Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Ethical climate storytelling: How honest stories move people from fear to action

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Ethical climate storytelling: How honest stories move people from fear to action · How To Protect The Ocean

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  The art of environmental documentary filmmaking is changing because the
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  times are changing and the amount of content that goes out changes by
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  the second, literally by the second.
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  We have gone from documentaries that are take about six months to six years to make
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  to going to mini documentaries or just pieces of content that are documentary
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  style that are about two minutes long.
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  And so we're gonna talk about what that's gonna be like, what that looks
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  like, and how it's made in today's day of huge social media content,
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  content creation, and the environmental movement on today's episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  Let's start the show.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Angelou and Marine biologist and science communicator
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  here to tell you what's happening with the Ocean, how you can speak up for
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  the Ocean, and what you can do to live for better Ocean by taking action.
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  The last few episodes that I've been doing has been focused on a lot of Marine
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  stuff, which is obviously it's about the oceans, but I've been focusing a lot
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  of like methods of measuring sea grass.
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  We've been talking about fisheries, we've been talking about sort
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  of like how fisheries are sampled, how policies are made.
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  We've been talking a lot about how sea grass is measured across the way
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  to make sure they're standardized.
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  Today's gonna be a little different 'cause we're gonna be really talking
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  about how to speak up for the Ocean, how to speak up for climate change.
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  'cause today I have Maya Lilly on the podcast today.
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  She is a climate storyteller strategist and media producer, best
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  known for her work with the years project, a nonprofit media initiative.
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  Focused on reshaping how climate change is communicated to the public.
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  Maya's work centers around one core idea.
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  People engage with climate action when the story connects to their everyday lives.
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  So through the years project, she helps produce accessible, emotionally
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  grounded content that highlights real people, practical solutions,
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  and hopeful pathways forward.
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  The one thing I loved about this episode, we talk about a different way of doing
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  storytelling, even in documentary storytelling, very parallel to how we
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  have moved away or trying to move away from parachute science and getting
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  into collaborative science or even supportive science for local communities.
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  Maya talks about how she helps communities.
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  During the filmmaking process to enable them to take action, but also be able
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  to film the process in the meantime and see people confronted with conflict And
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  then how do they get over that, or how they deal with it in a very interesting
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  situation or a very interesting way.
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  And I just love what she's done.
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  We had a very great conversation, longer than normal, but a wonderful conversation
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  nonetheless, because I think I could have talked to her for about three hours
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  and picked her brain selfishly for me as a communicator and a content creator.
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  But also she's just so engaging and just such an amazing person.
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  It's very easy to talk to her, as you'll see.
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  So here is the interview with Maya Lilly talking about climate communication, how
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  important it is in today's world, and how it's changing, or how it has changed
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  with the way content is being created.
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  Enjoy, and I will talk to you after.
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  Hey Maya, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  Are you ready to talk about climate action and communication?
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  I am ready, Andrew.
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  All right.
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  I'm super excited.
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  This is a lot of fun because Maya, like I, I don't know how, I just
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  discovered you recently through a friend Amy Bullock, who you were on the
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  podcast, uh, before and it was amazing.
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  I listened to it.
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  I got to know you a little bit and, and Amy's like, Andrew, you
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  gotta have her on the podcast.
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  She is phenomenal.
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  What she's doing is amazing for climate action, for just getting people aware
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  about climate and climate science and what we need to do about it.
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  But she also connects people to climate action, which I think is so, so important.
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  So we're gonna get into your story, uh, and, and what you do and how you do it.
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  'cause I'm interested, selfishly, I'm interested as a science
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  communicator myself to be like, how do I connect better?
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  Or how do I just connect with people who may be outside of my audience
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  that want to be aware and I'm just don't know if I'm able to connect
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  with them and how to do that.
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  So I'm super excited for this episode.
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  But before we get into everything like that, Maya, why don't you just
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  let us know who you are and what you.
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  I am Maya Lilly.
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  That is my real name.
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  And, um, I am a film and TV producer that is on staff with the Years Project,
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  which is, we're the TV team that did a, a TV series called Years of Living
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  Dangerously on Showtime and Nat Geo.
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  It was basically the first and, um, kind of only TV show about
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  the climate crisis mm-hmm.
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  That took celebrities and made them like journalistic
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  correspondents around the world.
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  So like Harrison Ford went to Borneo to look at orangutans and
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  palm oil depletion of the forests.
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  Harrison Ford, I mean, um, Matt Damon looked at heat in Los
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  Angeles, that kind of thing.
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  Um mm-hmm.
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  And so with that team, we basically have a few different initiatives that we work on.
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  Um, but most of what I do is frontline bipoc climate communication
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  with original content for all different social media platforms.
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  So important.
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  Let me, let's start from the beginning before we, we, we touch on the
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  years project and what you do now.
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  How did you get involved in, in, in environmental communication,
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  environmental document, documentary making, and just movies in general?
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  Was that always a passion of yours when you were, when you were growing up?
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  I was kind of a, a, a weird kid.
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  Um, I had a very like, kind of unicorn upbringing with Okay.
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  You know, a still married, happily married, interracial family,
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  that they really encouraged me to do critical thinking and they
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  encouraged me to live spherically.
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  Kind of like, okay, I was in the Renaissance or something.
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  So they really encouraged me to like to, to kind of have a, a wide knowledge base.
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  And my mother was a teacher And so I was always in, also in performing art schools.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And so my first love was the art.
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  But I was always kind of studying, like I thought humans were very strange, you
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  know, as I was growing up and as I think teenagers think their parents are strange.
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  Yeah.
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  I kind of thought humans were strange and right.
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  It was like, it was almost like I had a, a 10,000 foot view or like a
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  wide lens on all the time, whereas everybody else felt a little myopic.
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  Where, where, you know, people were kind of like, well this is
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  civilization, this is how it's set up.
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  And I was kind of the kid that was like, well, but why did we choose concrete?
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  Why did we choose right angles?
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  Why do we live in these buildings like this?
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  Like, so I just kind of had one of those, uh, questioning minds.
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  Yeah.
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  Um, And then when I was 15, I discovered that we were depleting the Amazon to
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  make room for cattle for hamburgers.
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  I was like, hold the phone.
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  Say what now?
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  Like, and this was before Google, so I had to kind of like go to the
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  library and research it or talk to people that were experts in the field.
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  And, and I was like, wait, that is not a good idea.
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  So I, I shunned, you know, uh, animal, animal agriculture in general and I
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  started being kind of like an animal rights activist and that didn't work.
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  That basically alienated everybody I knew.
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  Um, So when you, when you did that, when you became an advocate, like,
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  tell me a little bit about that because it's interesting 'cause I
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  think a lend a lot of people turned towards that or start to speak up for
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  that, that alienation happens because you're so passionate about it, right?
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  Totally.
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  Yeah.
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  And I even had a, I had a brief job as a spokesperson for peta,
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  so I would go on camera Okay.
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  And do sound bites for, you know, like for animal rights long time ago.
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  Um, but I think, I think, you know, if you're an animal lover like I am,
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  or like any of the documentarians who do Ocean documentaries, there's
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  an animal focus because non-human species are, are interesting.
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  Like they have compassion, they have, you know, families, they have thought
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  processes And so I think it's easier to talk about an animal than it is to
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  maybe talk about a redwood where you're not exactly sure what kind of language
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  they have, even though we know they do.
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  Right, exactly.
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  Um, And so for me, for me it was let, it was kind.
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  It was, it was more about the system of humans having the right to just
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  take another species on mass and do whatever we wanted with them.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  That was more the issue for me.
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  And then how that tugged on all these other things like taking the
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  Amazon away from indigenous cultures and, and the, you know, it being
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  removed as the lungs of the earth.
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  Like just, you know, fueled by hectare, by hectare.
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  It just felt like, I dunno if we should be doing that.
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  So by the time I got off to college, I went to a theater conservatory.
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  Um, I was really like, I don't think humans know what they're doing.
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  Um, which was.
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  Just in the environment or everywhere, like everything, mostly
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  in the environment and, but yeah, I mean, you could argue everywhere.
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  I mean, we had an Ocean pollution problem.
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  We had a, a deforestation problem.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  We had a GMO problem.
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  People were fighting in the nineties.
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  They were fighting for organics and organic labeling.
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  We had the WTO protests.
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  So it was a really ripe time to be like a budding environmentalist.
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  Right.
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  Um, again, there was no Google, so no Whole Foods.
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  So I was like, I had to be scrappy about it, to be honest.
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  I had to like kind of figure it out.
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  Um, and my parents were my dad's Jamaican.
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  So it's all like cured goat cured chicken.
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  Yes.
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  You know, stoop pea and I, he would, they would just bewildered, you know.
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  Um, but supportive.
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  But supportive.
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  Yeah.
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  Because again, like lives spherically, right?
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  Um, So when I was at Julliard and I was training in Shakespeare, chakov,
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  Denberg, all of these like very, very beautiful, but anthropocentric.
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  Authors that is all about the human condition, it felt
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  even more myopic, you know?
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  Mm-hmm.
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  I was there, I'm like wearing my glasses.
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  I was there and I was like, why if we, I was learning about climate change and
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  I was like, if we are making the planet uninhabitable, uninhabitable, yeah.
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  Romeo and Juliet's great, but who cares?
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  So I actually did a very hard thing.
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  I decided to leave.
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  Wow.
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  I decided to leave my very hard to get into conservatory education, to
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  go do an environmental studies degree, much to the chagrin of my parents.
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  And I was just gonna ask, I was like, how did your parents feel about that?
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  Because, you know, you're, you're at an age where you know,
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  you're making your own decisions.
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  You're, you're living a little bit more independently, and here you are
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  making a very, very, uh, big decision on leaving because of this advocacy
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  thing that's pulling you away.
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  Why learn about.
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  Theater and, and all the, even though it's, it's really important
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  and it was important to you.
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  Yes.
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  This was more important to you at this fact.
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  What was their response to it?
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  I know they're supportive, but that's gotta be a, they must have wanted to
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  have a discussion, let's just say.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  There, there were a few sit downs.
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  I remember, um, a few, like, very convincing because I was also on a full
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  scholarship, uh, a diversity scholarship.
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  Yeah.
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  So it was like, they were really like, what are we doing?
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  But, um, I think, I think what they taught me was, um, they
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  tr they trust my instincts.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And I've always been, I, I always was like a really kind of old soul kind of kid.
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  And so I think they, I think that won out.
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  Yeah.
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  And they trusted that I was lit from within about something.
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  I, I was just kind of out a place beyond which society had reached.
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  Mm. You know, and it felt internally, it felt like I was like a Cassandra
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  that knew that Troy was about to burn and nobody would listen to me.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  It was very, very isolating.
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  So much so that when, in 2019, when I started working for the years project
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  and one of my first shoots was doing the youth climate strikes and Greta
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  Thunberg was sailing to New York.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And I got to film with Greta and like all the kids, I, I actually
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  wept because I was like, this is the community I wanted in the nineties.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  This is the group of people that I wished I had gone to school
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  with, who would've understood me.
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  So my parents were, I felt like they did an okay job about understanding it.
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  'cause I think they, they trusted that I was on a journey.
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  Right.
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  You know, but like all parents, they want you to be financially
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  stable or, or go into something where you're financially stable.
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  Like I'm a, I'm a parent of, Yeah.
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  Of a girl who's in a, a, a young woman, I should say 18-year-old
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  who's in university right now.
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  And then my other daughter's 16.
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  Like, the big thing as a parent, as, as a Marine biologist who knows
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  like Marine biology's not gonna pay like a lot of the bills, you know,
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  that you have, but it's a passion.
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  You also want your kids to be financially stable, do whatever you want, but as long
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  as you can pay your bills, we're happy.
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  You know what I mean?
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  Like, I think that's a, a, a big thing.
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  Um, you know, and, and, and, and especially as like the kid of
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  immigrants, you know, like, yes, my, my father joined the US Army to get his
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  citizenship and he served this country.
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  And I think it's, thank you for sharing, like when you're the kid of an immigrant.
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  Um, I always joke like, immigrants, kids don't go skiing or skydiving
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  because you don't wanna break anything.
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  Like, no.
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  You're like, be happy you're here.
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  Like, yes, you're good.
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  Like, don't break anything.
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  So I, you know, so I think I had like an extra like caution around.
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  Making drastic decisions.
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  But yeah, all, all of that to say, acting is not necessary.
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  There are a lot of actors, so I think that maybe my environmental studies
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  degree might have been a step up.
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  Well, it, it's funny you say that 'cause uh, my, my wife, uh, has is
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  a Chinese has a Chinese background.
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  Her parents were from, one of them was from Taiwan, one
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  of them was from Hong Kong.
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  And they both came over, met here and, and, and, uh, you
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  know, uh, had their life here.
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  But they have a very similar way of thinking, you know, in terms of like
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  job stability and don't do anything too drastic, just stay the course.
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  And of course, especially with, um, like Chinese culture in Taiwanese
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  culture, you, it's very much the next generation and, you know, you want
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  to make sure that everybody's good.
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  But yeah, I totally see it.
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  It's like, just stay the course.
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  You know, do something that's, you know, you'll get paid for
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  and you can pay your bills.
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  You can enjoy your life and have a family and, and that's and be healthy.
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  That's, that's, yeah, the basics.
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  Like just get the basics there.
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  Yeah.
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  You know?
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  Exactly.
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  It's a lot of fun.
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  Yeah.
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  Very interesting.
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  So, so, so you're getting into this advocacy part.
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  Um, and you're having trouble finding that community up because, you know, it's the
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  nineties and, and, and let's be honest, it, it, climate change was being discussed
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  in, in, in, in my, like, I went to university in the, in the late nineties.
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  It was being discussed in, in sort of academic circles.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Not necessarily on the news.
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  And if it was, it was immediately shot down because climate denial was pretty
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  much at its peak by then, and nobody was believing anybody, you know, I had mm-hmm.
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  Conversations with family and friends, and it was just like, no, you know,
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  the economy's more important, you know, it's not gonna affect anything.
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  And meanwhile, like my professors are like, in 20 years we're in trouble.
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  Like, we, we need to go back.
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  You know what I mean?
