Flight of the Butterflies
| Flight of the Butterflies | |
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Flight of the Butterflies poster
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| Directed by | Mike Slee |
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| Narrated by | Megan Follows |
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| Edited by | Susan Shipton |
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| Distributed by | SK Films |
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Running time
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44 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
Flight of the Butterflies is a 2012 Canadian documentary film directed and co-written by Mike Slee for 3D IMAX, starring Megan Follows, Gordon Pinsent, and Shaun Benson. The film covers Dr. Fred Urquhart's nearly 40-year-long scientific investigation into the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), tracking the details of what is considered one of the longest known insect migrations: the flight of the monarch butterfly from Central Mexico to the United States and Canada and back.
Monarch butterflies are a familiar sight in the United States and Canada most of the year, but disappear from most locations in winter. The documentary film weaves together factual information about the monarchs with a dramatic re-enactment of the search for the answer to the mystery of where they spend the winter. The story line follows Urquhart as a child in Canada, fascinated by the butterflies; his years of research and study, together with his wife and collaborator Norah, into their life and migration; and their recruitment of a pair of amateur naturalists in Mexico to search for and ultimately find the butterflies there, concluding with his time decades later as a senior scientist looking back at his investigations and discoveries about the insect's life pattern. In addition to finding the overwintering sites, he discovered that it takes two or three generations for the monarch butterflies to reach the Canadian breeding grounds, while one much-longer-lived "supergeneration" makes the 2,500-mile (4,000 km) return trip south into central Mexico.
With Mike Slee announced as director, the film went into principal development in February 2007. In August 2007, the U.S. National Science Foundation awarded a three million dollar grant to Canadian SK Films to both develop the film for the giant screen and create its educational outreach program. The grant amount is the maximum available from the NSF. Filming took place through 2011 and 2012, and tracked the butterflies from their winter habitats in central Mexico to their breeding grounds in the southern United States to their summer habitat in Canada, and their subsequent return to Mexico. In filming the butterflies, director Slee considered using balloons, helicopters, and cables, but ultimately decided on use of a 70-foot crane. SK Films announced that principal filming of the one-year project was completed in early March 2012.
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