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Giant-Screen Film—The Human Body
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A synopsis of "The Human Body," reviews from around the country, video clips and an interview with the director can be found on the commercial site Big Movie Zone: http://www.bigmoviezone.com/filmsearch/movies/index.html?uniq=224
FILM OVERVIEWfrom the producers
Copyright © BBC and Discovery PicturesThree years in the making, The Human Body reveals the incredible story of life. In astonishing detail, this large format film presents a look at the biological processes that go on without our control and often without our notice. Throughout the film we follow a family from dawn to dusk as they go about their daily routines. But this is no ordinary story. This is the tale of what takes place beneath the skin - a tale that allows us to see the extraordinary accomplishments of our everyday lives.
The everyday biological processes that keep us ticking are all in a day's work for the human body. Finding a way to film and illustrate those activities for a screen seven stories tall required a cinematic inventiveness that was anything but routine. The Human Body incorporates groundbreaking computer graphics with stunning real-life images to create a day in the life of a human body. "This film is one of the most technically complex large format films ever made," states director-producer Peter Georgi. "To get the subject matter on the large screen, we've pushed the boundaries, taken advantage of the most advanced scanning electron microscopes, the latest thermal imaging and high-definition digital video cameras, the cutting edge in medical computer graphics …whatever we thought could provide the best possible images."
And provide images it does! The Human Body provides a glimpse of:
* the 100 billion new red blood cells the body generates each morning;
* the 40 yards of new hair that sprouts every day;
* a human egg nestling into the folds of a fallopian tube;
* a thermal image of a child riding a bicycle;
* a trip on a tomato from mouth to stomach;
* babies able to hold their breath under water; and
* the inside of an ear as cells actually dance to music.
"The film explores the complexities of the human body by investigating, in great detail, the functions the body performs routinely every day," notes executive producer Jana Bennett. "We investigated and portrayed the human body in ways never seen before. This film brings images to the audience on a scale never before captured in the history of cinema."
To make The Human Body come alive took not only the marriage of the latest developments in medical imaging with cutting-edge cinematic techniques and cameras, but also a good measure of ingenuity as well. The films opening sequence - a close tracking shot over the body - is just one instance where "ingenuity" played a major role. "You had to light the body with an enormous number of big film lamps to accomplish that [tracking shot over the body]," explains writer-producer Richard Dale. "The lights gave off tremendous heat and ultraviolet light, which could have been very damaging to the skin. The commercially available UV filters were not adequate to stop that much light, so our photographers developed little aquariums that could fit in front of the lamps. They had cold water, which is quite a good absorber of UV, constantly running through them."
Ultimately, The Human Body shows us more than a biological wonder at its best; the film also shares the emotions of life. From the joy of learning and the anxiety of puberty, to the potential wonder of pregnancy and birth, The Human Body tells us the amazing story of our own lives - our own bodies. "Large format has traditionally climbed mountains and gone to the bottom of the ocean, but we have turned the camera on ourselves and looked to our own bodies as a place for exploration," observes Dale. "Technology makes it possible to think about our lives differently and to suddenly realize how marvelous the human body is."
In the film, viewers discover the amazing processes that go on within our bodies without our control and often without our notice... The speeding impulse of a brain cell racing at 250 miles-per-hour… the quivering dance of hairs in our ear, so small that 10,000 bunched together are thinner than one strand of hair from our head… the 100-mile trek of a red blood cell, only thousandths of an inch in size, through our vast, tangled network of veins, arteries and capillaries… or the miraculous genetic fusion of parental DNA that signals the beginning of a unique new life. All these extraordinary occurrences are routine events for our bodies, yet almost all are hidden from view.
The Human Body is a presentation of The Learning Channel (TLC) and BBC Worldwide of a Discovery Pictures/BBC co-production in association with the Maryland Science Center and the Science Museum, London with major funding provided by the National Science Foundation. Narrated by Dr. Robert Winston, Europe's leading infertility specialist and frequent media commentator, the film reveals the incredible everyday story of life in a way never before seen.
The 43-minute giant-screen film builds on the international success of the Peabody Award-winning Intimate Universe: The Human Body co-produced by TLC and the BBC. That eight-hour television series told the inspiring story of human biology from conception to death.
"The Human Body film goes beyond the television series, taking the audience on a fantastic voyage with incredible detail and sound. The film explores the complexities of the human body by investigating, in great detail, the myriad functions the body performs routinely every day," said Jana Bennett, executive producer and executive-in-charge for Discovery Pictures. "We investigated and portrayed the human body in ways never seen before – from the progression and culmination of a pregnancy to thermal imagery and X-ray techniques. This film brings images to the audience on a scale never before captured in the history of cinema."
More than a science lesson in biology, The Human Body takes us on an exhilarating personal journey of discovery about what it means to be human. Using innovative filmmaking techniques, combined with the latest medical and scientific imaging, it shows us the ordinary miracles that keep our bodies running at full steam from morning 'til night and the extraordinary marvels of life.
"Large format films have traditionally climbed mountains, dived to the bottom of the ocean, but have never turned and looked to our own bodies as a place for exploration," explains BBC writer-producer Richard Dale. "Technology makes it possible to think about our lives differently and to suddenly realize how marvelous the human body is."
The Human Body's story begins with a wake-up call at a family's home. The film shows that just opening our eyes each morning scorches off the top layer of the cells on our retina and we begin with refreshed sensors with which to view the world. Follow what happens in the course of a single day, the extraordinary accomplishments in the lives and bodies of eight-year-old Zannah, teenager Luke, and Uncle Buster and Aunt Heather, an American couple expecting their first child. Whatever pace we start the day, our bodies are already running at full speed.
While watching Luke bike to school, thermal imaging opens up a world not of light but of heat. Sophisticated computer graphics image his body and environment in X-ray form and we see how blood flows through his arteries and veins. Scanning electron microscopy sneaks a peak into what goes on in the inner ear as Zannah blasts her favorite pop tune.
At the heart of the film is the experience of bringing a new life into the world. The course of Heather's pregnancy, condensed with the use of motion-control photography into our biological day, illustrates how naturally the body adapts to the physical changes taking place.
But of greater significance are Heather's heartfelt observations about those physical transformations and her impending motherhood. The culmination of the film arrives with the birth of Heather and Buster's baby, captured in all its frenzy, excitement and joy.
"We always wanted to show the experience of the human body rather than just the mechanics of the human body, otherwise you reduce people to props," Dale concludes. "The large format gives you the sense of being right in the hospital. Birth is a very intense, confusing, emotionally charged experience and we've been able to communicate that feeling without being invasive. It's the junction between science and the human story."
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