Louie Schwartzberg – Hidden Miracles

Louie Schwartzberg is a cinematographer, director, and producer who captures breathtaking images that celebrate life — revealing connections, universal rhythms, patterns, and beauty. Schwartzberg’s recent theatrical releases include the 3D IMAX film, Mysteries of the Unseen World with National Geographic, narrated by Forest Whitaker, the documentary Wings of Life for Disneynature, narrated by Meryl Streep, and “Gratitude Revealed” which was launched on Oprah.com.  Louie is a keynote speaker at this year’s Illuminate Film Festival.

Interview with Louie Schwartzberg

Christopher Buck: Welcome Louie!  I’d just like to say it’s a tremendous honor to speak with you. Your work is magnificent.

 

Louie Schwartzberg:  Oh, thank you, I appreciate that.

 

Christopher Buck:  You are the keynote speaker at the upcoming Illuminate Film Festival, and I understand you’ll be offering insight on how filmmakers like yourself can create a shift in consciousness.  Can you share a little bit about that?

 

Louie Schwartzberg: Well, I think we’re living in very interesting times right now. I think when you boil it down, there is a battle for consciousness because there’s really a battle for people’s attention.

 

So, whether it’s the internet where you’ve got a lot of genius psychologists figuring out how to, get people to stay on your websites longer, to click on advertising, you can see how so many people, especially younger people are pretty much addicted to the whole social media, internet thing. But, that’s all about grabbing attention, right, whether it’s social media or whether it’s advertising, news.

 

Certainly, politically, guys like Trump have mastered the idea of getting your attention in a very negative way. The more outrageous he is, the more you can’t stop looking and listening, you know, and being in his world.

 

So, I think that, in order to be a counterforce, we need to get people to find different pathways into, being present, being able to ideally experience the divine, the fact that what a gift it is that we’re living on this gorgeous planet where we potentially have heaven on earth. And I think what I try to do is use nature’s imagery as a portal into that reality, whether it’s a sensory feeling you feel on the outside like, the wind in my face or the smell of a flower or the visual of nature, which then triggers these emotional feelings.

 

I think we need to get people to get reconnected, whether it’s reconnected to nature, reconnected to yourself, reconnected to the voice of self-discovery. But, we are definitely, in a battle for attention.

 

Christopher Buck:  Do you think consciousness is solely the domain of humans or consciousness belongs to or is part of nature, as well?

 

Louie Schwartzberg:  I think consciousness is throughout the universe. I mean, it’s beyond human. It’s in the plant world, it’s in the animal world, and I actually think that the universe is a living universe because the laws of physics that govern every cell in our bodies also governs the solar system and, you know, deep space.

So, I think consciousness is everywhere.

 

Christopher Buck:  It’s interesting. One of the fascinating things about your work is that you have such a unique way of shifting perspective, of creating what you call infinite little windows to share an aspect of creation that most of us not only miss but didn’t even know was there. How do you decide what to look at?

 

Louie Schwartzberg:  What’s great is that, as a filmmaker, I can use, you know, tools and techniques I’ve developed like time lapse and slow motion, micro, macro to make the invisible visible. So, rather than talking about the fact that there are other realities or worldviews, other perspectives that broaden your horizon, I can just show you that what–I can just show it to you. And so, for example, you can see a flower open in time lapse, which may take days to do, can just open up in front of your eyes in five seconds, and you realize that these plants are not static, that they actually do move and dance to the light.

 

Reciprocally, you could see a hummingbird that’s wings flap, you know, 200 times a second, you watch it in ultra slow motion, and you can see the grace and beauty and their aerobatic skill. From their POV, they’re just, you know, operating at a higher metabolic rate than we are.

The Redwood tree looks at us like a little, you know, scurrying ant running around because they’re like 500 years old, 1,000 years old, and we’re like time lapse critters that come and go.

 

So, these are all valid points of view. They are all conscious points of view. They are all intelligent points of view. All I’m suggesting is that we should be able to accept other points of view just as we do when people talk about philosophy, religion, politics. A different point of view, and that you have to be able to accept that–you don’t have to believe it, but other people have different points of view. And it can, if you’re able to be open minded enough and hear what other people’s points of view are, it broadens your horizons. I think it makes you a more compassionate human being.

 

Christopher Buck:  I couldn’t help but think when you were saying the redwoods see us as time lapsed little critters, that we’re very dangerous time lapsed little critters.

 

Louie Schwartzberg: Yes.

 

Christopher Buck:  I think part of our problem, as a human species, is that we don’t see these different perspectives that you’ve been so amazing in showing people.

 

Louie Schwartzberg:  Right. That’s because we’ve developed a certain arrogance like we’re the only intelligent creatures; when you look at the timeline of 3.5 billion years of life on our planet, I think when you look at that timeline, man has been here for one second before the stroke of midnight, right?

 

We’ve only been here a short time, but we believe like we’ve been here forever and that we’re the top of the food chain. That’s just a narrow, arrogant point of view.

 

If we disappear because of our environmental practices, it’s not going to kill life on earth.

 

We all know that. I mean, fungi and plants have been here for billions of years. They’ll just adapt as they’ve always adapted, and they will survive us.

 

But, it’s sad that we’re potentially creating a situation that makes it inhabitable or less sustainable for human beings to exist on our planet.

 

I hope that doesn’t happen, but unfortunately, we’re sort of going in a direction, which is based on arrogance and ignorance, and I guess a limited point of view, a very narrow point of view.

 

Christopher Buck:  What do you think is the best way to broaden that point of view? What else and how else can we shift this perspective?

 

Louie Schwartzberg:  I think in a lot of ways. I mean, obviously, it seems like being compassionate is the way to do it and being present. And how you get there’s a lot of ways to get there. I mean, some people practice yoga, some people do meditation, some people do service by helping others. Anything to get you outside of yourself I think is a good thing so that you get a broader point of view.

 

And in my practice, I guess since I’ve been doing it for 40 years, I’m just trying to show, I’m just trying to make, the invisible visible, things that are too slow, too fast, too small or too vast for the human eye to see. And I’m showing it to you as reality.

 

And so, if that helps you connect, if that creates a portal into an experience of wonder and awe, then there you are experiencing the divine, which I think we all–most people would like to do.

 

It is that sense of spiritual connection, however you get there – chanting, as I said, praying, hiking through the mountain, you know, whatever it is, surfing, you know, reading text by wisdom, elders, doing psychedelics, sacred medicine, for example, not as recreational drugs but as a spiritual portal. Maybe you do that once or twice in your life to get a different perspective.

 

All of these I think are valid.  And then once you’ve seen the broader view, then it’s a matter of like integrating that into your life. So, for example, if I show in my cinematography how, seedlings in the forest are popping through the forest floor and flowers are growing and that the forest is a connected, as a conscious community, I think you think twice about throwing away that piece of paper.