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  Yeah.
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  And so, yeah.
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  Um, you're trying to find this community, but you're having the struggle to find it.
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  So your next step after Julliard, where do you go?
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  What, what do you do?
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  So, um, to your point about, uh, you know, trying to, the climate
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  denial, I urge everybody to watch, uh, the White House Effect.
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  Yes.
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  Which I think is on Netflix right now.
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  Yes.
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  But it basically uses archival footage and shows the George HW Bush
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  administration just from archival go from We wanna fight the Greenhouse
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  Effect with the White House Effect and how they were fully on board as a
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  Republican party And then the switch that happened and it's absolutely riveting.
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  Crazy.
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  Highly, highly recommend.
• 15:39
  Yeah.
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  Um, and I hope it gets, I hope it gets an Oscar nom.
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  I should check.
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  It just came out right, like not long ago.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Like this within the last year.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Um.
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  So, you know, when I went and did my environmental studies degree,
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  I didn't quite know what the focus was that I was gonna be.
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  So I took an oceanography class, I was taking astronomy, I was taking
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  like, um, environmental ethics and philosophy, and I was really into eco
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  feminism and deep ecology, which I still kind of nerd out about and like
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  widen that happen and change the world.
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  But, um, I realized pretty quickly that I still was a storyteller.
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  Like I still had this whole set of skills that I'd grown up with.
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  Yeah.
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  Um, where I was deeply in love with stories.
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  So I was looking at how do I marry these two kind of disparate fields?
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  And I mistakenly thought when I left, when I got my undergraduate
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  degree in environmental studies, I mistakenly thought that I would just
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  go out and like, get a job with like, I don't know, Greenpeace or three
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  fifty.org as their like documentarian.
• 16:43
  Gotcha.
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  You know?
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  Yeah.
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  And I quickly realized that those roles actually don't really exist.
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  I was about to say, did they have a documentary at the time?
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  No.
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  A lot of environmental orgs, nonprofits, NGOs, they have a comms team.
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  Yes.
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  But usually that's like writing press releases.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  That's like how helping with the website, they are not doing
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  storytelling at a high level.
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  And even now it's still sometimes a struggle to convince orgs that we work
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  with of the need for it, which is mm-hmm.
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  Bewildering to me, Andrew, because stories change culture.
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  Like it is literally the thing that changes, that
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  connects the heart to the mind.
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  You know, I You're preaching to the choir here 'cause Yes, I've been
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  trying to convince, uh, organizations to do podcasts just from a, like
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  what if you have signs that, that you're taking complex information
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  just like document documentaries and you are trying to explain it, you
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  need the time to explain it properly.
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  And podcasts, no matter what people say, there's at least 20 to 30 minutes that
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  people are listening to this episode.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And if you can say that within there, it's great.
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  And compared to a very difficult short form video, which people are doing
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  in, in a really great, great way these days, it's a very difficult thing
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  to get some of those points across unless it's a series of of videos.
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  But yeah.
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  Sorry to go to your point.
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  You're preaching to the choir here.
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  God, and God bless the climate scientists who were speaking out before the world.
• 18:08
  Really?
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  Oh God.
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  And amidst like massive greenwashing from the fossil fuel industry.
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  Oh Yeah.
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  God bless them.
• 18:13
  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  But I will say that I don't know if scientists were the
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  best people to tell this story.
• 18:18
  So agreed.
• 18:20
  Um, and I love some scientists and I love some science.
• 18:23
  Yeah.
• 18:23
  Course.
• 18:23
  So it, it hurts me to say that, but you know, but it's like Yeah.
• 18:27
  Telling people facts and telling, even just looking at like
• 18:30
  the 1.5 degrees Celsius mark.
• 18:33
  Yeah.
• 18:33
  You know, most people are thinking like 82 degrees, 84 degrees.
• 18:36
  So what?
• 18:37
  I'm gonna go garden in my outside.
• 18:39
  It's hot.
• 18:39
  They don't get it.
• 18:40
  Yeah.
• 18:40
  And they don't get it.
• 18:41
  Yep.
• 18:41
  You know, I just had a conversation with Louis, so Joos, who was the
• 18:44
  documentarian that did the cove.
• 18:46
  Okay.
• 18:47
  And I was, we were talking about 1.5 and he was like, forget 1.5.
• 18:50
  Nobody understands that shit.
• 18:51
  Nobody.
• 18:52
  It's true.
• 18:52
  It's same with, same thing with sea level rise.
• 18:55
  If it rises like a centimeter or two centimeters, like who cares?
• 18:57
  That doesn't make any, that doesn't make a difference.
• 18:59
  Like, you don't understand how much, but you say centimeters
• 19:02
  people are like this much.
• 19:03
  No, that's not gonna, that's not gonna matter.
• 19:05
  You're completely right there.
• 19:06
  Yeah.
• 19:07
  Yeah, Yeah.
• 19:07
  Yeah.
• 19:07
  So, so I was like, how can we marry?
• 19:11
  These two, if none of the climate and environmental orgs that I
• 19:15
  thought I was gonna get a job in, have a job or see the value of it.
• 19:19
  Yeah.
• 19:19
  Um, So I, I, I basically packed my stuff and went straight to LA Okay.
• 19:25
  And I was like, where's the megaphone in the world?
• 19:28
  Hollywood Yeah.
• 19:29
  Yeah.
• 19:29
  Let me just go and again, be scrappy and see who I can meet and what I
• 19:33
  can do, and try to, and I didn't know what form it would take, you know?
• 19:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 19:37
  I could, I, I saw maybe like a writer's room position.
• 19:41
  I kind of thought about producing but hadn't really done it, you know?
• 19:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 19:44
  And so I just kind of took a, a leap of faith.
• 19:47
  Um, And then it, you know, Hollywood is a weird, it's a very weird place.
• 19:54
  We've heard, we've, we've heard there is a lot of social ladder climbing.
• 20:01
  And so if you're me, like imagine like a, like an undercover environmental scout
• 20:07
  who is like, okay, how can I hack the narrative of what we're talking about
• 20:11
  so that we, we understand we're about to like bite it as a species, right?
• 20:15
  And we can infiltrate and put these topics, and people were just
• 20:18
  like, we need more tits and ass.
• 20:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:21
  You know, like, mm-hmm.
• 20:22
  What's her rating on IMDB?
• 20:24
  We need her.
• 20:24
  Like, it was just bizarre.
• 20:26
  And I, I have pitched projects in pretty much every room in Hollywood.
• 20:29
  Like, you name it, the streamer.
• 20:31
  I've been in the room, right?
• 20:32
  So I've heard like the craziest comments.
• 20:35
  Like I had one producer who did a bunch of films.
• 20:39
  I won't mention what they are.
• 20:40
  Um, he asked me, so what's the big deal about cli?
• 20:43
  Like he had no climate knowledge right at all.
• 20:46
  Like, yeah.
• 20:47
  Didn't even know that the earth was warming because of greenhouse gases.
• 20:51
  So I had to do like a mini 1 0 1 session.
• 20:53
  I mean, that's started this podcast.
• 20:56
  Luckily I started this podcast.
• 20:57
  Somebody asked me a question, a family member, and I was
• 20:59
  like, how do you not know this?
• 21:01
  Like, I don't understand how you don't, how do you know it?
• 21:04
  Yeah.
• 21:05
  Well, because, and here's, I'm, I'm trying to reframe this when I talk
• 21:10
  about this, it's not just that, you know, scientists maybe weren't
• 21:13
  the best deliverers of the message.
• 21:15
  It's that there was a consistent, a consistent, um, god awful
• 21:23
  denial of the facts mm-hmm.
• 21:26
  By the fossil fuel industry mm-hmm.
• 21:28
  Where they were taking out op-eds.
• 21:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:30
  You know, they were using a very big PR and advertising machine with their
• 21:36
  billions of dollars that they had made on a product that their own scientists had
• 21:39
  proved was, you know, causing like the most crazy ramifications to our earth.
• 21:46
  Yeah.
• 21:47
  So, you know, one of, one of my favorite little stories that I, I don't know
• 21:50
  if I told Amy this on Grounded in Maine podcast, but one of my favorite
• 21:54
  stories that I was just thinking about is there was a little 12-year-old girl
• 21:58
  there won her science fair in 1981.
• 22:01
  And, um, she was in New Jersey.
• 22:03
  Okay.
• 22:03
  And what she did for the science fair is she took two little Washington
• 22:06
  monuments, like little, little miniatures.
• 22:09
  She put thermostats on them.
• 22:11
  She put them in two glass bowls, And then one she left open uncovered, and
• 22:15
  the other, she put a plastic wrap over.
• 22:17
  Okay.
• 22:17
  And she put a heat lamp on both of them.
• 22:20
  And sure enough, the Washington Mon Monument thermostat with the
• 22:24
  plastic wrap over, it was a higher temperature than the uncovered one.
• 22:28
  And, and in 1981, this little 12-year-old just proved the greenhouse gas effect.
• 22:33
  But what's interesting about this story is how did she know about
• 22:37
  the greenhouse gas effect in 1980?
• 22:40
  Flipping one.
• 22:40
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:42
  It's because her father was a man named Henry Shaw, and he was
• 22:46
  the scientist for ExxonMobil.
• 22:49
  Yeah.
• 22:49
  And all of the fossil fuel companies knew since the 1950s.
• 22:53
  They knew since the 1950s.
• 22:55
  And the problem with that, Andrew, that makes me so furious, is we
• 22:59
  lost about 60 years of action.
• 23:02
  Yeah.
• 23:03
  Yeah.
• 23:03
  Because they got ahead of it.
• 23:04
  Figure they got ahead of it.
• 23:06
  They, and they try, they did different tactics.
• 23:08
  It wasn't all denial.
• 23:08
  Like first they were like, we wanna help with the pollution
• 23:11
  that our products are causing.
• 23:13
  Then they shifted to, oh no, it's, it's complete bullshit.
• 23:16
  The science isn't in.
• 23:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:18
  It's, it's not, it's not, not all the scientists are aligned.
• 23:21
  Right.
• 23:22
  And now in like the two thousands and whatnot, they shifted to, oh
• 23:27
  well, um, we are actually going to put money into renewables and we
• 23:31
  are going to help support shifting.
• 23:33
  Which ends up being greenwash.
• 23:35
  'cause it's like 1% of their, their budget or whatever.
• 23:38
  Yeah.
• 23:38
  Yeah.
• 23:39
  Well, I even find too there's, I've seen some.
• 23:41
  Uh, talk in publications from them and what I mean, publications, just
• 23:45
  like white papers and, and, and action and media of like, oh yeah, well
• 23:49
  climate change is here, but there's not much you can do about it, so
• 23:52
  you might as well just go with it.
• 23:54
  And you're just like, what?
• 23:55
  Like you went from denial to Yeah, let's just go with it.
• 23:59
  Like, it's not happening.
• 24:00
  It's not happening.
• 24:00
  No, it's happening.
• 24:01
  We, we kinda lied, we apologized for that.
• 24:03
  We had this whole strategy to make sure you didn't do anything about it.
• 24:06
  Right.
• 24:06
  And now it's like, nah, it's too late.
• 24:08
  There's nothing you can do.
• 24:09
  Like, we're just gonna have to ride this out.
• 24:12
  But also if it is, but if they really believed that they wouldn't be
• 24:15
  infiltrating the, the UNF CCC Cop climate talks the way that they are Oh, Yeah.
• 24:20
  They're infiltrating them to make sure it's like, it's like the tobacco industry
• 24:24
  being at the bedside of the lung cancer patient and advising the doctor on Yeah.
• 24:29
  What they're gonna do for their, their rollout, you know?
• 24:32
  Yeah.
• 24:32
  Their medication treat well, and, and you see it even, uh, you talk about plastic
• 24:35
  pollution, the, you know, obviously it's a petroleum product, so you see
• 24:39
  lobbyists there at the UN treaty for, for the UN plastic treaty negotiations.
• 24:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:43
  And they're k bing those all the time.
• 24:45
  And, and you just sit there and you're just like.
• 24:48
  How are they in everything?
• 24:49
  They're everywhere.
• 24:50
  'cause they got all this money where their lobbyists were outnumbering, the
• 24:53
  scientists and the, and the, the policy makers that were at those meetings.
• 24:56
  And same obviously with cop, as you mentioned, like the oil, uh, the oil and
• 25:00
  gas and, and the climate change agreement.
• 25:02
  They're just everywhere.
• 25:04
  And they're, they're very interesting in the way, they're
• 25:06
  very strategic in the way they go.
• 25:08
  Sometimes you don't even realize it, you know?
• 25:10
  Yeah.
• 25:10
  They had, uh, at one of the cops for the UN treaty, the plastic treaty in
• 25:14
  Ottawa, uh, a uh, somebody from Oceania was on the podcast, Anthony Marta, and
• 25:19
  he was telling me that they had, um, people from other countries come in and
• 25:25
  they paid them to come in and, and stand beside signs saying, no, actually we're
• 25:29
  okay with everything that's happening.
• 25:30
  Like, we need plastic, we need all this.
• 25:33
  And then so they actually went up and asked them the people, they're like,
• 25:36
  Hey, do you, do you really believe this?
• 25:38
  Like, no, actually we're just, we got paid to come to Canada.
• 25:40
  We got paid to do this.
• 25:42
  We're just doing this for the money.
• 25:43
  We don't even know what we're talking.
• 25:44
  Like, they didn't know.
• 25:45
  They didn't understand.
• 25:46
  Like what the, what it was for.
• 25:48
  Yeah.
• 25:48
  They were just taken advantage, unfortunately.
• 25:50
  They were taken advantage of, and this is not to speak, that they weren't
• 25:52
  intelligent or anything like that.
• 25:53
  They were just offered some money, offered an opportunity, and they went.
• 25:57
  And I don't know any of the backgrounds of the people, but you're just kind of
• 25:59
  sitting there, like, these people are sneaky, you know, in terms of Oh Yeah.
• 26:03
  What they're doing.
• 26:04
  Like they are, Yeah, they are pulling like everything, every stop.
• 26:08
  Uh, this is, you know, this is like kind of parallel to fossil fuels, but
• 26:12
  I've done stories about the utilities.
