Pangeality Productions » Washington

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 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

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

New PP Seattle Channel Video on Local Sustainable Family Fishing Business

leonard — Tue, 04 May 2010 01:41:21 +0000

As I’ve frequented the Seattle farmer’s market scene over the past decade, I’d always seen Loki Fish Company and sometimes bought smoked salmon from them. Since I moved to the Rainier Valley, Columbia City has been my market though my wife and I also like to go to West Seattle some times as well. At one point I signed up for Loki’s newsletter and began checking out their online store, then one day last year I approached Loki and asked them about their interest in having me produce some online videos for them in exchange for salmon. As a small family business that was ecologically oriented and hyper local, with the desire to increase the visibility for online shoppers to find their smoked salmon and other awesome products, they immediately recognized the benefits both sharing their story and SEO (search engine optimization-wise) to be had by growing a video presence.

So Pete and Dylan came over to my studio one day to discuss the arrangement and the next week I was out with them on Puget Sound filming them fishing for salmon one fall night. Floating in Elliot Bay on a gorgeously clear late September afternoon into the evening, over a few beers and some salmon bellies, it came out that Dylan and I were both Pitzer College graduates which was another positive layer in the relationship. It was the first time I’d been on a boat in Puget Sound and also my first time on a small commercial fishing boat and it was wild. We left Fishermen’s Terminal which Pete’s been fighting to preserve (discussed in the piece) around 4pm and returned some time around 3 AM, picking up Dylan along the way at Shilshole Bay Marina. It was a great night.

Months later, I connected with Pete and Dylan who were on vacation together in Kathmandu at the same time I was there filming stories for the Seattle Channel connecting Seattle and Nepal. We had some great dinner with a Nepali father and son with deep connections to Pitzer, Nepali archeologist and scholar Mukunda Aryal and his son Trailokya who went to Pitzer as well. With The Seattle Channel’s focus on telling local green stories, profiling Loki in this piece was an easy choice, with a long history of local involvement, keen insight into regional environmental issues related to the ocean and beyond, and much more as Pete is also an anthropology professor at Seattle Central Community College (great link to how Pete’s students feel about his classes). So the piece uses some of the material I shot back working on the profiles for the Loki website combined with some new interview footage with Pete and archival footage from BJ Bullert’s 2001 documentary about the struggle for Fishermen’s Terminal. It’s a solid piece, nice mix of profile, insight, and inspiration. It was also great to work again with Penny Legate who wrote and reported the piece. You can find Loki selling at the University District, Columbia City, and West Seattle farmer’s markets or online at LokiFish.com or watch 11 more videos about their business on their Vimeo channel.

Dining in Kathmandu w/ the Knutsons of Loki Fish, the Aryals of Nepali Intelligencia, and Steve Brothers of Himalayan Mercantile/BMX Society

Excellent Wednesday

leonard — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 03:06:13 +0000

I spent the bulk of the day filming the GoGreen 2010 conference at the Hyatt downtown yesterday, then in the evening had 4th row seats on the first base line courtesy of Cedar Grove to watch our new composting video on the jumbotron during the Earth Day game. It was an awesome day. From world leaders in sustainability of both global corporations and small local businesses, to mad networking with all kinds of great folks, Go Green was a success. Pangeality Productions had cameras in the main ballroom where the plenary and larger sessions were and in the other conference room where additional sessions were held throughout the day. We also had a booth with a monitor screening pangeatice visuals and pieces I’d produced on the green business front scrolling through all day. Made lots of connections with local green businesses and topped the night off with awesome seats at Safeco with my wife, brother and his baseball crazy 7 year old son.