Dead in the Water Lizzie

For Cucalorus I attended the kick off 10x10 party, Rebels on Pointe, Working in Protest, the Barn Door Shorts, and a Connect seminar about sustainable seafood. The two events that I connected with the most were the feature documentary Working in Protest and the sustainable seafood presentation. Working in Protest chronicled protests in the United States from the 1980s all the way until the recent presidential inauguration and womens' march, covering everything from the KKK to Occupy Wall Street. Seeing observational footage of these protests collected over thirty years was chilling and maddening, but also inspiring in many different ways. From a filmmaker standpoint, it gave me an example of a completely off the wall and out of the box way to make a documentary, which is helpful for me because I have a habit of limiting myself to the traditional talking head and intercut b-roll style. I got a similar feeling when watching Rebels on Pointe, given that it was cinema verite. I als...

This past week with Dead in the Water, we focused on shooting more b-roll and trying our hardest to reel in some of the outgoing contacts we've made. We were able to attend another pig and chicken vigil in Tar Heel, NC, home of the largest slaughterhouse in the world. These vigils are a great place to network with likeminded activists. This vigil compared to the one we attended before the semester started had far fewer people, which made it easier to approach the transport trucks to film the animals going to slaughter. Paige and I were also able to get on the water and film some nature, foliage, wildlife shots. Paige took the time to experiment with the slow motion option on the A7Sii, which worked out great. There are only so many shots of cypress trees that we can use, so the slow motion option gave us the ability to film things like Spanish moss, boxing turtles, and birds in a new and different way that will be more visually interesting than plain tracking shots of the river...

This week we've done mostly contacting and reigning in all of the great contacts we made at the event in Durham. We were fortunate enough to schedule Elsie Herring's interview for November 15th, which is the soonest day she had available. She is definitely a busy activist in this fight, so I feel excited and honored to be in touch with her. We've also been in touch with my old co-workers at Cape Fear River Watch to get a water sampling trip on the books. Kemp Burdette also reached out to me to schedule a flight to get CAFO footage from the air. Both of these are tentatively scheduled for this coming weekend and next week. During off time preparing for these shoots and interviews, we're working on the marketing and distribution assignment. Jocabed has also been working in Photoshop to design a potential poster/postcard image, which is exciting for me to watch the process unfold because I don't know anything about Photoshop. Again, my goal is to film all of ou...

In the past week our momentum has slowed a bit, but we were able to make progress by going to an awesome event in Durham on Thursday (10/19). We went to a panel discussion sponsored by Farm Sanctuary and Indy Week all about exposing factory farming in NC, but more importantly, discussing solutions to the problem. The panel included Elsie Herring, a Duplin County resident who we have been trying to get in touch with since the beginning of the semester. She is a community organizer and has been fighting this issue for decades. She was so friendly and welcoming to us and gave us her contact information to come to her home in Duplin. The panel also included Rick Dove, a senior advisor for the Waterkeeper Alliance and former Neuse Riverkeeper. He spoke about how he watched the health of the Neuse River completely deteriorate before his eyes back when hog production first came to NC in the 1990s. Also, he was one of the first people to think to look at these operations from the air, and ...

Right now with Dead in the Water, we're in a bit of a holding pattern. We are all working on separate tasks so that we can get more interviews and b-roll shoots on the schedule by the end of the week. Currently, we haven't been able to get in touch with two of the primary Duplin County residents we'd like to interview. We've reached out to them via Facebook message and we've asked around to see if anyone in the Cape Fear River Watch community has any other methods of contact for them. No luck so far. However, there is a panel event in Durham on Thursday (10/19) where one of the residents we'd like to interview will be on the panel. Paige and I are working out the travel details so that we can make it to the event and network, film, and hopefully schedule an interview with Elsie Herring. We also contacted NC Farm Families this weekend to inquire about an interview. Fingers crossed they don't turn us down. Along with that, Jocabed and Hannah are helping ...

Thus far with Dead in the Water, the biggest lesson I've been learning is to let go and trust my team to do their jobs. Delegating has always been difficult for me. It doesn't matter what the project is—I like to be in control and know what the outcome will be for even the smallest task. When working on Concentration during FST 302, I felt like I couldn't really delegate at all, not because of the abilities of my crew members, but just because I had never directed a film before. This led to a very difficult production as well as me feeling burnt out, stressed, tired, and tightly wound all semester long. I work on campus at Building a Better Wilmington Campaign, making two-minute documentaries spotlighting local nonprofits, their missions, and their needs. In this, I do everything—direct, shoot, edit, schedule, run interviews, etc. So going from being a one-woman show to having three other people helping me is a strange adjustment. However, my team on Dead in the Water...