Pangeality Productions » Seattle

Pangeality Productions Celebrating 3rd Emmy Award Nomination

leonard — Tue, 10 May 2011 01:04:30 +0000

I’m thrilled to announce that a story I did for the Seattle Channel program City Stream has been nominated for an Emmy award in the human interest category. The story is a piece about sustainable fishing in Puget Sound, and profiles friend and client Pete Knutson of Loki Fish. I shot and edited the piece, working together with producer Penny Legate who wrote and voiced the story. Last year I was nominated twice, but unfortunately didn’t bring home the award. Hoping this year will be different. I continue to produce stories for the Seattle Channel, mostly focusing on green and environmental issues. Recent stories include how Safeco and Qwest Fields are composting their food scraps and packaging, teaching organic gardening in public housing at Yesler Terrace, a profile of Sustainable West Seattle, a new housing and commercial development along N. Rainier Ave, and others. Most of these videos can be found on other parts of this site or on our Vimeo channel linked to in the bottom left corner of the front page of this website.

Sustainable Fishing & Environmental Stewardship from Washington to Alaska from Pangeality Productions on Vimeo.

New Video: Green Leadership @ Seattle’s Professional Sports Stadiums

leonard — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 09:23:02 +0000

Fresh off our recently announced 3rd Emmy nomination, I again teamed up with friend and colleague Penny Legate to produce another story for The Seattle Channel program City Stream. In addition to my work with private clients, I continue to freelance with The Seattle Channel as a cameraman and editor, doing stories mainly about sustainability, the environment and overall people and organizations engaged in positive work in our community. Though the pay isn’t great, I enjoy doing work for broadcast and seeing my work on television. This year The Seattle Channel was nominated for overall station excellence and the broad spectrum of programming is a great reflection of the character of our city, far beyond just covering boring city council meetings.

For the last 2 years Cedar Grove Composting has been one of Pangeality Production’s best clients, and when I learned that they were composting all of the food scraps and packaging at the main sports stadiums here, I thought it’d make a great story for City Stream. I was especially impressed by their partnership with Safeco and Qwest Fields, the homes of Seattle’s MLB team the Mariners and NFL team the Seahawks.

Seattle Channel Video can be played in Flash Player 9 and up

New Client Testimonial Videos Up

leonard — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:57:19 +0000

One of the ways that I wanted to be reaching out to potential new clients is by sharing the experiences that some of my best clients in the green and sustainable business sectors have had working with Pangeality Productions, and then to use those testimonials on my website, YouTube channel and Facebook Fan Page. I wanted to hear about how the actual production process worked for them, how they felt about the finished product, and the feedback and engagement they’ve had with the videos since they began integrating them into their online presence. I was grateful that they were willing to participate and really quite pleased with what I was hearing about how our work was working for them and their businesses. Thanks again to Susan Thoman, Marketing and Outreach Director for Cedar Grove Composting, Pete Knutson, Owner of Loki Fish, and Mary Rose, Executive Director of The Network for Business Innovation and Sustainability.

New Video: Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance Fundraiser ‘An Incredible Feast’

leonard — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 21:39:29 +0000

My dear friend Catherine Burke is the market manager for the Columbia City Farmers Market, my neighborhood market that I love and regularly patronize (you may remember her from the goat birth video and others I’ve produced). Well the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance is having their big annual fundraiser ‘An Incredible Feast‘ which raises money to support both the market’s educational programs and outreach as well as the Good Farmer Fund, a fund dedicated to supporting farmers in need in case of flood or fire, family emergency or other special situations that require immediate financial assistance. Catherine and I were having dinner recently in my garden when she asked me about producing a short video to help publicize the event. So I did, in this case in exchange for a few tickets to the feast, not quite a 100% donation but definitely a heavily discounted contribution to an organization doing great work, hosting markets all over that contribute to a great sense of community throughout this wonderful city while providing delicious organic produce and other healthy locally grown and produced foods. The feast partners individual farms with chefs from great local restaurants for a special night of community and joy with awesome local food, live music and other prizes and games. Click here for more information about ‘An Incredible Feast’, which is happening soon on Sunday August 22nd. Get your tickets now. Hope to see you there.

