SOC’s Center for Environmental Filmmaking
www.environmentalfilm.org
2010 Annual Report
By Chris Palmer, Director (palmer@american.edu)
January 1, 2011
This report gives an overview of what the Center for Environmental Filmmaking
accomplished in 2010.
Dean Larry Kirkman and I founded the Center six years ago on the belief that
films and new media are essential educational tools in the struggle to protect the
environment. Our mission is to train filmmakers to produce films and new media that
effectively strengthen the global constituency for conservation. Graduate students may
now concentrate their studies in environmental and wildlife filmmaking through the
Center.
The world faces immense environmental challenges. We are fouling our own nest
to an unprecedented degree. Powerful, emotive, and affecting images and films can play a
key role in raising the importance of conservation and bringing about change. We are
committed to raising awareness and empowering action through the innovative use of
media. Much more information about our programs can be found on our website
www.environmentalfilm.org.
The Center’s work falls into four areas:
1. Forming partnerships with blue chip organizations
2. Bringing world-class filmmakers to the AU campus to teach and mentor
students
3. Creating innovative and enriching programs and classes
4. Advocating for the ethical treatment of wildlife and the environment
More details on our activities in these four areas follow:
First, we give students the opportunity to work at a professional level with our partner
organizations, including Maryland Public Television (MPT), National Oceanic and
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Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Park Service (NPS), and many other
DC-based, nationally recognized organizations that the Center has developed working
partnerships with over the last six years. Associate Directors Larry Engel and Sandy
Cannon-Brown have been pivotal in these efforts.
A few examples:
•
This past April, Maryland Public Television aired the third yearly
installment of the Center-produced documentary series EcoViews. Since
2007, students in Sandy Cannon-Brown's Environmental and Wildlife
Production Class have been writing, producing, shooting and editing this
award-winning series, which has also been picked up and broadcast by
several large, regional public television stations nationwide (more on
EcoViews and its success in section three below).
•
Last summer, the Center arranged for grad students Ted Roach and Aditi
Desai to spend six paid weeks in Hawaii working for the National Park
Service to make films promoting cultural conservation related to Pearl
Harbor. Ted and Aditi taught and mentored a group of Hawaiian high
school students through the completion of three short videos (in addition
to the eight they produced themselves). One of the high school shorts was
selected for the 2010 Hawaii International Film Festival. Aditi and Ted
won a 2010 CINE Golden Eagle in the Professional New Media category
for their work for the National Park Service.
•
In 2009, the Center partnered with NOAA on a major initiative called
Oceans for Life, and five of our grad students were paid film mentors in
that program.
•
Two years ago, we launched the Eco-Comedy Video Competition and the
winning entry (receiving a $1,000 prize from the Center) came from
Ireland. This year, the Sierra Club is joining us as the sponsor of the
competition, and again the winner will receive $1,000. The goal is to
encourage the use of humor in solving environmental problems.
•
We have another important partnership with the Environmental Film
Festival (EFF) in DC. Every March at EFF we organize half a dozen
events at AU with prominent leaders and films. We also participate in
other prominent festivals, including Wildscreen in the UK, the
International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, MT, the BLUE Ocean
Festival in Monterey, CA, and the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in
Jackson Hole, WY.
•
Working with Link TV and executive producer Raisa Scriabine, our
students have produced an Earth Focus Special (entitled Environmental
Filmmaking: The Rising Stars) featuring the best environmentally-related
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work of SOC students. The first broadcast will be this spring and feature
the work of Brian Kelley, Yi Chen, Rebecca Howland, Danny Ledonne,
Dustin Harrison-Atlas, and Kari Barber. It will become an annual
program. Earth Focus is LinkTV’s original environmental news magazine
and is the longest-running (seven years) program of its kind on US
television. Profiled films in the Earth Focus Special include The Bay is
Your Oyster by Rebecca Howland, which looks at efforts to promote
oyster growth on the Chesapeake Bay; Working with Fire by Dustin
Harrison-Atlas and Danny Ledonne, which plunges audiences inside a
controlled burn at Nokuse Plantation in Florida; an excerpt from On The
Fence by Brian Kelley about the life of a former hunter in Botswana who
is bringing new life to dead wood through art; America's Energy Future by
Yi Chen, which examines the potential for renewable energy development
in the United States; and The Struggle for Mt. Nimba by Kari Barber,
which shows the plight of an isolated group of chimps in Guinea and the
efforts to enable them to survive.
