beavers / Production notes
In 1986, filmmaker Stephen Low was asked to develop a film concept for the Nagoya Regional Office of the Dentsu Corporation in Japan and their client, the Chubu Electric Power Company. Low suggested a wildlife theme: a true story about one of nature's greatest engineers, the beaver. The previous year (1985), Stephen Low’s first giant screen film Skyward had debuted at the Tsukuba Expo in Japan. With Skyward, director Stephen Low and a team which included producer Roman Kroitor, wildlife expert William Carrick and director of photography Leonidas Zourdimas, had recorded intimately and unforgettably the elegance of Canada Geese in flight.
With Beavers, the challenge was to produce an equally intimate film about a very different kind of animal. "Our aim" says filmmaker Low, "was to use the amazing resolution and size of the 15/70 format to totally immerse the viewer in the world of the beaver. We wanted to allow the audience to swim and play amongst these creatures, face dangers with them and know their story."
To tackle the project, a production team was assembled which included: production manager, Pietro Serapiglia; wildlife consultant, William Carrick; and director of photography, Andrew Kitzanuk. The IMAX® camera began rolling in February 1987 near Port Perry, Ontario in frigid waters under nearly 2 feet of ice. Behind the camera for the under-ice sequences, was underwater cinematographer, Mal Wolfe.
Getting the beavers' story was not an easy operation. The beavers filmed for the production were hand-reared in a natural setting under the care of wildlife expert, William Carrick. Accustomed to the presence of humans, but untrained, the beavers went about their business while a patient camera crew watched and waited for just the right moments. No one involved in the project was completely convinced that enough of the beavers' behavioral traits would be recorded on film before time and money ran out. The beavers after all, were proceeding at their own pace.
In May, the location shifted to a private conservation area outside Toronto. Using ingeniously devised camera and lighting set-ups, the team succeeded in recording the interior of an occupied beaver lodge, the interaction of parents and beaver kits, and sequences involving wrestling beavers. It was at this location as well, that much of the detail of other forms of forest and pond life were obtained, including night sequences of an owl and a fox, and images of the macro world of frogs and snakes.
"I think wildlife is probably one of the best uses of IMAX," says director Low, "because wildlife see things differently than we do and IMAX, more than any other medium, enables us to see and feel and live like they do. The real magic of wildlife in IMAX is that it lets you be with living things in places you've never been before; it's not to see what it's like to be on a roller coaster which we've all been on before anyway." Low goes on: "The real roller coaster is when you're flying in formation with a goose or swimming underwater with a beaver and living inside a beaver's house. It's cutting down a huge tree and being at the beaver's perspective when it falls. We simply can't experience wildlife with that intimacy and reality on television. Wildlife on television is so removed and distant... and more than ever, I think people need an opportunity to see and experience the world of living things around us."
Much work went into searching for ideal locations for the dam-building and underwater sequences. Director Stephen Low, and production manager Peter Serapiglia, flew and drove over thousands of miles of Alberta territory to find suitable dam sites. In addition, Low spent several weeks in a wetsuit, climbing in and out of rivers, lakes and ponds all over Alberta looking for crystal clear water in which to photograph the beavers' activities.
The stunning scenery and clear waters of Kananaskis Country, Alberta in the heart of the Canadian Rocky Mountains provided the principal location for the film. Filming above and below water at several different locations and at three different dam sites throughout the area, director Low and crew were able to put together an accurate and detailed portrayal of the dam construction process: from tree cutting to the finished product. The final dam depicted in the film was found in Kananaskis Country and was some 300 feet long. To capture the mammoth proportions of the final dam and the sweeping extent of the beavers' transformation of the land, director Low, director of photography, Kitzanuk and the IMAX camera, were suspended in a basket under a 150 foot construction crane and swung in a gigantic arc over the landscape.
In contrast to the all-encompassing view provided by the crane, the team developed a special device to record the life of the forest from the beavers' point of view. Nick-named the "beaver-cam," the device was a simple bracket which allowed the heavy IMAX camera to be hand-held barely half a foot above the ground. This made it possible for the camera to follow the unrehearsed and unpredictable activities of the beavers and other animals of the forest.
Speaking of the team's labor over many months, director Stephen Low said: "we succeeded, in fact, in getting far more than I had anticipated in the way of beaver activity. In some ways we were very lucky: the beavers performed very naturally and were uninhibited by our presence, we lost only one week of shooting to bad weather and our production team was as dedicated to the project as any director could have asked."
