Q&A with Writer/Director Ben Stassen and Producer Charlotte Huggins

How did the World Wildlife Fund – The Netherlands happen to connect with nWave Productions, which is more known for entertainment productions than for documentary filmmaking?

BS: When WWF first contacted me, I was quite surprised because I’m not exactly known as a wildlife filmmaker. I’ve done a lot of 3-D films, but mostly commercially oriented films and mostly digitally created computer-animated films, so when they first got in touch with us, I said, “Maybe you’ve mistaken me for somebody else.” And they said, “No, no, we really want to think outside the box and find a new way to get the message across.” They didn’t want to do a live action wildlife film. They wanted to do a computer-animated film. And that was the beginning of this whole adventure.

Would you expect young children to attend SOS Planet? What’s the target audience?

BS: I would absolutely expect young children to attend our film. Although 99 percent of the giant screen films are targeted to 8-year-olds, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to make a film for parents that children would have fun watching, instead of a film that children like and adults just sit through. Some of what Walter Cronkite says in SOS Planet is much more complex than the content in the average large format film, and a lot of that will go over the heads of elementary school kids. But the visuals are compelling enough to keep the kids engaged. Little kids may not understand all the content, but they will get a kick out of effects like the sunrise, and they will understand a lot by the visuals – they will see that something could be wrong with our climate. I think it’s a good balance between what will appeal to both the kids and the adults.

Walter Cronkite lends a tremendous aura of credibility to your film. How did he become involved with SOS Planet?

CH: Our film really has two plots – the main plot is about habitat conservation, but the subplot is why the public at large isn’t caring about what’s going on in the environment and why they aren’t insisting that something be done about such devastating global atrocities like deforestation and overfishing. Our contention is that the public doesn’t really know what’s going on because the media only gives snippets of information – there’s so little in-depth reporting. As we were completing the visuals for the film and contemplating the issue of our on-screen narration, I heard Mr. Cronkite on Larry King Live discussing the role of the media in the reporting of the events of September 11 and other globally important events. I called Ben and he had just seen the same show on CNN. We both agreed that, if we could get him, he would be the perfect spokesman for our film.

BS:What struck me was that his message was exactly the same as the one in our film, even though the topic is so different. He was talking about the war in Afghanistan and was critical of the administration for not giving the public access to information and of the media for not scratching under the surface of the official briefings. He mentioned how technology has provided new ways to get information – like the Internet, webcams, satellite communications, etc. – and yet even though it’s easier than ever before to access information, it’s still hard for a cohesive message to break through. And that’s exactly what the WWF - The Netherlands was facing when they started this whole project.

How scientifically accurate is SOS Planet?

BS: WWF experts and consultants carefully went through each segment of the script, and we changed things at their suggestion so the environments and animals would be as realistic as possible. For instance, we had scripted a green python in the Borneo rain forest sequence, but the WWF said that green pythons aren’t found there, so we changed it to a brown snake that lives in that habitat. I had also wanted to show a polar bear family with two parents, but the scientists pointed out that the male polar bears never live with the mother bear and her cubs, so we changed that, too. Everything we included in the underwater sequence is consistent with what you might find in a Caribbean coral reef.

CH: We also sent the script to two science museums, and they both signed off on the scientific content. The biggest issue for the scientific community was the anthropomorphization of the character animation. There was a huge debate among the WWF scientists over that because it’s not what they would consider straight science. But they eventually understood that giving us some creative license would bring the kids into the environments and help them care about what happens. They agreed to the animation as long we were not creating something that could never really happen within those environments. And no child over the age of seven will believe these animals are real; children recognize animation.

Why did you decide to use 3-D in SOS Planet?

BS: Getting audiences to keep coming to the giant screen theaters is about creating new experiences. And using the third dimension gives audiences an experience they can’t get anywhere else. TV sets at home are getting better and bigger and even the multiplexes are starting to get stadium seating with huge screens that are almost as big as IMAX screens. But the third dimension, which you can only do in giant screen, 3-D equipped theaters, brings an incredible edge to the experience. SOS Planet is a serious film that will appeal to mature audiences, but we also want to appeal to little kids, and the 3-D allows me to bridge the gap between making a film with a serious message and one that is playful and fun and entertaining.

Not all giant screen theaters have 3-D capability. How will SOS Planet work in non-3-D-equipped venues?

BS: SOS Planet will play very well on domed theaters, even without the 3-D effect. The films that look best on domed theaters are films that are saturated with color, like underwater and space films. The reason is the way the domes bounce light. The physical curves of the dome bounce light in every direction, instead of straight back at the projector, the way it works on flat screens. The bounced light washes the image out on the screen, like when you’re watching a film in daylight. So the visually dark films – not dark in content, but literally dark – tend to work best for domed screens. SOS Planet is both an underwater AND a space film, so it will look great in these venues, too.

CH: And most of the theaters that aren’t equipped with 3-D are domes. Dome theaters are very interesting on their own because you’re basically sitting in a planetarium-type setting with the movie playing around you. As an immersive type of experience, it’s very similar to that of 3-D.

Also, the way you frame a film for 3-D is exactly the same as the way you frame it for a domed theater. In 3-D and for domed theaters, you try to keep the action in the middle of the screen without breaking frame. In 3-D you do that so that the 3-D effect isn’t broken, and in the dome because the edges get distorted. So, in other words, SOS Planet will translate beautifully from flat screen 3-D to 2-D domed theaters.