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The Lexicon of Sustainability: Q & A with Filmmaker Douglas Gayeton
Douglas Gayeton’s The Lexicon of Sustainability is a multiplatform project which uses photo collage, animation, and hand-written typography to explore terms and ideas behind sustainable agriculture. KQED’s Jenny Oh interviewed Gayeton for Bay Area Bites on the inspiration behind the project, the creative visual aspect, and more.
The visuals for “Lexicon” are stunning, particularly the mosaic-like compositions that marry photographs, text, animation and video interview in a truly unique way. How did you develop this unique aesthetic?
The Italian images in my book “SLOW” began as a happy accident. I quickly learned that a single image was not enough. Not only were my images too small, but they also lacked the ability to convey the concept of “time,” of the beginning, middle and end of things. The idea of capturing hundreds of images, at times over long periods of time, then creating mosaics seemed like the only solution.
The decision to overlay these images with text came at about the same time. I wanted to convey what these people said to me as I worked. I wanted to share their insights, their observations. And I also wanted to solve another problem I had with photographs, namely that they often left so much unanswered. I wanted to provide as much information as possible within an image, to create what someone once called a “flat film,” a single image that actually uses time, that tells a story. › Continue reading
Words Are the Building Blocks for New Ideas
ITVS and PBS Food are proud to present three videos from Douglas Gayeton’s The Lexicon of Sustainability multiplatform project, which uses photo collage, animation, and hand-written typography to explore terms and ideas behind sustainable agriculture.
The Lexicon of Sustainability is based on a simple premise: people can’t be expected to live more sustainable lives if they don’t even know the most basic terms and principles that define sustainability.
For the past three years Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton have crisscrossed the USA to learn this new language of sustainability from its foremost practitioners in food and farming. Alice Waters on edible schoolyards. Wes Jackson on reinventing wheat farming. Joel Salatin on embracing the value of saner farming practices. Vandana Shiva on the global imperative of protecting seeds. Paul Stamets on how mushrooms can save the world. Will Allen on Food Security. Temple Grandin on the humane slaughter of animals. Farmer John on the revolutionary idea of community-supported agriculture.
A FUTURESTATES Double Header: Watch Charlie 13 and Gunny
The FUTURESTATES shorts will be streamed live through ITVS’s new social video player starting on Thursday, April 26 at 5PM PT / 8PM ET with a screening of Charlie 13 followed by Gunny. Filmmakers Michael McMillian (Charlie 13) and Patrick Stettner (Gunny) will be chatting live to discuss their film and take your questions.
About Charlie 13
On the eve of his 13th birthday, will Charlie Tuttle submit to a government-mandated tracking implant, or answer a more dangerous call to adventure?
› Continue reading
Gunny: A FUTURESTATES Online Social Screening
ITVS presents a social screening of FUTURESTATES: Gunny. This event will take place online Thursday, April 26 at 5PM PT / 8PM ET.
Join us for a social screening of FUTURESTATES Episode 3: Gunny with filmmaker Patrick Stettner, who will be taking part in the screening to talk about the film and take your questions live.
Participants can join for free by signing in with Facebook or directly on the site, interacting with other viewers and panelists in real-time, while watching the film. Viewers can comment, ask questions, take polls, and even express their feelings about what they’re watching through a variety of tools on the site. This is an entirely new way of experiencing documentary films and it is inherently social. › Continue reading
Optimistic Daredevils for Social Change
By Kaleigh Gaynor
The filmmakers and stars of the ITVS-funded documentary The Revolutionary Optimists were models for social change at TEDxChange and the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, where they introduced Map Your World, the new transmedia project inspired by the film.
A short piece from the film was created for TEDxChange, an event co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and TED in Berlin on April 5, 2012, where participants were encouraged to apply new perspectives to pre-existing big picture issues. The short, introduced by Melinda Gates, showcased the evolution of Map Your World, a cross-platform project inspired by the documentary.
The Revolutionary Optimists follows “The Daredevils,” a group of youths in one of India’s most notorious squatter’s colonies, who have made a dramatic improvement in the health of their community, a place that cannot even be found on a map of the region. Determined to make a geographic and meaningful map of their colony, the Daredevils have been painstakingly tracking and collecting data around health issues that impact them – water, sanitation, and infectious diseases. In 10 years, they have made dramatic improvements in their area: They’ve turned a trash dump into a soccer field, lobbied for electricity, and decreased diarrhea and malaria rates in their neighborhood. › Continue reading
Gunny Premieres on FUTURESTATES
Directed by Patrick Stettner the film will be available to stream for free at futurestates.tv and simultaneously on pbs.org.
A young female soldier returns home after a traumatic tour of duty, taking a new medication that can selectively erase memories. Learn more about Gunny from filmmaker Patrick Stettner in a recently conducted Skype interview, after the jump.
› Continue reading
Laura Keller – NB Premieres on FUTURESTATES
Directed by Mo Perkins the film will be available to stream for free at futurestates.tv and simultaneously on pbs.org. An online social screening of the short will take place here this Friday, April 13 at 11AM PT / 2PM ET.
With global population at an extreme high, federal fertility lotteries now determine who can and can’t reproduce. When one woman learns that she will be permanently sterilized, her faith in the system is shaken. Learn more about Laura Keller – NB from filmmaker Mo Perkins in a recently conducted Skype interview, after the jump.
› Continue reading
Futurestates Transmedia Project Featured in Mashable
Transmedia producer Lance Weiler’s Futurestates project, Wish for the Future, is the second part of a trilogy entitled Reboot Stories, an experiential learning project designed to empower the imaginations of disenfranchised students.
Reboot Stories is pushing the boundaries of traditional learning by incorporating technology and multimedia into classrooms that otherwise would lack the resources to do so. Where Robot Heart Stories, the first project in the trilogy, focused on innovating and imagining outer space, Wish for the Future takes a more grounded and personal turn. Through the project’s API, anyone can make a wish for something they’d like to see happen. Wishes are then granted through a creative act such as writing a story or singing a song. Weiler says that the project, when prototyped, helped kids act in a meaningful leadership role with adults. › Continue reading
Advantageous: A Future Friday Premiere
ITVS presents a social screening of FUTURESTATES: Advantageous. This event will take place online Friday, April 6 at 11AM PT / 2PM ET.
Join us for a social screening of FUTURESTATES Episode 1: Advantageous with filmmaker Jennifer Phang, who will be taking part in the screening to talk about the film and take your questions live.
Participants can join for free by signing in with Facebook or directly on the site, interacting with other viewers and panelists in real-time, while watching the film. Viewers can comment, ask questions, take polls, and even express their feelings about what they’re watching through a variety of tools on the site. This is an entirely new way of experiencing documentary films and it is inherently social. › Continue reading
Season 3 of FUTURESTATES Underway with Advantageous
Directed by Jennifer Phang the film will be available to stream for free at futurestates.tv and simultaneously on pbs.org. An online social screening of the short will take place here this Friday at 11AM PT / 2PM ET.
The film follows Gwen — a spokesperson for a radical technology allowing people to overcome their natural disadvantages and begin life anew. Learn more about Advantageous from director Jennifer Phang in a recently-conducted Skype interview, after the jump.
› Continue reading
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