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Production Credits: Journey to Planet Earth February 8, 1999 ÷ Following are production credits for JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH, the three-part documentary miniseries that makes environmental issues understandable, accessible and personal, to broadcast on PBS, Tuesday, April 6, 13 and 20. ON
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"Journey to Planet Earth" Visits Farmers on Four Continents in "Land of Plenty, Land of Want" April 20 on PBS February 8, 1999 ÷ JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH, the new environmental miniseries, visits farmers in Zimbabwe, France, China and the United States, to examine the need to feed a growing world population in "Land of Plenty ÷ Land of Want," airing Tuesday, April 20 (10-11 PM ET) on PBS (check local listings). Kelly McGillis ("Witness," "Top Gun") narrates. Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Marilyn and Hal Weiner ("Streets of Sorrow," "Earth Summit Pledge") are the producers. The miniseries is presented on PBS by South Carolina ETV. Although separated by distance and culture, the world's farmers face a common crucial issue: how to feed more and more people without impoverishing their land. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH visits a remote corner of Zimbabwe where an extended drought threatens to bring disaster to the farms and villages. The country's white- owned commercial farms occupy 80 percent of the most fertile soil and are well irrigated. But for the small-scale farmers struggling to make do on what is left, changes in the climate can mean starvation. The film looks at communities trying to break free from this cycle of poverty. In the rugged Auvergne region of central France, families are abandoning their ancestral homes as others struggle to hold on. With its remote location, harsh climate and short growing season, the Auvergne is hard put to compete in an increasingly international agricultural market. Picturesque villages are becoming ghost towns. Meanwhile Brittany's agricultural boom pits the desire for higher yields against the need to preserve the environment. Intensive cultivation of the fertile Yangtze River Delta has brought abundance to the nearby city of Shanghai. But China's rapid industrial development is engulfing the countryside at an alarming rate. The country's farmers face the problem of producing more and more food on a dwindling supply of land, and pollution become a growing threat as they rely more heavily on the use of chemical fertilizers. In the United States, once a nation of farmers, only two percent of the population still works the land. The production demands on them are enormous. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH visits the Horan family in Iowa, who experiment with the latest satellite technology to increase their yields. Next stop by the Groff family in Lancaster, Pa., whose main concern is preserving some of the richest topsoil in the country through no-till farming. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH is produced by Screenscope Inc. in association with South Carolina ETV. Marilyn Weiner is producer and Hal Weiner is the director and writer. The series underwriters are NASA, the Kellogg Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Continental Airlines, the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Sustainable Agriculture Program and the American Honda Foundation.
Producers Marilyn and Hal Weiner Travel the Globe for New Miniseries February 8, 1999 ÷ Marilyn and Hal Weiner have been making documentaries, feature films and PBS series together for almost 30 years. Along the way they have won 130 international awards, including two Emmy Awards. They were the recipients of the 1998 Silver Circle Award from the National Academy of Arts and Sciences for outstanding contributions to the television industry. Their latest project is the three part miniseries JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH, airing on PBS. It will premiere Tuesday, April 6 (10-11 PM ET, check local listings). Subsequent episodes air Tuesday, April 13 and Tuesday, April 20 (10-11 PM ET each night). "We look at environmental issues in a new way without regard to national, political or cultural boundaries," Marilyn Weiner says of the miniseries. The Weiners grew up five blocks apart in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn but met as adults in Manhattan. At the time Hal was working for an affiliate of Universal while Marilyn was teaching high school on Long Island. Soon after they met, they began making films together and they have been making them together ever since. They attribute their successful partnership to the fact that they often do not see eye-to-eye. 