The Beauty of Pollination celebrates the “Wings of Life” ( Disney Video)

The Beauty of Pollination – Moving Art™

This video was shown at the TED conference in 2011, with scenes from “Wings of Life“, a film about the threat to essential pollinators that produce over a third of the food we eat. The seductive love dance between flowers and pollinators sustains the fabric of life and is the mystical keystone event where the animal and plant worlds intersect that make the world go round.

“Wings of Life” will be released on Disneynature on April 16 in time for Earth Day.

WINGS OF LIFE presents the unsung heroes of the global food chain. You will witness, as never before, fantastic journeys that are full of wonder, drama and beauty. Theirs is a fragile ecosystem, essential for sustaining life on the planet. Now threatened by mankind, this is a chance to see their world as never before. Visually stunning and emotional, the story is told from the flower’s point of view. For the first time ever, you will witness a world hidden from the naked eye—and it will be an experience you will never forget.

Unbelievable visuals, and a plot that could never be written.

Our life on Earth depends on the little things that we take for granted—bees, bats, butterflies and hummingbirds. But you can’t tell the story of pollinators without telling the story of the greatest biological event that occurred on our planet 135 million years ago – the invention of the flower.

Delicate and graceful, the flowers are not content to be the ultimate symbol of beauty. Quite the contrary, their bright colors and their exotic flavors are intoxicating wonders that attract pollinators, literally making them drunk with desire.

It is a complex, beautiful dance of seduction upon which a third of our crops rely on for survival.

It is a dance without which we could not survive.

Louie on the making of WINGS OF LIFE.

“I’ve been filming time lapse flowers, continuously 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 35 years. To watch them move is a dance I will never get tired of. Their sensual beauty immerses us with color, smell, taste and touch. Yet, like most of us, I took for granted the miraculous romance between flowers and pollinators—a synergy that, in fact, keeps this planet alive. The beauty of their relationship compelled me to film their behavior. Who could resist? It truly is the ultimate love story, for it nourishes the very essence of life.”

But this essential romance is threatened. Pesticides, loss of habitat, mites, and environmental stress imposed by humans is eradicating bees at an alarming rate. It’s frightening, because we depend on pollinators for over 1/3 of the fruits and vegetables we eat.

Many scientists believe it may be the most critical issue facing man today. Bees are like the canary in the coal mine. Once they disappear, so do we. It reminds us that we are a part of nature—and not separate from it. Of course, when I learned about the bees vanishing (CCD), there was no turning back.

I was motivated to Take Action.

Rarely seen by the naked eye, WINGS OF LIFE allows you to experience the most intimate intersection of the animal and plant worlds, the mystical moment where life regenerates itself over and over again.

What motivates them? I would ask my scientific advisors.

“It’s all about risk and reward”
Why? “Because they want to survive.”
Why? “So they can reproduce?”
Why? And one scientist pondered it deeply and replied “Nothing lasts forever, everything in the universe wears out.”

That blew my mind. Because at that moment I realized that Nature invented reproduction as a mechanism so life can continue as a force of energy that passes through us, a link in the evolution of Life.

When art meets science, miracles happen.

WINGS OF LIFE is not just a journey into a spectacularly beautiful world beyond the reach of the naked eye. Louie worked with scientific experts including Stephen Buchmann, professor of entomology at the University of Arizona and a researcher at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Orley R. Taylor, professor of entomology at the University of Kansas, and Theodore H. Fleming, professor emeritus of biology at the University of Miami and an expert on the behavior of bats.

TRAILER

Wings of Life Trailer on Disney Video

Pre-order HERE

Suggested Disney Videos – HERE

Submitted by John Horoszko @ YouDaMan