Life After People (2008) (TV)

Director:

David de Vries

Writer:

David de Vries

Release Date:

21 January 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

What If

Plot:

Visit the ghostly villages surrounding Chernobyl (abandoned by humans after the 1986 nuclear disaster)...

Plot Keywords:

Broken Glass | Storm | No Survivors | No Cast Of Characters Credits | Nature

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Primetime Emmys. Another 1 nomination

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
Howard Oliver	...	Himself (as Dr. Howard Oliver)
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

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
Stephen Chein	....	3D artist: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Vanessa Cheung	....	matte painter
Teague Chrystie	....	visual effects artist
Matt Conway	....	matte painter
Robert Cristino	....	visual effects artist
Andrea D'Amico	....	visual effects producer
Rif Dagher	....	consultant
Clay Dale	....	visual effects artist: Eden Fx
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.
Christopher Ivins	....	compositor: LOOK! Effects
Beau Janzen	....	3D artist: LOOK! Effects, Inc.
Sid Jayakar	....	visual effects compositor
Kelly Rae Kenan Green	....	visual effects coordinator (as Kelly Rae Kenan)
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
John Lindstein	....	cg supervisor
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
Brendan Burnett	....	assistant editor
Rod Decker	....	on-line editor
Irit Lockspeiser	....	post-production assistant
Lilly Posner	....	first assistant editor

Other crew
Matthew Bernabei	....	production assistant
Joel Franklin	....	production coordinator
Jeff Larsen	....	production assistant
Valerie Ryan	....	location manager
Michael Schachtner	....	production assistant
Michael Scipioni	....	key 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)

Also Known As:

"After Days" - Japan (English title) (DVD title)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Australia:G | Singapore:PG

Company:

Flight 33 Productions

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: There is an footage file. In which clip, appears a worker working and walking on a bridge support wire and then the worker disappears (is digitally removed), but his shadow on the surface of the bridge support wire is not cleared and continues walking.

Quotes:

Narrator:Time has run out for man. Our hold on the planet is over. Welcome to Earth. Population: zero.

Movie Connections:

Followed by "Life After People" (2009)

A refreshing post-'apocalyptic' fantasy

It's very difficult to get one's head around the basic concept, in a way. One imagines that a world without humans is entirely possible, but only after a catastrophic event leaving its mark on the world: nuclear war, viral epidemic or perhaps even collision with a meteor. In any case the assumption is that the world we leave would be burning, infected or crushed.

The beauty of the film - and it is beautiful, despite the repetitious CGI montages necessarily concocted to show the world's great landmarks under water or foliage - is in this unlikely predicate. If we simply weren't here, what would become of the world? Professorial types talk about the likely outcomes in their specialist areas, how wild or urban life readjusts, the rise of plant life, the decay of unmaintained constructions. It's wonderfully uncontroversial. There's no moralising, no wistfulness or pity, just a technical and statistical explanation of the survival algorithm of non-human life.

I think David de Vries is probably right to include a rather melodramatic Day After Tomorrowish score and repeat images of the great monuments of civilisation (cities) crumbling. After all, the drama of the film for us is the unspoken one - that we have gone. I like the non-drama though and, with Struan Rodger's straightforward narration, I found the experience rather wonderful and positive. 6/10