Daniel 2009 Documentary Film

Daniel Nerviani

Mrs. Pomerantz

English 2 Block 1

22 May 2009

The Future is in Our Hands: Live Sustainably

The documentary film, The Future is in Our Hands: Live Sustainably, was very informative. The purpose of the film was to inform, persuade and effect change, and it did just that. With all of the creative metaphors, statistics, and pictures, the film was able to effectively bring attention to the crisis we are in today. Some metaphors, like Jeff and Joey’s ball metaphor, informed me of many things going on in today’s world. It helped set the stage for some of the effect changes they had in their section, which I thought was very smart. Also, in the beginning of Jake, Julia, and Janelle’s section, Julie did a narration that informed me of many things wrong with our lifestyle. Wasting items and other things were brought to attention. After the documentary was over, I’m sure many people felt they had learned many things. Next is the persuasive part. Brad and Marquis’s M&M metaphor brought attention to the fact that people need to think of others in order to improve the environment. In addition to that, my group’s metaphor of blowing up the Earth, then playing it in reverse to show what we could do if we change. It provided the audience with the scare off what also could happen to the Earth if we do not change. Finally, the last purpose of this film was to effect change. I think that the informing stage and the persuading change together provided the audience with a desire to effect change. Again, Brad and Marquis’s M&M metaphor showed that some simple things as sharing can go a long way. Someone, like Brad, who is given something for almost no reason at all, might be inclined to do something nice for someone else. This someone else might also happen to be the environment. In short, this film was able to make a difference.

This film had many great qualities, but I thought that the music was the best part. It added a fun, lively experience for everybody watching it. It also helped add to the narrations, pictures, statistics, and even some interviews. The nice, upbeat tempo that Joey incorporated into his film made it enjoyable to watch. The music in my group’s section also added to some visual metaphors. At the end, where we had the Earth blowing up and then playing in reverse, we added a sad sounding tone. It was a tone that marks the end of something with a good climactic end. It was almost like you were a kid again watching cartoons where you knew something bad was going to happen. Another thing that adds to music being great was the lack of music in some parts. In Frannie, Amanda, Sarah, and Jaylah’s group, there was not any music present in the section. This made it a little bit uninteresting to the audience. I think if they had spiced it up a bit with some music, it would have been more pleasant to watch. Along with the music, the visual metaphors that we filmed worked great. Like I said before, the metaphor with the M&M’s was perfect. It was a great mixture of emotions, with sadness, togetherness, and joyfulness. It added a great beginning to their segment. The next great thing I think we had in the film was our narrations. Beside the blip we had in the first group’s segment, the narrations were very thought out and clear. They provided an extra element to the video besides just watching. They also helped with informing and persuading the audience to effect change. Even though some could get a bit lengthy, I think that they served a great purpose.

Even though we had many great things in our documentary film, I think we had a couple of bad mess ups. In the first segment, we had a malfunction with the narration. It started a bit too late, and ended up going into one of the interviews. It was clearly noticeable, and was a bit embarrassing. Furthermore, the narration was supposed to be of a slide with text. The text was very long and had a very thin font, so it was tricky to read. I ended up not being able to read it, or listen to it, so the slide was a waste. After that though, I think the film went great and we made up for our mistakes.

Working on this film taught me a number of things, but I think the most important part I got out of it was to always be prepared. My group ended up having to stay after school and to even come before school one time because we weren’t close to finishing before the deadline. If we had prepared a bit better, and maybe learned how to use some of the features in the Adobe Premiere Elements a little bit earlier, we could have finished in time. Along with being prepared, I learned many small things about blogging and filming. I had read numerous blogs over the years because I happen to love sports, and ESPN.com has many blogs. I always thought that it was just kind of like, “Hey I’m thinking about this, so I’ll go write about it for a few minutes,” but it turned out to be a lot more work than that. Even though we were just summarizing and taking notes, it still took a good amount of thought to write about it. Then you have to worry about grammar and spelling and all sorts of little things. It was almost like writing a mini essay. On the other hand, it was still kind of fun. When we were researching to narrow our subject down to one topic, I had fun going around reading about things I wanted to write about. After we picked our topic though, it became a bit tedious and boring. Since we needed interviews for our documentary, we had to learn about filming. This proved a bit harder than I first thought. Some things that you have to consider are camera angles, lighting, volume, placement, etc. I never thought there would be so many small things that you would have to think about. Still, they were easy to pick up on and eventually filming became quite easy. The last thing I learned from working on this film was about my partners. Some of them were very productive (Curtis and Amer), but some of them not (Joe D). I don’t want to be mean, but sometimes I felt like we were better off without Joe because he made no effort. He even hurt us more than he helped us sometimes.

