Feeling the Pressure!

With less than a week until our deadline, we are definitely feeling the pressure. In class we edited the opening, completed the script, searched for the perfect b-roll and sent the voice-over script to voice-over specialist Barbara Korsen, who has offered to lend her voice for our documentary.  One of our students is a rising expert in music.  He is focusing his efforts on creating the overall musical feel of the film.  We all gathered around the conference table as he shared his mixing skills with the class.

We finished and finalized the script with the guidance of Dr. Luskay and Andrew Revkin.   We officially have a rough cut of the entire documentary! Now it’s just about aesthetics and adding scenic shots to match up with our script. It’s hard to be selective when Belize caused us to bring home hours upon hours of beautiful footage! Long nights of editing, fine-tuning audio, superimposing images and creating graphics are in our future. Right now our main priority is getting this finalized by next week.  This is going to be a GREAT documentary and I know all of us our eager to see the final product.

In anticipation of our finalized project a few of the students are working on putting together the publicity plan. We are developing contact lists of people and organizations that might be interested in our documentary. While researching we came across two interesting interactive articles about mangroves on The American Museum of Natural History website under Science Bulletins. What’s fascinating is the transformation that is underway in preserving mangroves while continuing economic development in many parts of the world that supply shrimp. Our mission is to show how this movement is happening at a micro level, with the help of Linda Thornton.

The first one, Mangroves: Roots of the Sea discusses how mangrove destruction has become a huge environmental concern. The grassroots NGO, Yadfon was created in the early 1980s to restore the mangroves in the farming areas of Thailand. Similar to Linda Thornton’s actions in Belize, this organization works with the local community to ensure that their economic way of life is preserved while making strides toward sustainability. The Yadfon founder Pisit Charnsnoh,was quoted saying, “The forest sustains the people who sustain the forest.”

A follow up article, Mangroves and Shrimp: Finding Balance discusses the research that shows mangroves and shrimp farms CAN coexist. “By building shrimp farms 1 km from the shore, the land can reduce storm damage and support farmers.” Linda Thornton’s farms in Belize are a perfect example of how this relationship remains in balance. With our documentary we want to show the world how sustainable shrimp farming really can be!