Nature’s Cleanup Crew tells the story of the busy scavengers who live among us in our cities, recycling the mountains of waste our consumer society leaves behind. To us, it’s garbage. To them, it’s dinner.
FOR CBC’S THE NATURE OF THINGS AND ZDF ARTE
Nature’s Cleanup Crew aired in Canada on CBC’s The Nature of Things and in Europe on ZDF and ARTE. It’s currently streaming for free on CBC GEM and Arte.
With the help of thoughtful and passionate scientists who have come to understand and love them, we find out what makes scavengers tick. We debunk myths about them. We ask… What adaptations have they evolved to do their job? What benefits do they provide humanity? How can we humans work with them, so that they can do their job even better?
On Broadway in Manhattan, we see the tourist crowds from the ants’ point of view, as a team of young entomologists discover how important they are to keep the streets clean. In Berlin, we discover how scavenging foxes have adapted to survive in an urban environment – something they’ve had to do because they have nowhere else to go. In Toronto we hunt for the elusive opossum – the shyest scavenger of all – to find out how they help to make our cities healthier. In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia we track the city’s teaming population of vultures to find out how they protect people from deadly disease.
By the end, we may not see all of nature’s cleanup crew as beautiful creatures the way some scientists do. But we might be more willing to give them the respect they deserve.
A Kensington Communications production. Producer: Robert Lang, Director: Robin Bicknell, Editor: Bill Towgood, Writer: Allen Booth, DP: Derek Rogers
CREDITS
Produced by
ROBERT LANG
Directed by
ROBIN BICKNELL
Written by
ALLEN BOOTH
Additional Direction
ROBERT LANG
Editor
BILL TOWGOOD
Cinematographers
DEREK ROGERS
RUSSELL GIENAPP
Music Composed by
ERIC CADESKY
NICK DYER
Animation and graphics
JUNIOR LOPEZ
Researchers
JON SUFRIN
ALLEN BOOTH
Visual Researcher
GINA CALI
Production Manager
NICOLE McKECHNIE
Additional Camera
ROLAND GOCKEL
LORI LONGSTAFF
EVAN SECCOMBE
OWAIN PARRI
DOLORES ALVARADO
Drone Operators
EVAN SECCOMBE
IVAYLO KLISUROV
Sound Recordists
DANE KELLY
PETER SAWADE
JASON R MILLIGAN
LYUDMIL BOZHKOV
DANIEL TOMOV
MORITZ KERST
Location Fixers
ROSIE KOCH
TAMARA DAWIT
ASHU KERSMA
Post-Production Coordinator
VIKAS NAYAK
Sound Editor
GARY VAUGHN
Re-recording Mixer
RICHARD SPENCE-THOMAS
Assistant Editor
JAMIE MACKIDDIE
Conform Editor
VIKAS NAYAK
Colourist
IGOR PETROV
Production Accounting
LOIS DOU
Production Coordinator
RENA PILGRIM
Legal
DANNY WEBBER
Archival Material
Roland Gockel, Dillon M Cozzi via ViralHog, Vaughan King, US Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans, The Snow of Kilimanjaro, 20th Century Fox 1952, Shutterstock, Renato Henshaw, May Mei Freeman, Regenesis UK, Pond5, Overflightstock, Getty Images / BBC Motion Gallery, NOAA, Boiler Room TV, Q Films Inc, Kenneth Dale Jones DVM, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research/Dr. Heinrich Lünsdorf, The Egyptian Vulture New LIFE project (LIFE16 NAT/BG/874), Dimitar Gradinarov, Dobromir Doberv, Emil Yordanov, Dawn VanDeman, Raviv Yatom, Melvin Zoopers, Andre Botha, Endangered Wildlife Trust,
Special Thanks to
EGYPTIAN VULTURE NEW LIFE” PROJECT (LIFE16 NAT/BG/000874), TechnoRem Incorporated, Toronto Wildlife Centre, York University Behavioural Sciences, Nature Research Center, NC Museum of Natural Science/ NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Adrian Smith, Laboratories for scientific and technological innovation in environment (LISTE) du Centre INRS – Eau Terre Environnement, Stoyan Nikolov, Evan Buechley.
Produced in collaboration with
MARCO POLO FILM AG
Executive Producer, Marco Polo Film AG
ANNETTE SCHEURICH
Production Manager, Marco Polo Film AG
VERENA FEIGE
Commissioning Editor, ZDF/Arte
LINDE DEHNER
Produced with the participation of ZDF/Arte
Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit
produced in association with
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Executive in Charge of Production, CBC
Sue Dando
Produced by Kensington
Executive Producer
ROBERT LANG