''Carrier'' is a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

documentary television series Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. *Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

about the six-month deployment of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

in 2005 from the United States to the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

and back. There are ten episodes, and the series is supplemented by a 90-minute companion

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

called ''Another Day in Paradise''.

Synopsis

''Carrier'' follows the deployment, from May 7, 2005 to November 8, 2005, of the

supercarrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a n ...

USS ''Nimitz'' (commanded by then-Captain Ted N. Branch), along with

Carrier Air Wing Eleven Carrier Air Wing Eleven (CVW-11) is a United States Navy aircraft carrier air wing based at Naval Air Station Lemoore, California. The air wing is attached to the aircraft carrier .North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

Coronado, California Coronado (Spanish for "Crowned") is a resort city located in San Diego County, California, United States, across the San Diego Bay from downtown San Diego. It was founded in the 1880s and incorporated in 1890. Its population was 24,697 at the ...

to the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...

during

Operation Iraqi Freedom {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...

. This character-driven, dramatic non-fiction series includes extensive footage shot aboard as well as interviews with many of the crew about their various experiences, personal concerns and fears. During the deployment, the ''Nimitz'' makes stops in

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = '' Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , su ...

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

, and

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

Production

The

miniseries A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format h ...

was produced by

Icon Productions Icon Productions is a production company founded in August 1989 by actor/director Mel Gibson and Australian producing partner Bruce Davey, which, unlike most other independent production companies, funds most of its development and production cos ...

and Carrier Project, Inc. It was co-created by

Mitchell Block Mitchell Block (born c. 1950) is an American filmmaker, primarily a producer of documentary films. He was executive producer of the 2000 short documentary film ''Big Mama'', which won Best Documentary (Short Subject) at the 73rd Academy Awards. ...

and Maro Chermayeff, and directed by Chermayeff. The

executive producers Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights o ...

were Block and Chermayeff for Carrier Project, Inc. and

Mel Gibson Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson (born January 3, 1956) is an American actor, film director, and producer. He is best known for his action hero roles, particularly his breakout role as Max Rockatansky in the first three films of the post-apocaly ...

Bruce Davey Bruce Davey is an Australian film producer. A partner in Icon Entertainment alongside Mel Gibson, Sydney-born Davey has produced many films including ''Apocalypto'', ''The Passion of the Christ'', ''Push (2009 film), Push'', and ''Braveheart'' ...

and Nancy Cotton, for Icon Productions. Seventeen filmmakers, including

producers Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

Deborah Dickson and Jeff Dupre as well as field producers Matthew Akers, Michelle Smawley and Pamela Yates, shot 1,600 hours of footage to create the series. The series and its companion film were the first documentaries to ever be produced on a U.S. Naval warship on active duty over an entire mission. This was accomplished by David Kennedy (Captain, US Navy, Retired) and Block who spent two years obtaining permission to embed on the Nimitz. In 2008, the series was awarded the

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

for ''Outstanding Cinematography Reality Programming'' by the

Academy of Television Arts & Sciences The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), also colloquially known as the Television Academy, is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the television industry in the United States. It is a 501(c)(6) non-prof ...

in recognition of the work

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...

s Axel Baumann, Ulli Bonnekamp, Mark Brice, Robert Hanna, and Wolfgang Held did on the episode ''Rights of Passage''.

Events

During filming in the Persian Gulf, Seaman Apprentice Robert D. Macrum of the escorting cruiser fell overboard sometime during the night of September 12, 2005, or the early morning of September 13. Despite a five day search that covered a area, Macrum, who was 22 and from Sugarland, Texas, was never found.

Episodes

A 26-minute preview of the series was aired by PBS on April 13, 2008. The ten 60-minute episodes began airing on April 27, 2008 with two episodes being shown each night for five straight nights. All episodes were directed by Chermayeff.

''Another Day In Paradise''

This 90-minute film was created from the same pool of footage used for the series. It covers many of the same themes touched on in the series, but narrows the focus to three men: a pilot, a marine, and a sailor. Not only are all three connected by the fact that they are serving on board the same ship, they are all also struggling with various family issues and the different phases of fatherhood. The film was released in the U.S. on June 16, 2008 and was directed by Deborah Dickson.

Disc releases

;Series A 3-disc, 600-minute region 1 DVD version of the documentary was released by PBS on May 6, 2008. Special features include scene selection, the preview episode, deleted and extended scenes,

closed captioning Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio por ...

and 16:9

anamorphic widescreen Anamorphic widescreen (also called Full height anamorphic or FHA) is a process by which a comparatively wide widescreen image is horizontally compressed to fit into a storage medium (photographic film or MPEG-2 standard-definition frame, for exam ...

. ;Film A 90-minute region A1

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and c ...

version of ''Another Day In Paradise'' was released by PBS on March 10, 2009.

References

External links

Official website for the miniseries
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Carrier (Tv series) 2008 American television series debuts 2008 American television series endings 2000s American documentary television series Documentary films about military aviation Documentary television series about aviation Nimitz-class aircraft carriers PBS original programming Television series about the United States Navy