Life After People (2008) (TV)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

David de Vries

Writer:

David de Vries (writer)

Release Date:

21 January 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

What If

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

No Survivors | Debris | No Cast Of Characters Credits | Building Collapse | Big Ben London

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Primetime Emmys.

Cast

Struan Rodger	...	Himself - Narrator (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John Anderson	...	Himself
David Brin	...	Himself
Bill Bruninga	...	Himself
Ron Chesser	...	Himself
Ray Coppinger	...	Himself
Eric Doehne	...	Himself
Sergey Gashchak	...	Himself
John Hadidian	...	Himself
Kevin Harrison	...	Himself
Gordon Masterton	...	Himself
Nabil Nasr	...	Himself
Alex Nickson	...	Himself
Dr. Howard Oliver	...	Himself
Stephen R. Palumbi	...	Himself (as Steve Palumbi)
Alan W. Pense	...	Himself
Mary Sackett	...	Herself
Eric Sanderson	...	Himself

Directed by
David de Vries

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
David de Vries		writer

Produced by
Douglas Cohen	....	executive producer
David de Vries	....	producer
Vincent Lopez	....	producer
Steffen Schlachtenhaufen	....	associate producer
Louis Tarantino	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Eric Amdahl

Cinematography by
Chris Laine

Film Editing by
Motoshi Wakabayashi
Kyle Yaskin

Sound Department
Jack Crosby	....	sound effects editor
Nozomu Furuya	....	sound effects editor (as Nozomu Furuya Hirota)
Michael Phillips Keeley	....	sound re-recording mixer (as Michael Keeley)
Corey Morgan	....	sound effects editor
Stephen Parise	....	sound effects editor
Dave Philips	....	dialogue editor
Coby Taitano	....	dialogue editor
Ryan Young	....	sound effects editor
Ryan Young	....	sound effects editor

Visual Effects by
Michael Aceves	....	digital compositor: LOOK! Effects
Michael Aceves	....	matte painter: LOOK! Effects
Patrick L. Almanza	....	digital compositor: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Ulysses Argetta	....	digital compositor: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Lloyd Lee Barnett	....	digital compositor: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Casey Benn	....	digital artist
Chad Buehler	....	digital compositor
Christian Cardona	....	digital compositor and matte painter: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Jony Chandra	....	matte painter
Vanessa Cheung	....	matte painter
Stephen Chien	....	3D artist: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Teague Chrystie	....	visual effects artist
Matt Conway	....	matte painter
Robert Cristino	....	visual effects artist
Rif Dagher	....	consultant
Clay Dale	....	visual effects artist: Eden Fx
Andrea D'Amico	....	visual effects producer
Matt Drummond	....	visual effects supervisor
Erik Eulen	....	3D artist: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Michael Heinz	....	visual effects supervisor
Dark Hoffman	....	matte painter
Chris Hopkins	....	3D artist: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Anthony 'Max' Ivins	....	visual effects supervisor: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Beau Janzen	....	3D artist: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Sid Jayakar	....	visual effects compositor
Kelly Rae Kenan	....	visual effects coordinator
Danny S. Kim	....	digital compositor and matte painter: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Sean Kinnear	....	visual effects
Mark Kolpack	....	visual effects consultant
Andrew H. Leung	....	matte painter
Shawn Lipowski	....	3D artist: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
James Allan May	....	digital compositor
James Allan May	....	visual effects artist
David R. Morton	....	lead visual effects artist (as Dave Morton)
Migs Rustia	....	visual effects editor: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Steffen Schlachtenhaufen	....	visual effects producer
Paul Stemmer	....	visual effects editor: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Andranik Taranyan	....	compositor
Melinka Thompson-Godoy	....	visual effects producer: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Rainy Venne	....	senior compositor
Leo Vezzali	....	digital compositor: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Patrick Krebs	....	digital artist (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Dana Lee Anderson	....	gaffer

Editorial Department
Rod Decker	....	on-line editor
Irit Lockspeiser	....	post-production assistant
Lilly Posner	....	first assistant editor

Other crew
Matthew Bernabei	....	set production assistant
Jeff Larsen	....	production assistant
Michael Schachtner	....	production assistant
Michael Scipioni	....	production assistant

Production Companies

• Flight 33 Productions

Distributors

• History Channel (2008) (USA) (all media)

Special Effects

• Hive Studios Australia (visual effects)
• LOOK! Effects (visual effects)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Australia:G

Company:

Flight 33 Productions

Goofs:

Factual errors: The Sears Tower is referred to as the tallest man-made structure in North America. This in incorrect; Sears Tower stands at 442 meters tall, while the CN Tower in Toronto is 553.33 meters tall, exceeding the height of the supposed "tallest man-made structure" by 111.33 meters.

Movie Connections:

Followed by "Life After People" (2009)

Censorship of key content

Life after people is a ripoff of Alan Weisman "World without us" (first of all by using a title structure in three words, but whatever).

The basic thought experiment of Alan Weisman is aimed not so much at looking at how nature would recover after we have left, but in fact analysing to what extent our actions are permanent.

Life after people censors our use of plastics, our pollution of the planet with PCBs, how permanent nuclear waste will be and focuses on the mild, innocent traces of us that will be erased easily: wood, paper, iron. The only ecological trace left of the original content is the bit about fish population and our current overfishing. Too little.

The documentary is reasonably good, padded with special effects that are shown over and over again, and with a shift of focus to American landmarks, which is understandable as it was made for US TV.

I give it a 2, because the content has mercilessly been censored to present a somewhat idealistic and benign-ized vision of our impact on the planet.

I can only imagine what dark reasons motivated such editorial choices.