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Filmmaker Q+A with Director & Producer, John Davies Q: Tell us a bit about the production Stories of You & I was filmed over one and a half months all over the UK, living out of the back of a van with a camera, swimming with basking sharks in the freezing waters off the Scottish Hebrides, spending evenings in forest hides, washing in lochs, climbing mountains in Wales and getting eaten alive by midges day in, day out. It was an experience I’ll never forget, living, filming and being immersed in na- ture so closely. The joy and freedom that gave me was a true saviour having spent the previous few months in lockdown. I hope this love of being amongst nature and living the experience while filming comes across to audiences and helps to bring a unique authenticity to the viewing experience.  Photo Courtesy of Stories of You and I Q: What inspired the story? I first started developing this film sat in a field during the first UK lockdown back in March 2020 from a place of confused emotions. From love to grief, helplessness and hope, they seemed to mirror many feelings towards the current state of the world that were being felt by millions of others. At this time I was reading a lot and one of the books I was constantly dipping in and out of was ‘Letters to the Earth’ - a collection letters addressing the Earth, which had a big inspiration for the film conceptually. After reaching out to the co-creator of the book and campaign to firstly thank her for providing a source of inspiration during a tough time, I also ended up quoting parts of 3 letters featured in the book in the final film alongside my own ‘letters’. My hope and intention in making this film was to bring a sense of personal and emotional connection to environmental programming that would make under- standing the climate crisis more attainable for everyone and not just something that is distant, foreign and separate from our day to day lives. It was a different experience for me in the development process compared to my past projects. Rather than something purely observational, the pandemic pushed me to put a lot of myself, my own feelings and memories into the film. I wrote much of the voice-over based on my experiences growing up amongst nature collaboratively with one of my oldest friends, Dave Wood, who I’ve been an idiot with since we were 13 and shared many of these memories with. It was one of the first times we’ve had to be serious together but in the heart of the first U.K. lockdown it was a way to chat and be creative with a friend who lived over seas. We sent lines back and forth for months between London and Copenhagen (where he now lives), to end up with the final pieces that lead the voice-over... a proper covid collaboration.  Photo Courtesy of Stories of You and I Q: Any fun facts about the film/program, the subject matter or the production crew that might surprise the audience? Many people have asked how we managed to get someone of the calibre of Jonathan Pryce onboard a tiny budget student film, and assume it may have been a personal connection. The reality was that in the early stages of filming while I was still refining the script I had been watching Youtube videos of people reading Dylan Thomas’ poetry for references and inspiration. I found a beautiful reading that Jonathan had recorded of ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ and it deeply moved me. His voice resonated with me as I continued refining the script and would often picture his voice reading certain parts. I did some research into his background and realised in the previous year he had signed an open letter of celebrity backers, supporting a big environmental group, so knew he had a personal connection to the subject matter. While I knew it was a long shot, I thought ‘Why not?’ and sent him a personal letter explaining why I thought he’d be perfect for it along with the initial treatment and script, but honestly assumed I wouldn’t hear back or he would be too busy. To my amazement I got a response from his agent about 2 weeks into filming saying he loved the script and would like to be involved. That re- ally put on the pressure to get every shot to perfection and put in the extra hours in the field! In the take of his monologue to-camera that we ended up using in the final film, you could have heard a pin drop in the studio. I forgot entirely about the monitor and was just watching him and every word he spoke with a lump in the back of my throat...before we cut I looked across and a couple of the other production crew on set had tears running down their cheeks in silence and I knew we had the one. It was a real honour and privilege getting to work with him on this and an experience as a young Director that I will certainly never forget.  Photo Courtesy of Stories of You and I Q: What impact do you hope this film/program will have?
As we finish it, it seems important to highlight the context and why I felt it was important for me to move from making observational documentaries to something far more personal with this film. At the end of this year, in Nov 2021, the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) is being held in Glasgow, and it’s arguably the most important meeting in the history of mankind. World leaders will meet to discuss how we can accelerate action to tackle this monumental crisis that won’t just be affecting polar bears and penguins, it will be us, our children and our grandchildren. This year and the run up to this event is of vital significance to the future of our planet and frankly, to humanity itself. We must spread hope, truth and challenge our leaders to make a change for a sustainable, liveable future. I hope this film will allow people to reconnect with their own memories and love for nature to instil and drive positive change.