•
The Center worked with Professor Sikina Jinnah in SIS to support the AU
Climate Day Film Festival. The Center arranged for SOC grad student Ted
Roach to teach two seminars to Prof. Jinnah’s undergrad honors students,
give feedback on rough cuts, prepare the screening DVDs, set up the
screening room in the new SIS building, judge the festival, and create their
YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/AUClimateEnergyDay
•
Professor Sarah Menke-Fish and graduate students conducted workshops
at the American Film Institute for local high schools on video and audio
production, writing, editing, and voiceovers. This program, with
Montgomery County Public School (MCPS), was for high school students
and their teachers who were participating in the MCPS 2010
Environmental Film Festival. This joint collaboration with MCPS and the
American Film Institute is now in its sixth year.
Second, we regularly bring outstanding filmmakers to campus. On most Tuesday
nights, we hold an event with Filmmakers for Conservation in the Wechsler Theater at
which a renowned filmmaker shows clips from his or her films and talks about how and
why the films were made. This past year, top executives from National Geographic and
Animal Planet, as well as many other influential figures, visited campus, and talked to
packed houses. Topics ranged from solar energy to online videos to Blood Dolphins. This
coming spring semester, the Center is organizing over a dozen different events, including
a program with National Geographic’s David Hamlin, producer of their landmark series
Great Migrations.
Third, we provide innovative and enriching programs like Classroom in the Wild
and Environmental and Wildlife Production.
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In Sandy Cannon-Brown’s Environmental and Wildlife Production class, students
produce a half-hour film for Maryland Public Television called EcoViews (as mentioned
earlier). Brigid Maher and Lisa Bream’s classes produce the motion graphics for the
program. The class challenges students to work at a professional level to produce a
broadcast-quality program worthy of PBS. Since its inception in 2007, the Ecoviews
programs have been honored with two regional Emmys, several CINE Golden Eagle and
TIVA-DC Student documentary awards, and for the first time in 2010, a National Student
Academy Award nomination. The Center also arranged a connection for the SOC
students with lifeonterra.com at Montana State University, where the individual segments
received tens of thousands more views.
Classroom in the Wild in Florida is in its sixth successful year, and Larry Engel
launched Classroom in the Wild in Alaska two years ago. Classroom in the Wild, an
intensive outdoor workshop held in wilderness areas, allows students to camp out and
learn how to meet the challenges—sometimes extreme challenges—of natural history
field production. This past year, filmmakers Wolfgang Obst and Danny Ledonne teamed
up to guide students on a filmmaking adventure through Florida's Mallory Swamp and
the R.O. Ranch Equestrian Park. With help from the Suwannee River Water Management
District, students produced films exploring the connection between northwest Florida's
history and future habitat conservation. In Alaska students spent two days in Anchorage
learning the ropes, literally, of survival techniques at Learn To Return’s headquarters,
then headed to the wilds of Alaska for further training and filming on rocks, glaciers, and
rapids. There they produced several short documentaries for wilderness outfitter NOVA
and a piece about global warming and melting ice.
As director of the Discover the World of Communication Program and associate
director at the Center, Professor Sarah Menke-Fish coordinated an inaugural four-week
summer experience for high school students to research, travel and produce
environmental films in Costa Rica. Larry Engel was on location in Costa Rica for film
production with the high school students. The films premiered at the Embassy of Costa
Rica on July 15, 2010 and are screened at Manuel Antonio National Park.
The Center continues to create and manage the annual Student Short Film Festival
with the DC Environmental Film Festival. Now in its sixth year and cosponsored by REI,
we showcase the talents of emerging “green communicators” to promote environmental
causes and empower individuals to make a difference. A panel discussion on how to
succeed as a filmmaker accompanies the event. This year’s festival is on March 23.
Professor Maggie Burnette Stogner mentors graduate students in her documentary
production and writing courses, and as a thesis advisor, sharing her years of experience at
National Geographic TV with students committed to conservation advocacy. At the
behest of The Franklin Institute, the oldest natural history center in the U.S., Professor
Stogner served as Executive Producer of the film Hawks in the City, with MFA grad
student Aditi Desai as Producer, alum Michael Hyde as editor, her Advanced Writing for
Documentary class as writers, and many other undergraduate and graduate students. This
urban wildlife short documentary is about a pair of hawks that are nesting in downtown
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Philadelphia. It will be seen by people around the world on The Franklin Institute
website, as well as in the lobby of their science center. Professor Stogner continues to
advise graduate students on a range of conservation and environmental thesis films, from
green burials to endangered species to controversial wild horse round ups.
