a 3D schoolroom. In 1946, the United States removed all humans from Bikini in preparation for atomic tests that would span twelve years and 23 nuclear detonations. Lingering radioactivity has kept people away. In our absence, the disembodied voice of Jamie Lee tells us, the reef has rebounded. Fishy, invertebrate and microbial life now thrives on the resurgent coral (with the exception of a few species that didn\u2019t make it back).<\/p>\nFrom this promising beginning, The Last Reef<\/em><\/a> plunges us into the present, into the ocean, into full throttle modern 3D-IMAX, and into an old school advocacy film, heavy with environmental rhetoric and swelling music. \u201cWe love working with images and music,\u201d said director Steve McNicholas, during the post-preview panel discussion at AAAS headquarters, explaining that he and co-creator Luke Cresswell are not scientists or wildlife documentarians, and began filming the ocean because they wanted to take us on an underwater adventure. During the filming of their first underwater feature they awakened to the not-so-beautiful developments in the ocean resulting from fishing, shipping, agriculture, and fossil fuel combustion. \u201cMid-way through making Wild Ocean we became quite politicized.\u201d<\/p>\nThe team behind the Broadway sensation STOMP!, McNicholas and Cresswell know what they are doing with sight and sound.\u00a0 They commissioned a novel containment system from cinematographer D.J. Roller<\/a> to house the massive 3D macro beamsplitting IMAX camera system, helping him shoot closer close-ups of reef creatures underwater. You have never seen nudibranchs like this before! A soundtrack thrumming with complicated rhythms (and a descending harp line reminiscent of John Adams\u2019 El Nino<\/a>) matches the vibrant underwater colors and textures, occasionally freezing with anxiety or swelling with promise as the narrator tells us of human threats to the reefs.<\/p>\nMcNicolas and Cresswell intercut scenes of the reef \u201ccities beneath the sea\u201d with some beautiful, if frenetic, footage of New York City \u2013 drawing an analogy of two kinds of communities built on the accretions of past generations. We get a simple introduction to the ecology of the reef, couched in balance-of-nature oratory; the coral community is not merely interdependent, but lovingly interconnected. Suddenly, \u201cacidification\u201d and \u201cCO2<\/sub>\u201d irrupt into our gentle world. McNicolas and Cresswell want to show us the damage to reefs caused by human pursuits. \u201cOur cities are altering the chemistry of the oceans,\u201d says the narrator, transitioning neatly on a clich\u00e9 and ignoring the power plants, highways, agricultural installations, and other constructs of human industry producing carbon dioxide and pollution and environmental pressures from outside city limits.<\/p>\nThe onset of technical terminology is particularly jarring after the second grade natural history lesson we\u2019ve been receiving so far, and here the directors\u2019 imaginations fail them. Chemical formulae \u201cCO2<\/sub>(aq)<\/sup>\u201d, \u201cH2<\/sub>CO3<\/sub>\u201d and \u201cHCO3<\/sub>\u2013<\/sup>\u201c appear and float amongst the fish as the narrator tells us that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide,a consequence of our prodigious burning of oil, coal and natural gas, dissolves in the water, lowering the pH of the ocean. If you don\u2019t know what pH is and haven\u2019t heard this story before, you won\u2019t understand it now.<\/p>\nWith the exception of iconic NYC, the film feels almost placeless. As we flick from city-scape to island-scape, the narrator rarely tells us where we are, perhaps in an effort to draw us closer to far away places. But much of the reef footage was shot in Palau, an island nation in Micronesia. Senator and former president Thomas Esang Remengesau, Jr. flew across the Pacific to tell the US audience about the particular cost to his country of the loss of coral reefs. \u201cIt\u2019s not all about sunshine in Palau these days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Members of the audience wondered how we can get people to act to save reefs in Palau when they don\u2019t believe in climate change, remarking that the film was preaching to the choir in the AAAS auditorium. \u201cWhat efforts are you making to get this out to megachurches in the Midwest?\u201d asked one man, prompting my seatmate to whisper that there was \u201ca lot of condescension going on in here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diver, zoologist, and Science Magazine<\/em> editor Sacha Vignieri said, \u201cFilms like these help because you have to be able to grab someone\u2019s heartstrings to get them to listen. Some people\u2019s minds can\u2019t be changed, they are only interested in the bottom line, but there are people who can be persuaded.