Testdriving the $110,000 All Electric Tesla Roadster in Residential West Seattle

leonard — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 09:47:47 +0000

Leaving a party at the home of legendary photographer Art Wolfe in West Seattle, I assumed the fancy red sports car across the street from my 1992 Honda Accord with 202,000 miles was a Ferrari and belonged to a guest of the party. But it didn’t, and it wasn’t a Ferrari, it was a Tesla Roadster and it belonged to his neighbor Lance who was standing on the sidewalk with his wife and young son. I began asking him some questions about it, not sure why I even knew the name. But as we got into it, I took out my camera to make a video as it turned out he was a Tesla Roadster salesman with all the details. Apparently the car, all electric with a super beautiful body does 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds and is made out of carbon fiber (what they’re using to make new planes with), which according to him is 4 times stronger than steel and 1/4 the weight, and goes 250 miles on one charge. After explaining all of the technology and design elements, we hopped in the car and took it for a spin in the neighborhood on Fauntleroy Ave in residential West Seattle, where Lance proceeded to punch it into hyperspace a few times with it’s insane acceleration. Check out this video tour I made of this incredible car, which at $110,000 (no sales tax as there are no emissions) remains a ridiculously expensive car but according to Lance, this is the forefront of incredible new electric vehicle technology with a goal of introducing non sports car sedans and subcompact lines in the coming years at much lower prices. There are currently 1,300 of the vehicle on the road and roughly 60 in the Pacific Northwest alone.

Pangeality Productions Wins National NATOA Award

leonard — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:26:32 +0000

Via my work with The Seattle Channel, I’ve just learned that we won a NATOA Award, commonly referred to as the Emmys of government television. The Government Programming Awards (GPAs) are annual awards that recognize excellence in broadcast, cable, multimedia and electronic programming produced by local government agencies, in this case The City of Seattle. The piece was the story about Rob Rose and his organization The Rose International Fund for Children and their work on behalf of young people with disabilities in Nepal, and the movement to battle the stigma of disability in Nepal and South Asia. We won’t know until September whether we won the category or not, but the nomination itself is an award as all nominations are given recognition for their work. There will be an awards banquet in Washington D.C. in early October. Very cool.

This is the piece

Challenging The Stigma of Disability in Nepal from Pangeality Productions on Vimeo.

Saving an Iconic Seqouia Tree in Downtown Seattle

leonard — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:03:17 +0000

I got a call late one afternoon recently from my client Cedar Grove Composting to ask me to come film some footage of a special project they were working on. Together with the Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities, Cedar Grove Composting was involved in trying to save a very special tree. The giant Sequoia tree is in the heart of downtown Seattle at the corner of 4th and Stewart, that was originally planted on Aurora Avenue, but was relocated in 1972. The tree is also the official Christmas Tree downtown every year. Over the years, the tree continued to grow but recently, birds had infested it and their droppings were both damaging the soil below as well as the canopy was slowly becoming covering with their acidic poop. Not sure about how to save the tree, SDOT approached international tree specialist James Urban, author of the book Up By Roots who had been in Seattle recently and paid the tree a house call, diagnosing the problem and prescribing the solution that this group eventually implemented.

So using an air spade to blow out vertical holes and a giant sucker truck to take the dirt away, a number of 4 ft deep vertical columns were dug around the base of the tree, and filled with fresh compost donated by Cedar Grove. Better irrigation and gas flow to the roots was the goal to supplement the pruning they’d already done.

Here is the video I produced about the work.

