BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
If we could see what Susan Todd has seen, maybe we would all have more respect for this Earth and its vanishing natural beauty.
"We're so trashing the planet with what we're building. We're so overpopulating the planet," says Ms. Todd, a filmmaker who grew up in Glendale and graduated from Princeton High School in 1977.
You can catch a glimpse of her world tonight on Madagascar: A World Apart, a film she made with her husband, Andrew Young, for The Living Edens, a PBS nature series.
On the remote island east of Africa we'll see their stunning pictures of leaping lemurs, darting chameleons, diving fish eagles, mating dragonflies, egg-laying iguanas (and the slithering hog-nosed snake that snatched the eggs for dinner).
Madagascar captures chameleons zapping bugs with their 2-foot tongues, or changing colors from red, to green, to black. The close-ups of their robot-like eyes are incredible.
"If the chameleons are hungry, the eyes will just pivot and swivel," says Ms. Todd, 38, from her upstate New York home. "And once they get both eyes focused on the insect -- Shoonk! -- there goes their tongues."
Ms. Todd and her husband spent seven months over two years (1996-97) on the island. He filmed, wrote and edited the documentary, while she recorded animal sounds.
Her prize catch: The territorial, piercing screech by the indri lemur.
"Thirty feet away, beneath the trees, it's like standing in front of a rock concert speaker," she says. "It's one of those very special, special things about nature that makes you feel small and insignificant."
Going to unusual locations isn't new for her. She took a year off from college to study rhinos in Kenya. The couple, both 1983 Harvard graduates, rode elephants to their wedding rehearsal dinner -- at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1989.
Her love for the outdoors comes naturally. Her fondest childhood memories are playing in the creek behind her family's Glendale home, or curling up with National Geographic.
"I was really inspired by National Geographic with wanderlust at an early age, and a taste for adventure," says the daughter of Dr. Thomas and Diane Todd.
Unlike most Living Edens programs about pristine nature, this film shows how man has destroyed part of the island by burning paths to popular fishing lakes.
"Our film does point out the fragility of nature, largely due to to human presence," she says.
Under the banner of their Archipelago Films, the husband-wife team has made films about human nature, as well as nature. Their Cutting Loose film about New Orleans Mardi Gras won the cinematography award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. It Ain't Love, their HBO film about teen-age dating violence, was named best of festival at the Windy City Documentary Film Festival last year.
They filmed Monkeys on the Edge for PBS' Nature series in 1989, and worked as a camera-sound team on David Attenborough's award-winning The Trials of Life.
Now they're shooting a 90-minute HBO documentary about Latinos in America for Edward James Olmos. In a few days, they head to the Congo rain forest for a high-definition TV film to be shown at the Bronx Zoo's new Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit opening next spring. "I really like being swallowed up by nature. I like feeling I'm lost in a wilderness area. It really makes you appreciate the planet," she says.
"I wish people could see the animals I've seen, or the places I've visited. We need to have much more respect for life and nature."
Most of us will never make it to Madagascar. But seeing Ms. Todd's awesome pictures should inspire us to take better care of our part of the planet.
John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV - radio critic. His column appears Monday and Wednesday. Write: 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax: 768-8330.
