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