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.

River B-roll and Interview with a Gator

Despite my best efforts, I still managed to get dust on the sensor of the A7sii and not notice until it was all said and done.  Trying not to be too hard on myself, but its very frustrating.  Finally got out on a boat to get some good old fashioned river b-roll.  Thank you to Doug and Diane Springer for letting me go out on their black river adventure cruise for free (normally 30$).  Doug is the former Cape Fear River Keeper, in fact, he hired Kemp Burdette, the young new river superstar.  I also got over to greenfield lake, which is actually connected to the Cape Fear, and ended up hanging out with a gator for about 45 minutes.  It was amazing and I got a ton of great footage of him/her. I'll go into a little more detail a bit later

Marion Blackburn Interview & Farm B-roll

Wednesday September 27, Lizzie and I went out to Kenansville NC and the surrounding areas to shoot more CAFO b-roll.  This time we went out with Pat Connell, who does CAFO surveying for the Cape Fear River Watch.  He planned a loop that would take us by a number of farms he was monitoring.  On the route we found several uncovered poultry litter piles and a number of spray fields actively spraying feces over the land.  At one point, Pat brought us to a dead box site on the side of the road.  A dead box is basically a large garbage bin where the farmers dump the carcasses of the pigs that die each day in the houses. Often times the farms have contracts with dog food companies who come out and take the hogs away to make dog and cat food.  We had shot the box from a few angles, when lizzie suggested I get a shot of the box with the farm in the background.  We pulled the truck up, and I hopped out to get the shot.  There was a swarm of flies coming from the box, but I wasn't able to approach the box or I would be trespassing.  As I'm filming I hear Lizzie say several times "Paige, theres a truck coming." But as I was quite focused on the shot I didn't react very quickly at first.  However the moment I looked up I saw a big truck screaming towards us, so I jumped in the car.  He pulled up right next to us, where I had been standing seconds before.  He wanted to know why we were there and what we were filming.  Pat told him we were filming for a research project.  He told us to leave, and that we didn't have permission to be out there.  He followed us for around 20 minutes as we drove out of town

"There's a Truck Coming"

During this shoot I played around with different picture profiles.  I shot in PP4 S-Log 3, PP8 Cine-4, and Standard.  I preferred PP8 Cine-4, but only shot around 1/3 of the clips in that picture profile, because Lizzie and I were still deciding on how to shoot this and what kind of color grading we want to do in post.  However, personally, after looking at the footage, I prefer shooting in a picture profile and color grading.  Here is an example of a spray field I shot in PP8 Cine-4 and color graded:

I shot Marion Blackburn's interview in Standard, because I didn't know if I should deviate from what I'm used too for a crucial interview.  However I still wish I shot it in PP8, but the interview is usable.  We chose a difficult location.  I also need to work on lighting interviews.  Lighting is something I struggle with.  

Farm B-roll and Sandra Gomez Interview

Saturday September 16th The Dead in the Water crew drove out to rural North Carolina in search of CAFO b-roll.  To avoid legal entanglement via trespassing, we shoot mostly from public roads, which, thanks to our producer Jocabed, we have permit for.  Usually we start our day planning a route using google maps.  CAFOs are easy to spot from the air, if the giant pig and chicken houses don't give it away, the lakes of feces that accompany those houses make it undeniably a CAFO.  During this shoot we primarily used the A7Sii on a shoulder mount for quick run & gun style shots.  We were very fortunate to get footage of both hog and poultry CAFOs, where you can actually see the animals crammed in the houses.

This past weekend, Sunday September 24th, the crew drove out to Rose Hill, NC to shoot an interview with Sandra Gomez, the sole breadwinner for a family of 4 who makes her living working on an industrial hog farm.  Because of this, she did not want her face on camera.  We chose to back light her to conceal her identity.  Before we drove out to Rose Hill, we tested the light setup in the department black box.  Thinking forward, we also brought a back-up background in case we weren't satisfied with the backgrounds available.  We are lucky we brought it, because we ended up using the background we brought in.   The interview went well, the space was small but we made it work. I couldn't have asked for a better team.

(Practice lighting Lizzie in the Black Box)

Preproduction Presentation

Overview:

This documentary will be filmed digitally in color in an expository style to ensure that all information gets through to the audience as clearly as possible. The shooting style will be grounded in information as opposed to an artistic approach. The film will use continuity editing in order to keep all information organized. Though we will be including engaging stories and imagery, we don’t want anything to get lost in translation.

Interviews: Our experts include Kemp Burdette, Larry Cahoon, Marion Blackburn, Elsie Herring, Rene Miller, Sandra Gamez, and a Representative from North Carolina Farm Families.