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Filmmaker Q+A with Geoff Luck, SVP Creative & Production of Wild Elements Studios  Photo Courtesy of Wild Elements Studios Q: What inspired this story? Geoff: When we first spoke to Sheila Funnell about highlighting her work at Grevy’s Zebra Trust, she immediately started telling us about the work of others: these were the women who compiled the data that saved the zebra’s breeding grounds; here were the ones who supported girls in the communities as they raised awareness of the animals’ plight; and these others were replanting the degraded grasslands that are so crucial for both the zebras and the livestock the communities rely on. It was never about her. So we sought a way to weave their stories together in a way that spoke to the central message Sheila emphasized in our conversations: that women were changing conservation in a way that can benefit us all.
Q: What impact do you hope this film/program will have? Geoff: There has long been a notion in conservation that people can be the primary threat to the survival of wild animals—that to make wildlife safe, we must expel all human presence from wilderness areas, and keep the two apart. But that perspective overlooks the fact that people have been part of natural systems for millennia, and that those who live alongside wildlife have often found ways to live that allow both to thrive. With this film, we hope to help reframe the dialogue to show the power that community-led initiatives can have in fostering coexistence. Q: Were there any surprising or meaningful moments/experiences you want to share? Geoff: Throughout production, we were struck time and again by the impact the women we were filming were having in their communities—and how their work was in turn changing their status there. Sentiwan’s story, told in brief in the film, was one of many. After starting her work sewing sanitary pads, where she sometimes met foreigners (and film crews), she became known as “one who sees far”: an individual who brings valuable perspective to the village. When COVID struck, she not only became a conduit for reliable information, but a source of protection when she and the other women in the group began sewing facemasks in addition to pads. When we were there, they had made and distributed over 3000 masks throughout the region.  Photo Courtesy of Wild Elements Studios We reached out to our 2021 Jackson Wild Media Awards filmmakers to ask them questions about the experience of making their films. Q: What inspired this story? Hedvika: As a filmmaker and photographer I have always been drawn to conservation and environmental stories. During my studies I have worked as a barista and developed a passion towards coffee. When it came to creating a final project for my degree, I wanted to make a film that would be very close to my heart. When I stumbled upon an article about coffee production being highly affected by climate change, I didn't hesitate and knew that was the story I wanted to tell. For me this story was an opportunity to not only explore a subject very close to me, but also to hopefully make an impact on the viewer and inspire change in daily habits.  Photo Credit: Hedvika Michnova Q: How do you approach storytelling? Hedvika: The idea was to hook in the viewer with the thought of their daily cup of coffee being in jeopardy but to eventually make them see beyond that and realize how massive this problem is. It's not just that we might not be able to have a good coffee in the future, it is millions of livelihoods that are at stake because they depend on this crop. However, It's Bean Too Hot is a story of hope. Throughout the film we follow the characters as they work hard to adapt different solutions to protect their livelihoods. From a fully carbon-neutral farm to shade grown coffee and the role of women in farming, we discover some of the answers to successful coffee farming. The main idea of this story is that it's told by the people on which climate change has the highest impact. Characters from developing countries who struggle with the effects of climate change every day. Throughout the film we meet several characters from Costa Rica and Tanzania, each with their own struggles and ways of adapting to climate change. For the most part, the interviews were conducted in the characters' native language - Spanish and Swahili and I have also opted out of dubbing to keep the characters as raw as possible and make the viewer see things from their point of view.  Photo Credit: Hedvika Michnova Q: What impact do you hope this film/program will have? Hedvika: I have always hoped for this film to have a wide audience. It doesn't reach only people interested in environmental films but everyone who drinks coffee. I wanted to draw the viewer in with the thought of their daily cup of coffee in jeopardy but when watching the film to make them see all that is connected to it e.g. livelihoods of farmers and biodiversity. I am hoping that after watching the film everyone will think about what coffee they're drinking every morning, what goes into the process of making it and hopefully, switch towards brands whose coffee is protecting the environment and farmers who grow it.  Photo Courtesy of Soul of the Ocean Q: What inspired this story? Howard: This film was inspired by a lifelong love of marine wilderness and a fascination with marine animals behavior. Q: Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film/program? During the ten years spent gathering footage for this film, the environment changed dramatically. Some animals that were included in unfinished sequences completely disappeared. Q: What did you learn from your experience making this film/program? I learned that the concept of mutualism (symbiosis) can be extended to the relationship between marine animals and diving ecotourists. In many places, the only reason populations of some animals survive is because they are valued by sport divers. The economies of some island communities entirely depend upon the business brought by sport divers.  Photo Courtesy of Soul of the Ocean Q: How do you approach storytelling? Promoting conservation is, of course, an extremely important goal of wildlife filmmakers. But there are many ways films can do that. We prefer to make films that depict the beauty of an environment thus creating an increased sense of value for audiences who will, then, be more inclined to act when they learn of specific threats to these wildlife ecosystems. Making paying audiences feel bad about human impact upon ecosystems can be counterproductive. Q: What impact do you hope this film/program will have? I hope this film makes people fall in love with marine creatures and ecosystems. We also hope the film helps demonstrate that the presence of sport divers is a valuable force for the protection of these systems. Q: Did the film team use any unusual techniques or unique imaging technology? Rebreathers were used by our crew to capture many of the animal behavior sequences and allowed our crew to spend hours at a time underwater with subjects. We also captured footage in the highest resolution possible at the time. At the beginning of production, we used 4K cameras. By the end of production, we were capturing in 8K.  Photo Courtesy of Soul of the Ocean Q: What is your favorite shot and why?
