After an odd beginning (with night shots of waves and the moon) we have a brief glimpse of what is in store for us viewers. Then our voyage begins with some shots of the beaches of the Atlantic coast crowded with people and then underwater for examining the various life forms that live underwater: we begin with plumed worms, sea cucumbers, stingrays and oysters. On the beaches many birds live there such as sanderlings, oyster catchers, laughing gulls, Foster's terns, skimmers, pelicans, willets and royal terns. These birds don't live exactly like their ground based cousins (up in trees and singing all day long) but on ground and fighting from time to time with birds that could possibly steal their ideal spots on the high ground. Again underwater we see more and more creatures; sea stars, huge sea snails the size of footballs, blennys. Again on the surface we see what the tide can do to on the nesting sites such as flooding them and making the birds even lose their eggs. However, when the tide ends, we see fiddle crabs that come out of their shelters for courting females and have to escape hungry willet birds and gulls. Soon we focus on the skimmer, a bird that catches fish by feel but often mistakes the food for his young and also about the small killers of the coastal waters: seahorses, plate fish, soles, puffers and lizard fish. Then we see what royal terns have to do for catching fish and avoiding to get it stolen from others. Underwater, there is the same chaos since it's mid summer and the voracious blue fish nearly kill all the other small fishes on a rampage. We then see a skimmer that catched the right fish and some oyster catchers, and then some aerial shots of the spartina (the coastal grass) and since there aren't bisons or wildebeest that feed on grass, there have to be huge storms that pound the coast and we then have a brief summary of most of the animals we saw in the film.
I have really loved this documentary because it has quite great cinematography for 1996 standards and there were many animals that most common people don't know. But what I really loved were Keith David's narration and the soundtrack by Elliot Sokolov; they were more than great, they were... MESMERIZING! And these alone are reasons why you shouldn't miss this documentary if you have a chance.
I have really loved this documentary because it has quite great cinematography for 1996 standards and there were many animals that most common people don't know. But what I really loved were Keith David's narration and the soundtrack by Elliot Sokolov; they were more than great, they were... MESMERIZING! And these alone are reasons why you shouldn't miss this documentary if you have a chance.
