A Talk with Disneynature’s Dr. M. Sanjayan #MonkeyKingdomEvent

by Carrie with Children with comments closed

I’m in Orlando this week celebrating the upcoming release of Disneynature’s new film Monkey Kingdom. Today, we had the opportunity to interview Disneynature ambassador Dr. M. Sanjayan and learn his thoughts about the movie and conservation.

Disneynature Ambassador Dr. M. Sanjayan Monkey Kingdom Event

photo credit Dusty Bastian

As a global conservation scientist, Dr. Sanjayan has worked on previous Disneynature films and is also the Executive Vice President & Senior Scientist for Conservation International

Monkey Kingdom was built on 40 years of research with fellow conservationist Wolfgang Dieter studying the particular group of monkeys highlighted in the film. From those efforts, Disneynature was introduced to Maya, seen in the film. Here’s a unique look from Dr. M. Sanjayan himself –

On The Set

Dr. Sanjayan had the opportunity to visit the set in Sri Lanka with fellow ambassador Dr. Jane Goodall and you could feel the excitement in his voice when he told us of his journey. He mentioned he had experienced things never seen before – in terms of the unique filming techniques, like underwater footage and the overall lifestyles of the monkeys too.

It was amazing to hear that the Monkey Kingdom team completed 1,003 days of filming and were tasked with trimming down all of their combined footage to just 88 minutes. Isn’t that incredible?

I think Dr. Sanjayan put it best when he said, “At the end of the day, I want people to be entertained. From there, the reason for saving nature becomes self evident. If you go with a heavy handed message, it will turn others away.”

Monkey Kingdom Group

 See the Movie and Make a Difference

See Disneynature’s Monkey Kingdom during the opening week of April 17-23, 2015 and a donation in your honor will be made to Conservation International to help protect monkeys and other endangered species in their natural habitats.

I had the opportunity to see an advanced screening of the movie and I’ll have a full review for you later this week. For now, here’s a peek at Maya and baby Kip…

Keep Up With the Latest Monkey Kingdom News and Fun

For the latest news on Monkey Kingdom, checkout Disneynature on Facebook and on Twitter at @Disneynature. The official Monkey Kingdom site is http://nature.disney.com/monkey-kingdom.

Follow along with my adventures on Facebook and on Twitter at @CarrieWChildren.  I’ll be sharing tons of pictures throughout my journey on Instagram too!

For all the latest news and fun, check out the #MonkeyKingdomEvent and #AllStarVacationHomes hashtags.

 Monkey Kingdom opens in theatres on April 17th!

 

** For this event, I am invited guest of DisneyNature, Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney World Resort and All Star Vacation Homes. My accommodations, scheduled events and most meals are provided by them.  Thoughts and opinions here are 100% my own. **