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00:01Since its debut on Discovery HD Theater, Sunrise Earth has been dazzling viewers with its real-time take on life
00:07at dawn.
00:08For their new season, producer David Conover and his team decided to raise the bar and take their audience into
00:14the heart of America's last great frontier.
00:18Here, in the Alaskan wild, the summer sun rises by 5 a.m. and stays in the sky for more
00:24than 18 hours.
00:25Its influence is everywhere.
00:27Its arrival is breathtaking.
00:30For eight days, the team traveled the coast, shooting five new episodes along the way.
00:35This is the story of their journey.
00:37I'm David Conover, and this is a behind-the-scenes look at Sunrise Earth Alaska.
00:43This new season of Sunrise Earth in Alaska was chosen for definite reason.
00:47The sun here sets really almost on a seasonal basis.
00:50It's not on a 24-hour cycle.
00:52And the rise is very, very slow.
00:54So that moment, that transition from the twilight that there is in the summer to bright sun is very, very
01:01slow.
01:04Conover and his crew, producer Daryl Zucra, and local wildlife filmmaker Daniel Zatz captured the daybreak in a variety of
01:12settings.
01:14The second day of production led the team to Hallow Bay in Katmai National Park.
01:19Going fishing.
01:20Travel to the bay would take nearly 15 hours by boat.
01:24The main reason for shooting there, the majestic Alaskan brown bear.
01:28The bear down in Katmai, I've worked with those bear before, and they're full of that same bigness of the
01:35state.
01:36And when you're in their company nearby, you're just aware that there's definitely someone around who's bigger than you,
01:43and they can really get your heart pumping.
01:48We got on board a boat called the Waters, which was a 73-foot old tugboat.
01:53It used to be on the Alaskan Coastal Patrol.
01:55And then we headed west, about 120 miles or so, to Hallow Bay.
02:01So we figured we'd get there around midnight and probably just go in instead of doing a scout like we
02:07had talked about,
02:08and then coming back to the boat just to make it one trip.
02:11But my biggest hope would be to get two bears.
02:15One bear I'd love.
02:17Oh, yeah.
02:18What do you think?
02:19Oh, well, I think you're going to get a lot more than that.
02:22Yeah, it's going to be fantastic.
02:23It's going to be great.
02:25Joining the team at Katmai is Brad Josephs, a local bear guide.
02:29His knowledge of the park helps David create a plan of attack for the dawn ahead.
02:33I wasn't sure where the bear were going to be, how many they were going to be,
02:36and what their relationship to the rising sun was going to be.
02:40You'd look into the sun here, and then you'd have to go around to where the bears were.
02:44Yeah, that'd be good, because if we could sense that that's the general direction of movement.
02:48Then we could move over.
02:49Move over, keep the same, yeah, maybe over to here.
02:53So we decided to be where the bear were, which is start between the meadow and the sun,
02:57and then hope that they would come down as they were supposed to, to clam,
03:02which would have put them between us and the sun.
03:10Morning for the crew begins at 3.30 a.m.
03:13You guys ready?
03:15We've got to go.
03:17The weather is calling for clear skies,
03:19and the team is anxious to hit the beach before too much daylight slips away.
03:37Good luck, boys.
03:38Good luck.
03:41For the Katmai shoot, Daniel will provide the close-up shots to complement David's wide angles.
03:47Working in tandem, they will track the rising sun, and hopefully, the waking bears.
03:52It's just an hour.
04:08Beautiful sun, just came up.
04:15It's gorgeous.
04:16It's gorgeous.
04:19It's gorgeous.
04:49It's gorgeous.
04:51It's gorgeous.
04:52I feel like if we get one bear, we're only seeing 15.
04:56We got another bear coming in here, just running.
04:59I mean, she realizes all these bears are in the river now,
05:02and they're dying for the salmon to come in,
05:03so she's, she doesn't want to waste any time at all.
05:08They're fishing right now, with like a boar caught a fish,
05:12and the female took it away.
05:16Yeah, this is just a fantastic morning.