In the future, I’m not sure if I will use much of this stuff because I don’t think I’ll be making another documentary film. I won’t need the filming information, but I guess I might need the blogging info sometime in the future. In a nutshell, this film was informative and could help the world, but I don’t think it will make much of a difference because people (including me) are stubborn and do not like to change.

In the article about the brain not being green, I was surprised to find that I actually liked the article.  Psychology simply interests me and this article was based on that.  The article talks about how psychological research isn’t looked at as much as natural or physical research.  The Center for Research on Enviromental Decisions says that this needs to change.  Most people look at a problem based on how it is given to them.  If you tell someone they have an 80% chance of surviving surgery, they will probably take it immediately.  But if you tell them they have a 20% chance of dying they might think twice.  CRED funded many experiments with people involving how they work together, how they work when given certain circumstances in different orders, and many other things.  These experiments came back with many different results.  For instance, in one experiment, group activity increased when a group of people were told that they were part of the “Blue Star Team,” even though there wasn’t a Blue Star Team.  Also many people use emotional responses such as “I think” rather than an analytical approach that states a fact.  Another experiment proved that when a group of people is told something, they are most likely to discuss it and figure out the best possible solution, rather than just go on about their business when told by themselves.  This was tested on a group of farmers.  Yet one more experiment proved that many people think along the terms of “Oh this can’t happen to me, it’s too far away.”  This distant thinking kills us.  A simple play on words works too.  When fronted with a tax or an offset, more people chose to do the offset rather than the tax, simply because it wasn’t a “tax.”

This article was a good one.  A bit lengthy, but it provides a lot of facts and experiments that sound legit.  I’m glad I read it, because it confirmed the reasons why I don’t really do more to help the environment.  Unfortunately, to be brutally honest, I’m probably not going to change much in my daily life, even though I read this article.

In this article, the author explains the concept of thinking green.  The American Psychological Association is trying to change attitudes towards the environment.  They conducted numerous experiments, one being on negative feedback, to find out more.  In the negative feedback experiment, they concluded that this type of feedback actually dissuades people from doing more.  It was centered around how bad the participants ecological footprint is.  More people were inclined to just give up trying to do more for the environment, than actually going out to do more for the environment.  They also found that when presented with a problem as big as an environmental crisis, most people don’t think they can do anything.  Also, people generally want to help, but don’t know how.

In this article, the author talks about airports changing some ways to accomadate the environment.  Right off the bat it talks about building wind turbines for energy.  Along with the turbines, they have included light flush toilets, hybrid taxis, solar panels, and even recycled coffee grounds.  They are currently working to become less pollutant to the world.  Some airports across the U.S. are investing with a ton of solar panels to generate electricity to work up to even half of their output during a year.  Oddly enough, some colder states are actually reusing the ice and snow that falls.  They are taking the snow and ice and mixing it with some anti-freeze and then reuse it.  It goes on to mention all of the alternative energy sources that airports are trying to use and some more ways to preserve the environment.

It honestly was a decent article.  It’s just cool to see some of the crazy things people come up with, like the snow and ice thing.

1. What are your opinions on the environmental crisis today?
2. What are your personal views on the solutions being offered?
3. What do you think should be the solutions to the environment?
4. Do you think this topic should be taught in schools?
5. What do you do to help the environment?
6. What do you think about when you hear the term “sustainable living”?
7. Do you think the government is helping to heal the environment?
8. Why/Why not?
9. What is the best thing you’ve done to help the environment?
10. What is the worst thing you’ve done to the environment?

Some important things to remember for street interviews

• Maintain eye contact
• Clarify your questions
• Project your voice
• Speak clearly
• Double check all of your materials
• Get your point across fast
• Don’t argue/yell
• Give positive feedback to keep them talking
• Have an interviewer, someone holding the camera, someone holding the mike

In the film about storyboarding, Matthew Needleman talks about some necessities in making a short film.  The first rule is to plan and draw out your picture first.  Then after you have the picture drawn, you can draw a box representing your frame to show what you’re actually shooting.  This way you have more to choose from rather than the entire picture.  Also, the rule of thirds is important.  The most boring shot is actually when the subject is in the direct middle of the screen.  Instead, you should put the people, or subject into an intersection of basically a tic-tac-toe board on the screen.  This creates more interesting angles.  One more thing is always remember to move the camera around.  You can make better shots by making high angles and low angles and zooming in and out.

