As part of Berkeley Journalism’s mission to impact the public’s understanding of climate change through innovative journalism and filmmaking, we’re pleased to host a sneak preview of this groundbreaking Netflix series — which mixes documentary and visual effects to tell the epic story of evolution, mass extinctions and the survival of life on planet Earth.

We’ll screen two episodes, followed by a virtual Q&A between filmmakers Nick Shoolingin-Jordan, Jonathan Privett and Jamie McPherson and Jason Spingarn-Koff, Professor and Knight Chair in Climate Journalism, who worked on the series in his prior role as a Netflix executive. 

Logline: This is the story of life’s epic battle to conquer and survive on planet Earth. Today there are 20 million species on our planet, yet what we see is just a snapshot in time — 99% of earth’s inhabitants are lost to our deep past. The story of what happened to these dynasties — their rise and their fall – is truly remarkable. In partnership with Industrial Light & Magic, the series uses the latest technology and science to bring long extinct creatures back to life. Life on Our Planet reveals the incredible story of life on our planet.

Series Producers: Dan Tapster, Keith Scholey, Alastair Fothergill
Executive producers: Steven Spielberg, Alastair Fothergill, Keith Scholey, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey
Narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman

Nick Shoolingin-Jordan – Producer/Director/Writer (Episode 6)
Nick is an EMMY-nominated producer / director / cinematographer specializing in high profile science and nature documentaries. Recently, he teamed up with Sir David Attenborough to direct two films in the BBC’s award-winning series Perfect Planet. The second of these Humans, won the Palme Trophy D’or at the prestigious Deauville Green Awards for best climate change film. Proceeding this, Nick collaborated with Hollywood director Darren Aronofsky to produce and direct two films for the critically acclaimed series One Strange Rock. Hosted by Will Smith, the films explore the fragility and wonder of Planet Earth for which Nick was instrumental in devising the ground-breaking visual style. As Biologist and film-maker with 20 years of VFX experience, at the heart of Nick’s film making ethos lies an unwavering passion for the environment and a dedication to push filmic boundaries to reveal the important stories that affect us all. It’s this skill set that led Nick to Silverback Films as a lead part of the creative team behind the new genre defining Life on Our Planet, for which he produced and directed episode 6.

Jonathan Privett – VFX Supervisor (ILM)
Jonathan joined Industrial Light and Magic in 2018, having spent the previous 5 years as Executive VFX Supervisor and co-founder of Double Negative’s BAFTA winning TV division. He has been in the VFX industry for almost 30 years. His credits range from Altered Carbon, Agent Carter, Outlander and Krypton, to Mission Impossible, Space Jam and Armageddon. Jonathan has an honors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College, London and outside of his life in VFX has maintained a lifelong passion for the Natural World and Classic Cars.

Jamie McPherson – Series VFX Director of Photography & Cinematographer
Jamie McPherson is a multi EMMY and BAFTA award winning cinematographer, director and producer with over 25 years experience in documentary filmmaking (Netflix, BBC, Disney, Apple TV, Discovery, National Geographic). Since he was young Jamie has been observing animals keen to understand how they behave, move and react to the world around them. This knowledge, built up over several decades, was instrumental in helping craft the VFX stories across the series. Jamie’s ability to imagine creatures in the landscape whilst filming nothing but empty ‘backplates’ was a very different creative challenge, but a process he enjoyed crafting. In order to bring creatures from the past to life in a way that has never been seen before, Jamie was passionate about bringing his pioneering cinematic style to the series (for which he is world-renowned within wildlife filmmaking circles – that and always being barefoot!). He designed and built many new rigs, including the “Cinebuggy” which was used to film the more off-road sequences that vehicles couldn’t reach. As well as Series VFX DoP Jamie shot several wildlife sequences for the series; including Komodo dragons & salt flat lizards (Ep.4), leaping frogs and dragonflies (Ep.3), coatis (Ep.7), bison and wolves, glacier calving, Danube tern, human bison hunt and monster mining machines (Ep.8). Before Life on Our Planet, Jamie was a lead DoP on Our Planet for Netflix, shooting 20 sequences across the series.