Linda Thornton:  Seeking Sustainability, One Shrimp at a Time, 2011, WINS

Best Shorts Competition for Best Short Documentary Award of Merit

The film that we produced on a pioneering effort to advance sustainable shrimp farming provided a rare opportunity for the public to learn of an environmental success story. The documentary chronicled in detail the steps taken by an environmental innovator, Linda Thornton, to breed and raise shrimp — a staple of middle-class diets from Shanghai to Chicago — without antibiotics and the flows of pollution that have given shrimp farming a bad name in much of the world.   It was produced at a time when the aquaculture industry is considering making suchpractices the new norm.

Right now, directors are bringing all of their work into one place: the editing bay. 

Last week, Community wrapped up their shooting of Deal Lisa and the time lapse shot of the students throughout the Kessel Student Center. Several others helped Lou Guarneri and Alexandra Frye execute the shot this complex shot that required extreme and precise choreography. 

As editors are piecing it all together, Kayla Turner is working on architectural software, creating 3D images of the residence halls to include in the Community section of the final video.

While Community moves along, director Caity Kirschbaum of the Opening/Closing section has completed her hunt for the perfect music to set the tone of the video. Along with music, this section is also focusing on preparing the blueprints that will kick off each section within the video. Rebecca Pepe and Mark Robertson are assisting Caity by polishing up the blueprints to make them as clear as possible for the final video. 

Like Community, other sections are grabbing their music for their sections under the direction of Lou Guarneri; most of the editors prefer to edit to a beat! Environmental section directors Yuan Cai and Eric Fortier completed capturing the voice over of VP Bill McGrath, and are now focusing solely on editing. 

This has been a busy and exciting week for the corporate video class! Production is now in full swing and the various groups have been shooting great material all week.

After conducting the preliminary interview with Dean Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo, Community group co-director Lou Guarneri transcribed the interview while  Alexandra Frye has been setting up shoot times with Dean Lisa.  As soon as we finalize a scehdule we will be filming her final on-camera segment.   Lou Guarneri is going to be filming B-roll on campus for the community section this week.

Here is a photo from the interview with Dean Lisa:

The Environmental group was able to set up a shoot with Bill McGrath earlier this week. Eric Fortier and Ethan Cai directed the shoot that took place in Mr. McGrath’soffice. After capturing shots of Mr. McGrath, the group is now ready to edit.

Here is a look at the production crew setting up for the shoot:

The Athletics group had an interesting week, which included filming underwater in the pool in Goldstein Fitness Center. The production crew was able to use an underwater Flip Cam to capture images of a swimmer taking laps in the water.

Here is a look at the pool-side production:

Finally, we have the screen shot of the week, taken from the pool shoot:

This class has been working diligently on a promotional video for Pace University’s Master Plan to consolidate Briarcliff and Pleasantville campuses creating a unified campus. The plans include newly renovated residential halls, more pedestrian pathways, enhanced athletic facilities and much more.

During the pre-production phase the entire class, instructed by the award-winning filmmaker Dr. Maria Luskay, tossed around ideas for an exciting, three to five minute video that would appeal to current students, prospective students, alumni and the Pleasantville community. The video was split and up into various sections that would cover everything the class’ client would want. They presented their ideas to Bill McGrath, senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer for Pace who is heading the plan, along with his team. After the video and its budget were proposed, VP McGrath and his team approved it that same day!

Opening/Closing

Michelle Birch and Caity Kirschbaum are the two directors for the opening and closing segments. They are trying to set the tone for the entire promotional video in an exciting and creative way. They have broken up the entire video into different segments —Community, Environment, and Athletics—beginning with their opening, incorporating its style to carry it on throughout the others’ segments and following it out to their closing. Each of these segments will feature what can be expected of the campus once the Master Plan is complete, all of which will look incredibly different compared to what we have on campus now.

Community

Over the course of the past week, directors Alexandra Frye and Louis Guarneri drafted up a series of questions for Dean of Students Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo’s preliminary interview, as she will be the spokesperson for the Community segment of the video.  Dean Lisa’s voice will be featured throughout the segment, providing great detail about the changes campus life will take on as a result of the completion of the Master Plan. She will be talking about the renovations to the campus, the residence halls, Kessel Student Center and the new quad.  Dean Lisa’s preliminary interview is scheduled for Wednesday, November 9^th in the morning from 10am – 11am.  Afterwards, Alexandra and Louis will document the interview, and begin preparing the script that will be used throughout this section.  

Environment

Eric Fortier and Yuan Cai are directing this section of the Master Plan video.  So far, they have interviewed VP Bill McGrath for his knowledge of the campus’ initiative to building green, as well as James Eyring of the environmental center for the purposes of scripting.  They have filmed James and his falcons, Elvis and Ophelia; also filmed was his hawk Merl. It was an interesting shoot considering how fast the birds fly.  Because of high winds, the first shoot actually had to be rescheduled! Next week, they have their shoot with VP Bill McGrath in his office. Next they will have to compile all of their shots and choose the best ones for editing in order to put it all together in the end!

Athletics

The Athletics section has been busy filming over the past few weeks.  Vinnie LoBue and Daniel Parker are this section’s directors and their concentration has been capturing footage from all of the teams at Pace.  So far their crew has filmed football, volleyball, men’s basketball, soccer, lacrosse and baseball.  Coming up next on the table for filming is to get a few more shots for football and soccer, as well as tennis and softball.  They have also reached out for an interview with Mark Brown, Pace University’s Athletic director; he will speak about the impact the renovations will have on the athletics program and what it means to his department as well as what it will mean for future athletes.