Water Awareness...Down the Drain- An Educational Documentary
Water Awareness video history
The making of!
As you may have seen in the video, our intention in creating this Documentary was to not only educate others about “What happens to the water after the drain?”...but ourselves! We had no idea. So, we vowed to find out and quickly the opportunity arose.
We met Mark Westwind in February 2011, at a fundraising event in Berkeley and happily connected with him. He has an incredible history of creating organizations, community gardens, and facilitating many projects. He provided us with an opportunity to work with the Digital Safari Academy at Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, CA. The Academy guides students through a career skill building path, and this one was focused on media production.
Our first meeting at the Academy was great! We met Randy Depew, the teacher and incredibly giving mentor for a group of students we had been partnered with. Winnie Wambui, Qua’Tasia Williams, Brenda Bach, and Nina Tran - “The Girls” as we came to refer to them as - were a great match for us. Their assignment was to provide D.r.e.e.m. Reality with a marketing packet consisting of a printed item (brochure, logo), digital (web design, photos), and finally an educational video. I think the video was all of our favorite part!
From February to May, we worked with “The Girls” on the various projects every Monday. Then on May 18th, we all took a trip to West County Wastewater District in Richmond, CA to interview and tour the facility with Joe Neugebauer. Randy, the ladies’ teacher, was kind enough to drive and chaperone them that day. Joe was wonderful - super friendly and full of great information, where would we be without his openness to explore with us. The girls took a ton of footage around the facility, which is what you will see in the video.
After the incredibly informative tour and interview with Joe, we took the footage and tried to see what we could make of it. There was so much footage and too little time before the end of the semester for the girls. So the Water Awareness video sat dormant from May 2011 until Feb 2012, almost a whole year! A heap of footage that we slowly organized into usable categories.
Finally the time came to re-connect with Jason Raggio, an up and coming film editor that we met in Hawaii on a research project - slash - adventure. He is eager to turn film editing into his full-time career and we are enthusiastic to try and make that happen with DreemTV. We quickly began putting the “Water Awareness...Down the Drain” video together in order to premier it on March 18th for Earth Week on Cabrillo Community College. During that month Jason and I would discuss the script, review drafts, recorded music, expand audios on Jason’s time-off.
Also during that month we evolved the documentary to include “on the street” interviews. We asked people what they thought happened to the water before and after treated, and about cleaning products - as that was the initial motivation and curiosity for the video’s creation. Using Joe’s educational interview and tour, we re-narrated the script and added in extra footage we shot.
The documentary was a hit on campus! Viewers laughed and asked questions, seeming to take in the great information we all learned together. Before launching it on youtube and vimeo it was a true priority to add closed captioning to the video. What a process that is, but we did it. With a heart for the Deaf community and growing support from its members, we are proud to reach out and educate as many people as we can!
So, we’d like to thank each and everyone that co-created this documentary with us - whether it was filming, facilitating, editing, interviewing, educating...you have all been a crucial part in this great first step in launching DreemTV as our educational video venue.
Enjoy the movie!
~Dani
The making of!
As you may have seen in the video, our intention in creating this Documentary was to not only educate others about “What happens to the water after the drain?”...but ourselves! We had no idea. So, we vowed to find out and quickly the opportunity arose.
We met Mark Westwind in February 2011, at a fundraising event in Berkeley and happily connected with him. He has an incredible history of creating organizations, community gardens, and facilitating many projects. He provided us with an opportunity to work with the Digital Safari Academy at Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, CA. The Academy guides students through a career skill building path, and this one was focused on media production.
Our first meeting at the Academy was great! We met Randy Depew, the teacher and incredibly giving mentor for a group of students we had been partnered with. Winnie Wambui, Qua’Tasia Williams, Brenda Bach, and Nina Tran - “The Girls” as we came to refer to them as - were a great match for us. Their assignment was to provide D.r.e.e.m. Reality with a marketing packet consisting of a printed item (brochure, logo), digital (web design, photos), and finally an educational video. I think the video was all of our favorite part!
From February to May, we worked with “The Girls” on the various projects every Monday. Then on May 18th, we all took a trip to West County Wastewater District in Richmond, CA to interview and tour the facility with Joe Neugebauer. Randy, the ladies’ teacher, was kind enough to drive and chaperone them that day. Joe was wonderful - super friendly and full of great information, where would we be without his openness to explore with us. The girls took a ton of footage around the facility, which is what you will see in the video.
After the incredibly informative tour and interview with Joe, we took the footage and tried to see what we could make of it. There was so much footage and too little time before the end of the semester for the girls. So the Water Awareness video sat dormant from May 2011 until Feb 2012, almost a whole year! A heap of footage that we slowly organized into usable categories.
Finally the time came to re-connect with Jason Raggio, an up and coming film editor that we met in Hawaii on a research project - slash - adventure. He is eager to turn film editing into his full-time career and we are enthusiastic to try and make that happen with DreemTV. We quickly began putting the “Water Awareness...Down the Drain” video together in order to premier it on March 18th for Earth Week on Cabrillo Community College. During that month Jason and I would discuss the script, review drafts, recorded music, expand audios on Jason’s time-off.
Also during that month we evolved the documentary to include “on the street” interviews. We asked people what they thought happened to the water before and after treated, and about cleaning products - as that was the initial motivation and curiosity for the video’s creation. Using Joe’s educational interview and tour, we re-narrated the script and added in extra footage we shot.
The documentary was a hit on campus! Viewers laughed and asked questions, seeming to take in the great information we all learned together. Before launching it on youtube and vimeo it was a true priority to add closed captioning to the video. What a process that is, but we did it. With a heart for the Deaf community and growing support from its members, we are proud to reach out and educate as many people as we can!
So, we’d like to thank each and everyone that co-created this documentary with us - whether it was filming, facilitating, editing, interviewing, educating...you have all been a crucial part in this great first step in launching DreemTV as our educational video venue.
Enjoy the movie!
~Dani
Labels: ~Dani, DreemTV, Water Awareness...Down the Drain
posted by D.r.e.e.m. Reality @ 4:32 PM
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