Well, the crowd funding was a success and the October research/filming trip is a GO!
So happy & grateful that so many folks believe in the cause. I am humbled by the support and am striving to do the best job I can. OK, here's some of what you can look forward to in the near future: First, I'm starting a podcast about Deconstructing Eden (herein referred to as: DE). These will be short (mostly 5 - 10 minutes) audio segments, wherein I will talk about the film, the production, the people behind the scenes, the issues and every once-in-awhile a guest interview. I haven't set it up yet, but the podcast will be free to listen to and you'll be able to share the link or (hopefully) embed it....maybe even download each one. I'll aim to do a new podcast every two weeks. Next, I will also do a occasional VLog (or "video blog"), that will be posted on this website. These, too, will be short (2 - 4 minutes) and will be mostly about the methodology of making both the film and book - simultaneously. There's no set schedule for VLogs...but I will try to do about one per month. I am also coming up with more interactive components for DE. Online seminars, Skype sessions...maybe Reddit. Chiefly, this website: http://deconstructingeden.weebly.com/ and the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/deconstructingedenfilm will be the place to go for updates. Thank you & cheers, - Rick
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Why should you care?
231 billion pounds (105 million tonnes) of fish and other marine animals, including turtles, sharks, squids, are captured and killed worldwide by human beings...annually. This number, which is rounded down and does not include illegal or non-recorded catches, is for both oceanic and inland aquatic animals taken mostly for food. Mostly. That huge – nearly inconceivable – number does not include whaling, farmed fish and hatchery aquaculture, which is more than an additional 160 billion pounds of aquatic species, taken for consumption purposes. That works out to roughly 60 pounds of fish (or other marine life) per each human being in the world, every year. As an additional perspective, we slaughter (in the U.S. alone) around 3 billion non-aquatic animals (cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, ect.) for food annually. A low estimate of global slaughter of non-aquatic farmed animals is more than 80 – 100 billion individuals. As a species, we farm, fish and slaughter far more animals than what it takes to feed the entire world. This does not take grains, fruits, nuts and vegetables into account, which could likely feed every human on the planet – if equally dispersed. Change of ideas for a tic... Let's digress from what we eat. Across the globe we've seen a decrease in productive pollinating insects (primarily bees) by more than one-third since 2005. The loss of bees could actually happen so quickly that certain plants and their products would simply cease to exist – nearly overnight. The Earth is warming. That, too, is a fact. With it are not only rising seas, but melting ice. Glaciers are disappearing, sea ice is melting, snow packs are thinning – and a lot of that “fresh water” is now joining the salinated oceans, becoming woefully undrinkable. At the same time, we are losing safe drinking water supplies in ever-increasing numbers. In fact, right now, 1,400 children die PER DAY worldwide, due entirely to not having access to safe drinking water (and the diseases that come from drinking nonviable water – such as dysentery). 1,400 children....each day. An estimated total of 800 million people around the world live without access to safe water. And the drinking water situation is only going to get worse due to population pressures and a shrinking supply of fresh water. Imagine that we allow for our own species to suffer and die in those huge numbers because we are swaddled in the apathy of affluence. I was once asked (in relation to making a documentary about killer whales); “Why should I care?” The answer is why I front-loaded this blog with verifiable FACTS. These statistics are absolutely meant to punch you in the gut. Solidly, and as much as I might care about you, I truly hope it stings. Because here's my retort to the question of caring – my purpose – for each and every project and film I make: I am trying to save the entire species. You, me, the dude down the street, the woman in Kenya, the child in Seoul... we all face the most monumental task our kind has EVER faced. You should care – you MUST care, or damn your families' families to a bleak and unrecoverable future. We are looking into an abyss of species extinction...and OUR species is on the list. No, I'm not talking an apocalyptic wasteland looming in the next 30 years. I'm talking about an initially slow – but ever increasing in momentum – slide into a more difficult world. A world that will eventually render our species null. It will be a world of “new normality,” that we resign ourselves into believing was just the inevitable march of progress...heck, maybe it had “always” been that way...the future populous won't know for sure, people will simple try to adjust and survive. We lose the black rhino. Ten years later, there's a whole generation of children who have no tangible memories of that species being anymore “alive” than the dodo birds. We see Kemps Ridley sea turtles die-off in 20 years, and only a small segment of the population would be able to tell you when they once filled beaches to nest in the moonlight. We lose species every day. We even lose species we will never know existed. We are losing plants, insects and animals at a pace unseen by this planet since the last mass extinction. So, the films aren't about saving “just” the whales, otters, sea lions, turtles, manatees. The countless articles weren't just filling column space with environmentalism, my book wasn't simply a catalog of pretty animals. They are – all – seeds. Seeds. Something I sow into a mind here, and a mind there. Maybe it takes root, maybe it sparks imaginations, feelings. It does grow – I've seen it. It's exponential and unstoppable – even if it reaches just a handful of people. That, in its essence, IS the Human experience. It's universal. We gathered around the fire in years past and spoke of legends, folklore, spoken histories and eventually we took to drawing images, carving statues, taking photographic pictures and later making films...all to share knowledge. No image, ever taken with purpose, lacks a meaningful story. Even in spite of itself, or the intent of the photographer. Making documentaries is like that, too. I will never know what my films mean to those who watch it. I may never know what those seeds grow into...but I hope. I hope they grow into something beautiful...something that changes the world...something that might save the world. Nothing less – nothing more – simply seeds of hope, scattered among the winds. Preliminary script writing...just doing a "rough draft" outline for the thematic part of the script. This will very likely change - but it's part of the process. An important part of the process.