'The moment you stop disagreeing with each other, you are in trouble," Marilyn says. "If you both think the same way all the time, then one of you is dispensable." The producers believe that their feature film experience leads them to bring a different and interesting dramatic sensibility to their documentaries. Their first feature, "Family Business," starring Milton Berle, was produced for PBS/American Playhouse. They next made "The Imagemaker," a thriller exposing the incestuous working relationship between politicians and the press in Washington D.C. Their most recent feature film was 'K2," based on the Tony Award-winning Broadway play set on the world's second tallest mountain. Unlike most producers, who base themselves in New York or Los Angeles, the Weiners live in Washington D.C. Not that they spend much time at home. For instance, they spent three years gathering the striking location sequences that highlight JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH. "We have gone from having $16-million to make 'K2" to traveling all over the globe on a shoestring budget," Marilyn says. Among the places they visited were Zimbabwe, the Mississippi Valley, Shanghai, the Amazon rain forest and Vietnam's Mekong Delta. They had some hair-raising experiences along the way. Their moments of greatest fear came in the Amazon. They were exploring the maze of bywaters, deep in the rainforest, when they suddenly realized they no longer had any idea where they were. "We were lost for six hours without water on a motorized canoe surrounded by piranhas," says Marilyn. "It seemed as if we might run out of fuel and find ourselves adrift by nightfall. Eventually, we found our way out, but only by chance. It easily could have turned out very differently." While the potential for calamity might have been greatest in the Amazon, the moments of actual immediate physical danger came in Mexico City during a night shoot on the eve of Mexican Independence Day. "It is an extremely festive occasion, like the Fourth of July, New Year's Eve and Mardi Gras rolled into one," says Hal. "Almost one million people had gathered in the main square to celebrate. Everything got a little too festive. Some in the crowd become drunk and rowdy and things got out of hand. Suddenly people all around us began throwing snowballs made out of plaster of Paris." Like most filmmakers, the Weiners found themselves more often worried about the safety of their cameras than of themselves. They were robbed only once, in Zimbabwe, when their driver left their car unattended. During that sojourn, they also had a run in with a hippo. As the Weiners point out, while many people think of hippos as sedentary, almost comical creatures, they actually can be extremely dangerous. "More people are killed by hippo attacks than by any other animals in Zimbabwe," says Hal. "This hippo seemed sick or distressed. In any case, he was not to be messed with." In Jordan they faced down the barrel of a pistol. Considering the ongoing political hostilities in the Middle East, The Weiners had counted themselves lucky to be the first film crew allowed to cross the border between Israel and Jordan and then back again. But in the village of Karak, where they had stopped to shoot some footage on their way to Petra, a guard approached and drew his pistol, pointing it straight at them. The Weiners did not know what to expect, but once they had convinced the guard that their intentions were not subversive or hostile, his demeanor changed completely. In fact, the Weiners found the Jordanians to be almost too hospitable. "They wanted to give us every amenity," Marilyn says. "We had work to do but they were more concerned with out comfort and pleasure." The biggest surprise was the reception they found in China, a country with a reputation for closely controlling the news. "We had free access," says Hal. "The officials were completely open and cooperative, particularly in Shanghai. They readily gave us all the background information on their environmental problems that we needed." On the other hand, the Turkish government presented them with the most red tape and restrictions. "The authorities were very concerned about being presented in a bad light," says Hal. "We had to make our own way. And the weather was not cooperative either. It rained every day. We had about 12 hours of sun in two weeks of filming. This was supposed to be the dry season." The Weiners were the first Americans to shoot a documentary in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam since the war. "The Vietnamese were very friendly and love Americans," they report. At one point they shot a sequence in a temple overrun with 100,000 bats. "The sky literally blackened as the bats flew off all at once. Just as we were beginning to feel as if we were in a scene from "The Birds," a couple of monks in brightly colored robes walked by. The contrast was startling," says Marilyn. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH is produced by Screenscope Inc. in association with South Carolina ETV. Marilyn Weiner is producer and Hal Weiner is the director and writer. The series underwriters are NASA, the Kellogg Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Continental Airlines, the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Sustainable Agriculture Program and the American Honda Foundation.
JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH, the new environmental miniseries, takes a close look at the state of health of four of the world's river systems ÷ the Mississippi, Amazon, Jordan and Mekong ÷ in its premiere episode "Rivers of Destiny," airing Tuesday, April 6 (10-11 PM ET) on PBS (check local listings). Kelly McGillis ("Witness," "Top Gun") narrates. Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Marilyn and Hal Weiner ("Streets of Sorrow," "Earth Summit Pledge") are the producers. The miniseries is presented on PBS by South Carolina ETV. The first stop is the small town of Grafton, Ill., one of the many to suffer devastating damage when the upper Mississippi River flooded its banks in 1993. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH shows how construction efforts earlier in this century to control the river's flooding have profoundly affected the entire Mississippi basin. In Brazil, fish snatch fruit from the boughs of trees along the Amazon river, deluged with up to 30 feet of flood water during the six-month rainy season. It is a vast, enchanted underwater forest supporting an incredibly diverse ecosystem. But recently, settlers have plundered these flooded rain forests at an alarming rate. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH visits the village of Sao Miguel where fishermen, ranchers and farmers have begun working together to preserve the integrity of the river's natural resources. Compared to the mighty Amazon, the Jordan River is an insignificant trickle but to the desert nations through which it flows, it is all-important. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH visits an Israeli kibbutz along the Sea of Galilee, where the river's waters have brought prosperity. They also visit the parched West Bank of Palestine and the biblical city of Jericho whose Arab inhabitants, denied access to the Jordan River, must make do with ancient springs and meager supplies of underground water. As former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres says in an interview, the equitable distribution of water may prove be the only key to a lasting peace in the Middle East. In Vietnam's tropical Mekong Delta, we visit a society long dependent on the river's bounty. Decades of regional war and political unrest have left the Mekong one of the least developed rivers of Asia. But peace and prosperity are now bringing change to the Delta, not all of it beneficial. The last stop is the city of New Orleans whose very existence is a testament to human engineering ingenuity. Not long ago the Army Corps of Engineers stepped in when the Mississippi threatened to change course away from New Orleans. The city's economy was saved but JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH investigates the devastating consequences to the Mississippi Delta where 25 square miles of coastland are now lost to the Gulf of Mexico each year. Now, Louisiana's bayous are turning into salt marshes and open water, and the Cajun way of life is fast disappearing. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH is produced by Screenscope Inc. in association with South Carolina ETV. Marilyn Weiner is producer and Hal Weiner is the director and writer. The series underwriters are NASA, the Kellogg Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Continental Airlines, the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Sustainable Agriculture Program and the American Honda Foundation. Teacher's Note: Topics touched upon in this program include flooding, loss of wetlands and habitat, destruction of the Amazon lower rain forest, over fishing, and the impact of economic development on water resources.
"Journey to Planet Earth" Explores "The Urban Explosion" April 13 on PBS JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH, the new environmental miniseries, journeys to four of the world's great cities ÷ Mexico City, Istanbul, Shanghai and New York ÷ to examine the effect of rapid urbanization on the earth's environment in "The Urban Explosion," airing Tuesday, April 13 (10-11 PM ET) on PBS (check local listings). Kelly McGillis ("Witness," "Top Gun") narrates. Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Marilyn and Hal Weiner ("Streets of Sorrow," "Earth Summit Pledge") are the producers. The miniseries is presented on PBS by South Carolina ETV. For the first time in history, more than half the population of the world now lives in cities. The need to shelter and sustain this population without destroying the delicate balance of the environment is a major dilemma for the coming century. Bustling Mexico City has become a symbol of all that could go wrong with urban development. The city's air is so thick with smog that eight out of ten days are declared hazardous to human health. The city's center has sunk 30 feet in the last 100 years as the city depletes its once abundant underground water supply, squeezing the ground like a sponge. Raw sewage flows through open canals, carrying disease to surrounding farmlands. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH looks at what went wrong and at some of the community-based efforts to find solutions. Lying astride Europe and Asia, Istanbul, capital of three great empires, has long been a cosmopolitan city. Economic and political refugees from Turkey's outlying regions pour into this ancient city at the rate of 500,000 newcomers a year. Bisecting the city is one of the busiest waterways in the world, the Bosphorus. As shipping traffic increases, ferries and fishing boats share the narrow strait with tankers loaded with flammable cargo, with occasionally disastrous results. Renowned photographer, Ara Guler, takes JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH on a tour of the changing face of his beloved city, which now sprawls into the green countryside that once surrounded it. We visit the municipality of Esenyurt, which is facing these challenges head on. Shanghai is poised to recapture its role as the commercial capital of Asia. Already housing a population of 16-million, the city is attempting to rebuild its infrastructure as it faces increasing problems with pollution, water supply and waste treatment. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH looks at Shanghai's efforts to deal with the environmental issues facing a city that has chosen industrial growth over agricultural production. Surrounded by water and built of steel, New York City is an example of a matured megalopolis whose explosive growth came long enough ago to allow it to establish the necessary infrastructure to provide clean air and safe drinking water for nearly all its inhabitants. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH visits the neighborhoods of the South Bronx, Harlem and Brooklyn's Carroll Gardens to explore ways to improve and preserve the quality of urban life. JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH is produced by Screenscope Inc. in association with South Carolina ETV. Marilyn Weiner is producer and Hal Weiner is the director and writer. The series underwriters are NASA, the Kellogg Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Continental Airlines, the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Sustainable Agriculture Program and the American Honda Foundation.
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