Arix Zalace began developing the idea for the feature film “The Paper Bear” after a row of oak trees was cleared in his neighborhood.
“Instead of like weaving the sidewalk through the oak trees, they came in and just clear-cut everything and then, you know, put a sidewalk in it,” he recalled. “So I was really livid about it.”
His wife told him, “Why don’t you just do something about it?” So he did.
Zalace has more than 10 years of experience in filmmaking, mostly in high-end marketing work. He decided to shoot a film about the biodiversity of the panhandle. With his writing partner, Sean Couch, the idea transformed from a documentary-style project into a feature film. The film would “sneak the education in,” with scenes of Northwest Florida and artful animation in the style of a 90s Disney movie.
Years after pre- and post-production work, “The Paper Bear” has debuted at film festivals and events and is available to stream on Amazon Prime. But this movie is just the beginning of the mission.
Capturing the main characters
Zalace spent 14 to 16 hours a day filming around the panhandle in places such as Apalachicola National Forest and Blackwater River State Park. It was while filming in the woods that he got inspiration for the film’s main character — the black bear.
Capturing the black bear in its natural habitat took two and a half years. It was a learning process for Zalace.
“I was constantly shifting and learning, and so much of it was learning more from the bears themselves about how I could film them, not only in a safe way, but in a way that wasn't putting them in danger.”
Zalace created four rules for himself while shooting: never speaking around the bears, never standing upright, and always wearing a ghillie suit (a camouflage garment). The fourth rule was not to do anything that would change the bears’ natural behavior or movements.
There was one bear in particular that Zalace tracked while shooting. He named her Tala.
“I think Tala had just been dispersed within the last couple of weeks or months,” the filmmaker recalled. “That's really where the whole thing started in terms of filming. She came in, she was scared, she ran away, but then I just froze … and she was very curious.”
Zalace filmed Tala for more than a year. He had to learn her patterns and locations. Some days, he’d be set up for hours and not see her at all. At one point, she disappeared for months. When she returned, she had a cub with her. Zalace called him Max.
“I didn't have any cameras set up, but I heard something. I looked up, and it's Tala, and she's coming out of the woods,” he recalled. “So, I quickly grabbed my cell phone, I started filming, and she sees me, and then she kind of moves to the side and reveals her cub. And it was like her saying, ‘This is what I've been doing the last three months.”
With Max, Zalace feared some of his rules might be broken as the cub climbed on him and his camera equipment. Before the bears got too familiar with humans, Zalace decided he’d have to stop his regular visits.
“I went back in just dressed as a human, standing, walking, you know, no ghillie suit,” he explained. “And they took off. So I was like, OK. They see humans, they're scared, and they ran.”
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission doesn’t encourage people to seek contact with bears. In the early days of fundraising for the film, Zalace remembers black bear specialists with FWC having mixed responses to his presentation.
“On some levels, they were like, ‘Oh, this is kind of scary for us because we don't want you to encourage people to go do this,’” he said. “But when they saw it, they were like … clearly you did everything you could to do this as right as possible.”
The overall filming process was a big learning experience, said Zalace.
“It was like a college degree, for sure.”
Sharing the story
“The Paper Bear” made its world debut last year at the Florida Film Festival, around the same time as Floridians were debating the black bear hunt. Zalace said his film was never meant to be a political statement — he was filming it long before the hunt was proposed. But he does hope that audiences gain a deeper appreciation for the area.
“The long-term mission of ‘The Paper Bear’ now is to continue to just pump out that information all over the region … saying, ‘You're not just visiting a beautiful beach. You're coming to a globally significant part of the planet, and it's globally significant because of its biodiversity.’”
An area designated as biodiverse means that it has a high percentage of plant life that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. There are 36 biodiverse hotspots worldwide. Northwest Florida is just one of six biodiverse regions in North America.
A part of the film highlights the importance of biodiversity with a lesson. After a lumber industry boom, most of the virgin pine forests had been depleted by clear-cutting by the early 1900s.
Zalace wants to change how people see this area.
“It's not just a party destination. It's not just a place to come and increase your portfolio and buy a bunch of homes that are going to go on the rental market,” he said. “We need to start changing that narrative and thinking of it in that way, or we're going to lose it.”
With education being the core mission, Zalace and his writing partner, Sean Couch, decided to create a non-profit connected to the film. Future plans include an immersive experience at Alaqua Animal Refuge in Freeport and a documentary about the making of the film, especially Zalace’s connection with Tala.
Sharing “The Paper Bear” with audiences has been gratifying for Zalace. The goal was to have a movie that captured a broad audience, and he’s seen that come to life.
“With a lot of our screenings, the youngest we've had was two, all the way into the 80s,” said Zalace. “And it's been amazing to see how we're very successful (holding) the attention of these groups throughout the whole film.”
You can experience “The Paper Bear” for yourself by streaming it on Amazon Prime and Apple TV. For more information, visit thepaperbear.org.
