Once a cinematic heartthrob, Jacques Perrin has turned his talent to making up-close nature documentaries, the latest titled "Oceans." The film maker talks to Yao Min-G.

A little boy sees the ocean for the first time and asks, "What is ocean?"

The camera pans to the waves and plunges deep into the waters where elephant seals, dolphins, whales, sea turtles and myriad fish struggle, survive and flourish with thousands of other ocean animals.

Often considered cold blooded and emotionless, these creatures display jaw-dropping emotions and actions in the astonishingly beautiful nature documentary "Oceans," produced and co-directed by French film maker and actor Jacques Perrin.

It premiered in China on Friday night in Shanghai and will be distributed on IPTV in September.

The film was released last year in the United States on Earth Day, April 22, and its opening was the third-highest grossing for a documentary in the States. A gruesome, 20-minute-long episode of killing sharks for shark's fin soup was edited out and replaced with a narration. The sharks were "finned" - their fins were cut off and the great fish were cast back live into the ocean to die. Those original 20 minutes of slaughter remain in the total 104-minute-long Chinese version for audiences who love shark's fin soup as a delicacy. The Chinese version is narrated by famous film maker and actor Jiang Wen.

Perrin attended the premier at the invitation of BesTV, an IPTV, broadband TV and mobile TV subsidiary of the Shanghai Media Group.

The director spoke with Shanghai Daily about his passion for nature, the unique "Oceans" shooting experience, his film industry experience crossing various fields and genres, and his advice for aspiring Chinese film makers ("there are no rules.").

"Although I don't understand Chinese, I can sense the emotions behind Jiang Wen's narration, and I'm quite satisfied with his work," Perrin said. "We never intended to include too much preaching in the film. It's animals telling their own stories. When you get really close to the animals, you will have feelings for them and then hopefully wish to protect them.

The 70-year-old producer and director played the grown-up Toto in the 1989 Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Language Film, "Cinema Paradiso." Starting out as an actor at the age of 20, for 50 years Perrin has performed in, produced and directed melodramas, political thrillers, political documentaries and wildlife documentaries, among many projects.

Hen first played a romantic hero in "Girl with a Suitcase" in 1961. Five years later, he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. At age 27, Perrin produced "Z," a political thriller about murder and government conspiracy that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1969. During that period, he made a dozen political films, both features and documentaries. Even today, he still considers "Z" his most impressive film; it was his debut as a producer.

For me, these documentaries are also political films."

In the 1990s, Perrin began a series of nature documentaries with "Microcosmos," a four-year-long project of detailed insect interactions. This won him the French Cesar Award for Best Producer in 1996. Following the insects, Perrin spent another four years on all seven continents getting footage of thousands of birds in "Winged Migration." In 2001 it was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars.

Perrin then explored all five oceans for the seven-and-half-year-project "Oceans."

"Different roles in the film industry given me opportunities and experiences that one can rarely have in one lifetime," he told Shanghai Daily. "It has made my life richer and more colorful."

Acting gave him a way to link the real world to an imagined world, but his favorite role is that of producer.

"When I act, I'm driven by others, but when I produce, it is the other way around. I'm in control of everything on the set," he said. "For me, the political movies and the nature documentaries are the same. These documentaries are also political films, as the environmental issue is a political and sensitive one all around the world now. It is just a different way of expression, a more convincing way."

In the early 1990s, Perrin was mocked by investors when he first presented the idea of "Microcosmos," an insect documentary.

"They didn't understand why I wanted to shoot a movie on insects. But kids get so excited when they see bugs, and I don't understand why we have lost such excitement," he recalled. In order to revive that excitement, he started researching bugs and how to get footage. This extended to his shooting of birds, fish and sea animals in "Winged Migration" and "Oceans."

I will never shoot in 3D."

Aiming to capture animals in their most natural state posed challenges and required technology be used in ways never before tried. For most films, the camera is fixed most of the time, and the distance between the audience and the subject is adjusted through the zoom function.

"But we never planned to shoot the footage from the human's point of view," Perrin said. "We wanted to make ourselves one of the animals. We learned from zoologists and used their knowledge to open the door to the animals' world. We wanted to feel with the bugs, fly with the birds and move with the fishes."