• 26:14
  Yeah.
• 26:15
  And I did a story with journalists in Florida, uh, journalists from a, a
• 26:19
  outfit called Floodlight, which looks at the people that are stopping climate
• 26:22
  progress, really great news outlet.
• 26:25
  Um, and they were telling the story about Florida power and light and how Florida
• 26:28
  power and Light ran a ghost candidate to pull votes away from the liberal
• 26:35
  candidate who wanted solar, who was, who was promoting solar in the Sunshine State.
• 26:42
  And so that candidate lost because they had a ghost candidate and they
• 26:45
  had hired a PR firm called Matrix, who was literally having journalists
• 26:51
  like followed and like their photos.
• 26:54
  So all this treasure trove of information came out in the investigation.
• 26:57
  And you could see the photos of the journalists like walking his dog.
• 27:01
  And they're, and the journalists were like, what are they gonna do?
• 27:04
  Are they gonna take us out like hitman?
• 27:06
  You know, so the util for, for me, utilities are no different
• 27:10
  than fossil fuels, you know?
• 27:11
  Yeah.
• 27:12
  So whatever you're getting your energy from Yeah.
• 27:14
  It's the same kind of battle.
• 27:15
  You know, it's the same kind of battle.
• 27:16
  Yeah.
• 27:16
  They want position, right?
• 27:18
  That's all they want.
• 27:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:19
  For government favor, and they want position and they're willing to do
• 27:21
  anything, and they use the law to do it.
• 27:23
  I mean, we've seen it with, with Monsanto, uh, in terms of their GMO seeds and
• 27:28
  how they were, they were basically blackmailing, um, uh, farmers who didn't
• 27:32
  want their seeds, but because wind brought it onto their system, like onto their
• 27:35
  farm, they're like, Hey, by the way, you owe us money for taking our seeds.
• 27:38
  Unbelievable how they got.
• 27:39
  And then they ended up getting human rights before their corporation,
• 27:42
  which is, which is crazy.
• 27:43
  I mean, but here's the thing with all of this type of, um, misinformation
• 27:51
  systems that we're, that you're battling, and especially from the, you
• 27:54
  know, from the start of your filmmaking career trying to figure out what to do.
• 27:59
  And this might be a bigger question than, than I, I'm not sure if, uh,
• 28:03
  like we have the time for, to, to, to answer, but how has has your, um, process
• 28:11
  skills and abilities evolved over this time from like going like, you know,
• 28:16
  back when you were in, in high school, understanding what, like learning
• 28:20
  everything that's happening, getting educated through university, getting your
• 28:24
  degree, this, doing the storytelling, going to Hollywood and like to now where
• 28:29
  you're working with the years project.
• 28:31
  How has that storytelling evolved from like, when you
• 28:36
  first started compared to now?
• 28:38
  I think, I mean, this is a answer, I could answer many different ways, right?
• 28:41
  But I think the, the hitting the nail on the head would be, um, I think when
• 28:46
  I first went to Hollywood, I, I, it was kind of the same thing that I did when I
• 28:50
  was an animal rights activist, which is.
• 28:53
  If I just tell people they'll change.
• 28:55
  So I was appealing to the ethics and morality of the people in the room.
• 28:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:59
  Like we have this giant problem, giant pro, the biggest problem of all time,
• 29:05
  which is a livable, habitable planet.
• 29:08
  Yeah.
• 29:08
  That is, it's going to be taken out by rising temperatures.
• 29:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:12
  And we might have all of the ice melting And then creating at least 200 feet
• 29:17
  of sea level rise if that happens.
• 29:18
  You know, and, uh, Hollywood is a business.
• 29:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:23
  Hollywood is, is a business.
• 29:25
  And what that means is, the biggest thing I was confronted with was people
• 29:30
  don't wanna tell people what to do because then they think they won't watch.
• 29:34
  Right.
• 29:34
  Who wants to watch something where they're being told what to do?
• 29:37
  Hit on the head.
• 29:38
  This is the entertainment industry.
• 29:40
  And also quietly, they do have some involvement in taking money
• 29:44
  from fossil fuels, you know?
• 29:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:45
  And there's product placement of fossil fuels.
• 29:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:47
  So, so, so what saved me in starting to work at a higher level was, oh,
• 29:55
  but the, one of the tenets of good storytelling is somebody confronting
• 30:01
  a problem and having to overcome it.
• 30:04
  That is what a good story is in the Western tradition, you know, the hero's
• 30:09
  journey being the classic version, but there are different ways of doing it.
• 30:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:12
  And so people wanna, people wanna watch and wanna listen to
• 30:16
  somebody confronting a problem, and Hollywood is not opposed to that.
• 30:19
  What they were opposed to is doing it for a cause.
• 30:23
  You know, without like any, any due reason.
• 30:26
  So what I quickly discovered was, ooh, I am an activist.
• 30:30
  I come from an activist, activist background, and I know how to
• 30:34
  work with organizers, and they are doing some serious conflict shit.
• 30:38
  Like they are shutting down the MTA on game day for Black Lives Matter.
• 30:43
  You know what I mean?
• 30:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:44
  And getting arrested on mass, they're shutting down like the streets of LA by by
• 30:49
  UCLA to protest the prison incarceration system with undocumented immigrants.
• 30:53
  Like they're doing some high level, you know, conflict.
• 30:57
  That is something that is good storytelling, you know?
• 31:00
  Yeah.
• 31:00
  We wanna watch people with urgency and high stakes and emotional vulnerability
• 31:06
  that have to do something, And then that's how we connect the heart with the facts.
• 31:12
  That's how we grab people in the audience, no matter who they are in
• 31:16
  the audience, even though you can fine tune two specific audiences.
• 31:20
  Right.
• 31:20
  Um, I think that's the biggest thing I learned in my time because, you know, when
• 31:24
  I first moved to la, like one of the first projects I worked on was the US Release
• 31:29
  of The Secret, which was the doc about like manifesting what you want, you know?
• 31:35
  And so the whole community I was around, they were very big on like manifestation.
• 31:39
  It was very kind of spiritual cinema circles.
• 31:41
  Yeah.
• 31:41
  You know, and, and I kept, I was like the squeaky wheel.
• 31:44
  I was like, but what's, what's the pro?
• 31:46
  Like, I wanna see a character that doesn't believe in it.
• 31:49
  Exactly.
• 31:50
  And then sees, And then, you know, And then get something manifested And then
• 31:55
  has to like, overcome it, you know?
• 31:57
  'cause I think that's, I think that's good.
• 31:58
  Storytelling is like, what is the problem?
• 32:00
  What do we do about it?
• 32:02
  Agreed.
• 32:03
  And I think the, uh, what I like to see too, from a story is the,
• 32:06
  the outcome, but almost being like a positive outcome, which is very
• 32:10
  difficult in the environmental world to come out with a positive outcome.
• 32:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:13
  Maybe if you could say like a fictional story where the outcome comes a
• 32:16
  little better, but like in the, in the reality world, when I first started
• 32:19
  communicating, before I did the podcast, I started doing YouTube videos.
• 32:23
  And it was very interesting.
• 32:24
  I was at a, I do, I did CrossFit back then and mm-hmm.
• 32:27
  You know, it's a very community based, some people say it's a bit of a cult,
• 32:30
  but it was very community based.
• 32:31
  Right.
• 32:31
  And we were at dinner and we were talking and the owner of the gym's, like
• 32:34
  Andrew, I watched some of your videos.
• 32:35
  They were really great, but I had to stop watching after a
• 32:37
  while, I'm like, oh, I'm curious.
• 32:38
  Like, no judgment, like, why did you stop watching?
• 32:41
  It was like, it was very doom and gloom.
• 32:43
  Like everything you talked about was making me depressed.
• 32:45
  And I'm like.
• 32:46
  And I was like, oh, interesting.
• 32:47
  I'm like, obviously that's not what I, I wanted to do.
• 32:50
  Um, but I went back and looked at the videos and I looked, I'm
• 32:53
  like, I'm talking a lot about problems facing the Ocean, right?
• 32:57
  But I wasn't necessarily doing interviews or doing some solo episodes where I was
• 33:01
  talking about some of the solutions that we found, or in practice, some of those
• 33:05
  solutions being put into practice in local communities and, and things like that.
• 33:09
  And so I, I, I did change, you know, in looking at like, let's start, like, I'm
• 33:13
  not gonna be able to say it every time.
• 33:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:16
  But I am gonna be able to say it a lot of the times and, and have the people
• 33:18
  on who are doing some great things and working with communities and trying
• 33:21
  to get, you know, better fisheries, better, you know, understand climate
• 33:25
  change and how it's being affected and sharing data and all this kind of
• 33:28
  stuff, and trying to introduce people to that and the people working in that.
• 33:32
  And I felt like it got a lot better received not from that,
• 33:35
  that, that person, because I never asked her again after that.
• 33:38
  But I was like, oh, okay.
• 33:39
  So there are like, you know, people don't want always the doom and gloom, but I, I
• 33:44
  see what you mean by like a, a. Having a problem come to them or being confronted
• 33:49
  with the problem And then having to overcome it and what happens to it.
• 33:52
  Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not so good.
• 33:54
  Right.
• 33:55
  With, with overcoming that problem.
• 33:56
  Yeah.
• 33:56
  And it can still, it can still be a hero's journey.
• 33:58
  It's never, you know, the story arc that people, humans love story arcs.
• 34:02
  Right.
• 34:03
  And the story arc is never just, it's all bad, it's all bad.
• 34:06
  Orcs, you know, ring a fire, blah, blah, blah.
• 34:09
  Yeah.
• 34:09
  You know, there, there are good points in the Shire and there are sad points,
• 34:13
  you know, I don't know why I keep doing.
• 34:15
  Um, but you know, like it's a, it's a journey and sometimes you
• 34:19
  have to have the, the offset, you have to have the comparison
• 34:23
  to make the bad feel really bad.
• 34:26
  Right.
• 34:26
  You know?
• 34:27
  Yeah.
• 34:27
  Like, I just saw that movie, the Drop, which is about this single mom who
• 34:31
  finally gets a babysitter and goes out with the guy from 19, uh, 23,
• 34:36
  the actor who's really hot right now.
• 34:37
  Yes, yes.
• 34:38
  And they're on like a, they're on like a single date and it's going really well.
• 34:42
  And then she's in some blackmail scheme where somebody starts texting
• 34:46
  her and they threaten to kill her date if she doesn't follow, And
• 34:49
  then they're gonna kill her kid.
• 34:50
  And it's a cute, it's a cute little movie that's very unexpected.
• 34:53
  But if we didn't have that contrast of like, yeah, oh my God, she's
• 34:57
  going out with the guy from 1923.
• 34:58
  He's so hot.
• 34:59
  Oh my goodness, she at this beautiful restaurant.
• 35:02
  None of that would matter, right?
• 35:03
  Yeah.
• 35:04
  A hundred percent Yeah.
• 35:05
  Yeah.
• 35:06
  No, for sure, for sure.
• 35:08
  But that's, that's really interesting.
• 35:10
  Now with the years project, um, this is a very interesting, you know, as
• 35:14
  you mentioned before, it was, uh, there were a lot of celebrities that
• 35:17
  were, it was almost celebrity driven and, and very like celebrities that
• 35:21
  were, have been traditionally very, um, conscious and environmental
• 35:26
  and social issues in the past.
• 35:28
  Right.
• 35:28
  You mentioned, uh, uh, Matt Damon, uh, you mentioned Harrison Ford.
• 35:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 35:33
  Um, but also people, people who, who are.
• 35:36
  Uh, iconic in ways, been in movies and people want to hear them and
• 35:40
  they're very like, you know, I think Matt Damon has probably the more, not
• 35:44
  necessarily controversial, but he is lovable and, but also very passionate
• 35:48
  about what he feels when he feels, you know, you've seen him do a lot of
• 35:51
  different things and for teachers and, and all that kind of stuff in the past.
• 35:55
  And it's, it's really interesting to have that water and, and, and
• 35:58
  of course now you have, so you had that, that moment where that series
• 36:02
  that came out, huge viewership, you know, on, on great channels.
• 36:07
  How do you continue the momentum afterwards?
• 36:11
  Um, you know, they move on to different projects and, and, and, you know, the
• 36:15
  series eventually ended and now you're moving on with different types of content.
• 36:19
  So is that when you came on, or you came on during the episodes And
• 36:23
  then, And then stayed on came right.
• 36:24
  I came on, I came on right after.
• 36:26
  Um, I really wanted to work with them on the series, but the whole team was based
• 36:29
  in New York and I was in LA so a lot of their producers were New York based.
• 36:33
  Um, but so we, so the celebrity idea is one that's used in Hollywood a lot,
• 36:39
  and it's just for a simple reason.
• 36:41
  You'll have like, you know, you'll have like, uh, why
• 36:45
  can't I think of a single sl?
• 36:46
  You'll have Gisele Bunsen.
• 36:48
  In a chair being the narrator for something, and it might, might have
• 36:51
  other characters, they're mm-hmm.
• 36:53
  They're actually living the thing, but she'll like, narrate
• 36:55
  certain facts and it's just to get people to watch something.
• 36:59
  Yes.
• 36:59
  You know, like celebrities pull attention, you know, as much as I
• 37:02
  hate that fact model, everybody, they just pull attention.
• 37:05
  Yeah.
• 37:05
  Um, we realized that two things, the climate crisis is going at such a, a
• 37:11
  frenetic, urgent pace that even unscripted TV series are take too long to produce.
• 37:20
  Don't even get me started on documentaries.
• 37:22
  And I, you know, I, I was the producer for a documentarian named
• 37:26
  Lauren Greenfield for many years.
• 37:28
  Mm-hmm.
• 37:29
  Um, she did Queen of Versailles about this very rich family that loses everything.
• 37:33
  Um, right in the housing crash, uh, we did Generation Wealth together, which
• 37:38
  was looking at how wealth has shifted our moral compass around the world and.
• 37:43
  I mean the, we're talking three years, four years, six years to make a doc.
• 37:48
  Um, a famous documentarian that I was just talking to has a doc on
• 37:52
  plastics in the body coming out.
• 37:54
  It took him six, I dunno if I wanna watch that, but that's Yeah.