I'd like to share it with you here: "Shallow, murky water retains the heat of a long summer day. Silently, a lone Southern sea otter drifts languidly on her back, past a muddy bank lined with dry reeds. Red-winged blackbirds stand vigil on the tall stalks, their sharp eyes scanning the sky above for the silhouette of a raptor. Save for the rustling of wind through dry vegetation and the occasional “chirp,” the estuary is quiet. The blackbirds would be the first to sound an alarm in the presence of danger. The otter's eyes are closed, she is relaxed. This is a good area for her. This is a good area for her two-week-old pup, too. Minutes pass as do the marsh lands. Narrow channels of water start to widen. The water is cooler here. Mother Otter need not open her eyes to know that she and her tightly held pup are drifting into more open spaces. It's a confluence of slough, inlet and harbor – an area known to humans as Moss Landing. There's a slight tug against her. The tide is beginning to pull water from the estuary. Mother Otter carefully turns her tail, using it as rudder, to guide the mother/pup vessel of fur and slip into a sheltered pool just off the inland side of the beach. It's the last safe refuge before meeting the depth and turbulent water of Monterey Bay. The pup reacts only slightly, nestling in deeper on his mother's warm chest fur. She is all of his world. They'll join a Raft of 40 other female sea otters, grouping together for security and warmth. With the orange glow of the setting sun, Mother Otter hears the barking of nearly a hundred hauled-out sea lions across the harbor. She knows they, too, are settling in for the night and soon their calls will become sparse. As they near the others, she opens her eyes. Mother Otter has preferences for who she'll stick close to. Finally, she sees an older female – a mother of many pups over many years – and causally guides herself into place alongside the venerable otter. The older one's nose is crisscrossed with scars, the telltale sign of many suitors. Mother Otter looks down at the nuzzled form on her breast. He twitches with dreams, his heartbeat easily felt between them. He is all of her world, too. The sun turns into a dusky disc of fiery orange as it sinks below the horizon. Darkness falls. The ocean's waves are now plainly audible in the stillness. She closes her eyes again. The pair – mother and child – survived another day. Slumber comes as she holds her pup tightly." Cheers, -Rick Very simply, this is a "win-win!" Every short sold helps raise funds for "Deconstructing Eden."
You get a fun, educational shirt and the film project gets a percentage of the sales. Take a look here: http://teespring.com/otterlyadorable The BIG REVEAL:
So, a part of this story is talking about factors that are inhibiting the recovery of California's sea otters. Southern sea otters' population numbers have stalled - growth wise. A part of that is many of the sea otters that die each year are being taking by great white sharks. Adding in this element and somehow filming great whites seemed nearly impossible for me. I am THRILLED to announce - thanks to Great White Adventures (California) - I will be filming great white sharks, near San Fransisco, in October!!!!! They have graciously invited me to go out a few times with them, during the cage diving season in the late fall. The chance of original great white footage is just incredible!!!! NOW, this little fundraiser currently underway has become vitally IMPORTANT. A 2 -3 day stay in San Fransisco, and actually filming footage at that point, was NOT part of my plan....but can easily happen if we meet our goal! (As of today, we're 15% there). To learn more about this integral part of "Deconstructing Eden's" story, please read this article: http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-sea-otter-population-declines-5772806.php Fundraising link for the film is here: http://igg.me/at/NnHgsRy5qlA/x/11158514
This initial fundraising is very critical. This is where the documentary's science, conservation information and narration script will come from.
