Production Update 10/2/17
This past week with Dead in the Water has been a busy one. On Wednesday, we were able to go out to rural North Carolina with Patrick Connell, an employee with Cape Fear River Watch. I worked with him through my past internship with CFRW, and he has been a friend to the film ever since we started production on Concentration. With CFRW, he wears many hats, but part of his job is to go out to rural NC counties and survey CAFOs for any spray violations or litter pile violations. So he had lots of ideas for places to take us to find dead boxes and affected streams.
Paige and I went out with him on Wednesday and while getting some farm b-roll, we were stopped by a farmer, which surprisingly hadn't happened to us yet even while filming Concentration.
The farmer drove up to Patrick's truck and asked what we were taking pictures of. Patrick told him it was a research project, which is his usual response when people stop and ask him questions. The farmer then asked us to move on and told us we didn't have permission to be taking pictures. We drove off, and the farmer followed us about twenty minutes out of town.
I'm a very nervous person, and so I did not like this encounter. Patrick brushed it off, laughed, and said he expected this to happen when he agreed to take us out. He told us that people get pretty defensive when they think you might be threatening their livelihood, which I completely understand. I don't blame the farmer for coming to talk to us at all; he has to do what he has to do to feed his family an make a living. He was polite, but made it clear that he wanted us gone.
Thus, I'm glad this encounter happened while Patrick was with us. I would've had no idea how to respond to the farmer when confronted if it had just been me and my all-female crew. Definitely a learning experience and very humbling. It was a not-so-nice reminder that we can never be too careful out in the rural counties.
On Saturday, however, we had a complete turn around from Wednesday. Policy expert and animal welfare activist, Marion Blackburn, traveled all the way from Greenville, NC to be interviewed about policy/laws/regulations (or lack thereof) regarding CAFOs. I was nervous that something would go wrong because she was traveling two hours for this interview, but she was so sweet to us. She prioritized the film above all else, making sure we had the shot and the sound we wanted. She treated us like filmmakers rather than film students, which is rare and makes me feel so much better about my job. Aside from that, she also had incredible things to say about so many topics surrounding policy. After the interview, we were able to take her to lunch with Kickstarter money, and she was so grateful. She was much older than us, but it felt like we were all old friends because she talked to us about everything. When she left, she insisted we all get a picture together.
So it was quite a production week, but it feels good to keep the momentum going and to keep learning from both good and not-so-good experiences.
Paige and I went out with him on Wednesday and while getting some farm b-roll, we were stopped by a farmer, which surprisingly hadn't happened to us yet even while filming Concentration.
The farmer drove up to Patrick's truck and asked what we were taking pictures of. Patrick told him it was a research project, which is his usual response when people stop and ask him questions. The farmer then asked us to move on and told us we didn't have permission to be taking pictures. We drove off, and the farmer followed us about twenty minutes out of town.
I'm a very nervous person, and so I did not like this encounter. Patrick brushed it off, laughed, and said he expected this to happen when he agreed to take us out. He told us that people get pretty defensive when they think you might be threatening their livelihood, which I completely understand. I don't blame the farmer for coming to talk to us at all; he has to do what he has to do to feed his family an make a living. He was polite, but made it clear that he wanted us gone.
Thus, I'm glad this encounter happened while Patrick was with us. I would've had no idea how to respond to the farmer when confronted if it had just been me and my all-female crew. Definitely a learning experience and very humbling. It was a not-so-nice reminder that we can never be too careful out in the rural counties.
On Saturday, however, we had a complete turn around from Wednesday. Policy expert and animal welfare activist, Marion Blackburn, traveled all the way from Greenville, NC to be interviewed about policy/laws/regulations (or lack thereof) regarding CAFOs. I was nervous that something would go wrong because she was traveling two hours for this interview, but she was so sweet to us. She prioritized the film above all else, making sure we had the shot and the sound we wanted. She treated us like filmmakers rather than film students, which is rare and makes me feel so much better about my job. Aside from that, she also had incredible things to say about so many topics surrounding policy. After the interview, we were able to take her to lunch with Kickstarter money, and she was so grateful. She was much older than us, but it felt like we were all old friends because she talked to us about everything. When she left, she insisted we all get a picture together.
So it was quite a production week, but it feels good to keep the momentum going and to keep learning from both good and not-so-good experiences.
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