EARTH - a call to action

SHOOT: I was lucky enough to attend the premiere. The US version is narrated by James Earl Jones. The one I saw was narrated by Patrick Stewart. Here's the crazy thing - I thought it was Gandalf [Ian McKellen]- and I only realised my mistake once the credits rolled.
A beautiful film, but I feel we need a far more brutal, shocking message to snap worldwide audiences awake. I believe we all know that this a reality; we're just waiting for a call to arms, a call to action. That's what's needed - a call, not a message saying: Did you know this is happening? Most of us, I believe, already know this.

EARTH REVIEW
It was five years in production, filmed in 200 locations in 26 countries and includes unseen parts of Africa's Sahara desert.

It's Earth, a lavish BBC feature film, which, having involved 40 specialist crews shooting thousands of hours of footage, including 250 days of aerial photography.

This striking film, narrated by Patrick Stewart, is a celebration of the beauty of our planet and also a reminder of the delicate fragility of where we live.

The movie, focusing on three animal families as they migrate across the planet, shows parts of Earth that have never before been captured on film.

Five billion years ago, the film explains, a massive asteroid crashed into the young Earth. The impact was so great it tilted the entire planet at an angle of 23-and-a-half degrees.

But far from being a catastrophe, this cosmic accident was crucial to creating life and the world as we know it today. Without the Earth's tilt, we wouldn't have such a spectacular variety of landscapes, or such extremes of hot and cold.

We wouldn't have the changing seasons. And, most importantly, we wouldn't have the perfect conditions for life.

"Using the sun as a guide, we set out on a truly global journey with Earth. On the way, we meet three mothers struggling to bring up their young," says a Ster-Kinekor spokesman.

"In the Arctic, a polar bear family awakens to the first sunlight of spring. Will they find food before the ice on which they live melts?

"Half a world away, in the heat of the Kalahari, an elephant mother and her calf find water after a danger-filled trek across the desert. But they must share the pool with a pride of lions. Will their uneasy truce last?

"For the final leg of the journey, we follow a humpback whale mother. She must keep her calf safe on their lengthy migration from the equator to Antarctica. And so life on Earth goes on. "

Director Alastair Fothergill, who made the hit documentary Deep Blue and who is one of the pioneers in the modern genre of nature filming, along with Earth director Mark Linfield, shows aerial shots and close-up views without precedent, which were reportedly taken with the newest exposure techniques specifically developed for this film.

"The spectator has the opportunity to observe fascinating landscapes and animals in the wild - from a perspective which people could largely not see with their own eyes - and from a perspective that moves you deeply."