• 37:57
  Oh, Yeah.
• 37:57
  Yeah.
• 37:57
  And he connects it.
• 37:58
  The infertility it, he said it, it, it was taking him six years.
• 38:01
  And I, I almost wanted to beg him, can we please go faster?
• 38:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:07
  Can we please go faster?
• 38:08
  Because, so, so that realization, um, that we don't have, I mean, if we're
• 38:14
  gonna hit the 2030 mark, which we already blew past last year, just for
• 38:18
  one year of the 1.5 degrees, like Right.
• 38:21
  We don't have that kind of time.
• 38:23
  Sure.
• 38:23
  You know, And then also the other thing documentarians will do is they'll, they do
• 38:26
  like a year of development where they'll, they'll fly in and they're kind of trying
• 38:29
  to find characters, but they're not connecting to the, the climate campaigns
• 38:33
  and groups on the ground who already know the lay of the land, who've already
• 38:37
  built relationships, who've already like.
• 38:39
  Worked on this, And so it's like people keep starting from scratch
• 38:44
  rather than let's connect this to a campaign that groups know
• 38:49
  people know what they need locally.
• 38:51
  You know, like when I went to Cancer Alley for the first time in Louisiana,
• 38:55
  you know, I mistakenly asked Sharon Levine the Goldman Prize winner.
• 38:58
  I was like, why don't you leave Yeah.
• 39:01
  Yeah.
• 39:01
  Now that she's like a friend and grandmother, I'm like, oh God, I winced
• 39:05
  when I think about that because Right.
• 39:07
  Her whole thing is, why should I leave?
• 39:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:10
  They need to leave.
• 39:11
  Yeah.
• 39:11
  I've been here for multiple, my family's been here for generations,
• 39:15
  you know, and rightfully so.
• 39:17
  You know, locals know what they need And so documentarians the
• 39:21
  whole, and even news, the whole fly in, fly out, extractive, do like
• 39:25
  all this new research and not have any idea of who you're filming.
• 39:29
  We are really like, we're really ha hacking that, that algorithm.
• 39:33
  Like we, we aren't doing that anymore, so Right.
• 39:35
  We shifted our focus to, if everybody's getting their news from
• 39:38
  social media, let's flood the zone in on social, on social platforms.
• 39:44
  We have just as many viewers as we did for the show, which is crazy Yeah.
• 39:47
  Yeah, right.
• 39:48
  We get like million of views.
• 39:49
  Yeah.
• 39:50
  And we, you know, with, we have an influencer network of high
• 39:53
  level celebs that push out our work that we call the network.
• 39:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:56
  You know, it's 750 million, like Yeah.
• 39:59
  All of their followers, you know, unreal.
• 40:02
  Unreal.
• 40:02
  Which is a crazy amount of people.
• 40:03
  So, so the time, the time it takes, we're trying to shorten that so
• 40:08
  that we can just get these, get this content to the groups faster.
• 40:12
  I'm focusing more on like bipoc and frontline storytelling that we can
• 40:16
  like win the campaigns for the groups.
• 40:18
  So basically like stacking the impact producing.
• 40:21
  That sometimes a production company will do sometimes at the end of
• 40:26
  the shoot, you know, like Right.
• 40:27
  Partic participant was good at having an impact producing arm, right?
• 40:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:32
  Uh, like waiting for Superman, the film about teachers and schools, they,
• 40:37
  they, they partnered with schools around the country to get that doc
• 40:40
  in the school so kids could watch it.
• 40:42
  Right?
• 40:42
  Right.
• 40:42
  And teachers could watch it.
• 40:44
  So that's an example of impact producing.
• 40:45
  What I'm, what we're doing is we're, when we go in for the story,
• 40:49
  we're looking for a good story.
• 40:51
  So it's all the good principles, but it's also what do you guys need?
• 40:55
  What will help you in this moment?
• 40:58
  Um, I'll tell you another story, Andrew.
• 40:59
  So when officials decided to blow up vinyl chloride over the town of
• 41:05
  East Palestinian, Ohio, and nobody will admit who gave the order,
• 41:10
  and you saw that mushroom cloud go up after the train derailed, yes.
• 41:15
  We were some of the first people on the ground there with a, like I had
• 41:18
  my DP who had done the circus for Showtime and who was so fast and
• 41:22
  like psychically connected to me.
• 41:24
  We went in and I said to the community, I was like, what do you need?
• 41:27
  What do you want this story to be?
• 41:28
  They said, we want, we want investigative scientists testing our water because
• 41:33
  they keep saying the plume went one way and we know that it went the other way.
• 41:38
  We want Governor Mike DeWine to get us emergency funds.
• 41:41
  'cause he didn't declare an emergency for a year.
• 41:44
  Took a while even though people were breaking out in
• 41:45
  rashes and all sorts of crate.
• 41:47
  Yeah.
• 41:47
  Gonna the hospital with breathing problems.
• 41:49
  And then they also said, we want vinyl chloride banned.
• 41:52
  We want it put on the list of banned chemicals.
• 41:55
  So with that instructions, those instructions, I.
• 41:59
  Told a good story, found all the great emotionally vulnerable characters.
• 42:03
  Even even had some kids in there, had followed some action.
• 42:06
  So we like followed the activists going to disrupt the capitol to say
• 42:11
  like, our children are getting sick.
• 42:12
  You need to do something.
• 42:14
  Yeah, so they, you know this and we got kicked out by the police
• 42:17
  And then we partnered with Beyond Plastics And then basically use that.
• 42:22
  And we targeted EPA regional and federal officials with the
• 42:25
  dock and we said, here it is.
• 42:28
  This is what's actually happening.
• 42:30
  Maybe the news didn't show you that their water has all this,
• 42:33
  all these chemicals in it.
• 42:34
  You know, here you go.
• 42:35
  Whatcha gonna do it?
• 42:35
  So you to prepare for the story to prepare for the dock.
• 42:40
  You guys had water tested.
• 42:42
  And everything like this while we were filming the dock.
• 42:44
  So you didn't wait for government testing to happen.
• 42:46
  You guys did it as a private sort of entity to be like, okay, well
• 42:49
  you guys want to test the water, give us samples of your water.
• 42:52
  We'll get it from a bunch of different people.
• 42:54
  We'll test it, we'll give you the results as well before the dock goes.
• 42:58
  So they have what they need And then you are able to do it.
• 43:01
  That's really interesting.
• 43:03
  Very, very interesting.
• 43:04
  Luckily like universities were frothing at the bit to get down on the ground there.
• 43:07
  Of course.
• 43:07
  So it was like there was no shortage of investigative.
• 43:10
  Yeah.
• 43:10
  So you had the people to do it.
• 43:11
  Yeah.
• 43:12
  Yeah.
• 43:12
  Awesome.
• 43:13
  So yeah.
• 43:13
  And then because of our targeting of the EPA officials, vinyl chloride was put on
• 43:19
  the list of chemicals to consider banning.
• 43:21
  It's kind of, it's one of my finest moments as a producer.
• 43:24
  'cause I'm, so, I just, and who knows, I actually haven't checked,
• 43:27
  I haven't had the heart to check since the current administration
• 43:30
  of what's happened with that.
• 43:31
  But we succeeded in changing minds because they saw that doc and it
• 43:36
  was, it was what storytelling to, in our opinion, should be four.
• 43:40
  Yeah.
• 43:40
  And then, and last thing I'll say about like this and how we do it differently
• 43:44
  is Hollywood locks up the content.
• 43:46
  You know, if, if you wanted to use the cove, which won the Oscar, about the
• 43:53
  Japanese dolphin killing, if you wanted to use that in your community, good luck.
• 43:57
  Good luck getting the footage.
• 43:59
  Good luck not getting sued.
• 44:00
  If you wanna use it, good luck.
• 44:01
  If you wanna use the footage for fundraising, you know, I'm
• 44:04
  just using that as an example.
• 44:05
  Like Yeah.
• 44:06
  Yeah.
• 44:07
  So we are also trying to get fully funded so we can gift
• 44:11
  this to climate groups to use.
• 44:14
  Right.
• 44:15
  Because everybody needs content.
• 44:17
  That's the biggest thing, right?
• 44:18
  Everybody needs story.
• 44:19
  Everybody Yeah.
• 44:20
  Yeah.
• 44:21
  And good story.
• 44:22
  Like, like you with your nice microphone, you know, not like, you know, not like
• 44:26
  a shotgun mic, but like an actual sound.
• 44:28
  Yeah.
• 44:29
  On set with you, you know, that's getting the good stuff.
• 44:32
  It's, it's, it's, it's so interesting 'cause in my evolution of through
• 44:38
  the podcast is, um, you know, I, you connect with so many people.
• 44:42
  I interview a lot of people over, over my time.
• 44:44
  Uh, we were talking before, I've done over 1800 episodes.
• 44:48
  Many of those have been interviews.
• 44:50
  And so I have a pretty big network of people.
• 44:52
  And, and one of the things we've been working with, especially over
• 44:56
  the past year is I, I've, I've been part of a science communication
• 45:00
  sort of advocacy group, right?
• 45:02
  Where we are online and we're like, okay, we need content creators to talk
• 45:07
  about this, who's ready to do this?
• 45:08
  And people will put out videos and we kind of like, so it's kinda like
• 45:10
  a bit of a network that, that we have that's controlled by No, I like that.
• 45:13
  Um, not controlled, but that's kind of led by, uh, Chris and
• 45:16
  Alex, Christopher Berro, um, and.
• 45:19
  Like, it's amazing.
• 45:20
  It's a lot of fun.
• 45:20
  We've been able to do a lot of things off of it.
• 45:22
  We're always in the know.
• 45:23
  We're sending each other information that we find out.
• 45:26
  And so like one of the things that I've wanted to do is be able to tell
• 45:30
  stories, like bring in different interviews that I've done and clips
• 45:34
  from different interviews and have a narrative that might be a little easier
• 45:37
  to follow instead of having to watch every interview that's like 60 minutes.
• 45:41
  Yeah.
• 45:41
  Still have the interview out there, but put in like a bit of a narrative kind of
• 45:44
  episode, but do it in a fashion that's quick so that I'm not doing, spending six
• 45:49
  months on it, I'm spending a week just taking interviews and being like, okay.
• 45:53
  Clips from the interviews and be like, this is what we need
• 45:55
  to say to get people to comment.
• 45:58
  Right.
• 45:58
  And I think totally.
• 46:00
  I feel like that's where, but I, I really like the fact where you're just like.
• 46:05
  You can do documentaries and help out the communities you're telling the
• 46:08
  stories for by quickening the process of getting stuff done, such as water
• 46:14
  testing, such as whatever that might be.
• 46:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 46:17
  To be able to make sure that, hey, we think something's happening here.
• 46:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 46:20
  Alright, well let's figure that out.
• 46:22
  You know, let's test that.
• 46:23
  Let's use, there's a lot of labs around that will test this stuff like before
• 46:27
  anybody else gets their hands on it.
• 46:29
  And we can do that and do it at a much faster process.
• 46:32
  Um, yeah.
• 46:33
  Here's a question for like, for you, for me, as someone who wants to do
• 46:37
  this and always looking for funding to do this kind of stuff, like who are
• 46:40
  the, like without saying the people, who are the types of people that are
• 46:46
  willing to fund projects like this?
• 46:48
  'cause it has to be fast acting, like when something does come up.
• 46:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 46:51
  It has to be fast acting.
• 46:52
  It has to be something where you're saying, Hey, look, like if you
• 46:55
  guys want to be a part of this, this is what we're gonna say.
• 46:57
  Or I've had con, I've had connection with you in the past, you might
• 47:00
  be interested in this project.
• 47:02
  Like, what are the, are, are they just like.
• 47:04
  Sort of Holly, like typical Hollywood funders for this type of content?
• 47:08
  Or is it like small organizations, small businesses that are like,
• 47:13
  I wanna be a part of this.
• 47:14
  I'm, I'm just curious of like where that funding comes from.
• 47:17
  Yeah.
• 47:17
  Well, well luckily not everybody are the Koch brothers and the
• 47:21
  Heritage Foundation, you know?
• 47:23
  Right, right.
• 47:23
  There are some very good philanthropists in the world.
• 47:26
  Right.
• 47:27
  That are aware of science and the validity of science and believe in
• 47:32
  the climate crisis and wanna Yeah.
• 47:34
  Put their money in that.
• 47:35
  And so there's, there are a lot, we're a nonprofit, there are a lot of private
• 47:39
  foundations that fund us that Gotcha.
• 47:41
  That really want to be talking about this.
• 47:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:44
  Um, you know, a good example is like the Rockefeller kids, like their,
• 47:48
  you know, their family basically created the modern oil industry.
• 47:54
  And That's true.
• 47:54
  They don't believe it at all.
• 47:56
  You know, it's kind of, it's inspirational, you know, it's like
• 47:58
  they're, they're big climate activists and they're working to dismantle that.
• 48:02
  And that's just one of many, many, many, you know, Bloomberg is
• 48:05
  another classic good billionaire.
• 48:07
  If Yeah.
• 48:08
  If you can believe those exist.
• 48:10
  You know, who, who are on the right side of history.
• 48:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 48:14
  And who are actually like giving, who are giving their money.
• 48:17
  Oh.
• 48:18
  With the awareness that a lot of their money came from colonization and.
• 48:24
  Arguably racist practices.
• 48:26
  Yep.
• 48:27
  Um, that, you know, created the current climate catastrophe.
• 48:32
  Absolutely.
• 48:32
  Yeah.
• 48:33
  Yeah.
• 48:34
  They exist is what I'll say.
• 48:36
  Yeah.
• 48:36
  And Hollywood sometimes too, like we're partnered with Adam McKay.
• 48:39
  Um, who did, don't look up and Yep.
• 48:41
  You know, he such a good, he and I, I've never connected with a movie
• 48:45
  more as a scientist than that.
• 48:49
  Meryl Streep as the president.
• 48:50
  I was dying.
• 48:52
  Oh my God.
• 48:52
  Hilarious.
• 48:53
  Hilarious.
• 48:53
  But when people ask me like, why'd you love that movie so much?
• 48:55
  I'm like, I'd live it every single day.
