Our next speaker coming up is
One in which we are really lucky to have these incredible partnerships with other learning organizations
It's one thing. I feel very blessed in this job that I have at Microsoft and
BBC learning is one of those organizations and BBC learning has been able to bring our next speaker here to us today
She's not a teacher in the classical sense
She's actually the executive producer at Ocean X and she has filmed and produced media in over 25 countries
on all seven continents
She has produced
Content for National Geographic
BBC
PBS and more
after today, all of you sitting in the live audience we're gonna
Send you all the way down to the other end of the museum to check out the her latest project
Which is the oceans our blue planet film and for those of you watching online?
Be sure to go to the website and see where it's playing near you. It's absolutely worth it
So in her own unique way, she's bringing incredible learning experiences to us through film. Welcome everyone, Jennifer Heil
Great it's so lovely to be here
and as Sonia said I'm the executive producer of ocean X media and
that's part of a larger initiative called ocean X and our mission is to explore the ocean and bring it back to the world as
Many of you probably know the oceans cover 71% of the surface of our planet
What isn't is well known is that?
95% of our oceans remain unexplored and
We know more about the surface of Mars than we do about the seafloor of this planet
Which is why at ocean X. We think it's critical to put time and resources towards ocean exploration, which we believe is the next frontier
We believe that storytelling and media are the best ways to bring back what we find
To share our discoveries with the world and to inspire greater interests in our oceans
One of the best examples of how we have tried to fulfill our mission is through a 3d film that we co-produced with BBC Earth
Sponsored by Microsoft which you'll be seeing tonight. I'm so excited called oceans our blue planet
it's a companion film to the landmark TV series Blue Planet - for those of you familiar with that show and
Like the series we wanted to take our audience on a global journey to discover the largest and least explored
wilderness on our planet
With the stories we tell in this film you'll meet a tool-using fish
You will meet an octopus that can create its own body armor out of sea shells to escape a shark
we want to forge a deeper human connection to the ocean and
inspire the next generation to be stewards of our blue planet and I really do think that's where
Filmmakers and educators have so much in common that desire to incite curiosity and inspire
I'm here today to talk a bit about making the film some of the adventures and mishaps that we had along the way
this film was produced over a three-year period
In 20 different locations, I was on nearly half of the shoots
I worked from the equator places like the Galapagos down to the poles including a month
Antarctica, but before I go any further, I wanted to share a trailer of the film
It is the largest and least explored place on earth
Home to the most extreme most exotic animals ever discovered
A vast uncharted world critical to sustaining life on our planet
Continuous scientific advancements allow us to go further into the ocean depths and ever believed possible
Joylynn oceanic adventure into the depths our journey through vibrant color cities
And enchanted underwater forests come face-to-face with gentle giant
And the smartest fish in the sea
Sall blue planet in a breathtaking immersive cinema event
Experience oceans
So I mentioned earlier I work for ocean X medium and ocean X has an extraordinary research vessel
You would have seen it in the trailer and there's a photo of it right here
It's called the elucha and it is what made much of this film happen. The elucha is equipped with two submarines a helicopter a
scuba unit and a science lab
any combination of these is pretty rare and all of them even more so and it really allows us to take a
360 picture of the ocean
The subs of course were what we're critical to allow us to explore the deep and
We absolutely love those submarines. But I tell you we are just excited about the cameras that we have fixed to the submarines
There are two cameras. They are cinema grade. They are rated to 3,000 feet
We believe they are unique in the world
and the reason we are so excited about them is
It means that it's not just the three people and the submarines that are seeing the extraordinary animals that we encounter in the habitats
But that we can bring all of you and your students along with us for the journey
I'd love to share some stories from one of our shoots the longest and arguably hardest one month in Antarctica
it took nine months of planning to take a total of 42 people and
Thousands of pounds of equipment and cold-weather gear to one of the most isolated and formidable
Environments in the world. There's no popping out for spare batteries if you forget them, so
We really had to be on our game in the planning phase
Keeping all that planning in mind
I think it's important to note that we really had no idea what we would find in the deep ocean in Antarctica
We didn't know if we'd find an empty Black Sea a thriving ecosystem or something in-between
We knew there was a chance we might find scarce life and get minimal footage
which is a
Filmmaker is always very nerve-racking
But we felt it was worth taking the risk to explore this uncharted part of our oceans and reach depths
No, one had previously attempted. So we're trying to chip at that 95%
unexplored that I mentioned earlier
to get there the media and science crew flew to swaiiow which is at the bottom tip of
Argentina with a hundred Pelican cases of gear
We got on board the elucha and then it was a three day journey across the drakes Passage
Which is some of the roughest ocean in the world to get to the northern tip of Antarctica
On the Aleutians I mentioned we had the submarine so we had camera crews for the submarine for the helicopter
We had scuba teams for shallower work. We had land-based teams
that were taking smaller boats at to go ashore and
When we were down there, we made the decision to work at night in the 24-hour sunlight of the Antarctic summer
Because we realized that during the day the light was so harsh that our aerial teams and our land-based teams is really hard to film
So in addition to working in a pretty tricky area, we turned our body class upside down my workday suddenly started at 6:00 p.m. And
Finished around 8 a.m. Or 10 a.m. And then we'd all slip on eye masks and try to sleep through a really piercing bright day
A large part of my job on the shoot was to ensure that each of those camera teams that I mentioned
Were able to work harmoniously in an often dangerous and very dynamic environment
I've never been anywhere where conditions change so quickly whether
You know currents visibility the weather we had an ice pilot
Who was there just to help us navigate all these moving icebergs some of them the size of Central Park?
So we were just constantly having to adjust
To whatever Antarctica was was throwing at us. So my job was just sort of one of
Continuously reacting to what was happening and trying to problem-solve throughout the day
But there were lighter moments too. We were down there over Christmas
So we missed Christmas with our families but one night
We took boats to shore to a little island covered in penguins to sing Christmas carols
We apparently weren't very good the Penguins led us
So we were much more interested in them than they were in us commonly happens with wildlife
As I mentioned before we had no idea what we would find in deep ocean
But when we finally reached our maximum depth, which is 3000 feet or a thousand meters
We found an ecosystem
absolutely rich with life and
What that expedition taught us
and I've seen time and again and what we are dearly hoping to communicate with this film to you and your students is
That there's still so much in our world left to discover
for students
we hope that it's
Critical that they grow up knowing that they too
Can be explorers and best of all there is still so much left to explore in our oceans
Now all movies we hope are excellent for learning we wanted to do even more to reach students in partnership with BBC learning
Microsoft has a new collection of teacher written inquiry based
Lesson plans to compliment the BBC earth and ocean acts film oceans are Blue Planet
these interdisciplinary
experiences engage students in answering four big questions while developing future-ready skills
Like writing code building sensors analyzing data creating with 3d and using mixed reality