The interviews for Kemp Burdette, Larry Cahoon, Marion Blackburn, and NC Farm Families will be set up in a sit-down, talking head style with three point lighting. These three interviews will frame the narrative of Dead in the Water, thus the traditional talking head set up will help their valuable insight on factory farming get across in a clear, continuous, and organized manner.

Elsie Herring and Rene Miller’s interviews will include a talking head set up either on their front porches or inside their homes when they describe their experiences living in rural North Carolina in close proximity to CAFOs. However, we will also use handheld, observational footage to follow them as they show us around their properties and showcase how close they live to the farms. Sandra Gamez will be backlit in her home while she discusses what she goes through working in a Murphy Brown hog farm. We will use strategic lighting to disguise her identity.  

Dr. Lawrence Cahoon Bio & Interview Questions

Dr. Lawrence Cahoon is a biological oceanographer and limnologist at UNCW. His basic research interests include primary production, grazing, and nutrient dynamics, and applied research interests include various aspects of water quality analysis and remediation. A major focus of Dr. Cahoon's research has been the role of benthic microalgae in oceanic, estuarine, and freshwater ecosystems. He is interested in studying the basic processes regulating benthic microalgal distribution and production, nutrient cycling, grazers in near-bottom habitats, and human impacts on sediment-water interface processes. Dr. Cahoon is also interested in evaluating water quality management practices in coastal areas, interactions of water quality with community function in estuarine habitats, and effects of climate variation on coastal features. His teaching interests include biological oceanography, limnology, forensic environmental science, and climate change processes and effects. Dr. Cahoon has a PhD in Zoology from Duke University and a B.S. in Biology from Washington & Lee University.

Interview Questions 

1. What is a CAFO?
2. How do CAFO farmers dispose of animal waste?
3. What kinds of nutrients are found in this waste?
4. How much of the nutrients are good versus bad?
5. How many CAFOs are in Southeastern NC?
6. How does this waste get to waterways?
7. How does that waste impact water quality?
8. What does this mean for water quality on a global scale since the Cape Fear River puts out into the Atlantic Ocean?
9. Why do you think this isn't being discussed on a larger scale?
10. What are ways to alleviate this problem?

Interview Date:  November 14th, 2016 

Stylistic Approach

For Dead in the Water we will be using the Ursa Mini for slower, more artistic shots of the Cape Fear River, and during our sit down interviews.  When we are on the go, whether following Kemp during water quality testing or Dr. Cahoon in the lab, we will use the smaller, more mobile A7Sii DSLR.  We will pair the A7S with either a tripod, slider, or hand-held stabilizer depending on what the situation calls for.  

This documentary will be filmed digitally in color in a straightforward, expository style ensure that all of this information gets through to the audience as clearly as possible. As such, we will not aim to be experimental or poetic. The shooting style will be grounded in information as opposed to an artistic approach. The film will use continuity editing in order to keep all of the information organized. There is a lot of information to cover, and though we will be including stories and imagery that will be engaging, we don’t want anything to get lost in translation.

We will utilize nature sounds such as moving water and local birds and wildlife to enhance the b-roll of the Cape Fear River basin’s natural beauty. These sounds and images coupled together will emphasize what we stand to lose if we ignore the threat of the CAFOs. Conversely, we will include sounds of pigs and chickens to amplify the unease and claustrophobia in the interior and exterior images of the farms. With that, we will use non-diegetic music sparingly. The music we use will be minimal and dramatic, mostly through the use of strings. This music will be used in moments of high tension as well as during transitions between plot points and/or characters. Additionally, we will use animation to create a sequence demonstrating how the animal waste gets from the farms to the river since this is something that cannot be filmed in real time.

Dead in the Water DP Treatment

Form and Style

Our film Dead in the Water is an expansion of our short documentary Concentration.  In Concentration, we have already introduced two experts who serve as informational talking heads.  Dr. Larry Cahoon, a UNCW biologist, lends scientific context to the CAFO problem.  Kemp Burette, the Cape Fear Riverkeeper, serves as the driving force for the film’s narrative arc.  Along the way we interact with other players for and against the CAFO industry, but for the most part it will be viewed from the perspective of Kemp’s involvement with the issue.  Both Kemp and Dr. Cahoon appear as talking heads.  These interviews are established.  To expand upon these two players, we will be incorporating more images of them engaging with the issue.  In the case of Dr. Cahoon, we intend to lend his character authority by intercutting b-roll of him over his interview of him working in his lab on campus with his biology students, both graduate and undergraduate.

   We will use observational follow footage to visually illustrate Kemp’s journey as he runs water quality tests and holds errant farms accountable.  The camera will be both stationary and moving as we capture this.  To follow the action, we will be using hand-held stabilizers such as the Ronin Gimbal stabilizer and a shoulder mount.   We will use this technique mostly outdoors, when dealing with mid-day sun, as we often do when following Kemp on the river as well as when shooting on the farms.  We want the camera movement to engage the audience, and make them feel as we do, when we are following Kemp while he works.  