\u201d<\/p>\nVignieri thinks blast fishing with dynamite to stun fish, cyanide fishing to capture exotic aquarium fish, and straight over-fishing are more pressing threats to coral reefs than climate change. \u201cSome research even says that coral may be able to adapt relatively quickly to acidification,\u201d she said. Her fellow Science<\/em> editor on the panel, Jesse Smith, conceded that in the 500 million years of coral reef evolution, temperatures have been hotter, and pH has been lower, many times.<\/p>\nBut McNicolas and Cresswell are evangelists. They would rather we stop wringing our hands and do something. \u201cTry something, even if it\u2019s wrong,\u201d said McNicolas. It\u2019s not going to hurt anybody.\u201d Unfortunately, that isn\u2019t true. \u2666<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n<\/div>\nThe Last Reef<\/em> had its East Coast premier last night at the National Museum of Natural History, Johnson IMAX Theater as part of the DC Environmental Film Festival<\/a>. No word yet on where you may see The Last Reef<\/em> in your area; the filmmakers appear to be looking for a US distributer.<\/p>\nIn the meantime, you can learn more about corals, coral reefs, and overfishing from the BBC\/Discovery Channel Blue Planet<\/em> episodes \u201cCoral Seas<\/a>\u201d and \u201cCoral reef fish danger<\/a>,\u201d PBS Nature<\/em> episode \u201cWar Wrecks of the Coral Seas<\/a>,\u201d and PBS Frontline<\/em> short \u201cTuvalu: that Sinking Feeling<\/a>.\u201d See sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor\u2019s underwater projects at National Geographic<\/a> and on his website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Advocacy film delivers \u201cCities beneath the Sea\u201d in 3D IMAX, bringing you nudibranchs as you\u2019ve never seen them before and activism that you have. By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer. La Evoluci\u00f3n Silenciosa (The Silent Evolution), an installation of 400 life-size figures 9 meters under the sea off Cancun \/ Isla Mujeres, Mexico, is featured in the new IMAX film…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1114],"tags":[1367,457,60,7,1320,1375,574,17,26,69,22],"class_list":["post-6958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecology-about-town","tag-aaas","tag-art","tag-climate-change","tag-conservation","tag-coral","tag-coral-reef","tag-film","tag-fish","tag-marine-ecology","tag-ocean-acidification","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
From this promising beginning, The Last Reef<\/em><\/a> plunges us into the present, into the ocean, into full throttle modern 3D-IMAX, and into an old school advocacy film, heavy with environmental rhetoric and swelling music. \u201cWe love working with images and music,\u201d said director Steve McNicholas, during the post-preview panel discussion at AAAS headquarters, explaining that he and co-creator Luke Cresswell are not scientists or wildlife documentarians, and began filming the ocean because they wanted to take us on an underwater adventure. During the filming of their first underwater feature they awakened to the not-so-beautiful developments in the ocean resulting from fishing, shipping, agriculture, and fossil fuel combustion. \u201cMid-way through making Wild Ocean we became quite politicized.\u201d<\/p>\n The team behind the Broadway sensation STOMP!, McNicholas and Cresswell know what they are doing with sight and sound.\u00a0 They commissioned a novel containment system from cinematographer D.J. Roller<\/a> to house the massive 3D macro beamsplitting IMAX camera system, helping him shoot closer close-ups of reef creatures underwater. You have never seen nudibranchs like this before! A soundtrack thrumming with complicated rhythms (and a descending harp line reminiscent of John Adams\u2019 El Nino<\/a>) matches the vibrant underwater colors and textures, occasionally freezing with anxiety or swelling with promise as the narrator tells us of human threats to the reefs.<\/p>\n McNicolas and Cresswell intercut scenes of the reef \u201ccities beneath the sea\u201d with some beautiful, if frenetic, footage of New York City \u2013 drawing an analogy of two kinds of communities built on the accretions of past generations. We get a simple introduction to the ecology of the reef, couched in balance-of-nature oratory; the coral community is not merely interdependent, but lovingly interconnected. Suddenly, \u201cacidification\u201d and \u201cCO2<\/sub>\u201d irrupt into our gentle world. McNicolas and Cresswell want to show us the damage to reefs caused by human pursuits. \u201cOur cities are altering the chemistry of the oceans,\u201d says the narrator, transitioning neatly on a clich\u00e9 and ignoring the power plants, highways, agricultural installations, and other constructs of human industry producing carbon dioxide and pollution and environmental pressures from outside city limits.