EXCLUSIVE: A feature documentary about renowned sound recordist and environmental activist Martyn Stewart is in production with a raft of seasoned industry and creative names on board. Stewart’s niece Amanda Hill is behind the film, My Uncle Martyn. It will be Stewart’s final project after doctors told him he had terminal cancer.
Hill has held various plum positions in the international TV biz having founded the BBC Earth natural history brand, and served as CMO for BBC Studios and then A&E Networks. She has assembled a heavyweight team for the doc, with Nick Lyons directing and Matt Aeberhard director of photography.
Lyon’s credits include David Attenborough’s Dynasties while Aeberhard is the protégé of Nat Geo photographer Hugo van Lawick and has worked on shows including The Crimson Wing for Disney.
Ellen Windemuth, founder of Off the Fence and now on the board of environment-focused streamer WaterBear, is an exec producer, as are BBC Studios COO Martyn Freeman and Emmy-winning filmmaker Brian Skerry.
Stewart has spent his life listening. With mic and recorder in hand, he has captured the sounds of the natural world for almost 60 years. The results have been used in a roster of blue-chip natural history series including Our Oceans and Blue Planet and movies such as Cold Mountain and Frozen.
The sound recordist’s archive of over 90,000 sounds is now used by his foundation, The Listening Planet. Capturing the beauty and fragility of the world about us, that library includes several sounds of animals and environments that no longer exist.
Hill embarked on the project to bring the story of Stewart’s life in sound to the screen after her uncle told her about his cancer diagnosis. Speaking about his work, she told Deadline: “Martyn’s desire to protect the natural world and to record it are seamlessly linked. He didn’t just go out to capture sound, he went out to capture truth. He has used his microphone as his weapon – in one way, it was fighting to protect the natural world, and in another, it was capturing this incredible, disappearing beauty.”
The Listening Planet is the production label for the film, which takes the form of a road trip, with Stewart visiting key sites that have been part of his life’s work, alongside Hill.
“There’s this modern-day story where we go out on the road together, we’ve been in Florida and Louisiana and we’re going to go to Scotland, which is very important for him, because it’s really his spiritual home,” Hill says. “The closeness of our relationship also allows us to go back in time, to where his story all began, and where he talks about his activism, but it also allows us to look forward.”
The film will deliver in late 2025. “What the team has done, is shoot moments where you’ll see Martyn in shot, and then the camera goes past him, it becomes his eyes and his ears, and when it moves forward, you are Martyn, so you’re seeing and hearing what he does,” Hill explains.
The producers have approached some of the big names Stewart has worked with for input. Requests are out with Ricky Gervais and Queen guitarist Brian May. Jane Goodall will contribute. Scottish musician Robert Shields, also known as ONR, and who will perform for the film’s closing sequence.
Hill acknowledges that despite Stewart’s renown, the project has not been an easy sell. “We took the idea of doing a film about Martyn to some people and they just didn’t know what to do with it. They’re like: ‘Oh, it’s a nature film, but it’s about a person?’ It just doesn’t fit into a standard box. That’s where I think independent filmmaking becomes so important.”
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