Explore the Hudson

Hello everyone, Josh here from Children’s Media Project in Poughkeepsie, NY working with our youth directors, Reed and Amina, on “Explore the Hudson,” our Heating Up documentary on climate change in the Hudson River Valley. We have a had a great time working on the film and have collected some really incredible material from the area:

For our first shoot we were welcomed aboard the Sloop Clearwater for an educational sail. Clearwater is an environmental education organization that was started by Pete Seeger and is committed to cleaning up the Hudson River. It was a gorgeous day on the river and we interviewed Clearwater educators, crew, and staff as well as New York State Congressman Maurice Hinchey. We also went fishing, hoisted the sails, and had a great music session on the boat. Reed and Amina even got to steer the sloop!

Next we interviewed Ned Sullivan, Executive Director of Scenic Hudson, one of the most active and well established environmental conservation organizations in the Hudson Valley (and in the US). Ned provided some great info about the beauty of the river as a natural resource, the effects of climate change, and steps we can take towards conservation. We filmed the interview right on the river and were lucky to see one of the crew teams practicing on the water.

We also had the great opportunity to interview Dr. Stewart Findlay, a leading climate change expert at the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies. Dr. Findlay offered some scientific insight from his research on climate change and lent some invaluable info about the visible effects of climate change on the Hudson River. Dr. Findlay also provided us with a perspective on the future timeline of climate change, including the steps that we must take to prevent irreversible threats to our planet.

Now we’re up to our necks in the editing process and are really seeing the film take shape. Reed and Amina put together a great rough cut and received permission from Bill Staines to use his song “River” in the opening sequence and as the theme song for the film. Many thanks to everyone for the feedback on the rough cut. It’s a great help as we refine our second edit. We’ve been working on improving the B-roll, flow, and timing of everything and will have to comb our sound into shape soon too.

We’ll post some stills from the film soon once we pull them and I figure out how to post them in the blog (I am a blog novice here)…

Good luck to everyone on their films-they all look great so far! Thanks for watching and supporting “Explore the Hudson”.

Best,

Josh Baum, “Explore the Hudson” Producer

 

Ecopiphany

The Lexington crew finished re-shoots and pick-ups today and officially wrapped the long, interesting, and exciting production experience that has been…Ecopiphany. Coincidentally, the weather in South Carolina has been perfect for the team’s “vision,” at a constant 90-100 degree heat with plenty of humidity. It really brought out the edge Harrison needed as the environmentally ignorant main character. Honestly though, several scenes had to be cut short, omitted, or completely re-worked in order to survive the long hours it took to shoot some of the scenes. Today, for example, the team wanted to add the aspect of a flower as a symbol of epiphany for the main character in the desolate, HOT, almost lifeless interpretation of a future of constant global warming. It was so hot out, that none of them could find an adequate, blooming flower that would suffice. They had to use the blooms of a large tree in order to make it work. I guess that was a good example of life imitating art…

It has taken the team 5 months to prepare a rough cut of a 10 page script, and none of them ever imagined that they would need to invest so much time into the production. Since the rough cut was posted, they have received tremendous suggestions and observations to which they are reviewing each and every frame with a much more critical eye. We thank everyone for these suggestions, and welcome more! I see this as essential work to complete a nicely polished final cut, but I do wish (at times) that I was on the beach, or at the lake, or on vacation somewhere instead of sitting in front of a computer screen looking at the same few seconds of footage over and over and over and over again. Post-production takes so much more time and effort than actually filming the movie. The crew is learning a lot about matching cuts, adding sound and polishing dialogue, pacing, and most importantly – using only what is essential to the overall message of the film.

Some observations from my perspective as production supervisor:

People (the public) are very interested in filmmaking. I watched as several passed us by and waited – if for a moment – to check out what is going on. Their interest and curiosity overpowered their instinct to ignore us, and after talking to many who just came right up to me and asked while filming was going on, they even agreed to log on and check out our rough cut on the WGBH website!

Evan, Padraig, and Ishan, even Harrison, have learned and have grown so much in the past few months. From a teacher’s perspective, I have noticed their skills increase each day, so much so that I took a much less active role in the process every time that we met. Today, they finished the parking garage scene by themselves, because they no longer needed my help and advice – it was a great accomplishment.

In a much more significant sense, however, (not even having anything to do with film) I have seen these students grow socially, responsibly, and emotionally. I think this is an aspect of the process that WGBH (unknowingly?) incorporates into each Open Call. These young filmmakers are certainly learning more about specific issues of our time and providing an excellent voice for each topic covered, but they are also learning a lot about themselves, and how they fit into this great big world. I have watched as my students worked together, laughed, yelled, struggled, overcame…all to accomplish something that ultimately will prove to them that they can achieve anything. And I think that is what this is all about. Ecopiphany has not just become a chance for these three students from Lexington High School to have their voice heard on the topic of Global Warming, it has been a chance for them to find their voices – and with that, a powerful sense of confidence, enthusiasm, personal strength, and passion.