My favorite shot is of a blue whale feeding underwater. I’ve had two opportunities to film this behavior during the last 30 years. The first was in 1989 which I captured it on 16mm film. I had to wait until 2015 for a second opportunity, which I captured in 5K. Q: What were some of the specific editing challenges you had to address? Color grading underwater images can be extremely challenging. In some cases, getting a good color balance was just impossible. Q: What were the biggest influences on how you approached writing this project? I wrote the first draft of the narration in the same style I have used in many of my earlier films. Our editor/writer, Mark Fletcher, suggested we try something different and wrote a narration that is much less pedantic and quite lyrical. Moving to this style of writing while still maintaining accurate information about the subjects was a challenge, but also seemed more effective for a feature film audience who may be less often exposed to natural history films.  Photo Courtesy of Fukushima Monologue Q: What inspired this story?
The story goes back to the autumn of 2011 (about six months after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami and the resulting accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station). I was helping a colleague with a program, and I had an opportunity to interview ten-odd people who had been forced to evacuate because of the Fukushima nuclear accident. I asked them about the circumstances in which they were now living and how they were feeling. At the end of the interviews, a lot of them said something that really struck me: They asked me not to forget about them. And that made me determined to keep making programs about Fukushima. Only about six months had passed since the disaster, but these evacuees were already afraid that the hardships of people in Fukushima would soon be forgotten. And just as they had feared, many Japanese people did indeed forget about Fukushima and the disaster area as time passed. But how could I inform people about Fukushima in a way that would change that reality? I was at a loss. Then one day, a small online article about a man who had stayed by himself to look after the animals in a completely evacuated town captured my interest. This man gave me a sense that he was standing alone against the huge tide of obliviousness. I wondered if I could achieve something by showing people how this man had stayed in his hometown with the abandoned animals. This man’s name was Matsumura Naoto. I got his mobile number from the town hall. I felt a bit nervous as I tapped out the number to give him a call. After a few rings, I heard a deep voice. That was the beginning of this story. Q: What impact do you hope this film/program will have? More than ten years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. But not even one tenth of the people who lived in Matsumura’s town have returned. Meanwhile, reconstruction is in full swing. The things that hold memories of life in the town, the fields that once produced delicious food, and even the joys and sorrows of the people who once lived in the area are all being buried under concrete. That may be necessary as part of the government’s plans for reconstruction in the region hit by the disaster. But many of the people who were driven away by the tsunami and nuclear accident now feel as though they’re losing their hometown all over again. Matsumura is definitely not leaving. His choice to stay by himself felt to us like a protest against the reconstruction that’s going ahead with no regard for the town’s memories or history. As we watched Matsumura tilling the fields with uncertain hands and striving to grow vegetables, he seemed to be communicating something. He seemed to be saying: This is the land where my community has always lived. I’m still alive here. This place I call home has not lost its power to nurture life. It’s my sincere hope that “Fukushima Monologue” will be a kind of bridge towards empathy. I hope it will lead you to imagine the pain and sadness of someone who has lost something precious. I hope this program will touch your heart. Q: What next? Anything else you would like people to know? We’ve started shooting a program about Matsumura’s rice fields. This spring, Matsumura started cultivating a huge area of abandoned fields by himself. The fields were created by earlier generations who settled in the area 150 years ago. They produced delicious rice. Matsumura aims to resuscitate them by himself. They fit the classic image of a Japanese farming image—with freshly sown rice in the spring, green rice plants swaying in the breeze in summer, and golden ears of rice catching the wind in autumn. Matsumura has a simple dream of resuscitating the rice fields that disappeared after the nuclear accident, making rice balls from his own newly harvested rice, and savoring them with other people from his community. But resuscitating rice fields that had fallen into ruin after being abandoned for 10 years is fraught with challenges he hadn’t imagined. Weeds had put down deep roots. The irrigation channels that were created to keep the fields alive had been buried under earth and sand and the debris from landslides. Fresh earth that was brought as part of decontamination efforts is full of big stones. And growing rice that’s safe to eat requires ongoing measurement of the radiation in the soil and water. But Matsumura is not giving up. He intends to overcome each and every hurdle he encounters. The abandoned land has again become fields of gently swaying green rice plants. Frogs, dragonflies, and other little creatures have returned and are playing a symphony of life for the first time in 10 years. I hope to create a program that highlights the resilience of people and the land through a depiction of life in Matsumura’s rice fields during the passage of the seasons.  What did you learn from your experience making this film/program?
