For the past 6 years Pangeality Productions has filmed and produced the Northwest Ecobuilding Guild’s annual Green Building Slam. The slam is 10 juried presenters giving 10 minute talks about their project featuring 10 slides each. The event is held at the University of Washington’s Kane Hall and growing each year in size is, now fills the room to almost capacity with close to 500 people in the crowd. Each year it’s an impressive variety of projects that span the green building spectrum of commercial and residential construction, from passive solar homes to cargo container accessory dwelling units (ADU). Regional green builders, architects, designers, planners, policy makers and people generally curious about green building gather to enjoy some tasty food and drinks, networking and great presentations. After recording the event, Pangeality Productions edits each video, integrating the slides in, adding logos and titles and making them available to both the presenter and the Northwest Ecobuilding Guild. Over time, the presentations have become a treasure trove of information highlighting and celebrating the evolution of the region’s green building leadership worldwide.
These were 4 of my favorite presentations from the event
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.
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.
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.
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
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
I was excited to show how a video like this can make an event come to life online, in a way that still pictures and words simply can’t. With a video, folks who have an interest in the event but wonder whether it’ll be worth their time or not can get a real sense of what’s going on here, and see and hear the testimonials of the participants. Plus, I’ve been helping to educate the group about how to share the file with their members on their blogs and website to give the piece further exposure in attracting more members to the community. Based on what’s being said here, it’s clear this group is an effective place for networking and connecting both for learning around these issues and for business. It’s my hope to make some new connections with this community so that they can begin using video as a tool to share with their customers and community the green choices that they’re making in their businesses.