<\/p>\n The onset of technical terminology is particularly jarring after the second grade natural history lesson we\u2019ve been receiving so far, and here the directors\u2019 imaginations fail them. Chemical formulae \u201cCO2<\/sub>(aq)<\/sup>\u201d, \u201cH2<\/sub>CO3<\/sub>\u201d and \u201cHCO3<\/sub>\u2013<\/sup>\u201c appear and float amongst the fish as the narrator tells us that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide,a consequence of our prodigious burning of oil, coal and natural gas, dissolves in the water, lowering the pH of the ocean. If you don\u2019t know what pH is and haven\u2019t heard this story before, you won\u2019t understand it now.<\/p>\n With the exception of iconic NYC, the film feels almost placeless. As we flick from city-scape to island-scape, the narrator rarely tells us where we are, perhaps in an effort to draw us closer to far away places. But much of the reef footage was shot in Palau, an island nation in Micronesia. Senator and former president Thomas Esang Remengesau, Jr. flew across the Pacific to tell the US audience about the particular cost to his country of the loss of coral reefs. \u201cIt\u2019s not all about sunshine in Palau these days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Members of the audience wondered how we can get people to act to save reefs in Palau when they don\u2019t believe in climate change, remarking that the film was preaching to the choir in the AAAS auditorium. \u201cWhat efforts are you making to get this out to megachurches in the Midwest?\u201d asked one man, prompting my seatmate to whisper that there was \u201ca lot of condescension going on in here.\u201d<\/p>\n Diver, zoologist, and Science Magazine<\/em> editor Sacha Vignieri said, \u201cFilms like these help because you have to be able to grab someone\u2019s heartstrings to get them to listen. Some people\u2019s minds can\u2019t be changed, they are only interested in the bottom line, but there are people who can be persuaded.\u201d<\/p>\n Vignieri thinks blast fishing with dynamite to stun fish, cyanide fishing to capture exotic aquarium fish, and straight over-fishing are more pressing threats to coral reefs than climate change. \u201cSome research even says that coral may be able to adapt relatively quickly to acidification,\u201d she said. Her fellow Science<\/em> editor on the panel, Jesse Smith, conceded that in the 500 million years of coral reef evolution, temperatures have been hotter, and pH has been lower, many times.<\/p>\n But McNicolas and Cresswell are evangelists. They would rather we stop wringing our hands and do something. \u201cTry something, even if it\u2019s wrong,\u201d said McNicolas. It\u2019s not going to hurt anybody.\u201d Unfortunately, that isn\u2019t true. \u2666<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Last Reef<\/em> had its East Coast premier last night at the National Museum of Natural History, Johnson IMAX Theater as part of the DC Environmental Film Festival<\/a>. No word yet on where you may see The Last Reef<\/em> in your area; the filmmakers appear to be looking for a US distributer.<\/p>\n In the meantime, you can learn more about corals, coral reefs, and overfishing from the BBC\/Discovery Channel Blue Planet<\/em> episodes \u201cCoral Seas<\/a>\u201d and \u201cCoral reef fish danger<\/a>,\u201d PBS Nature<\/em> episode \u201cWar Wrecks of the Coral Seas<\/a>,\u201d and PBS Frontline<\/em> short \u201cTuvalu: that Sinking Feeling<\/a>.\u201d See sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor\u2019s underwater projects at National Geographic<\/a> and on his website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Advocacy film delivers \u201cCities beneath the Sea\u201d in 3D IMAX, bringing you nudibranchs as you\u2019ve never seen them before and activism that you have. By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer. La Evoluci\u00f3n Silenciosa (The Silent Evolution), an installation of 400 life-size figures 9 meters under the sea off Cancun \/ Isla Mujeres, Mexico, is featured in the new IMAX film…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1114],"tags":[1367,457,60,7,1320,1375,574,17,26,69,22],"class_list":["post-6958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecology-about-town","tag-aaas","tag-art","tag-climate-change","tag-conservation","tag-coral","tag-coral-reef","tag-film","tag-fish","tag-marine-ecology","tag-ocean-acidification","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/div>\n