• 48:58
  Like, what do you mean when I talk about climate change and you guys talk about
• 49:02
  football or you talk about something else?
• 49:04
  'cause you don't want to think about it.
• 49:06
  That's what we're talking about.
• 49:07
  This is, this is what we live with every day.
• 49:09
  It's just not an asteroid coming to hit us.
• 49:11
  Yeah.
• 49:11
  It's what we're doing already.
• 49:12
  You know, it's so interesting.
• 49:14
  Yeah.
• 49:14
  I don't know if you ever heard that little story about how the guy who coined
• 49:18
  climate change, he was actually like an ad guy who the fossil fuel industry hired
• 49:22
  to find a term that sounded very mild.
• 49:26
  Oh, interesting.
• 49:26
  Oh, it's just climate.
• 49:27
  It's just clean.
• 49:28
  Everything changes.
• 49:30
  And that same man was living in the Hollywood Hills when it
• 49:33
  caught fire and he had to evacuate his house And then he suddenly.
• 49:38
  A vowed that he was gonna help the climate movement because that same ad exec who
• 49:44
  created that for the right was basically like horrified at what he had done.
• 49:49
  Yeah.
• 49:50
  Can you imagine?
• 49:50
  Like, yeah.
• 49:51
  I, I never knew that story.
• 49:52
  I didn't know that.
• 49:52
  'cause I mean, I knew it was global warming.
• 49:54
  Was was the one that everybody's like, oh my gosh, like the world's warming.
• 49:57
  Like, And then, but they used it eventually to fight against it.
• 50:00
  Be like, well, it's not warming in every place.
• 50:02
  I remember all that kinda stuff.
• 50:03
  And then climate change came, right?
• 50:04
  It was like, no, just, you can refer to it as I always say, you can
• 50:06
  refer to us as whatever you want.
• 50:09
  We're in trouble.
• 50:11
  This shit's hitting the fan.
• 50:12
  We're in trouble.
• 50:13
  We need to, we need to help and we need all help.
• 50:15
  Yes.
• 50:16
  All hands on deck.
• 50:17
  Uh, yes.
• 50:17
  Exactly.
• 50:18
  One of the things that, that is very curious to me about your work,
• 50:23
  uh, your, uh, ability to hit, um.
• 50:27
  Different audiences.
• 50:28
  We talked a little bit about it before.
• 50:30
  You mentioned though, your focus right now, and I don't know if it
• 50:33
  if it was always, but your focus definitely right now is on like,
• 50:36
  sort of like bipoc uh, audiences and really focus on bipoc communities.
• 50:42
  I guess one thing is, is, you know why, And then the other question, the follow
• 50:46
  up is, is how do you, do you focus some of those, some of those content
• 50:50
  pieces or all the content pieces to attract or, you know, hit the, the,
• 50:55
  the heartstrings to, for, for, to get people to really be aware and understand?
• 50:59
  So Um, so I've prioritized working with Bipoc and Frontline, um, organizers
• 51:06
  and activists, um, mostly because I'm so grateful that we have a group
• 51:13
  of, in terms of indigenous, a group of people that already live in right
• 51:17
  relations with the earth and have done so historically for time immemorial.
• 51:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 51:22
  Um, like if we had to start at scratch with our.
• 51:27
  Colonizer extractive, top down humans are the best approach.
• 51:32
  Oh, Yeah.
• 51:32
  Yeah.
• 51:32
  And we didn't have anybody who had any sort of relation to
• 51:35
  oceans and living, oh my gosh.
• 51:37
  Ecosystems.
• 51:38
  I, I would just be so much more upset at life.
• 51:41
  The fact that we have groups and I've had the honor of working with the Anishinaabi,
• 51:45
  the Navajo, the Hopi Thein in Alaska.
• 51:48
  I've worked with indigenous Hawaiians that invited me to the mostly
• 51:52
  indigenous island of Molokai and even took me to their sacred beach.
• 51:56
  Wow.
• 51:56
  But said, stick close by.
• 51:57
  'cause you'll get beat up if you go to the bathroom by yourself.
• 52:01
  I'm like, don't I look Hawaiian enough?
• 52:03
  And they're like, no, you'll get beat up Um, So like, so for me,
• 52:08
  indigenous storytelling gives me hope.
• 52:10
  Gotcha.
• 52:10
  Um.
• 52:12
  Black storytelling is, and frontline storytelling where the people are
• 52:16
  like at the front lines of pollution is a very awful, dirty narrative.
• 52:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 52:20
  Um, I've worked a lot in Cancer Alley.
• 52:22
  I'm working in Houston this year with the petrochem build out there.
• 52:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 52:27
  It's, you know, it's, they've, they've picked historically black
• 52:30
  and brown communities because they think people can't fight back there.
• 52:33
  And then they treat people as disposable with products that they have to dispose of
• 52:38
  somewhere, even though they cause cancer.
• 52:40
  And even though they're lying about the amount of the emissions that
• 52:43
  they're self-reporting to the EPA, they're like, let's put it somewhere.
• 52:47
  Why not put it in, in black and brown neighborhoods?
• 52:50
  And so I think, you know, telling the stories of the people who
• 52:55
  are hit first and hardest mm-hmm.
• 52:57
  And who also may not have.
• 52:59
  The generational wealth to be able to rebound.
• 53:02
  I think that already imbues an urgency into the story.
• 53:05
  Right, right.
• 53:06
  That already ticks one of my boxes as a storyteller of like for sure.
• 53:09
  What are the high stakes?
• 53:10
  What's the urgency?
• 53:11
  I could lose my house if a hurricane hits.
• 53:14
  Yeah.
• 53:14
  You know what I mean?
• 53:14
  Like, I don't have a second or third house to go to.
• 53:18
  Like, this is it, this is the house I inherited that my parents 40 acres
• 53:21
  and a mule freaking inherited, you know, at the hard, hard work and
• 53:25
  hard labor of relatives Um, So, so, but the audiences like audiences is
• 53:31
  a slightly different conversation.
• 53:33
  Like nowadays you can do organic reach with social or you
• 53:36
  could do like targeted reach.
• 53:38
  You can target whoever you want with social media.
• 53:40
  And it's really interesting because you can, you can look at like value systems.
• 53:45
  Um, there's an organization called Harmony Labs that did this really
• 53:48
  good like narrative breakdown of like, who are the climate audiences?
• 53:53
  And it was, it was broken down into value systems.
• 53:56
  So we don't just work with Frontline and Bipoc.
• 53:58
  We did, um, a whole campaign with the Department of Energy where we
• 54:02
  were basically trying to, um, rebrand renewable energy for purple states
• 54:08
  before the election of basically how like power doesn't have to be like
• 54:13
  solar and renewables don't have to be looked at as like pansy, you know?
• 54:18
  Yeah.
• 54:18
  Like that this could be like a distinctly American proud moment that we like,
• 54:23
  kind of what China's doing now.
• 54:25
  Like this could be a moment where it's like, it could be masculine,
• 54:28
  it could be all of the things that appeal to a different value system
• 54:32
  that maybe purple states or red states are more into, you know?
• 54:35
  Mm-hmm.
• 54:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 54:36
  Um, So I think there are ways of like hacking the algorithm if you
• 54:39
  figure out like, okay, well what base are we, are we targeting?
• 54:43
  And then how do we do that?
• 54:44
  And then we also track all of our, like who watches, how long they watch.
• 54:49
  I hate to break it to you, but like most people tap out after 15
• 54:52
  seconds for a lot of videos, so you're lucky if you get, that's why
• 54:55
  you gotta do cold opens, Andrew.
• 54:58
  Yeah.
• 54:58
  The hooks.
• 54:59
  It's the hooks.
• 54:59
  When I, when you were talking about putting together all your
• 55:01
  videos, I kept thinking start in the middle, like in Mattius race Yeah.
• 55:04
  Start with the problem.
• 55:06
  Yeah.
• 55:06
  What's the problem in the interview?
• 55:07
  And then go from there, you know?
• 55:08
  Yeah.
• 55:08
  Like almost a clip, right.
• 55:09
  Of the interview of like the worst part and you're like, all right.
• 55:12
  Or the best part, but the worst, what they're saying.
• 55:14
  Yeah.
• 55:14
  To get people Yeah.
• 55:15
  Yeah.
• 55:16
  But, you know, with, with style, not Of course, just like, of course.
• 55:18
  Yeah.
• 55:18
  Yeah.
• 55:19
  Yeah, Yeah.
• 55:19
  Yeah.
• 55:20
  So, so yeah.
• 55:21
  So, but I find, you know, if you have a, if you have a emotionally
• 55:25
  vulnerable character that's facing a really great villain, there's no
• 55:29
  shortage of really great villains in this fight, unfortunately.
• 55:32
  Um, then you can appeal to a, a really wide array of people.
• 55:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 55:38
  If, you know, if you stick to certain, like, storytelling principles
• 55:41
  that are just tried and true.
• 55:42
  I mean, Hollywood has known this for.
• 55:45
  For decades of how to do this.
• 55:47
  Yeah.
• 55:47
  And so it's, it's nice to be able to apply it to groups on
• 55:49
  the ground that don't have that infrastructure and need it Absolutely.
• 55:54
  To tell their story.
• 55:58
  If you're telling the story of a, uh, black and brown community that's
• 56:01
  facing adversity because of the climate crisis, is your audience the
• 56:06
  same, like the, the, a black and brown audience of other people who would, um,
• 56:12
  connect with them a little bit more?
• 56:14
  Or is it a little bit of a wider variety of people who want to
• 56:18
  fight for and to help other people?
• 56:20
  Um, that might look like me.
• 56:23
  How do you, and how do you decipher what that is?
• 56:26
  Or do you just do like different types of content And then put
• 56:29
  it out to different audiences?
• 56:30
  Um, that's a really good question.
• 56:32
  When I was working in unscripted TV for a network, they would usually
• 56:37
  decide who they were targeting.
• 56:38
  Gotcha.
• 56:39
  Um, with our new algorithm that we're trying to do, uh, that we are doing.
• 56:43
  It's more about what does the community want?
• 56:46
  Like who is their target, you know?
• 56:48
  And so I would argue, let's take the example again of Sharon Levine
• 56:52
  and Cancer Alley and Sharon Levine.
• 56:54
  The short story is that Formosa Plastics wanted to build a giant plant in her
• 56:59
  neighborhood, which would've tripled the air pollution, which is already
• 57:02
  called Cancer Alley for a reason.
• 57:03
  It's got like 150 petrochemical plants on this one swath of the Mississippi River,
• 57:08
  which is all former plantation land.
• 57:11
  It was sugar cane, slave plantations.
• 57:13
  And there are still bodies on these sites that they haven't exhumed, and
• 57:17
  they don't treat them as heritage sites.
• 57:19
  So, so I asked Sharon, what do you want?
• 57:25
  What do you want with this story?
• 57:26
  Like, what do you, you know, everybody's telling your story, but what do you want?
• 57:30
  'cause we're gonna gift you this content.
• 57:31
  What do you wanna do with it?
• 57:32
  And she was like, well, I'd really like to have a, a, a talk with the
• 57:36
  president of the the parish, because we've never actually met face to face.
• 57:41
  And I was like, I wanna film that.
• 57:44
  Yeah.
• 57:44
  And we got some great, we basically got some great footage where he
• 57:46
  was like, this is not Cancer rally.
• 57:48
  He denied the name, didn't believe the name, and she was like, and
• 57:52
  she rightfully so, starts arguing back with him, Sharon is fiery.
• 57:56
  And she was like, this is Cancer rally.
• 57:57
  This is cancer rally.
• 57:59
  So then that was one thing she wanted, and she also wanted to have
• 58:02
  a, a conversation with her parish representative who had voted yes to
• 58:07
  Formosa Plastics coming in, despite what the people wanted in his parish.
• 58:12
  So I arranged a meeting where we're filming with this man who I, I, I, I
• 58:21
  beg you to watch it because it is the most bizarre thing I've ever filmed.
• 58:24
  But he basically kind of just.
• 58:26
  Started citing that God was pleased with what he had done.
• 58:29
  And, and he got his, you know, his, his recommendations from God and God was plea.
• 58:35
  And then, you know, he gets into an argument with the, with everybody in
• 58:38
  the room because they're like, this is not about the kingdom of God.
• 58:41
  This is about St. James Parish.
• 58:43
  You are our representative.
• 58:45
  And so it's a very antagonistic scene.
• 58:47
  Of course.
• 58:48
  And then everybody afterwards asked me, and I've had like, documentarians wanna
• 58:52
  license this footage, like on repeat.
• 58:54
  And they're like, how did you get the conflict?
• 58:55
  And I'm like, well, she wanted, she wanted this and I, I knew
• 59:00
  it was gonna be a conflict.
• 59:02
  So I set it up knowing that this was a contentious situation.
• 59:06
  Yeah.
• 59:06
  But it was the next step for her to win her campaign that she
• 59:10
  wanted to get this guy kicked out.
• 59:12
  And so because of our piece, he was kicked out as a pretty
• 59:16
  quickly on as her representative.
• 59:18
  Yeah.
• 59:18
  And, and the funniest moment that I didn't get to film of that whole scenario was.
• 59:23
  I, I called Sharon in the car with my ap.
• 59:25
  She was in a separate car driving away from that crazy situation.
• 59:30
  And I said to Sharon, well, I think you might need a new representative.
• 59:33
  And she was like, well, what I need is a new AC repairman, because it turns
• 59:38
  out he was also her AC repairman.
• 59:44
  Small parish, I guess.
• 59:45
  Yeah.
• 59:46
  I laugh so hard.
• 59:47
  Oh lord.
• 59:48
  But this is, you know, it, this is surprising to me.
• 59:51
  It, I almost feel like it's, uh, it's, it's very, there's, there's,
• 59:55
  there's definitely a parallel with, with science and conservation to this.
• 1:00:00
  It's almost like ethical filmmaking.
• 1:00:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:03
  You're coming into a community and you're, like you said, you're asking questions
• 1:00:08
  And so you ask this, this wonderful woman, you're saying, what do you want?
• 1:00:12
  I wanna meet our representative.
• 1:00:14
  'cause I've never met this person before.