And he succeeded, capturing a range of emotions, some quite subtle, from cold-blooded animals, such as sardine getting frightened and jelly fish getting excited. And he was able to craft nonfiction that feels like feature film.

A tiny movement in the camera can mean an earthquake in the world of insects, so Perrin used cameras weighing 1,000 kilograms to ensure stability. In order to fly with migrating birds without frightening them, the cinematographer sat in a tiny, two-seat, glider-like aircraft that was almost silent.

"It was then that we realized the sound from birds is not only caused by the flapping of their wings, as we usually think, but also by their fast and labored breathing on flights of thousands of miles," Perrin said.

A bird that weighs only 16 grams can fly 5,000 kilometers in three weeks during migration, he said.

"A still shot of a bird is beautiful, but a shot of a bird who has flown 3,000 miles and will have to continue another 3,000 miles for survival is a completely different matter. Even the most experienced and knowledgeable zoologists are touched."

In spite of the technical challenges and innovations during filming, what Perrin values most is the ability to capture his subjects' emotions and exhilaration. He says firmly, "I will never shoot in 3D."

"3D technology only offers amazement in the visual effects, but it doesn't help much with expressing the exquisite emotions, which is exactly what I'm after," he explains. "For me, the animals' emotions and passion are far more important than technologies, which is why we can spend four years getting footage for these movies, to discover the unseen sides of these creatures that go far beyond our imagination."

Speaking of passion, the director said that's what any young director must have. He said his own son is a film maker, "but I don't give him any suggestions. It's all about passion and there are no rules."

Shooting ocean creatures is equally difficult as, if not more than, filming birds and insects, since they are often deep under water, a less explored territory, and they are absolutely wild. But Perrin and cinematographers capture lots of eye contact with marine animals, from sea turtles to sea birds. This up-close view reveals an unexpected side of animals that are usually seen in fixed, stereotyped ways.

There are no dangerous animals, just dangerous situations."

Marine animals also express themselves by turning their eyeballs, or moving forward and backward. When a professional diver stares closely at a shark, the big fish turns its eyes away and fear can be sensed, said Perrin.

In the beautiful setting sun, a sea turtle hugs her baby and the warmth can be felt in her eyes and position. Deep under waters, two armies of spider crabs are ready to fight, with a sense of nervousness seeming to vibrate around them.

"The most difficult thing is waiting. It takes a long time to make documentaries, and even longer to make one with animals, since they cannot be taught to act," Perrin said.

Since he always aims to get as close to the animals as possible, he and his crew must wait for the animals to become familiar with the camera and photographers' presence. They want the animals to consider the camera and cinematographer one of them - before they even start shooting.

And that often takes a very long time. They waited three years to finally capture the perfect footage of the ocean and its creatures during a typhoon. They waited days to see the dance of the whale and hours for the dolphin to feed.

His 400-person crew went to more than 50 places to film more than 80 kinds of ocean creatures in four and a half years. They spent another three years to edit more than 500 hours of footage into the 104-minute film (84 minutes in the United States and Canada, without the shark killing).

"But all the waiting is worth it when that moment arrives, the moment that you capture a shot that goes far beyond the script or what you have ever imagined, the moment that you get the shot you want, the moment that you get really close to them and they don't consider you an outsider," he says with emotion.

The 70-year-old director became especially animated when talking about his nature documentaries. Despite fatigue and a sore throat, he gave himself wholeheartedly to an open course on making documentaries at Shanghai Media Group on Thursday for reporters and editors. His hosts suggested he speak only to his translator, but the director insisted on addressing his audience in a voice that could be easily heard.

When asked what was the most dangerous ocean animal, he shook his head.

"For me, there are no dangerous animals, only dangerous situations. If you approach them in the correct way, they are never dangerous," Perrin said.

He cited sharks as an example, saying they cannot be approached when the water is disturbed or unclear. When they cannot see clearly, they are guided by their sense of smell and that is when they may attack, he said. They don't want to attack human as a rule, because homo sapiens is not on their usual menu, he said.

The director, who lives in France, also surrounds himself with animals at home, including sheep, goats, horses, dogs, cats and others. His next documentary will also focus on nature, but he would not disclose the subject.