The world will look different to you after seeing Disney's new nature film "Earth," thanks to an amazing camera the film's directors first tested in Hawai'i.

By using a motion-stabilized system called a Cineflex heligimbal, the directors were able to mount a camera with a powerful zoom lens under a helicopter and film their prey — in high definition — from a thousand yards above.

The scale is nothing short of grand.

They were able to follow polar bears across arctic ice fields and elephants through dust storms in the Kalahari desert. They captured migrating humpback whales, hungry gray wolves chasing caribou across the tundra, and vast herds of animals and flocks of birds that numbered in the thousands.

"This absolutely transformed wildlife filmmaking," said Mark Linfield, who co-directed "Earth" with Alastair Fothergill. "Previous to this piece of equipment, we would only be able to get wobbly, wide shots from the air. It would bounce around and it was completely hopeless. But with this thing, you can zoom right in."

Linfield and Fothergill make up the creative team that produced the Emmy Award-winning series "Planet Earth," which aired on the Discovery Channel in 2007. They filmed "Earth" at the same time, going to remote locations around the world.

"Earth" will open in theaters Wednesday — Earth Day. Narrated by James Earl Jones, it's the first film in the new Disneynature series.

VIEW FROM ON HIGH

The directors fell in love with the Cineflex camera while testing a prototype in Hawai'i five years ago, said Linfield by telephone from London. They shot sheer cliffs on Kaua'i, volcanoes on the Big Island and, by chance, humpback whales, he said.

"We shot them just in passing, not thinking about it, but it was absolutely revolutionary," Linfield said. "We went on to use this thing all over the world, filming a large portion of what is in the movie."

The camera's abilities shaped how the directors approached the film. From such great heights, the animals behaved without being influenced by camera crews. They could be viewed in the context of their environment.

The "Earth" production included 40 different camera teams working three years for a total of 2,000 days, Linfield said.

Some of their shots were done from a rig suspended beneath a hot-air balloon — it looks like a beach chair with a propeller behind it.

In other locations, they planted time-lapse cameras that allowed them to capture the change of seasons across entire forests.

The directors also put cinematographers underwater with humpback whales in Tonga, where there are no laws to restrict how close a diver can swim to a whale. In Hawai'i, such filming would only be possible with a federal permit.

WHALE'S-EYE VIEW

In "Earth," the huge whales appear close enough to touch. The filmmakers had to be that close, because even in crystal-clear water image quality deteriorates with distance, Linfield said. A zoom lens won't work, so they used wide-angle lenses and got personal with the leviathans, he said.

"For that reason, the cameramen said it was an incredible experience and quite frightening, too," he said. "They are so big and powerful that they could break you with their fins. I think they came out of the water profoundly shaken up."

Unlike the nearly 12,000 humpback whales that migrate between Hawai'i and the Gulf of Alaska, the whales in "Earth" head south to Antarctica. Helicopters that launched off ships would track the mother and calf featured in "Earth," but the vastness of the ocean left the filmmakers with no guarantees, Linfield said.

"You can't always be sure you have caught up to the same individuals," he said. "You have a hunch and you extrapolate on your maps. But it is possible it isn't the same individual."

With all its angles, "Earth" could be the next best thing to an adventure safari. Even though the directors produced similar footage for their "Planet Earth" series, the scale of their vision needed a big-screen display, Linfield said.

"It is just like being there," he said. "You are able to transport people to the place where you filmed. You can't really do that with a little television in the corner of your living room."