• 1:00:16
  Okay.
• 1:00:17
  If we, if you meet them, do you mind if we film?
• 1:00:19
  No, that's fine.
• 1:00:20
  You film it.
• 1:00:21
  You get the content you need, but also she gets, whether it's a conflict or not,
• 1:00:26
  she gets the next step of, of mm-hmm.
• 1:00:29
  What her process is to help the community out.
• 1:00:33
  It's not a, it's not a, I'm gonna come in, I'm just gonna film, I'm gonna
• 1:00:36
  put you two together without telling you, And then hopefully there's a
• 1:00:39
  conflict that I can get juicy stuff out.
• 1:00:41
  It's, I'm helping you get to your next step And then.
• 1:00:45
  With that is you're allowing me to film that whole process and hopefully
• 1:00:49
  bring about more awareness to that.
• 1:00:52
  But you're doing it with her permission and, and everything and
• 1:00:55
  saying, Hey, if you help me out, for sure that, that sounds great.
• 1:00:58
  It's very similar to the way conservation has moved where, you
• 1:01:02
  know, we used to have parachute signs.
• 1:01:04
  You kind of mentioned it in filmmaking where you go in, you get what you want,
• 1:01:07
  you get out, you don't help the community, you're just trying to get the story.
• 1:01:10
  Same thing with parachute science is your scientist goes into a, say
• 1:01:13
  a for all intents per a coastal community, uh, say a fishing village.
• 1:01:17
  And you go in and you do all your studies there, but you don't
• 1:01:19
  share the information with them.
• 1:01:20
  You probably use their boats.
• 1:01:21
  You use the people, you don't talk to them and you don't, you know,
• 1:01:24
  you may be make nice with them, but you don't share the information.
• 1:01:26
  And they're probably like, well, we want to know, like we don't
• 1:01:28
  have this capability and stuff.
• 1:01:30
  And so then we call that parachute service, which that's why we set you
• 1:01:32
  up with the airplanes and the boats.
• 1:01:34
  Exactly right.
• 1:01:35
  They wanna help and they're always friendly, always willing
• 1:01:38
  to help for the most part anyway.
• 1:01:39
  They're always willing to help.
• 1:01:40
  And so now conservation has moved towards, uh, there's a great organization called
• 1:01:45
  Rare, um, where they, I know Rare Yeah.
• 1:01:47
  Yeah.
• 1:01:47
  Where they do the Fishing Forever program, where they'll move into a village,
• 1:01:50
  they'll, they'll come to a village if they're invited, they'll come to a village
• 1:01:53
  and they're like, what do you need?
• 1:01:54
  Like, what are your problems facing the Ocean?
• 1:01:57
  And is, And then they look at, is there a way we can support in
• 1:02:00
  getting, and sometimes it's as simple as, and I I say simple in terms of.
• 1:02:05
  You don't have to do crazy experiments as simple as like, Hey, we're fishers.
• 1:02:09
  We just want to be recognized as a professional designation like an engineer.
• 1:02:13
  Because if we're recognized as a professional designation, the the
• 1:02:17
  regional government will take us more seriously and they'll start to
• 1:02:20
  track how much fish we start to take and how much money that brings in.
• 1:02:24
  And then we get more recognized for that.
• 1:02:26
  And the, and valued for what we bring in is not necessarily conservation
• 1:02:32
  focused where you're trying to make sure tracking how much fish they take
• 1:02:35
  or anything, but it ends up being that they track more fish, they end up,
• 1:02:38
  but it's helping out the community.
• 1:02:40
  So it's like a bit of more.
• 1:02:41
  It's more ethical than coming in, going out.
• 1:02:44
  Way more ethical.
• 1:02:45
  Yeah.
• 1:02:45
  And you're helping it out, but you're also getting what you need and saying, we want
• 1:02:49
  this community to be better for the Ocean.
• 1:02:51
  They're doing that.
• 1:02:52
  Same with you.
• 1:02:52
  You want this woman to be able to get to the next step.
• 1:02:55
  I really love this idea.
• 1:02:57
  Is this, I'm gonna ask this question.
• 1:02:59
  I think I know the answer.
• 1:03:00
  This is not done normally in Hollywood where you're trying to, this is like a,
• 1:03:04
  a, a sector, like a branch of the way document documentaries are being done.
• 1:03:09
  Correct.
• 1:03:10
  Is that, is that my unfortunate No.
• 1:03:12
  Crazy answer.
• 1:03:13
  No.
• 1:03:14
  No.
• 1:03:15
  Unfortunately it's not.
• 1:03:16
  I, I think my, yeah, I think my worst story to that effect was I was filming
• 1:03:21
  a TV episode in Minneapolis, about each episode was around the country
• 1:03:27
  about different, um, problems that black communities face across America.
• 1:03:31
  And this episode was pre George Floyd and it was about police brutality.
• 1:03:35
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:35
  And I was interviewing Jamar Clark's mom, his birth mom.
• 1:03:41
  And she, he, I don't know if you remember, but Jamar Clark was the young man who
• 1:03:45
  was on the ground handcuffed with his hands behind his back and shot Yeah.
• 1:03:51
  By a cop while he was handcuffed on the ground.
• 1:03:53
  It was bad.
• 1:03:53
  Yeah.
• 1:03:53
  It's disgusting.
• 1:03:54
  Um, and she, she had a eye patch over one of her eyes and it was just because
• 1:04:02
  she was, she was mi missing an eye or something had gone, gone wrong.
• 1:04:06
  And I had worked to set up this connection with her 'cause I knew she was gonna have
• 1:04:09
  to talk about the hardest thing she'd ever have to talk about, which is the loss of
• 1:04:12
  her son in such a brutal, violent way.
• 1:04:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:04:16
  But the network was there and they were like in the ear of
• 1:04:19
  one of the other producers.
• 1:04:21
  And I had, I had gotten her to the place where she was just like really
• 1:04:26
  in it with me and trusting me.
• 1:04:28
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:04:28
  Course, you know, knew that I was, I was a woman of color and
• 1:04:32
  I was on her side regardless of the fact that I was a producer.
• 1:04:35
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:04:35
  And then I hear the other producer, like, he like.
• 1:04:38
  You know, tugs at me and he says, Hey, Maya network is asking, can you
• 1:04:42
  ask her to take off the eye patch?
• 1:04:44
  Jesus can't, we can't really see her face.
• 1:04:46
  Can you ask her to take it off?
• 1:04:48
  And I was like,
• 1:04:51
  no, I don't wanna do that.
• 1:04:54
  And then they pushed back and network was in the other room, like
• 1:04:58
  listening, and they pushed back on me.
• 1:05:00
  And I, I really like, adamantly was like, I do not wanna do that.
• 1:05:04
  I do.
• 1:05:04
  It's gonna, And then it's her pride.
• 1:05:06
  They fought me on it.
• 1:05:07
  So, so they made me take off her iPad, ask her to take off her iPad.
• 1:05:10
  She went into another room.
• 1:05:12
  She was so embarrassed, of course, so embarrassed after that she had to redo
• 1:05:17
  her hair so that it covered her face.
• 1:05:19
  It's like her biggest vulnerability other than like talking about
• 1:05:23
  something that is awful.
• 1:05:25
  Exactly.
• 1:05:25
  Exactly.
• 1:05:25
  And she's, yeah.
• 1:05:27
  Ugh.
• 1:05:27
  And then I had a conversation with the producer who was on my side,
• 1:05:31
  but he kind of had his hands tied.
• 1:05:33
  And then I got chastised by the network for it.
• 1:05:36
  You know, and, and they were like, you shouldn't ever like
• 1:05:38
  counter what we're asking for.
• 1:05:40
  And I was like, I'm the person that knew this community.
• 1:05:43
  I'm the person who has been working to build relationships
• 1:05:46
  with them for the last six months.
• 1:05:48
  You should be asking me what I think about like, and we should be asking her.
• 1:05:53
  Yeah.
• 1:05:53
  Like, we didn't default at all to her.
• 1:05:56
  And that's just one of like, so many stories I could tell you of
• 1:05:58
  people like not trusting that the community knows what they need.
• 1:06:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:06:03
  Or being extractive, I mean Yeah.
• 1:06:06
  Or just holding the licensing and not giving the footage.
• 1:06:09
  It's, it's a really rough, rough and tumble industry, but the reason
• 1:06:12
  people do it is 'cause it, you could win an Oscar with the piece
• 1:06:16
  And then everybody knows your name.
• 1:06:17
  Everybody, you get instant fame.
• 1:06:19
  So it's that one shot.
• 1:06:20
  They want that one shot.
• 1:06:22
  That's the true.
• 1:06:22
  And we're in a very different society now from a content perspective.
• 1:06:26
  We, the, the, the faster the content, the better.
• 1:06:29
  I mean, we're in such a fast paced world.
• 1:06:32
  Um, the stories matter.
• 1:06:35
  You could argue that you don't need as much production in a way like that.
• 1:06:41
  I see from my, like, I can get a lot of content out now.
• 1:06:44
  I'm not getting millions of views by, by any means.
• 1:06:46
  There are some people who will create content where it's just them
• 1:06:49
  talking and, you know, on TikTok or on Instagram, and they are talking
• 1:06:53
  about very, um, relevant issues.
• 1:06:56
  There's, there's actually a guy I watch, uh, who, who's been
• 1:06:59
  working in the oil and gas sector for a long time, and he explains.
• 1:07:03
  The markets very, in a very easy fashion that I can understand.
• 1:07:07
  And he talks a lot about, you know, some, like everything that's going on in, in
• 1:07:11
  Venezuela and everything that's going on in the world and, and how like, you know,
• 1:07:14
  some people who are expecting certain things to happen probably won't happen.
• 1:07:18
  'cause he has a very good understanding of the history and the whole world market.
• 1:07:22
  So it makes it, but he just talks out of his car or wherever he is out of his home.
• 1:07:26
  And, and, and I feel like there's such a fast pace, but it's almost like a bit of a
• 1:07:29
  pressure to get content out very quickly.
• 1:07:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:34
  The, I I was watching a few of the, of the videos today, a few, like 50 or
• 1:07:40
  60 of these short beast contents that you, that you had because they're,
• 1:07:44
  they're very interesting to me.
• 1:07:45
  And I want to kind of look at, and I love the, the style that you did.
• 1:07:48
  You, you, you guys have been able to, as a team, put out a lot of, a lot of content.
• 1:07:52
  Is it like how like.
• 1:07:55
  What's the process there?
• 1:07:57
  Like, are you looking to hit like a piece of content a day because they're
• 1:08:01
  very well researched, very well edited.
• 1:08:04
  The storytelling's there mm-hmm.
• 1:08:06
  That's not done in an hour or less than an hour or in, in a, a couple of hours.
• 1:08:12
  Uh, like what's the shoot?
• 1:08:14
  Like, what's the, the, the goal in terms of pieces of content a day,
• 1:08:19
  And then how long does it take for those pieces of content to be made?
• 1:08:22
  I'm just curious from a content creator's perspective.
• 1:08:25
  Yeah.
• 1:08:25
  So, so we're very clear that we can't be at a news type pace, right.
• 1:08:32
  Um, you know, documentary isn't news, right?
• 1:08:34
  It's a deeper look at the thing that made the news.
• 1:08:39
  Gotcha.
• 1:08:39
  Um, So news can fly in, fly out, and they have a deadline.
• 1:08:43
  We will try to find a deadline with whatever community or what the funder
• 1:08:47
  wants, and usually the funder will have some idea deadline, but we're
• 1:08:51
  more at a, like, we're more at a fast paced, very short doc schedule.
• 1:08:56
  Yeah.
• 1:08:57
  So, um, I'll have about maybe two to three weeks of research and reaching out
• 1:09:02
  to characters and building relationships and building logistics, finding the
• 1:09:07
  crew, um, hiring the crew, hiring an assistant, um, associate producer.
• 1:09:13
  Um, And then our shoots are a little more, um, refined in the sense that I try to,
• 1:09:21
  and I learned this from like unscripted tv, you try to stack as many of the events
• 1:09:26
  that are happening in a community in the shortest amount of time, you know?
• 1:09:30
  Gotcha.
• 1:09:30
  So, like, and that's hard because sometimes there's a hearing for this, you
• 1:09:35
  know, fight, site fight, And then a month later there'll be a hearing for something.
• 1:09:39
  So.
• 1:09:39
  So maybe you don't get both hearings.
• 1:09:41
  Maybe you get what you need out of the one hearing, And then you
• 1:09:43
  also have a scene with somebody or a walk and talk or the intro this.
• 1:09:48
  So I usually start my shoot with the sit down interviews because then you know
• 1:09:53
  what you're gonna get for the B roll.
• 1:09:55
  You know what you need to tell to fill in the story.
• 1:09:58
  So, you know, if somebody's talking about the rights of nature, nature in relation
• 1:10:03
  to Ocean, like legal framework of oceans, you know, then you know you wanna get some
• 1:10:09
  lawyers like figuring out something with rights of nature or like earth justice.
• 1:10:13
  Yeah.
• 1:10:13
  Lawyer in a, you know, in a courtroom.
• 1:10:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:10:15
  You know?
• 1:10:17
  Um, And so then our shoots will be like a week, you know, probably like a week max.
• 1:10:23
  I'll bring a crew of like four to six people.
• 1:10:26
  We always have a sound mixer, like I said, because you audios
• 1:10:29
  And so far you can't cheat.
• 1:10:30
  Bad audio Yeah.
• 1:10:31
  Yeah.
• 1:10:32
  Um, I try to hire local as much as I can in the community, but usually we'll
• 1:10:36
  fly in like some pros that mm-hmm.
• 1:10:39
  We, we just have a flow with and we know that they do like
• 1:10:42
  really high quality work.
• 1:10:45
  Gotcha.
• 1:10:45
  And then we have a, a suite of editors.
• 1:10:47
  We have, I think at this point we have, um, five, wow.
• 1:10:52
  Two, three.
• 1:10:52
  Four.
• 1:10:53
  I think we have like four or five editors and GFX artists that are on staff.
• 1:10:58
  So this part is probably the most time consuming because we'll
• 1:11:02
  start with, um, a paper cut.
