OUR PLANET LIVE with Dan Tapster

John W. Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center April 30, 2024

LIVE EVENT: Thursday, April 24, 2025, at 7:30 pm
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Image is an extreme close up of a lions eye.

Image courtesy of IMG Artists.

About Life on Our Planet
Four billion years. Millions of species. Five mass extinction events (and counting, but more on that later). It’s the story of Life on Our Planet, a stunning new series chronicling the ongoing rise and fall of lives on Earth, from the cataclysmic events that reshape our ecosystems to the creatures that survived (or didn’t) along the way. Because life always finds a way — but as this eight-part epic journey proves, the road from single-celled life-form to the biodiversity we know today was anything but drama free. During this event, audience members will hear from one of the showrunners of the series, Dan Tapster, as he describes the process and his experiences while working on Life on Our Planet (Netflix) LIVE. Executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, Life on Our Planet uses stunning natural history and world-class VFX to reveal the story of life in a way that has never been attempted before. This project is sponsored in part by a grant from the WCU Sustainable Campus Initiative.

About Our Planet Live
From the Emmy® Award-winning team behind Netflix’s Our Planet series, comes a new natural history speaker series: Our Planet Live. Brought to you by Silverback Films and Producer esk in association with Netflix, Our Planet Live is a new and immersive live show featuring behind-the-scenes stories from the explorers, filmmakers, scientists, and adventurers that created some of the most eye-catching footage of our planet.

Join us live on stage as we bring to life these stories from the natural world. With a focus on climate fragility and climate migration, Our Planet Live tells an unprecedented story about overcoming obstacles on a global scale and explores the messages at the heart of these action-packed, emotional, and unforgettable sequences.

About Dan Tapster

Picture of Dan Tapster looking at a monitor in a field.

Image courtesy of IMG Artists.

An 8-times Emmy-nominated showrunner, Dan Tapster started out at the BBC Natural History Unit in the 1990s where he worked on series including Sir David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals. Following a varied career which included being kidnapped by Quichua Indians in Ecuador and firing cannonballs through houses by mistake, he became the showrunner for a TV show that went on to become the second most-watched factual TV series in history: the phenomenon that is MythBusters. After leading the show to 12 series renewals and over 18 billion views of Keith Scholey job as Controller of Factual Production, responsible for all BBC ‘in house’ Factual content to join Silverback Films and continue the mission and aim of making content that makes a difference. Awards for productions he has been responsible for include Emmys, Baftas, RTS’s, Wildscreen pandas and Jackson Hole Awards. He was awarded a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Bristol. content, Dan left MythBusters in 2016 and after more pop-science shows, he joined Silverback films in 2018. Combining visual flair with strong story-telling, at Silverback Films, Dan was the showrunner for the epic that is Life on Our Planet (Netflix). Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, LOOP uses stunning natural history and world-class VFX to reveal the story of life in a way that has never been attempted before.

About Silverback Films

Silverback Films is a world-leading producer of natural history films for both television and cinema. Founded in 2012 by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey, it brings together an exceptional team of wildlife filmmakers and has produced shows and features that are among the most successful ever created – including Our Planet (Netflix) and David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (Netflix), as well as numerous other natural history shows for international streamers and broadcasters.

About ESK

Esk is a producer of live entertainment. Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, they create innovative and engaging content for the stage and screen. With extensive experience of working across natural history formats, film with live music and numerous other theatrical and live projects, they are delighted to be the producer for this ground-breaking new speaker series with Silverback Films.

We look forward to seeing you at Our Planet LIVE: Life on Our Planet with Dan Tapster, on Thursday, April 24, 2025, at 7:30 pm. Doors will open to the performance 30 min before the show is set to start. Please note, the WCU Fine Art Museum will be open one hour before this event from 6:30-7:30PM. The WCU Fine Art Museum is open for one hour before any ticketed event at Bardo Arts Center.

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