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RAVENSWOOD
MEDIA
NEWSLETTER
Issue #6, December 2008
Providing a conduit between science and the public |
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RAVENSWOOD MEDIA'S WEBSITES
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FROG DOCUMENTARY By Sue Crombie
We waded through countless swamps, interviewed lots of scientists and spent many hours editing to produce the documentary Why Frogs Call and Why We Should Listen. And we enjoyed every minute of it. Even those times when we found we were either too late or too early, or too dry, or too hot or too cold…. Despite the challenges, we were able to record twenty species of calling frogs.
Our goal in making the program was to give a media platform to the scientists working on amphibian issues. Our feeling was that the public would be more receptive to the scientists' messages if they were able to see and hear frogs doing what they do best - bleating, croaking and. peeping. We also wanted to reach out to government agencies and policy makers about the threats confronting amphibians. So far, we have scheduled screenings at the Shedd Aquarium, USGS, US Fish and Wildlife Service and the EPA.
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People like frogs and once they're aware of the problems confronting amphibians they'll do what's possible to protect them. With so many environmental crises raging simultaneously, it's difficult to focus on any single issue. It's especially difficult if it concerns an innocuous group of animals like frogs. We hope the documentary will bring attention to an otherwise overlooked group of animals.
DVDs of Why Frogs Call and Why We Should Listen can be ordered at the website; www.midwestfrogs.com
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MUSIC FOR FILM By Suzie Crombie
Growing up in Iran, Bahman Saless spent his free time in the living room listening to his dad play the violin. "I have always been involved in music, as a child I was exposed to music in ways many kids are not. My father would play classical music LP's and teach me about them." Saless says of his music enriched childhood. At 14 Saless moved to England and attended a private school in England.
Bahman excelled in mathematics and majored in Physics at Michigan State. After earning his undergraduate degree, he went on to receive a doctorate
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in theoretical physics from the University of Colorado. Despite the rigors of his studies, he continued to indulge in his love of music. It was a job as a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that brought him to California. Always eager to feed his hunger for music he enrolled at UCLA to study film scoring.
His work at UCLA led to gigs with the major studios as a composer for film trailers. Bahman describes the work "as a lot like painting, the instruments are the palette." The process of coming up with a film score takes 2 to 3 hours. |
"My work in Physics involves very logical thinking, everything has a map. Writing music is a creative process but there's logic to it and a map as well. You have to watch the piece and see what would fit visually. Each scene has its own tempo and, depending on the emotional context, it helps with deciding what instruments to use." The map evolves from the many components that make up a scene. Even the tone of an interviewee's voice can have an impact on the choice of instruments used in a composition.
Bahman first worked with Ravenswood Media in 1995 on a documentary, Understanding Biodiversity, for the Field Museum. David McGowan was blown away at Bahman's composition skills and his adeptness at working in widely different genres. |
They have since developed a strong working relationship and have worked together on several documentaries, most recently "Blue River, Indiana" for the Nature Conservancy and "Caves: Life Beneath the Forest."
Bahman currently works as a professor in physics at The University of Colorado and is the Music Director for the Boulder Chamber Orchestra.
View clip from Caves: Life Beneath the Forest
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THE POWER OF MEDIA by Val Beasley
The Envirovet Program in Wildlife and Ecosystem Health was awarded a grant by the Nathan Cummings Foundation with the support and encouragement of Debra Weese-Mayer to produce a video about Envirovet Summer Institute and the veterinarians and veterinary students that it trains. Responding to this need, Ravenswood Media worked with Envirovet to produce a webumentary, a portion of which is now highlighted by the USGS National Wildlife Health Center. Several segments from the webumentary were used in preparing a mini-documentary, entitled Envirovet: Vision for Tomorrow, which is helping the Program's leaders sustain the Summer Institute.
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The documentary was presented at a 2008 Earth Day meeting at the H. John Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment in Washington, DC, which was attended by multiple government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA); and was also presented to the AVMA leadership at their 2008 Annual Convention in New Orleans in July, 2008. Ravenswood Media's documentary helped Envirovet gain deserved recognition and grant support. |
PAW-PAWS By David McGowan
Paul Feldman and I were hiking towards a Nature Conservancy property called Twin Swamps when we caught the whiff of a sweet aroma in the humid air. It drifted so gently in and out of our perception that it seemed more like a memory than an actuality. Neither of us mentioned it until we reached the edge of the cypress swamp and the fragrance was all around us. I blurted out "What is that smell?" Among dead leaves and rotting logs were dozens of green pods.
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They were soft when squeezed and smelled like a cross between cotton candy and bubblegum. I cut one open and saw large dark seeds surrounded by a white, custard-like flesh. Neither of us had ever seen the fruit before. I carved out a spoonful and ate it. It was delicious and like no fruit I had ever eaten. We spent the next 20 minutes searching the soggy shore brushing off and eating the sweet pods.
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Over the course of my career I have been to a lot of exotic places but it never ceases to amaze me how much there is to discover near at hand. The fruit is from the paw-paw tree, indigenous to the south central Eastern US. With the current interest in local produce consumption, I'm surprised nobody has cultivated this incredible fruit. |
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BLUE RIVER, INDIANA By Mike Brockway
After a year of shooting and months of editing, Ravenswood Media has delivered the documentary, "Blue River, Indiana" to The Nature Conservancy. The program highlights the exotic animals of the Hoosier landscape, from giant salamanders to rare Indiana bats. The river, its flora and fauna, and local landowners all tell a story about preserving "the last great places in Indiana". The program will screen at TNC's world headquarters in Arlington, Virginia on December 15th. |
OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME By Steven Spence
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My internship began on a cool summer morning at 5a.m., Dave had told me the day before that we were heading down to Southern Indiana to work on two projects for the Nature Conservancy; Blue River, Indiana and Indiana Bottomlands. I was warned that we would spend a lot of time in knee-deep water.