Watching wildlife is about the most mindful thing you can do. Sat alone on an Antarctic coastline. There’s no one else for hundreds of miles and no sign of humanity. You’re just watching and listening. Watching the penguins and waiting. Waiting for them to do something. Waiting to film. People ask if it’s challenging or if you need extreme patience, but there’s nothing challenging about it. It doesn’t matter that it’s cold or windy or that it’s icy. I just found it really fascinating to sit from first light at 5am ‘til last light at 9pm, to watch and observe and then to capture a moment and turn it into engaging images to create an inspiring story – that’s about as good as it gets. What impact do you hope this film/program will have? What I really love is the idea that audiences will come and enjoy the film. I want them to feel happy, inspired, and awestruck. BUT I also want people to feel hopeful and uplifted about what can still be done to reverse climate change and biodiversity loss. I also want the audience to take away the profound thought that actually what happens here in Antarctica is really critical for all of us and it’s worth fighting for. Were there any surprising or meaningful moments/experiences you want to share? For one sequence, we were working with some Argentinian scientists and the Argentinian navy who were the most hospitable, friendly people. They fed us every day, they housed us and some nights they danced with us – we were all in our full Antarctic gear wearing huge boots and overalls dancing the tango at the end of the earth. That was a wonderful memory. And of course, the memory of the gorgeous penguins. When the chicks grow up and shed all their fluffy feathers, their parents have left and the young ones then all walk down to the sea to take their first swim. They’re sat next to you waiting to plunge into the icy ocean. During those moments, some of them fall asleep just a couple of meters away – they’re so trusting. That’s a really sweet moment and it makes it all the more heart breaking and nerve wracking when they do finally jump into the sea, and you watch them try to evade the jaws of a massive leopard seal. Did the film team use any unusual techniques or unique imaging technology? We took drones to Antarctica. They allowed us to film behavior that you wouldn’t normally see. We also filmed deep under the ice with timelapse cameras to give a perspective of a rarely seen world. What is your favorite shot and why? There was one incredible animal moment where I suddenly thought, ‘OK, that’s in the film’: A penguin was being chased through the sea by a leopard seal and managed to just escape by leaping out of the water and onto an iceberg. The leopard seal then jumped out of the water too and up onto the iceberg right next to the penguin. The seal began inching closer to the poor little penguin that was just exhausted. And this was happening right in front of us! We were filming the action from drone, from the land and from the water. The leopard seal has its jaws wide open, and the penguin leant forward and tried to peck this huge predator to get it away. Imagine a 30-centimeter-high penguin and a three-meter-long leopard seal – it’s completely David and Goliath! It was so brave and what happened next? Well, I won’t spoil it, you’ll have to see the film. What do you feel is most important to remember when conveying information via film? Not many people get the chance to go to Antarctica, so our goal is to connect to that continent. It’s wild, it’s extraordinary, it’s spectacular. And I hope it’s entertaining and engaging in that respect. But the key thing, especially considering lots of children are going to be watching this film, is to inspire them with hope. The idea that there really are solutions to climate change, to the struggles the natural world is facing, and even in places really far away that you wouldn’t have considered, there are things happening that give us a lot of hope. And that’s what I want people to leave the theater with, feeling like there’s something that can be done. That Antarctica, a frozen continent that’s miles away, is something worth protecting. Something we can still protect.  Q: What inspired this story?
Yaz: I created Wake Up & Smell the Flowers to celebrate European Ground Squirrels, an absolutely adorable species! I moved to Vienna in September last year, which meant the ground squirrels were already in hibernation. So making this film was actually my first time experiencing these beautiful animals! I was inspired to create this film from some gorgeous photographs of the ground squirrels and flowers I had seen. I thought what could better represent Spring than adorable ground squirrels embarking on a frantic flower feast! That is something everyone just has to see! Q: Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film/program? Yaz: I aim to create all my films to have only the smallest carbon impact possible. Thanks to Vienna’s amazing public transport network and with a bit of leg power, this film was created without a single car journey (and also without flights). Carrying gear through a combination of buses, undergrounds and trains, plus a 3.5km hike, allowed me to film the ground squirrels! It was absolutely worth the extra effort, knowing this film was created with such small carbon emissions. Q: What impact do you hope this film/program will have? Yaz: European Ground Squirrels are endangered and threatened. Despite being a protected species, their habitats are still being destroyed and fragmented due to agricultural expansions and building developments. I really hope that this film will raise awareness for this beautiful species and hopefully inspire those who live in the same countries as ground squirrels, to help them. Currently European Ground Squirrels are resident in: Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Moldova, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Turkey. How can you help European Ground Squirrels?
