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.