We had reports before leaving Chicago that the area was flooded on a historical level. South of Indianapolis the fields were completely submerged. The floodwaters stretched for miles on either side of the highway.
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We got to the Blue River in the early afternoon. Fortunately, the flood has already passed through the river. The air was hot and humid but the river was beer cold. The water emerges from springs and caves and never gets much above 65 degrees. We shot everything we came across; fish, turtles, springs, snakes, and thunderstorms. I actually got to shoot the storm myself. Not many interns get to even touch cameras. At night we stayed at The Nature Conservancy’s tractor shed. It was home away from home for the week. Believe it or not, it was very comfortable. |
Alfredo Almonacid, a TNC manager from Chile, was staying in the office. He and Dave drank wine through the evening and swapped stories about the wildlife of Chile and Indiana.
On the last day at the Blue River, we didn’t get to bed until about 11p.m. and left at 2a.m. the next morning. The next stop was the bottomlands of southwest Indiana . We pulled up to a small lake at 5a.m. intending to film birds. The sunrise was amazing and provided for some great shots. We spent the next couple of days wallowing around in cypress swamps looking for birds. At night, we stayed in a roadside motel. Even though it was nice to get into a real bed, I missed the TNC shed. |
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The Wabash River had cut a new channel through the land during the flood. It prevented us from visiting the spots Dave had planned to shoot. We headed back to the Blue River to try our hand one more time at shooting darters underwater. On the last day of the trip we sunk the camera to the bottom of the river and sat on shore while the camera recorded the life in the river’s riffles. We got some really good stuff. Sometimes the simplest method works the best. |
Besides the Nature Conservancy project, Ravenswood Media was finishing up a project about frogs. Dave was looking for a digeradoo for the opening music and had no idea that I had one. After convincing him that I wasn’t joking, I brought mine in and we went to a recording studio to lay down a couple of tracks.
The trip to Chicago to work with Ravenswood Media was fantastic. Working with Dave and Mike was a learning experience that provided a great look at natural history film making. Not many companies let interns do anything other than making coffee and filing papers. This was a great experience and I learned more in one month than a year’s worth of classes.
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| THE PEOPLE WE MEET ALONG THE WAY
Alfredo Almonacid Gomez
Nature Conservancy Land Manager for the Valdivian Coastal Reserve in Chile.
The Valdivian Coastal Reserve is part of an ancient temperate rainforest rising from Chile's southern coastline. This vast stretch of coastal forest is a remnant of millennia past - when it was connected to the forests of New Zealand and Australia. |
Dave, Alfredo and Cassie Hauswald from TNC.
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Among these unique species are two of the planet's longest living tree species. Olivillo trees, which can live up to 400 years, survive in large stands only on the western slopes of this range, and alerce trees, which resemble North American giant sequoias, have life spans of up to 4,000 years. |
These forests also harbor an incredible wealth of wildlife including one of the world's largest woodpeckers; the world's smallest deer; a small tree dwelling marsupial (‘mountain monkey') considered by scientists to be a "living fossil;" at least 58 bird species; and several rare carnivores, such as the southern river otter.
Successful Conservation
The March 22, 2005 inauguration of the Valdivian Coastal Reserve was a major milestone towards preserving this temperate rainforest. Since then, the Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have been managing the Valdivian Coastal Reserve and working closely with neighboring fishing villages and indigenous communities to maintain traditional land uses and encourage compatible local economic development as part of the Reserve's overall conservation strategy.
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Looking Ahead
The Conservancy is currently in the process of seeking and selecting a lead conservation partner to participate in the ongoing protection of the Reserve. Although 147,500 acres of Valdivian Coastal Range are now in protected status, conservation work continues. It is critical to train and employ a sufficient number of park guards to protect more vulnerable areas of the reserve from illegal poaching of alerce and other valuable trees. There is also planning for native reforestation of 13,000 acres of the reserve that were clear-cut by the former forestry company or currently harbor non-native eucalyptus trees.
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RAVENSWOOD MEDIA'S CALENDAR
December 12, 2008 - Anticipated release of "Bottomlands, Indiana" A mini documentary about southwest Indiana for the Nature Conservancy.
December 15, 2008 - Screening of "Blue River, Indiana" at the Nature Conservancy's World Office in Arlington, Virginia.
December 16, 2008 - Screening of "Why Frogs Call and Why We Should Listen" at the US Fish and Wildlife headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
December 17, 2008 - Screening of "Why Frogs Call and Why We Should Listen" at the USGS offices in Reston, Virginia.
January 12, 2009 - Screening of "Why Frogs Call and Why We Should Listen" at the Region 5 EPA office in Chicago. |
WHAT INTERNS, PAST AND PRESENT ARE DOING
Ramiro Figueroa
is back in southern Florida after spending the summer at Ravenswood Media. Ramiro is working on a documentary about a small town along the shores of Lake Okeechobee that has somehow kept its charm and character in one the fastest growing regions in the US.
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Ben Hunt
is editing a documentary about his recent research trip with a group of middle school teachers for the Shedd Aquarium. Ben filmed the teachers as they participated in the activities of a research vessel just off the coast of the Bahamas. He also filmed the teachers back in Chicago as they shared their experience with their students. |
Steven Spence
has returned to Western Kentucky University for his final year of college.
He is shooting a program about the cycle of life in the ephemeral mountain streams of Kentucky.
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Andrew Rosinski, our newest intern, is working on a documentary about the feral cats of Chicago. Andrew has been busy at the Ravenswood office researching film festivals and keeping us up to date on the latest Apple technology. |
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