Documentary turns camera on oceanographer Sylvia Earle
By Lynn Elber, Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --When Fisher Stevens approached prominent oceanographer Sylvia Earle about featuring both her life and her work in a documentary, she resisted the idea.
Turning the camera on her efforts to protect the seas was one thing, but putting herself center stage made Earle uneasy, Stevens said.
Actor-filmmaker Stevens managed to persuade her to change her mind, and the result is “Mission Blue,” directed by Stevens and Robert Nixon (co-producer, “Gorillas in the Mist”) and available on Netflix.
“If we want to save the ocean, we have to see it through her eyes and get people engaged through her life and her passion,” Stevens said.
Earle, Time magazine’s first “Hero for the Planet,” is a former chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration whose many honors include the 2011 Royal Geographical Society Gold Medal.
The founder of Mission Blue, among other organizations, Earle’s focus includes creating a global web of “hope spots,” marine sanctuaries in which activities including drilling and commercial fishing are prohibited. A number of such protected ocean areas have been designated during the film’s more than four years of production, Stevens said.
Stevens hopes the documentary’s bluntness paired with Earle’s optimism, encourages individuals and governments to respect the vulnerability of every body of water, whether oceans, rivers or streams.
“I hope people want to get in the water, be careful what they put in it and what fish they eat,” said Stevens. An avid scuba diver since his Florida days starring in Fox’s 1993 series “Key West,” Stevens said he’s seen firsthand how much some fish populations and coral reefs have deteriorated over the years.
The documentary tracks Earle as she pursues her longtime dedication to exploring and aiding the seas. How her commitment developed and its effect on her personal world, including her roles as a wife and mother, also a key part of the film.
Earle, who will be 79 on Aug. 30 and who Stevens said puts him to shame as a hardy diver, is a trailblazer in many ways.
In the 1960s, she made the then-bold decision to temporarily leave her family to undertake an expedition with an all-male group of 70 colleagues, Stevens said. In 1979, she set a women’s depth-diving record of more than 1,200 feet — “Terrifying, but not for her. She’s an explorer,” he said.
Although the issue of environmental protection can be divisive, Stevens said he doesn’t expect the film to stir controversy. That’s in contrast to “The Cove,” the Oscar-winning 2009 film he helped produce which depicted how fishermen in a Japanese village herd dolphins into a cove and spear them for their meat, which is considered a delicacy.
The fishermen of Taiji said the hunt is part of their village’s tradition and condemned Western critics who eat other kinds of meat as hypocritical.
When asked if his filmmaking has affected his on-screen career, Stevens said only in that it can cloud the perception of what he does. He’s still an actor who enjoys working in films and on stage, he said, adding, “but you don’t have to do just one thing.”
“I love making documentaries, love the people I get to meet and the life of it and the freedom of filmmaking, as opposed to when you’re doing a feature and you have the studio and the producers breathing down your neck,” he said. “There’s a great freedom of expression.”
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More