In June 2010, I held a master class at the International Film Academy in Jackson
Hole during a documentary film course. Students in this course worked under AU MFA
graduate Danny Ledonne to create environmental films in their own backyard—with
topic ranging from tourism and beetle infestations to local outdoor markets and a
rehabilitation center for birds of prey.
Fourth and finally, we advocate for the ethical treatment of wildlife and the
environment, through films, articles, conferences and festivals—and we give awards,
grants and sponsorships to pursue those goals. For example, the Center and Sony
annually award a cash prize of $1,000 to the best environmental film in the Visions
Festival at AU.
My new book, Shooting in the Wild: An Insider’s Account of Making Movies in
the Animal Kingdom (Sierra Club Books), is also part of the Center’s effort to teach
people about the ethics and effectiveness of environmental films. It describes an eightpoint plan to reform the wildlife film industry. I have launched a campaign to that end
and have given over 100 speeches and interviews since the book came out in late May
last year. Please visit http://www.american.edu/soc/cef/palmer-book.cfm to learn more.
Larry Engel is dedicated to developing the “best practices” for green filmmaking
and to making SOC’s film program the first in the nation to go green. He has defined
standards for sustainable production for students in university film programs and among
professional documentary producers. Larry and his co-author Andrew Buchanan from the
UK published “The Code for Best Practices in Sustainable Filmmaking” in 2009 through
the Center for Social Media and the Center for Environmental Filmmaking. The Code has
been endorsed both in professional and academic circles, including the International
Documentary Association and the University Film and Video Association. Further, the
United Kingdom’s largest regional film commission, South Southwest, adopted the Code
for use among filmmakers and production companies working on location in the region.
The Code is also being translated into Spanish through the generosity of Professor EdgarSoberon Torchia from Cuba.
Larry is also submitting a major production grant request through the Center and
SOC to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) through its “Bridging
Cultures” filmmaking initiative. The project, tentatively titled Four Corners of the Earth:
UNESCO World Heritage Sites and the Struggle for Preservation, is a one-hour
documentary that celebrates the 40th anniversary of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites in
2012. Filming will take place in Italy, Mexico, Mali, and the Philippines. Adrian Sas, a
collaborator of Larry’s from New York, is the producer/writer, while Larry will be
executive producer and director.
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Last year we launched the Center Scholars Program to recognize graduate MFA
student filmmakers who produce films that matter, that make a difference, and that make
the world a greener, more livable place. Last year’s Scholars were Danny Ledonne,
Shanon Sparks, and Ellen Tripler. This year we selected Aditi Desai, Kai Fang, Jeremy
Polk, Irene Magafan, and Sylvia Johnson. Their thesis films focus on such diverse topics
as climate change, bonobos, wild horses, and dying in an environmentally responsible
way. Center Scholars demonstrate tenacity, creativity, passion, diligence, and integrity.
*****
I thank Dean Larry Kirkman and Prof. John Douglass for all their support. And I
thank Larry Engel, Sandy Cannon-Brown, Sarah Menke-Fish, and Maggie Burnette
Stogner—the four Associate Directors of the Center—for all they have done to contribute
to the depth and breadth of the Center’s programs.
Grad student Ted Roach says: “As someone who has spent time in and around
other film schools, I know that the opportunities you present us to work in the 'real world'
are what set SOC apart from the rest. I can’t thank you enough for my producing/editing
jobs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Park
Service, both of which were incredible experiences!”
The Center’s activities and programs are made possible by the generosity of the
Wallace Genetic Foundation, Gil Ordway, Sally Brown, Roger and Vicki Sant, the Henry
Foundation, the Mead Family Foundation, C.C. Merriam, Tom O’Malley, REI, Elizabeth
Ruml, Bob Schumann, the Saint Paul Foundation, the Turner Foundation, Sony
Corporation, Lucy Waletzky, Wool Henry, and other generous donors.
Center for EF Annual End of Year Report Jan 1, 2011