I'm still in the process of figuring out exactly what my documentary will be about. Nevertheless, I do have some progress to report.
Early this afternoon, I was able to contact the Operations Supervisor for the North American branch of E.on Climate and Renewables Patrick Woodson. 
After talking about access to the wind sites as I am traveling to Corpus Christi this weekend to shoot some footage, he informed me that they are about to start construction on a new site north of Corpus Christi in several weeks with Siemens turbines (whom my Brother-in-Law works for). I'm thinking it would be a great idea to sort of focus around this new site in north Corpus as a conduit for wind turbine development in Texas as a whole and how it affects this specific community. Patrick agreed to do an interview with me in the near future. And, hopefully I can get some interviews from those who own the land in north Corpus. Additionally, with access to the development of this new site as well as access to the factory in Round Rock and the owning company in Austin, I will be able to see the whole life cycle of Wind Energy development in Texas from planning to building to construction to finally producing energy.
I just haven't found my crazy-go-nutz Wind Energy advocate to center my story around. My only character as of now are the turbines themselves. This is why I'm leaning more and more towards a visual and audible think piece on wind turbines (more or less experimental). I feel there would still be very much of a narrative, just more abstract. Please comment.
Hi Brett,
ReplyDeleteI am liking the life cycle idea-- it attaches a narrative arc to the topic in a way I hadn't envisioned before. This gives it more structure and a place to start imagining what your scenes will be & what you need to shoot to make this 'life cycle' idea work. The descriptive scenes exercise will be a good one at this point, and I would encourage you to brainstorm as many scenes/sequences as possible so that you essentially create a shotlist of what you will need to visually chronicle this cycle. At the same time, you'll need people to discuss and describe each aspect of the cycle, what is happening, why in terms of the mechanics, and of course the big WHY in terms of the politics and policy side of things.
One of the primary concerns I have is that if the turbines are your characters, you will need to be physically close to them to get details (sounds kooky, but closeups of them so we 'see' them as characters)-- but I remember you thinking that might be a problem. Also I'm wondering how long/what's the time frame for this new site-- when will they start, and how long does it take to build?
A few other thoughts to consider: what else will we see besides turbines? How do you 'see' wind, in ways that go beyond the cliche (ie trees, leaves, etc moving)?
Finally, your best weapon in all of this is to educate yourself about this field, find people who can help you become an expert of sorts, and then be able to cast for interview subjects that can communicate the ideas eloquently and with some degree of passion/poetry. They don't have to be crazy/go nuts but they do have to communicate strongly their message.
What will you be shooting this weekend exactly? Even if it's making phone calls tomorrow or Friday, try to set up some tours/interviews for yourself to get the lay of the land. Good luck on yoru shoot, let me know if you want to bounce any thoughts off in the meantime, and we'll look forward to hearing how it went.