Sharks Get Make-Over In Un-Backed 3-D Film

Sharks Get Make-Over In Un-Backed 3-D Film

It may not exactly be man’s best friend, but the shark will have its image burnished in a United Nations-backed film that offers an astonishing, up-close three-dimensional encounter with nature’s ultimate, yet endangered predator while delivering a compelling conservation message.

The UN Environment Programme UNEP), world famous ocean explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau and 3D Entertainment have joined forces to protect sharks with a new 3D IMAX Theatre Film, SHARKS 3D, that will have its world premiere screening on 15 December in Las Vegas.

“Despite the existence of various international treaties, certain shark species have been reduced by nearly 80 per cent in the past decade alone,” UNEP’s Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said in a statement. “Today, the priority is not only to end the steady decline of the shark population, but to rehabilitate its image among the general public.”

He said the IMAX film “is an ideal means of reaching a vast audience and changing a great number of people’s perception of these animals.”

The movie brings the viewer face to face with a multitude of the world’s great shark species, including the Great White, Whale Shark and Hammerhead. Audiences will experience them as they truly are in their natural habitat, not wicked man-eating creatures, but wild, fascinating, and highly endangered animals, UNEP said.

“SHARKS 3D sheds new light on the urgent need to protect these magnificent endangered animals, which are so essential to the survival of our oceans,” Mr. Cousteau, President and Chairman of Ocean Futures Society added. “To inspire and educate people to act responsibly in order to ensure the preservation of the world’s oceans is a mission the film and I have long shared.”

Filming required an extensive nine-month shoot totaling 500 dive hours on location in Guadalupe Island, Socorro Island and the Sea of Cortez, Mexico; Malpelo Island, Columbia; the Red Sea, Egypt; Sodwana Bay, South Africa; Mozambique Channel; and Rangiroa Atoll, French Polynesia.