Oceangybe is an initiative that came my way shortly after completing The Immortal Beaver and after meeting Andrew Naysmith who said simply, “I have some friends who are adventurers” or something to that extent (it was many years ago now so forgive my memory)
I got excited about this project because at the time there wasn’t much being said about the Pacific Gyre, and environmental films in general are usually not very exciting. These guys infuse a youthful exuberance into a global topic that would otherwise be quite depressing and seem somewhat hopeless.
Bringing this project to television markets I was met with a similar perspective as the guys received when trying to finance the trip itself: people don’t have much faith in young people’s ability to actually pull something like this off. The television industry itself it also quite ill, and taking this kind of risk is a huge liability for the old guard that is facing bankruptcy on all fronts.
That didn’t discourage us, and I set forth to invest the money I was making on other projects to ensure that production could continue in a better capacity than they guys had been able to accomplish on their own. We hired a Kiwi cameraman to cover their departure from New Zealand, and invested a large amount into hardware such as hard drive storage for the hundreds of hours of footage being collected from documenting the trash on beaches all around the world.
On several occasions logic tried to convince me that I should move on and abandon what could be seen as an idealistic endeavor. It’s hard not to realize how small a drop in the bucket any initiative on this topic is, especially when held up next to highly funded, corporately sponsored projects in a similar tone that have since popped up all over the world. In the end though, what that points more to is the dire need for every effort to be seen through to fruition. Drop by drop, eventually we start to fill that bucket.
David and I proceeded to invest even more time and money as the adventure neared home. We drove to San Diego to cover the journey’s American chapter. I flew myself to Maui and sailed for 3 weeks to film the final leg across the great Pacific Ocean and the arrival home, to Canada. >Here’s my guest blog from the trip<
Then the real work began. Hundreds of hours of material now make up the Oceangybe film, and tackling the edit is a daunting task indeed. Andrew and I continue to contribute labour and time to move the project forward, but in light of paying projects, Oceangybe has always risked being forgotten on the back burner.
In revisiting the material we have, it’s hard not to be inspired by the potential of a project that approaches this complex issue in such an entertaining light. The characters involved are funny, passionate, and determined. This project is not going to let us forget it. It’s demanding to be made.
The worst part of filmmaking is asking for money. It is not something I have been very good at. Now we are faced with this crowd funding initiative which is doing surprisingly well. However, when I look at the list of backers I realize I don’t know any of them. My inside voice wants to scream “Not even $10 for a copy of the film?” but I know that isn’t effective in getting people onside. I can only hope that eventually the project will rise above the multitude of similar requests that flood our online lives. I can only hope that the 10 minutes of time required may materialize in my friends lives and we can hit the home stretch with this project - so close and yet so far.
No comments:
Post a Comment