This is a "small" fundraiser; $2,000, but absolutely needed to do this film! Please, take a look, SHARE the link....give a bit, if you can. Thank you! - Rick W. Moss Landing, April 2014:
Breathing in labored, unsteady breaths, the world in front of me twitched to the left in repeated slants on the horizon. Then it spun. This was going to be bad. Vertigo struck – in mid-step – as I made my way down jagged rocks on the jetty. I fell to my knees and held fast to the thousands of dollars in camera gear in my hands. Protect the gear, was all I could think. I was alone at this point, as my colleague had already made her way out of sight with the underwater camera. I closed my eyes – now, kneeling uncomfortably on a semi-flat rock. Four or five rows of rocks led down to the water's edge. Behind me was another five rows of rocks to climb back over to get to the beach side of the jetty. “Breathe in....” I told myself, knowing that if I were able to calm down enough I might just get stable for a few minutes, and could safely crawl back to the beach. “Breathe out...” I had to concentrate. I had stop panic from creeping in. It's a quirk of physiology that the human body and mind never acclimates to vertigo – no matter how many hundreds of attacks one may have. Menieres Disease. Sounds like it should be something contracted in the darkest jungles, while being bitten by a mosquito. In reality; it's a decidedly cruddy inner-ear disorder that has no singular cause or treatment. For all I know, an ear infection in 2002 started the ball rolling for the diagnosis of menieres disease. No one knows. And, because so very little is known about it's origins, virtually nothing is known of how to treat the affliction. Symptoms include: sudden, severe vertigo attacks, hearing loss, ringing in the ears and loss of equilibrium. So, there I was, in the middle of a humdinger of a vertigo attack, unsteadily trying not to fall down the rocks in front of me – face first. “Just breathe,” I reminded myself. If I were to stabilize myself, it would normally happen after about 10 minutes of having my eyes shut and controlling my breathing. Beyond that mark comes a new problem: nausea. The real problem there is uncontrollable retching that sometimes lasts for hours. That was it. I was going to tumble down the rocks, land in the sea, break camera gear, vomit all over sea life and still not be able to extricate myself to safety. “I'm going to die here....all for otter footage...for a whale movie,” I thought to myself. With the world still spinning, climbing back over the rocks was not a good idea. I could possible lay flatter on the rock I was kneeling on. That way, albeit painfully, I could ride out the attack. I decided to chance it and opened my eyes to give me some visual guidance in sprawling out. That's when I saw them. Four California sea lions, swimming by – at about mid-channel – headed for the ocean. They looked over, all of them, saw me and stopped. I had thought a lot about the sea lions that day. It was actually our second day of filming at Moss Landing. The day before had been in the late afternoon. The lighting was gorgeous. The wildlife abundant. We'd seen more than 30 otters, large groups of sea lions hauled out, some harbor seals and jellyfish about one-third the size of my body. We'd been captivated and enthralled by it all. But what stood out most wasn't the vibrancy of life...it was death. For on the beach near the jetty, we'd come upon body after body of deceased sea lions – in various states of decay. The putrid smell of rotting flesh mixed with the scent of the ocean. The sea lions were dying in mass numbers – from toxic algae – and so frequently that marine stranding volunteers had no resources to remove the carcasses. Domoic acid was a very likely culprit. Built up inside algal blooms, it can be fatal to seals and sea lions. My arms were shaking....my vision blurred and the horizon was still twitching at 45-degree angles every second...but I could see the small group of pinnipeds, who were now looking at me. They swam over to the rocks – and all four leaning in towards me, craning their faces to within five feet of me. I could smell the fishiness of their warm breath. There's no other way to put it; they were concerned about the fat, hairless ape, who was struggling and breathing like Darth Vader on the rocks in their broken world. Maybe the curiosity was whether or not I, too, would end up a putrefying carcass there. As best I could, I locked eyes with them, as each one slowly slipped back into the water. It steeled me enough to clamber back over the rocks, and roll-out onto the sand. Amid terse comments about, “look at the drunk guy,” and “hope he's not driving,” I stumbled back to the rental car with just enough time to vomit in front of a group of tourists. Those snapshots are probably passed around at parties. When I recovered from the attack, it really struck what an amazing moment that was, with the sea lions. They cared, in some way, about me. I knew I would always care about them, too. That was the moment I knew I wanted to tell the story of this place – a place of unrivaled beauty...and unmitigated sorrows. Once again, into the fray...
I'll start with this; this story is critical. Imagine yourself surviving a ship sinking in the mid-ocean. You find yourself alone, with few provisions, in a lifeboat made decades ago. The thing you clutch immediately, and tightly, is the flare gun. The ability to send up a "call for help" is what gives you hope for survival. This - "Deconstructing Eden" - is THAT flare gun for the marine mammals inhabiting Moss Landing and Elkhorn Slough, California. I did not intend to take on this project right now. But, that's the way it goes. In animal conservation and with endangered species, the story chooses you - and it chooses WHEN. The "when" is now. It must be. This story has many moving parts, many issues, but one constant: limited time to act. So, it's time to act. |
Rick Wood
Award-winning filmmaker, Bestselling author and journalist. Archives
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