Q: Were there any surprising or meaningful moments/experiences you want to share? Yaz: Although I filmed lots of ground squirrels, I spent most of the time focusing on the couple featured in the film. It was a very beautiful experience as I watched their relationship over time. They paired up almost as soon as the female awoke from hibernation. I then witnessed their interactions and affection with each other grow, as well as the male fending off many, many other males. Once the female was pregnant, they were so focused on preparing for the new arrivals, particularly the female running back and forth constantly to collect nesting material, every single morning as soon as the sun was up. The male ground squirrel is a very curious and friendly little guy, who was often coming to check out me and my camera, jumping into my camera bag when possible and even getting comfy in my fellow camera operator, Jack’s, shoes. Everytime he interacted with us, I just could not stop smiling! It was a beautiful experience witnessing a huge part of these little animals’ lives. I am also very happy to report that a few weeks after filming finished, two adorable babies emerged from the couple’s burrow! Q: What next? Yaz: I am continuing filming and working on stories about Vienna’s wildlife. You would be surprised just how much amazing wildlife there is in this beautiful city! 
 What did you learn from the making of this film? Directors make and shape their films, but it is also true that films make and shape their directors.; They reduce what you take for granted. For me, making Day Zero radically altered my conception of “Earth” for example, and “Nature”. With every location these concepts became more precious, more fragile, more vulnerable. The expression ‘living in harmony with Nature’ took on a new and challenging meaning. And because Day Zero - a global water crisis - is now a near certainty, a catastrophe that will soon affect everyone; and because its impact can be alleviated only if we all pull together in a concerted global effort, the making of the film revealed to me the debt that each of us as individuals owes to humanity as a whole. We can’t turn our backs on this story. How do you approach storytelling? These days, there’s always an apocalypse happening somewhere, but it’s normally happening somewhere else. Global warming, climate change, water crisis, most people may have strong opinions about such things, but they can’t always find them. We thought it was our job to help them. We wanted to make an environmental film for people who do not watch environmental films. We wanted to beat drums. We had a message and we wanted it to be heard. We wanted to give climate change a human face and global crisis a local habitation. Yes, Day Zero is a film about potentially catastrophic shifts in natural weather patterns – but it’s also about your hamburger and fries. Water is the element that links everything to everything else. Just like film editing. So Day Zero would tell the story of the Water Crisis in a way that only film can. It would be a film that could cut from Outer Space to a slum kitchen in a South African township; from the Civil War in Syria to the cattle pens in Kansas; from the vast underground caves of Florida to the heart of the Amazonian Rain Forest. Day Zero was conceived as a rallying cry -an unashamedly demotic, down to earth film about the future of the Planet. It is a beautifully shot film with a terrifying warning, but also a film that finds in our shared humanity a solution - a way to fight back. What impact do you hope this film will have? Modern life on earth, the life we have grown used to, Is unsustainable - there’s not enough nature to go round. Near the end of the film the narrator says: “People used to say that water was Nature’s way of talking to mankind”. We hope that people will start listening. It is common to blame the oil, transportation, and agriculture industries for environmental degradation, but they are not the only ones causing harm. Solely focusing on the most potent players can stop us from looking at other contributors, for example, the entertainment industry.
According to BAFTA, the British film organization, an hour of television in the U.K.produces 13 metric tons of carbon dioxide. A UCLA study found in 2006 California's film and television industry created 8.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and the U.S. film and TV industry created 15 million tons of carbon dioxide. In addition to energy intensive operations, such as air travel, set up operations also have detrimental effects on the environment. For example, props, tech, and people hurt ecologically sensitive areas. Filming 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road damaged places on the African coast, endangering local reptiles and cacti. Despite these statistics being disheartening, they can also inspire change. Here are some steps we can take to remedy the impact: -Shoot locally to help the local economy and reduce flying miles -Feed crew members with sustainable food, which can include organic, plant-based, and meat free meals -Replace plastic bottles with reusable bottles -Have recycling and composting bins on set -Turn off lighting and tech when not in use -Invest in alternative energy for the film set -Hire a Sustainability Officer We have to implement these changes to create a greener future for the film industry. |
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