• 1:11:05
  From transcripts.
• 1:11:06
  So we do like kind of the 60 minutes version of where we get the transcripts.
• 1:11:09
  Usually in unscripted tv you're actually doing like string
• 1:11:12
  outs in Avid or Premiere.
• 1:11:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:11:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:11:15
  Um, And so you're cutting from a string out.
• 1:11:16
  But paper cuts are good because then you can kind of like see
• 1:11:21
  what facts you're missing to tell.
• 1:11:23
  Gotcha.
• 1:11:23
  The picture and our goal this whole time, our goal is to simplify
• 1:11:28
  this as much as possible for a wider audience to understand it.
• 1:11:32
  So you don't have to be a climate wonk of course, or climate policy
• 1:11:36
  nerd or even a Marine biologist to understand what the, what in the
• 1:11:42
  hell the, um, jellyfish are doing.
• 1:11:44
  Right?
• 1:11:45
  Yes.
• 1:11:45
  Yes.
• 1:11:45
  So, so we do the paper cut.
• 1:11:49
  Then I create a rough cut.
• 1:11:51
  With my editors.
• 1:11:53
  And then we go back and forth like a bunch of different cuts, you know,
• 1:11:56
  like what piece are we missing?
• 1:11:58
  Oh, that, that doesn't make sense if we don't have that.
• 1:12:00
  You know?
• 1:12:01
  And luckily we have a writer's room process that's like very
• 1:12:04
  democratic, so everybody in our company weighs in, even interns.
• 1:12:08
  Yeah.
• 1:12:08
  And I like, I like when interns are in the room because I'll be like,
• 1:12:10
  all right, raise your hand when you start losing focus and attention.
• 1:12:15
  And so they'll just be like.
• 1:12:17
  I'm like, okay, that's where we lose steam.
• 1:12:19
  We need something else happening here.
• 1:12:20
  'cause the interesting, we lost the interns.
• 1:12:22
  Yeah.
• 1:12:24
  You know, And then, you know, and you have to kill your babies.
• 1:12:27
  Like, that's the moment where I'm like, oh, but I really want the Earth Justice
• 1:12:31
  lawyer expounding on the rights of this.
• 1:12:33
  And, and the team's like, it's not, no.
• 1:12:35
  Just lose that part.
• 1:12:37
  So, And then we finally get to like a, a fin Well, sorry.
• 1:12:42
  So in the rough cut, I'm talking to community, we'll send a cut to
• 1:12:47
  them and say, how's this looking?
• 1:12:48
  You know, what are you thinking?
• 1:12:50
  What are your thoughts to kind of have a collaboration there.
• 1:12:52
  We don't want any surprises on the end where people are like, oh, why did you put
• 1:12:56
  me, why I, and I've had people call me and say, so, I like what you've done this one
• 1:13:01
  sentence, we are gonna get vilified by the fossil fuel industry for this sentence.
• 1:13:07
  Right.
• 1:13:07
  Can you take this out?
• 1:13:08
  And we, we'll, we'll take it out.
• 1:13:10
  Yep.
• 1:13:10
  And it's like, we don't want you to, we don't wanna do harm.
• 1:13:12
  Right, right.
• 1:13:13
  Of course.
• 1:13:14
  And then we, we from, we usually start with a YouTube
• 1:13:17
  cut 'cause it's a longer form.
• 1:13:19
  And then from there, the longer, and by long form I mean like, yeah.
• 1:13:23
  Eight to 15 minutes, you know, which is long on the internet.
• 1:13:27
  And then we'll cut down for different social platforms and Yeah.
• 1:13:30
  Use the, the algorithm of what those platforms like, you know, so
• 1:13:35
  like what kind of editing does it have to be square format, you know?
• 1:13:39
  Is it Yeah.
• 1:13:40
  Vertical is not my favorite, but you know.
• 1:13:43
  Yeah.
• 1:13:43
  It's what it is because you can't get the full breadth of it and Yeah,
• 1:13:46
  no, it's like why would we, yeah.
• 1:13:48
  Why would we wanna see this tiny little sliver when I
• 1:13:50
  could see the whole landscape?
• 1:13:52
  But you know what, it's, it's what?
• 1:13:54
  It's, oh, I totally, totally, totally get it.
• 1:13:56
  I've actually seen some situations where in vertical, and I
• 1:14:01
  don't know how they do this.
• 1:14:03
  You can, it shifts switch it.
• 1:14:05
  Yeah, well, no, not just the length, but like from a vertical perspective,
• 1:14:09
  it almost just like, it pans over and you see the, and it kind of goes back
• 1:14:12
  and forth and you kind of see it.
• 1:14:14
  Um, it's really interesting.
• 1:14:15
  I, I don't know how they do it.
• 1:14:17
  I've always tried to, as a, like someone who's dabbling in editing,
• 1:14:19
  I'm like, how does the one do that?
• 1:14:21
  I'm like, that's interesting.
• 1:14:22
  Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
• 1:14:22
  I don't think we've done it recently, but I think I could ask for you.
• 1:14:25
  Yeah.
• 1:14:26
  Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:14:26
  Yeah, for sure.
• 1:14:27
  No, no biggie.
• 1:14:28
  I'm always in, I'm always interested.
• 1:14:30
  Um, So just as we, as we kind of end this off, um, you know, there's so much
• 1:14:34
  content and before we, I ask the last question, like, love to have you back
• 1:14:38
  on because I feel like this is such a productive, uh, interview and I know
• 1:14:42
  you're busy love, but whenever you the time I, please let me know 'cause I'd love
• 1:14:45
  to have you back and talk more about this.
• 1:14:47
  But, um, I guess like, you know, for, for, for now, things are
• 1:14:51
  kind of crazy in the world.
• 1:14:53
  Um, people are worried about a lot of things and it seems like the
• 1:14:57
  environment, people are worried about it, but it's almost taken a bit of
• 1:15:00
  a, it's kind of, I guess it's kind of like, you know, you look at people
• 1:15:03
  in, uh, a place like Cancer Alley.
• 1:15:05
  They're more worried about be, like, getting sick chronically than
• 1:15:09
  worried about the climate crisis.
• 1:15:10
  Right.
• 1:15:11
  And so, yes, they're worried about the climate crisis, but they have
• 1:15:13
  to worry about survivability first.
• 1:15:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:15:15
  There are a lot of people now with everything going on in the world,
• 1:15:19
  you know, especially in the us uh, there's a lot of new stuff that's
• 1:15:22
  been happening over the last year.
• 1:15:24
  Uh, you know, uh, immigration policies and affordability and, and medical bills
• 1:15:30
  and all this stuff seems to be dominating.
• 1:15:34
  How do, uh, you as content creators try and I guess you're almost competing
• 1:15:41
  with that attention or try and keep environment at the same level or
• 1:15:46
  close to the level to keep people aware to and, and try inspire action.
• 1:15:51
  Mm, God, that's a hard question.
• 1:15:53
  Right.
• 1:15:54
  I mean, I guess it's more of like, how do I help, like how do I do this?
• 1:15:58
  Yeah.
• 1:15:58
  I mean, you know, the US military called climate a threat multiplier.
• 1:16:03
  Yes.
• 1:16:03
  And so it, it.
• 1:16:05
  It really multiplies the impact of whatever is already going on.
• 1:16:09
  So, you know, the people that are having, um, health risks because of
• 1:16:14
  the pollution from benzene mm-hmm.
• 1:16:17
  Or chlorine that's being spewed in cancer alley.
• 1:16:20
  You know, that's only gonna get worse.
• 1:16:23
  Like Yeah.
• 1:16:24
  It's, unless we do something, you know, it's like the Ocean
• 1:16:27
  acidification, the Ocean taking on the bulk of the greenhouse gas warming.
• 1:16:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:16:32
  What is it like over 90% at least?
• 1:16:34
  Yeah.
• 1:16:34
  Um, of the heat that is, it's acting as a carbon sink, you know?
• 1:16:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:16:38
  Like all of that.
• 1:16:39
  These are threat multipliers and it's also so exponentially
• 1:16:43
  expensive to not do something.
• 1:16:46
  Yeah.
• 1:16:46
  That, you know, a good example is during the pandemic, we really
• 1:16:51
  couldn't talk about the climate crisis during the pandemic.
• 1:16:54
  We had to, we had to shift to kind of parallel storytelling.
• 1:16:59
  Oh, interesting.
• 1:16:59
  Okay.
• 1:16:59
  But we still kind of had things in the works that were, um.
• 1:17:06
  S looking at the climate lens, but pairing it with the pandemic.
• 1:17:10
  Right.
• 1:17:10
  So it was like we were looking at, um, how they, how companies
• 1:17:16
  were getting bailed out.
• 1:17:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:17:18
  And then we'd use, you know, like a metaphor of like how this has happened
• 1:17:22
  with the fossil fuel industry subsidies.
• 1:17:24
  Right, right, right.
• 1:17:25
  So we kind of would like bake into the cake in a time where
• 1:17:29
  everybody was focused on Renee good.
• 1:17:32
  Or you know, ice or COVID or what have you.
• 1:17:36
  Right.
• 1:17:36
  Um, I'm also a part of the Hollywood Climate Summit.
• 1:17:39
  I'm like on their advisory board and they are baking into the cake
• 1:17:43
  on fe like, like fictional TV shows.
• 1:17:48
  I saw that.
• 1:17:48
  I heard that climate.
• 1:17:48
  Yeah.
• 1:17:48
  So like Abbott Elementary.
• 1:17:51
  Yes.
• 1:17:51
  It's not about climate, but No.
• 1:17:53
  Quinta Brunson will be like, why is our AC out?
• 1:17:56
  It's hotter than it's ever been, you know, what is happening?
• 1:17:59
  And, and Quinta, rightfully so.
• 1:18:01
  She'll talk about how she wanted to create a show that her mom would
• 1:18:04
  wanna talk about climate when her mom has no knowledge of climate.
• 1:18:07
  And so her mom could connect to a teacher who doesn't have AC in a classroom with
• 1:18:11
  kids on the hottest day of the year Yes.
• 1:18:13
  In the school.
• 1:18:14
  And what a problem that is, you know, Yeah.
• 1:18:16
  Yeah.
• 1:18:17
  So their product placing climate in a very effective way.
• 1:18:21
  Uh, and the Hollywood Climate Summit basically like brings all the people
• 1:18:24
  who care about climate and Hollywood together once a year to figure those out.
• 1:18:28
  But I mean, it's by far an imperfect science.
• 1:18:32
  We are still of trying to figure out like how the best ways to.
• 1:18:36
  Yeah.
• 1:18:36
  To do this when all eyes are focused on something else and,
• 1:18:39
  and where climate always gets kind of shoved under the bed Yeah.
• 1:18:42
  Or put on the back burner for later.
• 1:18:45
  And we just have done that for 60 years now, you know?
• 1:18:49
  Well, a hundred percent.
• 1:18:50
  But I, I do think that's a really good strategy where we bake it into stories
• 1:18:54
  that are already being told, but just sort of in the not main, maybe not the main
• 1:18:58
  story, but as difficulty where people can understand, wow, man, it's really hot.
• 1:19:03
  You know, or, or maybe they're talking about, you know, oh yeah, well I ha I
• 1:19:07
  just got the new house rebuilt because, you know, you remember the fires back
• 1:19:11
  in the, you know, when we lost the house in the final Oh yeah, I remember that.
• 1:19:14
  Like, and talk a little bit, you know, you can have that as a little bit of a
• 1:19:17
  understory to the, to the main story.
• 1:19:19
  I think that's, yeah, that's very key.
• 1:19:22
  Oh, and, and where we're having success with it is we have a coalition
• 1:19:24
  we're working with right now of a bunch of different partners,
• 1:19:27
  including one advertising company.
• 1:19:29
  That we wanna hack the narrative when a, a fossil fueled climate disaster happens.
• 1:19:35
  Like the LA wildfires or Hurricane Melissa hitting Jamaica.
• 1:19:39
  Right.
• 1:19:39
  Right.
• 1:19:39
  Now the news is always talking about poor land management.
• 1:19:43
  Yes.
• 1:19:43
  Or like who messed up.
• 1:19:45
  Yes.
• 1:19:45
  And they never talk about climate.
• 1:19:48
  And, and our coalition, we had climate, we had, um, climate
• 1:19:51
  scientists telling us that hurricane, it was almost a cat six Yeah.
• 1:19:56
  Yeah.
• 1:19:56
  It was like they had to make almost a new category.
• 1:19:58
  Yeah.
• 1:19:58
  Yeah.
• 1:19:59
  And, And so why on earth would we not connect that to climate?
• 1:20:03
  So we are working to create like fast made social content that can do that,
• 1:20:10
  that can like, respond to these disasters and like bake that into the atmosphere of
• 1:20:15
  everybody focused on something, you know?
• 1:20:18
  Amazing.
• 1:20:18
  I think that's so important.
• 1:20:20
  So I had to evacuate my, my home in la I lived in Topanga Canyon.
• 1:20:24
  Oh.
• 1:20:24
  So sorry.
• 1:20:24
  I had to evacuate multiple times.
• 1:20:26
  And all the firemen kept saying, oh yeah, this place is gonna be the next to burn.
• 1:20:29
  And I was like, you know, it's so terrible.
• 1:20:33
  It's horrible.
• 1:20:33
  We had, I had a, a, a, I guess an online friend that had, that
• 1:20:37
  lost her house in, in the fire.
• 1:20:40
  Um, luckily, you know, she was, uh, privileged enough to have some place
• 1:20:43
  to go and, and, and nothing happened, but all just watching, you know, the
• 1:20:48
  fact that she had to leave her cats behind and trying to go back and get
• 1:20:50
  her cat, like the stories of that.
• 1:20:53
  As you know, as someone, you, you're a cat owner.
• 1:20:55
  I'm a dog owner, like a pet.
• 1:20:56
  I like Cover your ears, guys.
• 1:20:57
  Cover your ears.
• 1:20:58
  Yeah.
• 1:20:58
  Yeah.
• 1:20:59
  And, and, and, but you, you don't.
• 1:21:01
  Oh, no.
• 1:21:01
  That really made me think of how quickly people had to leave to leave their pets.