What an amazing experience this has been…

but it’s not over yet…

More stats:

Total run-time: 00:10:01 (will be shortened)

1 lost cell phone

2.58 gallons of Dr. Pepper consumed (by one person!)

8 trips around the parking garage in my car for one scene

9 Locations used (we thank everyone for their cooperation!)

4 extras – 1 not used (sorry Connor)

approx. 175 miles driven by Harrison

100…MANY hours on visual effects by Evan

2 out of 3 times Padraig lost (one by me, one by Harrison)

5 GB left on our editing computer from 75 GB (that is how much we filmed)

Ecopiphany

It is always interesting how fast time flies when you are doing something that you greatly enjoy.  We started this “little” project about four months ago, and we are still going strong.  I just checked our production schedule today and I said to myself, “Wow!  We’ve been working on it for that long!?  It certainly didn’t seem like it.”  But it’s true…and we’re STILL not finished.

The crew from Lexington High School consists of Evan Wu, Padraig Kelly, and Ishan Patel.  I mainly serve as their supervisor, producer (if I can be called that), and coordinator – I’ll also add blog creator too…because they are high school kids, and they have such busy lives.  Anyway, the whole idea for Ecopiphany came from a long discussion in class one day after school.  It was a group consensus that they did not want to do a documentary because they wanted to “be different,” their terms.  So they wrote up a short script, filmed the pitch, and here we are.

It’s tough because they want to make it look so professional…but we just don’t have the resources yet.  We are using basic digital camcorders, makeshift equipment for dollies and depth of field, locations based on availability but mostly improvised…it’s tough.  The great thing is, they are not disheartened.  They are having fun, doing a fantastic job with what they’ve got, and producing some great footage.  On the positive side, our post production work should look amazing!  I’ve been involved with filmmaking off-and-on since college so I was able to teach them how to use the FinalCut Pro software and little things on After Effects .  Evan is a whiz-kid on After Effects (he’s the one who made the effects on the pitch reel).  I literally spent several of my planning periods at school watching the tutorials at VIDEOCOPILOT.com so that I could catch up to him.

Stats so far (more to follow):

Crewmen (Ishan & Padraig), Crutches (Evan)

Footage = approx. 3 hrs. 21 mins. (which we have to edit down to 5 – 10 mins.)

Lead Actor = one Harrison Ayer: a very talented student from Lexington High School who stepped up when our “professional” was unable to work with us. He is doing a great job.

Trips to Columbia, SC (main location) – 5

Times Padraig forgot to start filming – 3

Times the crew forgot to turn the camera off – a lot!

Days lingered of “Totally Ripped Abs” – 2

Perfect shooting days – 7

Times Ishan was in the frame of a perfect shot – 1

Times Evan said “That’s a hole in my heart!” – countless (but we do have a name for our production company now, haha!)

They only have two more days of filming left, but we have already started editing some of the footage together. Now that school is out, they will meet with me in order to finish the rough cut on time.

Whew…it’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun.

- more later…

How to Reduce your Carbon
Footprint

We applied for the grant to make an animation for WGBH because we felt this opportunity would provide us with a creative way to display the important issue of global warming and how each person in the world creates an impact through their carbon footprint. We wanted to bring awareness to some of the simple steps that each individual can and should take to offset their carbon footprint, such as turning your lights, TV or computer off when not in use; taking public transportation; and recycling. I don’t think my peers realize that they can be part of the solution to decrease global warming, so we hope our film is both an engaging and educational way to inform people and activate them to make changes.-Olivia McClendon and Zanetta King

As a class, we learned about Global Warming. We then asked ourselves the simplest steps we could each take to reduce our carbon footprint in our daily lives and save money while doing so. In learning the process of good storytelling, we all wrote down different ideas and presented them. Through selection and elimination, we came up with some winning ideas to weave into an entertaining story about carbon footprint. We learned key filmmaking concepts and skills (fiction vs. non-fiction, angles, framing, composition and visual design). We also talked about pop culture in filmmaking and how we could capitalize on that to evolve our story. We thought the most compelling way to get our audience’s attention and have them adopt these steps was by animating our trash turning into a monster and telling us to wake up and do something about the situation we are helping to create by non action.

We used photo shop, photography, stop frame animation and adobe after effects to realize our vision.–Class Statement

I‘m learning how to use photo shop, animate, create characters that can speak and create thought bubbles and other awesome things. We are focusing on the environmental issue of reducing one’s carbon footprint. This is a great opportunity and I am learning a lot of new skills.-Christopher Guillen

I’m learning about what a carbon footprint is and how to animate. The main idea is to understand what a carbon footprint is and how can we show the world how to reduce it.              The US has the highest carbon footprint and we must reduce it by carbon offsetting. Carbon offsetting is how to make up for your carbon footprint capacity. Every little thing you do can affect the environment greatly. Our class/crew decided that the solution we have is how can we reduce the amount of electricity, gas, and oil usage for ourselves. In the end, we are making an animation to show our ideas to the world. -Tenzin Gompo

I’m learning a lot about animation and how to reduce our carbon footprint. Some of the things we are animating are bottled water and gases from cars to give people an idea of what causes a carbon footprint. -Michael Cosme