“We would like to use animation to demonstrate the process through which the waste gets produced at the farms, how it leaves the farms and gets applied to the land, and how it
goes from the land to the river. This animated sequence would be playing along with Mr. Burdette’s voice-over explanation of the process. Animation would not only increase the value of the film as a product, but it would give the audience a concrete illustration of how this waste run-off occurs, as this process would be impossible to get real-time b-roll footage of.” -Director Lizzie Bankowski

When we interact with affected communities in Duplin County and New Hanover County, we will keep the camera stabilized on a tripod.  In this kind of scenario, we want to focus less on the action what is happening, and more on the stable images of human interaction.

We will be introducing several more voices in our feature length film, who will further the CAFO narrative we wish to explore.  One of those voices is Rene Miller, a Duplin County resident and outspoken critic of industrial farming.  Ms. Miller lives only a few feet away from a hog CAFO, and has long suffered the effects of such proximity.  Though we will conduct an interview with Ms. Miller, for the most part, her voice will not be heard through a formal atalking head.  We will follow Ms. Miller as she shows us the things she and her family have had to deal with living in the shadow of an industrial sized farm.  The audience will experience what she experiences.  We will follow her around her property as she explains her situation, and we will incorporate shots of her home; her grand children’s play set, and her family graveyard, all stifled by the backdrop of the factory farm.  

Our second new voice will be that of Marion Blackburn, an activist and policy expert who will be explaining the relationship between the North Carolina State government and these industrial farming corporations.  This interview will be shot outside of the Smithfield plant in Tar Heel, NC.  We will intercut footage of state government buildings, policy makers, and animals going to slaughter, with the aim to compare and unsettle the audience, and bring them face to face with not only the animals, but the authorities in both the state government and these massively wealthy corporations that hold the environment and the surrounding communities hostage.  

From there, we move inside the Smithfield plant, where we here from the CEO of Smithfield Foods, Ken Sullivan.  We will shoot this formal interview in his office at the plant.  We will continue to intercut images of the animals, farms and products, then branch out to communities affected by these farms, Rene Miller, the Cape Fear River, and ultimately all of North Carolina.

We will directly contrast the volatile imagery of animals going to slaughter, industrial farms and the ensuing environmental effects with beautiful nature shots of the Cape Fear River basin, and all its flora and fauna.  For these shots we will use slow camera movements, dolly tracks and slider movements.  We Will also use aerial footage from a drone, to help display the immensity of the ecosystem affected.  This footage will serve as a call to action.   

We will use a DSLR car mount as well as a GoPro car mount to gather footage along North Carolina’s back roads

We will be using the Arri Fresnel light kit to light our interviews, or a kino flo kit depending on the space available.  

Our color palette for the film will emphasize subdued earth tones.  Contrasting natural greens and blues with the stark flat browns of the farms and polluted river.  

Concentration was filmed on the Sony NEX VG20.  We plan to transition to more high performing cameras, taking care not to contrast the VG20 quality to a noticeable degree.

“This documentary will be filmed digitally in color with a DSLR camera in a straightforward, expository style simply because we don’t want to pull any punches. We want to make sure that all of this information gets through to the audience as clearly as possible. As such, we will not aim to be experimental or particularly poetic. Similarly, the film will use continuity editing in order to keep all of the information organized.”-Director Lizzie Bankowski

Equipment Needs

Camera choices:

Sony A7Sii

Black Magic Ursa EF

GoPro Session 4
Canon Rebel t3i

ND Filters

Polarizer Filters

Manfrotto monopod

Manfrotto Tripod

DJI Ronin Gimbal Stabilizer

Shoulder Mount

H4N

Sennheiser ME66 Shotgun mic

Sennheiser G3 wireless Lavaliers

Boom Pole
Headphones

Arri Fresnel kit

Kino FLO kit

Dolly

Manfrotto sliders

Extra batteries
Laptop
External Harddrive
Memory Cards

Bio

Paige Marsicano is a senior at the University of North Carolina Wilmington pursuing degrees in Film Studies and International Studies. Her goal is to work as a documentary filmmaker in the field of environmental and social justice.  In 2010 she wrote, shot and narrated her first environmental documentary that screened in front of residents and state government representatives in her home state of Connecticut.  In her career as a filmmaker, Paige has shot freelance work for the Wounded Warriors Project, the Wilmington Water Summit and Keep New Hanover County Beautiful.  From 2015-2016 she worked as a student researcher on a Fulbright grant awarded to UNCW’s Political Science department studying terrorist trends in Pakistan. In 2016 Paige was the Director of Photography on the short film Concentration, which screened at multiple film festivals across North Carolina.  She is  currently working  as a Media Production Assistant for the UNCW Office of University Relations.