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John Downer

Biography from TheMovieDB

A passionate zoologist, John has been making nature documentaries for the BBC for over 30 years. He made his name by abandoning the traditional style of nature documentaries and pioneering a highly inventive subjective approach using new technology and dramatic story-telling techniques  His innovative approach to filmmaking has brought him numerous international awards for series such as Supersense, Weird Nature, Earthflight and Penguins – Spy in the Huddle. Never afraid to experiment, his first music video, for Peter Gabriel, even won a Grammy

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Additional information:

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Film Production

Director:
1985  The Galactic Garden
2004  Bears: Spy in the Woods
2004  Pride
2007  Trek - Spy on the Wildebeest
2011  Polar Bear - Spy on the Ice
2013  Earthflight
2014  Wings 3D
2015  Snow Chick - A Penguin's Tale
2018  Caméras-espions au pays du froid
2018  Spy in the Snow
2021  Serengeti River Crossing

Producer:
1985  The Galactic Garden
2004  Bears: Spy in the Woods
2004  Pride
2007  Trek - Spy on the Wildebeest
2011  Polar Bear - Spy on the Ice
2013  Earthflight
2014  Wings 3D
2015  Snow Chick - A Penguin's Tale
2018  Caméras-espions au pays du froid
2018  Spy in the Snow
2021  Serengeti River Crossing

Writer:
1985  The Galactic Garden
2004  Bears: Spy in the Woods
2004  Pride
2007  Trek - Spy on the Wildebeest
2011  Polar Bear - Spy on the Ice
2013  Earthflight
2014  The Gathering Swarms
2014  Wings 3D
2015  Snow Chick - A Penguin's Tale
2018  Caméras-espions au pays du froid
2018  Spy in the Snow
2021  Serengeti River Crossing

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TV Production

Author:
2023  Serengeti - La grande cavalcade des animaux

Creative Director:
2023  Serengeti - La grande cavalcade des animaux
????  Spy in the Troop

Creator:
2013  Penguins: Spy in the Huddle
2019  Serengeti
2023  Serengeti - La grande cavalcade des animaux
????  Spy in the Troop

Director:
1982  Nature
2011  Terra Mater
2013  Penguins: Spy in the Huddle
2014  Dolphins: Spy in the Pod
2017  Spy in the Wild
2019  Serengeti
2022  Serengeti
2023  Serengeti - La grande cavalcade des animaux
2023  Spy in the Ocean, A Nature Miniseries
????  Spy in the Troop

Producer:
1982  Nature
2002  Weird Nature
2011  Terra Mater
2013  Penguins: Spy in the Huddle
2014  Dolphins: Spy in the Pod
2017  Spy in the Wild
2019  Serengeti
2022  Serengeti
2023  Serengeti - La grande cavalcade des animaux
2023  Spy in the Ocean, A Nature Miniseries
????  Spy in the Troop

Writer:
1982  Nature
2002  Weird Nature
2011  Terra Mater
2013  Penguins: Spy in the Huddle
2014  Dolphins: Spy in the Pod
2017  Spy in the Wild
2019  Serengeti
2022  Serengeti
2023  Serengeti - La grande cavalcade des animaux
2023  Spy in the Ocean, A Nature Miniseries
????  Spy in the Troop

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About the Movie Section

Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).

Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).

At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.

Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)

While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:

  • I added "runners up" to Top 10 lists, treating them as ties where applicable and numbering them accordingly at the bottom of each list.
  • Regarding those polls wherein "franchise" movies were submitted as one project until BFI's policy changed to regard them separately, I treated them as ties and renumbered the affected lists accordingly (e.g. the Godfather films).

Regarding profile removals and data corrections:

  • If you would like your profile removed from this site, please contact the source of this data directly, TheMovieDB. My assumption is: once it's gone from their site, it should soon be gone from this site.
  • If you would like to correct movie data on this site, please contact the source of this data directly, TheMovieDB. My assumption is: once it's corrected on their site, it should soon be corrected on this site.
  • For additional corrections and profile removals, please e-mail The Open Movie Database (OMDb).

Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).

Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.

Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.