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Bag it


Cuba:The Accidental Eden


Dirt! The movie


El Parque Nacional de Este. Refugio de la naturaleza y cuna de la cultura


Luchando por la vida - una historia del mar


Journey to Planet Earth: Plan B: Mobilizing to Save Civilization


Ocean Voyagers


Once Upon a Tide


Play Again


Plastic Bag


The Economics of Happiness


The Last Lions


The Polar Explorer


The Story of Stuff


Vanishing of the Bees


Where the Whales Sing


Wild Ocean

Film Synopsis

An ancient species and one of the largest animals ever to live on planet earth, Humpback Whales have been traveling – and singing their mesmerizing songs – throughout the world’s oceans for millions of years. Like the oceans themselves, what we know of Humpback’s lives is surprisingly little. Ocean Voyagers provides a startlingly intimate portrait of Humpback life through the eyes of a mother whale as she teaches her baby all he will need to know to survive in the ocean. Through images as hauntingly beautiful as they are rare, watch as our calf plays near the seabed floor while his mother rests; catch a glimpse of milk dispersing into the water around him as he nurses; and wonder at the tenderness of the interaction between mother and infant as she embraces her baby in her gigantic flippers. One of the hallmark characteristics of Humpback Whales is their song. Ocean Voyagers is rich with the music of Humpbacks. Using a set of specially designed hydrophones, Feodor Pitcairn captured stereo recordings of his humpback subjects; including singing in the South Pacific and French Polynesia as well as the calls of group lunge feeding in Alaska. This film features these remarkable recordings of one of nature’s most complex songs, interwoven with an original score by composer Grant McLachlan. Feodor Pitcairn Productions, Ltd: Founded in 1977, FPP is an independent production company featuring the work of diver, naturalist and underwater cinematographer Feodor Pitcairn. FPP was an early pioneer in the use of High-Definition technology in the underwater environment, originating and releasing Sperm Whale Oasis and Realm of the Killer Whales in HD in 2000.



Director’s Biography

In 1951, at the age of 17, Feodor Pitcairn made his first of what would be many visits to Africa. It was on this first trip that he encountered what would become two of his lifelong passions; one was the girl who would eventually become his wife, and the second was wildlife photography.
 
Feo’s love of photography soon took a backseat to other, more pressing duties. After a stint in the Army, he attended the University of Pennsylvania where he majored in Economics. After graduating, he spent four years working in a bank before joining the family company. He would spend the next 26 years at the Pitcairn Trust Company, the last six as Chairman.
 
During this time, Feo was very active in various civic and environmental organizations. As chairman of the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Planning commission, he worked to protect open space from unnecessary development. He founded the Pennypack Watershed Association, which eventually became the Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust, today a national model for the preservation, restoration and management of open land. He served on the board of the Ocean Conservancy, as a Trustee of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and on the board of the Environmental Defense Fund, ultimately serving on the Executive Committee.
 
During these years, Feo continued with his photography, incorporating Feodor Pitcairn Productions, Ltd. in 1977. During the first four years, they produced calendars of underwater images. Then came the first book, CAYMAN UNDERWATER PARADISE, a collaboration with Paul Humann, published in 1979.
 
In 1981, his photography exhibit, GALAPAGOS: BORN OF THE SEA opened at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History and then went on a four-year tour with the Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibits. In 1984, the New York Graphic Society (Little, Brown) published HIDDEN SEASCAPES, a collection of Feodor’s photographs emphasizing his concept of portraying the seascape in natural light. The collection has been exhibited at Penn State Campus and the New Jersey State Aquarium. His stills also appeared in many magazines and calendars. A portfolio of his natural light photographs was published in Audubon in 1989.
 
Feo’s growing interest in conveying the hidden mysteries of the marine world in ways that would educate and inspire others to conserve and protect the oceans, co-evolved with his interest in moving pictures.
 
In 1990, when Feo made up his mind to pursue a career in television production, he started shooting video with broadcast cameras. Nobody was using television cameras underwater for television production at this time; film was the standard. Frustrated with the limitations of film, Feo began experimenting with video.
 
As underwater housings for these broadcast cameras simply did not exist, Feo tracked down an engineer in Florida who was making consumer grade underwater housings and had him fabricate two custom housings for the Beta SP cameras he would then shoot Ocean Wilds with.
 
At this time, broadcasters were not accepting video as a format, but Feo made his decision independently of where the industry was at, convinced that video was the future. This process would be mirrored again later when High Definition cameras came along. Feo was one of the very first to get an HD camera underwater, and was acquiring footage for his library and productions in HD years before it became a widely adopted format for broadcast. Again he found himself in the position of commissioning custom housings for the SONY HD cameras, as there were none commercially available when they first came out.
 
In 1991, Feo retired from his business life in order to devote his full attention to his production company. Since that time, Feo’s focus has been on the production of high-end, blue chip natural history television programming and films for institutional theatre. The results have included the 5-part Ocean Wilds series, broadcast on PBS, Ocean Voyagers, narrated by Meryl Streep, and Ocean Odyssey, commissioned by the Smithsonian.
 
In 2010, Feo made yet another career decision; he would return to his first love of still photography, retiring the production company’s efforts in film and television production.
 
Always an early adopter of new technologies, Feo acquired the new Hasselblad H4D-40 Medium Format DSLR. The H4D-40 camera features a 33×44 mm CCD sensor with 40 million pixels. Outfitted with an underwater housing, Feo immediately set out to field test his new camera through a variety of rigorous shoots in demanding locations, including Africa and Indonesia.
 
Today, Feo continues in his pursuit; capturing still images of living seascapes and landscapes that tell a story about both habitat and inhabitant.

 

 

 


FILM-CREDITS

 

Directors: Joe Kennedy, Feodor Pitcairn
Executive Producers: Mark Wild, Ellen Windemuth
Producer: Laura Orthwein Vagnone
Cinematography: Feodor Pitcairn
Screenwriters: Joe Kennedy, Laura Orthwein Vagnone
Editor: Naudene Leisegang