Alaska: Spirit of the Wild is a 70mm Academy Award

Academy Awards

An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

-nominated American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 featuring the landscape and wildlife of Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

. It is narrated by Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...

 and released to IMAX theaters

IMAX

IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...

 in 1997.

Alaskan wildlife featured in the film include moose

Moose

The moose or Eurasian elk is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a dendritic configuration...

, bears, seals

Pinniped

Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semiaquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae .-Overview: Pinnipeds are typically sleek-bodied and barrel-shaped...

, wolves, caribou, and whales, while narrator Heston provides background information. The film was produced by the same IMAX filmmaking team that created Africa: The Serengeti

Africa: The Serengeti

Africa: The Serengeti is a 70mm American documentary film released in 1994 to IMAX theaters. It is narrated by Academy Award-nominated actor James Earl Jones, and directed by George Casey. It was shot on location in Tanzania and Kenya....

. Similar shots of vast landscapes, which are particularly well suited for IMAX's large screen theaters, and entertaining wildlife footage is featured. Aerial photography and underwater photography

Underwater photography

Underwater photography is the process of taking photographs while under water. It is usually done while scuba diving, but can be done while snorkeling or swimming.-Overview:...

 techniques are utilized throughout the production.

It has been well received by critics and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject

Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject

This is a list of films by year that have received an Oscar together with the other nominations for best documentary short subject. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year.-1940s:*1941...

 in 1998.

External links

• Alaska: Spirit of the Wild at The Internet Movie Database