05:21Bears mating, bears nursing, bears catching halibut.
05:26Holy cow.
05:28Unbelievable.
05:29Pretty good for Alaska?
05:31Pretty good for anywhere in the world.
05:34Looks like we're going to go out to the sandbar here next to the river.
05:38Don't these bears do some fishing?
05:40As the morning sun has risen,
05:42most of the bears have made their way out to the mudflats left by the receding tide.
05:46The shallow waters are full of fish, and the team moves out for a closer look.
05:54You're hoping that what we'll do is shoot this way,
05:56since all of our morning stuff was this way?
05:58Yeah.
05:59Well, the sun came up there.
06:00Yeah.
06:01Tide went out.
06:02All the bears came out.
06:03That should be no problem.
06:04There's a bear right here.
06:05There's a bear right there.
06:06There's a bear right there.
06:07Yeah.
06:07So let's get to work.
06:08That would be fantastic.
06:10I was ready.
06:14I'll set up for a silhouette.
06:17This is tough on the eyes here, looking right into the sun.
06:28After a busy morning, the team heads for home.
06:31Back aboard the waters, David and Daniel set up a monitor to review the day's footage.
06:36I don't have any tapes.
06:38Whoa.
06:38It's going to be hard to watch what we shot.
06:41We don't have it.
06:43The shot's going in.
06:45Okay, so 28 minutes, let's see what's living here.
06:49Oh, yeah.
06:51So this is the sun's been up for 15 degrees up.
06:55Maybe an hour or so.
06:56Yeah, a little over an hour.
06:59You know, what's really different in Alaska is that the sun is not really rising.
07:05It's kind of sliding.
07:06Right.
07:07And it makes our sunrises really long.
07:10Yeah, which is great.
07:10Long, subtle, beautiful sunrises.
07:12Yeah.
07:16So here's the cub nursing.
07:17Oh, yeah.
07:19Yeah, so you were down low.
07:20I was up high kind of shooting the same thing with a wider frame.
07:23Right.
07:23And the mother's just snoozing.
07:25Yeah, that's great.
07:26He's eating.
07:26It's just beautiful.
07:27Look at the water in the background across the top.
07:29Yeah.
07:32Oh, yeah, okay.
07:32This is the bear coming out.
07:34You have the same shot from above, right?
07:36Yeah.
07:37In my shot, it's wide, and you can just see the top of the bear going through the tall
07:41grounds, heading for the beach.
07:42Nice.
07:42Okay, so right here, the bear's about to pop out.
07:46Luckily, Brad gave me good directions, so I knew roughly where to frame up.
07:4920 feet from the logs.
07:5315.
07:55Okay, he's coming out.
07:59The bear came out exactly where you'd want him to.
08:03It's just perfect.
08:04Yeah.
08:05Yeah.
08:08Probably the thing that really got me was the speed.
08:11There were two that were fishing out there, and one decided to chase the other.
08:15And these two just started running faster and faster and faster.
08:21That's about full speed right there.
08:27Didn't go up to 35 miles an hour.
08:29They just kept running, and it was falling and falling and falling.
08:33It was amazing.
08:36The shoot in Hallow Bay has been a success.
08:38This and other footage from Alaska will help David to create the next chapter in the slowed-down Sunrise Earth
08:45story.
08:46I think that television today is very fast-paced, and there are very few moments in the programming schedule where
08:53you can just really observe what's going on, particularly in the natural world.
08:59Sunrise Earth is a real-time experience.
09:01We try to give people the sense of what will happen over the course of about an hour on one
09:06day in one location.
09:09When television slows down, it provides an opportunity for people to discover in a way that they normally can't do.
09:19It's the same sort of discovery that a person has when they come to a natural place like this.
09:25Sunrise Earth provides that.
09:27I am just hugely impressed by the body of work that David and Daryl have created in the previous Sunrise
09:34Earths,
09:34and I'm just honored to be a part of this.
09:38It's just a pleasure.
09:39Join us here in Alaska for another season of Sunrise Earth.
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