The end is near

as the end of the semester approaches our crew has been finalizing some elusive interviews.  This coming Friday we will be interviewing James Doss, the chef and owner of RX restaurant.  His business model is centered around using small, local family farms and fisheries in North and South Carolina.  They order while pigs, and butcher it themselves to be sure the entire pig is used.  It is a positive step towards sustainable farming, and a middle step for customers who want to be more conscious of where their food is coming from.  After being a part of this documentary, I have made the switch to a plant based diet with the exception of RX, and thats the truth.  I know where the food is coming from, and I am willing to pay a little extra for cruelty free and a step towards sustainability.

interviews

elsie herring cancelled

Cucalorus 10x10

My god what a busy weekend.  Jocabed was chosen as a filmmaker for the Cucalorus 10x10 challenge which partnered 10 filmmakers and 10 entrepreneurs with the task of filming a promotional video for the company during the festival week to be screened on Sunday.  This was truly an amazing opportunity, that mirrored the real world scenario of working with a client to produce an video in a short amount of time.  I am very thankful Jocabed trusted my work enough to ask me to partner with her on this project.  Our entrepreneur was named Michelle, and her company was called Creative Unions Event Design.  The company specializes in curating creative unions, which are weddings that incorporate contemporary art.  We were randomly partnered with this company, and met them to discuss the video Tuesday night.  Jocabed and I then spent the next few days filming and editing her video. In between that, I bartended the afterparty at jengos playhouse from 11-3am friday and saturday.  I saw jocabeds film "unfiltered" alongside "working in protest" and I also got to see "everything beautiful is far away."  I also got to watch all the other videos the other filmmakers shot for 10x10.  It was very impressive. and quite a long weekend

Second Pig Vigil and Some Slow Motion River B-roll

Tar Heel and Greenfield Lake

Canon T3i and the Sony A7sii

This week we will be showing B-roll from the Pig Vigil Lizzie and I attended right before the start of the semester.  I shot this footage on my Cannon t3i.  It was the first time I'd shot anything since coming back from my semester off on the Appalachian Trail, so I can't say its my best camera work.  You can see Marion Blackburn among the crowd of protestors, this is where we first made contact with her to later interview.  I'm looking into potentially purchasing an A7sii for myself upon graduation, as a gift to myself. I have absolutely loved shooting on it, and although Sony has a reputation for not being user friendly, I feel like working with this camera has improved my skills immensely.  The built-in stabilizer doesn't hurt either

                                   

Exposing Factory Farms in North Carolina

This week, Lizzie, Jocabed and I went to a panel in Durham put on by the non-profit, Farm Sanctuary.  The panel was hosted by Indy Week publications and featured several experts on factory farming in North Carolina.  Our goal for attending this panel was to make contact with Elsie Herring, a NC resident who has been an outspoken activist against the CAFO industry for many years.  However, during the panel, we decided we wanted more than just Elsie.  We also approached Rick Dove, of the Water Keeper alliance.  I made this contact (I forgot to write this in my crew evals for myself) which I was proud of.  He agreed to take me up in a small plane to get aerial footage of CAFOs in NC.  We also made contact with a former Tyson hog farmer who is now actively working against the industry to expose the harm is does to people, animals and the environment.  It was a very successful trip, and we have a lot of work coming up with scheduling these interviews and the flight

Butcher B-Roll

Last fall, the day before "Concentration" was due, I was able to get permission to film the butcher of a pig.  Even though I knew It wouldn't make the final cut, I wanted the footage.  I thought, If anything, we could add the footage before it does its festival circuit.  It never did make it into "Concentration" which is why I'm so glad Lizzie and I brought it into our senior seminar.  The butcher footage is stark, shocking, and visceral; almost disturbing.  Of course, this particular shop is extremely sanitary compared to an actual slaughterhouse, but the imagery is no less powerful.