From Aurora Ave N. to Downtown

Sequoia on Aurora before being transplanted, 1972

Placing the tree downtown at 4th and Stewart, Seattle

Instructional Gardening Series Videos for Cedar Grove are Up

leonard — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:27:48 +0000

My work with client Cedar Grove Composting continues to be a great relationship as I’ve enjoyed producing a variety of videos for them that both showcase their products and educate their customers among other things. With this project, the goal was to take what was currently a rather boring page on their website about their soil products, that only had a few photos and descriptions and links to other pages, and replace that with a handful of dynamic short videos that give real information to Seattle area gardeners. The videos are about horticulture, aesthetic, technique, quantity, timing and so much more in integrating Cedar Grove compost, booster blend, top soil, vegetable mix and other soil products into one’s gardens and landscaping. The videos were then uploaded to their YouTube Channel, and from there embedded onto the appropriate pages on their website. So much clearer and more useful than a boring text only page could ever be. To see the videos, visit their YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/CedarGroveCompost

Connecting the dots, beyond filmmaking

leonard — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:21:59 +0000

As a filmmaker and videographer working internationally producing media about environmental and social issues, being able to make connections and have a positive impact is very rewarding. It was great to see 2 projects I’d worked on cross to create a unique opportunity. It’s also nice to be able to continue my relationships with clients beyond the actual content production stage of our relationship, and this past Friday I had a nice synergy of client overlap.

A few months back while working on a story for Cedar Grove Composting at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show at The Washington Convention Center, I was following the food and beverage manager around the facility and filming while she talked about all the great food scrap and waste product composting they were doing there. When she lead me through the industrial kitchen, I saw people from all over the world working there, immigrants who didn’t all speak english but seemed happy in their work environment, and it occurred to me that perhaps this was a place where some of the Bhutanese Refugees I’d filmed in my story about their relocation to here in Seattle’s Rainier Valley, could also work. So after checking with Cedar Grove to clarify that was an appropriate way to communicate with the Convention Center, I floated the idea, and the woman taking me on the tour was fine with it.

So here, a few months later, I was back at the Convention Center with a group of 10 refugees who have now been hired as part time workers there, washing dishes and doing other basic kitchen work. To my surprise, it took about 5 hours of me translating and handholding to get all the paper work filled out together with a brief orientation around everything from getting uniforms to how to enter the building and what to expect when they showed up for their first shifts tomorrow. Taking so long wasn’t a big deal for me as it felt great to see some of these refugees so excited to be getting some actual work. Arriving in America over the last 2 years with our economy in shambles, it’s been a very tough time to find work and for almost all of them it will be their first actual employment here in America. They’ll be making the WA state minimum wage of $8.55/hr and some of them will be working the night shift from 10PM – 6 AM but overall they were incredibly excited and very grateful for the opportunity I’d facilitated for them.

Of the ten of them, there were 2 sisters, 2 brothers, one husband and wife and their 2 sons and daughter in law, ranging in age from 19-mid 50′s and best of all, the father featured in the piece I produced about their resettlement. He’s been here for 2 years now and with no language or work skills, he’s been very bored and unengaged in little more than going to ESL classes that are slow and frustrating and taking care of his young grandson, but little positive engagement with the outside world because of his limited language skills. So he was very excited and couldn’t stop telling me how much it meant to him. Also, I was very pleasantly surprised by how positive and supportive the staff getting them all signed up were, from the HR manager to the head chef (who had been to and loved Nepal as a tourist and knew how lovely Nepali people were), they were patient and joyful and overall really ready to give these folks a chance which is exactly what they need. Unfortunately the work is not full time but hopefully once they get a chance to prove themselves and the economy picks up, that there’ll be opportunities for more long term employment. My hope is that over time, this venue will have positions for more Bhutanese Refugees.

Here is the piece I produced about composting food scraps at the Convention Center http://vimeo.com/10096783

Here is the piece about the resettlement of Bhutanese Refugees from camps in Nepal to Seattle’s Rainier Valley http://vimeo.com/7260916

Article in Nepali newspapers ‘Republica’ & Kathmandu Post about our Emmy Nominated video

leonard — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:45:20 +0000

Click on the image below to read the article