See the World from a Bug’s Perspective at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Phipps IMAX Theater
Bugs! Opens Friday, June 4
DENVER—April 26, 2004—Experience adventure in a tropical rainforest from an insect’s perspective when Bugs! opens on Friday, June 4 in Phipps IMAX® Theater at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Some of these amazing insects are magnified up to 250,000 times their normal size on the giant screen.
Bugs! follows the life cycles of Papilio, a butterfly, and Hierodula, a praying mantis. Both hatched in the rainforests of Southeast Asia, and live beside a river in an abandoned hut surrounded by lush tropical foliage.
When Papilio emerges alone from an egg deposited on a leaf, she resembles a bird dropping, which helps camouflage her from predators. This tiny caterpillar then undergoes one of nature’s miraculous transformations during her short life span of eight weeks. A herbivore, she eats citrus leaves constantly, increasing her weight a hundred times in just a few weeks—the equivalent of a human growing as heavy as a hippopotamus in just a weekend.
Nearby, Hierodula begins his life bursting from an egg case along with 200 brothers and sisters, sliding down a thread, and climbing up into the world already formed as a mini-mantis. A carnivore, he eats other insects, but takes his time on his hunting expeditions. His life span ranges from nine months to a year.
In the course of the film, we meet more than 40 other tropical insects that also inhabit the rich, green, humid rainforest in their various guises: leaf cutter ants, which consume 20 percent of the rainforest’s leaves; rhino beetles battling for the favors of a female; the trilobite beetle, hiding his tiny head under armor plating; a scale bug disguised as a ball of fluff; an orchid mantis that resembles the flower for which it is named; and the thorn bug, whose name is obvious. In addition, there are scorpions, tarantulas, frogs, lizards and a colony of 3 million bats that consumes two and a half tons of bugs every night.
Narrated by the distinguished English actress Dame Judi Dench, Bugs! was shot on location in the jungles of Borneo and in the United Kingdom, where a microcosm of a tropical rainforest was replicated in studio for extreme close-ups. Director Mike Slee shot the film from a “bug’s-eye view,” as his stars weave their way through blades of grass, travel across the leaves of a tropical rainforest, flit through the rainforest canopy, or skitter across the sand of the ocean’s edge. To do this, Slee enlisted Oscar-winning specialist photographer Peter Parks, who designed and built new systems equipment to shoot extreme close ups of insects.
Bugs! is produced by Principal Large Format in association with Image Quest 3-D, coproduced by the UK Film and TV Production Company PLC, financed with the Film Consortium in association with the Film Council. The film is presented by Terminix and distributed to the worldwide network of IMAX and other large format theaters by SK Films, Inc., of Toronto.
Bugs! press screenings will be held Monday, May 24 and Tuesday, May 25 at 8:30 a.m. each day. Please call Laura Holtman at 303-370-6407 if you would like to attend a screening.
Standard Hours of Operation, Ticket Pricing and Discounts: The Museum is open seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed December 25). General Museum admission tickets are $9 each for adults and $6 each for juniors (ages 3-18) and seniors (65+). IMAX® tickets are $8 each for adults and $5.50 each for juniors and seniors. Gates Planetarium tickets are $8 each for adults and $5.50 each for juniors and seniors. Combination tickets and group discounts available. Call 303-322-7009 for more information, or check www.dmns.org.