• 1:21:05
  It's like, you know, as, as you know, as a pet owner, you're like, no, let's
• 1:21:08
  grab the dogs, grab the cats, let's go.
• 1:21:10
  But.
• 1:21:11
  It's that fast and you're just hoping for the best's when you get back.
• 1:21:15
  And obviously people did not get the best, uh, news when
• 1:21:17
  they got back and, And so forth.
• 1:21:19
  And so, yeah, like it's, it's, I I do agree, like content has to be done
• 1:21:23
  quickly and has to be, and, and I feel like there are, there are more
• 1:21:27
  people who are, who are coming out as individuals, especially in the Ocean
• 1:21:31
  space, to do this kind of content create.
• 1:21:34
  And we're starting to organize, you know, as I mentioned before.
• 1:21:38
  And I, I really like that idea.
• 1:21:40
  I feel like there needs to be more funding around supporting the people around
• 1:21:46
  that as a collective to be able to get those stories out and become mm-hmm.
• 1:21:50
  Like even better creators and better storytellers to, to
• 1:21:54
  help that in the Ocean space.
• 1:21:56
  I just don't know if that infrastructure is, is there yet, I feel like
• 1:22:00
  Right, the years project is doing a great job with, with climate.
• 1:22:04
  I feel like the Ocean space needs a little bit more of that concentration.
• 1:22:07
  'cause a lot of times, oceans and climate.
• 1:22:10
  They merge, but they don't get talked a lot about, you mentioned
• 1:22:13
  the Ocean acidification and sea surface temperatures and things like
• 1:22:16
  that, but it doesn't get the same.
• 1:22:19
  Um, like you go to climate week in NYC or you go to Toronto here and it's, you
• 1:22:24
  know, they, you may have one session on it and it's like, it should be paired
• 1:22:27
  together and it should be, I obviously, I'm biased 'cause I'm a Marine biologist,
• 1:22:30
  but like, you're just like, we need to talk about this more, you know?
• 1:22:34
  Yeah.
• 1:22:34
  Well, I, I, I totally agree and I think there's a big gap in the
• 1:22:39
  storytelling around oceans that mm-hmm.
• 1:22:42
  I would love to tackle in the future.
• 1:22:43
  And yeah.
• 1:22:44
  There are a few gaps and, and, and I'd love to just, I'm sure it's like
• 1:22:48
  probably a different episode, but if I can just quickly say what I think the
• 1:22:50
  gaps are and hope people run with it.
• 1:22:52
  Absolutely.
• 1:22:52
  Please do Yeah.
• 1:22:53
  Yeah.
• 1:22:54
  There's a lot of like, rightfully so, animal focus.
• 1:22:57
  And I love a good whale in a dolphin.
• 1:22:59
  Oh yeah.
• 1:22:59
  But I think like focusing on co-producing of, uh, Ocean management with the
• 1:23:06
  indigenous is really interesting.
• 1:23:07
  That's a really interesting story.
• 1:23:09
  And how indigenous have been successfully fighting back for
• 1:23:13
  like, treaty rights with mm-hmm.
• 1:23:15
  Like the high Seas treaty.
• 1:23:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:23:17
  And like Ocean management.
• 1:23:18
  That is a story that's not being told.
• 1:23:20
  No.
• 1:23:20
  Um, the, uh, like fighting to protect natural systems like mangroves.
• 1:23:27
  I know that you've talked about in the past.
• 1:23:28
  Yeah.
• 1:23:29
  Yeah.
• 1:23:29
  And like them being used as a carbon sink in the com.
• 1:23:31
  And that's a nice positive story, like the communities that are actually
• 1:23:34
  seeing the before and after of a place that would get hit by a hurricane.
• 1:23:38
  And then what happens if it gets hit this time, but they have a restoration project.
• 1:23:42
  Yeah.
• 1:23:42
  Like that's, you know, human centric.
• 1:23:44
  It's not about a dolphin, you know, and it's like, okay, we
• 1:23:47
  haven't really told that story.
• 1:23:48
  And then, um, like global shipping.
• 1:23:52
  Is an interesting angle to me because it's like, oh, if you
• 1:23:56
  google bunker fuel, you'll be like, what are we doing as a species?
• 1:24:02
  Like what these massive ships use is like the sludge that is left over
• 1:24:08
  from the refining process mm-hmm.
• 1:24:10
  Of oil and gas.
• 1:24:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:24:11
  It is this thick sludge.
• 1:24:13
  It's disgusting.
• 1:24:13
  And it, it has, I mean, not only is it like crazy greenhouse gas emissions,
• 1:24:17
  but it's also particulate matter gets released, gets into the Ocean.
• 1:24:21
  So they're leading the air as well as the Ocean that they're traveling on Yeah.
• 1:24:24
  Yeah.
• 1:24:24
  And their, their solutions, like they're working on treaties right now.
• 1:24:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:24:28
  So that they're gonna phase out, like to those emissions to, And then all
• 1:24:31
  the, the ships above like 5,000 tons will have to be net zero by 2027 Yeah.
• 1:24:36
  Yeah.
• 1:24:36
  There's a lot of work being done on that Yeah.
• 1:24:38
  Yeah.
• 1:24:38
  Definitely.
• 1:24:39
  Stories that need to be talked about Yeah.
• 1:24:40
  Yeah.
• 1:24:41
  I think those, those are all really interesting.
• 1:24:42
  Oh.
• 1:24:43
  And um, rights of nature.
• 1:24:45
  Yes.
• 1:24:45
  You know, like all of the fights, you know, Ecuador, Panama, India.
• 1:24:50
  I would love to see a, a rights of nature story and like legal fights
• 1:24:54
  around the Ocean and waterways.
• 1:24:57
  Yeah.
• 1:24:57
  And.
• 1:24:58
  I mean like the, the potential collapse of amuck, the circulatory
• 1:25:02
  system in the Atlantic.
• 1:25:04
  Don't you wanna think about that?
• 1:25:05
  Not only keeps me up at night, but it's also like, how did the day after
• 1:25:09
  tomorrow get that right in like 2003?
• 1:25:12
  And we all laughed about that movie with Jake Al. Yeah.
• 1:25:16
  And now we're like, what, 20 years later we're there.
• 1:25:18
  Yeah.
• 1:25:18
  And like I would do a story about that in a heartbeat.
• 1:25:23
  Oh yeah.
• 1:25:24
  Oh, Yeah.
• 1:25:25
  Yeah.
• 1:25:25
  No, there's so many stories that need to be, that need to be told.
• 1:25:28
  And I think especially from an Ocean perspective or about the Ocean and coastal
• 1:25:32
  communities, like good and bad of course.
• 1:25:34
  And, and, uh, there's a lot of conflict.
• 1:25:36
  There's a lot of overcoming.
• 1:25:37
  And I think it would be, uh, great to see, to, to be covered.
• 1:25:40
  So, um, yeah, maybe we can talk about that, uh, afterwards and we can see
• 1:25:44
  how we can get those stories told.
• 1:25:45
  I've got a lot of connections within that, that area.
• 1:25:48
  Um, yeah, no, this has, this has been wonderful, Maya.
• 1:25:50
  I think you and I can speak for about three to four hours and make
• 1:25:52
  a great, great, great episode.
• 1:25:54
  But it's always been, it's already been fantastic.
• 1:25:56
  I don't wanna hold you up any longer.
• 1:25:57
  I wanna thank you so much, not only for the work you do, but coming
• 1:26:00
  on here and telling us about it.
• 1:26:02
  I am very, very inspired, uh, and by, by the videos you guys produce,
• 1:26:06
  by, uh, what, the work that you've done, the passion that you have.
• 1:26:10
  Uh, And then I think my audience will be very inspired as well as a community.
• 1:26:15
  Thank you.
• 1:26:15
  So I wanna thank you so much.
• 1:26:17
  We're gonna put all the links that you, you ed me very nicely beforehand
• 1:26:21
  so that people can get a hold of you.
• 1:26:22
  And, and again, thank you so much for being on this episode
• 1:26:25
  of the How to Protect the Ocean.
• 1:26:26
  Thank you so much.
• 1:26:27
  And we didn't touch on it, but go see Sinners.
• 1:26:30
  Yes.
• 1:26:30
  Yes, that's right.
• 1:26:31
  Hopeful.
• 1:26:31
  Some awards this season.
• 1:26:32
  It's a magnificent film.
• 1:26:34
  Unbelievable.
• 1:26:35
  I think they already got, uh, this, the Critics award.
• 1:26:38
  I didn't see it.
• 1:26:39
  I didn't see it.
• 1:26:40
  I mean, oh, now they're golden broke.
• 1:26:41
  I heard they're up for some nominations.
• 1:26:43
  I heard they're up for some nominations.
• 1:26:44
  I, I did it again.
• 1:26:46
  So it's, it's not a climate story, but it is a really interesting racial story.
• 1:26:50
  Yes.
• 1:26:50
  Yes.
• 1:26:51
  Which can have some ties to, to a lot of climate stories.
• 1:26:54
  Yes.
• 1:26:55
  Yeah.
• 1:26:55
  Wonderful.
• 1:26:55
  Thank you so much, ma. I really appreciate you being on the show.
• 1:26:57
  Thanks, Andrew.
• 1:26:59
  Bye.
• 1:27:00
  Thank you, Maya, for joining us on today's episode of the How
• 1:27:02
  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 1:27:03
  It was so great to have you.
• 1:27:05
  I love the way you do documentaries.
• 1:27:08
  I think it is the way of the future in terms of ethical documentary making.
• 1:27:13
  Just like I said at the beginning of this episode where we talked about how we're
• 1:27:17
  moving away from parachute science, which is basically a scientist or a team of
• 1:27:21
  scientists coming into an area, a local area, study science, use their boats,
• 1:27:26
  use their people, but not share any of the work with them to find out what,
• 1:27:29
  like to share their findings and what that means for their local community.
• 1:27:33
  We saw a lot of that in the past.
• 1:27:34
  Hopefully that's being less and less and less as we go through.
• 1:27:38
  Haven't been in the field in a long time, but there are a lot of
• 1:27:40
  people working against that and trying to make sure that it's more
• 1:27:43
  collaborative or even supportive work.
• 1:27:45
  Just like I mentioned in the interview, an organization like Rare in Their
• 1:27:48
  Fish Forever program, where they work with villages, fishing villages.
• 1:27:52
  Across the tropics to ensure that not only do they understand their area and they can
• 1:27:57
  support that understanding, but support them in their fisheries and also support
• 1:28:00
  communication across villages across the equator, which is absolutely phenomenal.
• 1:28:04
  So if you haven't checked that out, you can check out Rare either through
• 1:28:07
  this podcast if you search it up, or you can just go to their website.
• 1:28:10
  It's wonderful.
• 1:28:11
  But Maya's work is very similar to this where she, as she mentioned, you know,
• 1:28:14
  she works with people in a community and be like, how can I help you?
• 1:28:18
  If we do a documentary on this story, how can we help you advance this story
• 1:28:23
  or advance the work that you're doing and be able to connect the right people,
• 1:28:27
  get the meeting set, And then film the interaction that happens to be able to
• 1:28:31
  get a great documentary and see how people work and see how things can develop.
• 1:28:36
  And I think that's really great because you're not just coming out
• 1:28:38
  there to exploit people for a story.
• 1:28:40
  You're coming out there working with them, teaming up with them to put
• 1:28:43
  them in the right places for the right decisions or right actions to be made.
• 1:28:47
  And whether it moves in a positive direction or in a negative
• 1:28:50
  direction, you're helping the local community see something.
• 1:28:53
  That happens, right?
• 1:28:54
  Just as when she talked about documentary in Cancer Alley.
• 1:28:57
  I think it's wonderful.
• 1:28:58
  We're gonna put a bunch of links to connect with Maya
• 1:29:00
  as well as the years project.
• 1:29:02
  It's such an important way to do documentary filmmaking in today's society.
• 1:29:07
  Short form videos, long form videos in terms of internet videos, and of
• 1:29:11
  creating these documentaries quickly.
• 1:29:13
  Even if it's quickly.
• 1:29:14
  Sometimes it seems like it takes a long time, but just on a regular basis
• 1:29:17
  and being able to be fun for that.
• 1:29:19
  I very much feel like we need this for the Ocean, not just climate, and
• 1:29:23
  to get these Ocean stories out there.
• 1:29:25
  So it's always wonderful to be able to do that.
• 1:29:26
  So I'll be talking with Maya behind the scenes, see if we can get
• 1:29:29
  that going at some point in time.
• 1:29:30
  But she is such a wonderful person, as you can see from that interview.
• 1:29:34
  Very collaborative, very interesting in terms of the
• 1:29:37
  filmmaking and her background.
• 1:29:38
  It was awesome to see.
• 1:29:39
  So thank you again, Maya, for joining us on today's episode of the
• 1:29:43
  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 1:29:44
  And of course.
• 1:29:45
  I wanna thank you guys for listening.
• 1:29:47
  If you have any comments or questions or anything related to this episode,
• 1:29:49
  let me know in the comments below.
• 1:29:51
  If you're watching this on YouTube, and if you're listening to this
• 1:29:53
  through your favorite podcast app like I normally do when I listen to
• 1:29:57
  podcasts, you can connect with me 'cause I always find it frustrating.
• 1:30:00
  Like if I listen to an audio podcast and I want to like I have
• 1:30:03
  something to say, there's no real place to go say it directly there.
• 1:30:06
  You can go to speak up for blue.com/feedback.
• 1:30:10
  You can leave a voicemail or you can just leave it in text.
• 1:30:13
  I will look at those comments and even answer back if I can because I'm always
• 1:30:17
  interested in having a conversation.
• 1:30:18
  These are just conversation starters or even we continue like
• 1:30:21
  a bigger narrative And then we continue the conversation with you.
• 1:30:24
  Who's listening to this is such an important part of what I feel like we
• 1:30:28
  need to do, and that's what I'd love to do to engage with you even more.
• 1:30:30
  So speak up for blue.com/feedback.
• 1:30:33
  I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
• 1:30:36
  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 1:30:37
  I'm your host Angela from the true nor strong and free.
• 1:30:40
  Have a great day.
• 1:30:41
  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.