In our camera shot sheet, there are four types we are focusing on.

Wide Shot- We could use this for a shot with some props, or maybe with something where the person needs to move around.

Medium Shot- Used for a quick interview, something like on a street maybe.

Close Up- Good for a one on one interview, lengthy probably.

Extreme Close Up- Good for showing emotions on the interviewee’s face.

In Scientific American 3.0 there are 10 myths about sustainability.

Myth 1: Nobody knows what sustainability really means.  This myth talks about how sustainable was first entered into our lexicon in 1987 and has been used a good amount since then.  It also notes that the definition “says nothing about protecting the environment.”  It’s just what’s used by environmentalists.

Questions: Who were they asking when they asked if people knew what the word sustainable means?  Because I had never heard of it until this project.

Myth 2: Sustainability is all about the environment.  This myth mentions that the original focus of sustainability was to let poor nations catch up to rich nations in standards of living.  It says that the economy is owned by the biosphere and that the biosphere provides everything for us.  Then it tells us that using resources inefficiently or generating wastes to fast for the environment to absorb will cripple the future generations.  Then they give examples of things that are being used or given off excessively, like CO2 (carbon dioxide).

Questions: If it’s not about the environment, why do they cite examples of things that affect the environment?

Myth 3: “Sustainable” is a synonym for “green.”  Green usually refers to a preference for the natural over the artificial, while sustainable is not.  Then it says that nuclear plants are not the most green thing, but many environmentalists are warming up to nuclear power because it’s so efficient and doesn’t give off much waste.

Questions: What is their definition of sustainable?

Myth 4: It’s all about recycling.  Recycling is just one piece of the puzzle.  This myth is widely believed, but really, energy and transportation are the most important areas of sustainability.

Questions: None really.  I agree with this one all the way.

Myth 5: Sustainability is too expensive.  This has only a grain of truth experts say.  The expensive part comes from switching from an unsustainable system to a sustainable system, but if your building something new, then it’s not that much more expensive.

Questions: None

Myth 6: Sustainability means lowering our standard of living.  Not at all true this article says.  It says that once we get started with innovating that mind-set, we will soon do better with our rates of productivity than we are right now.

Questions: What kinds of products will lead to this “breakthrough?”

Myth 7: Consumer choices and grassroots activism, not government intervention offer the fastest, most efficient routes to sustainability.  People think that government reforms are not helping because they lift taxes, but people don’t know that this is basically inevitable.  Even without the reforms it’s going to happen.  Also, putting taxes on things like carbon emissions would reduce the production of them because they would be expensive.  Change can be expensive though.  The American Car Industry plummeted for this very reason.

Questions: None

Myth 8: Technology is always the answer. Not necessarily.  New technology can be good, but existing technology can work jsut as well.

Questions: What is used to make the new technology?  Could it hurt us more than help us?

Myth 9: Sustainability is ultimately a population problem.  Experts say the best ways to limit population is to educate women and raise the standard of living generally in developing countries. There are some other options in limiting the population but none in which we prefer.

Questions: Are there any population experts in the area that we could contact and take this idea farther?

Myth 10: Once you understand the concept, living sustainably is a breeze to figure out.  Things may seem sustainable from a far but when you investigate it further it is problematic. You can’t declare any practice “sustainable” until you have a complete life-cycle analysis of its environmental costs.

Questions: none

Some of the visual metaphors our group came up with:

1. A trash dump where a dumpster comes in with a big globe (throwing the Earth away).

2. We take some item (paper most likely) label it Earth, and go outside with a magnifying glass.  Then we make the magnifying class magnify the sun and slowly bring it closer and closer to the item.  Finally, right before it hits the item (Earth), we flash to a screen that says “Global Warming Is Coming.”

3. We show a person who is living in a dump and getting ready for work.  (Metaphor: Doesn’t realize he’s living in a dump).

4. Time Lapse- Taking

5. Model of forest, slowly being taken away (disappearing), and then a city slowly appearing.