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
The Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center is assisting businesses, government and nonprofits with practical solutions for economic and environmental vitality. It’s a nonprofit organization that works to research and produce high quality, unbiased pollution prevention (P2) information, in order to promote environmental protection through pollution prevention. PPRC believes that environmental and economic vitality go hand in hand, and that both are necessary to protect the high quality of life enjoyed in our region. It’s this unique position that enables PPRC to be available to sometimes adversarial parties who need to work together but often find it challenging to both share their challenges and problems openly while also working within the confines of the laws and regulations. They do impressive work that has truly meaningful impacts and consequences.
Over the past few years we’ve worked together on a number of video projects and I’ve always enjoyed the work we’ve done together. Specifically I’ve enjoyed making visits to the sites where we film, to port facilities, solar installations, factories and other industrial and manufacturing locations. I especially enjoyed when working on the Zinc in stormwater project, getting the chance to film in the skies above Seattle to highlight the proximity of industry and potential pollution sources all along the Duwamish River corridor. Each year PPRC hosts a regional roundtable to bring together players in the Pollution Prevntion (P2) sector to network and share around the issues and challenges they’re working to address. This year PPRC hired Pangeality Productions to put together a year in review video to open the conference at a downtown hotel. The video highlights PPRC’s ongoing work on the Solarize Bellevue campaign, The Green Sports Directory, their work with WA craft breweries, spray and paint efficiency trainings, and their wildly successful Fats, Oils, and Grease (FOG) program. I was also onhand to film the keynote speech and other related workshops. It’s always special to stand in the back of a packed room and see your work projected live onto a big screen. I look forward to more wiork together in the years to come.
Spent some time filming last week at the Port of Tacoma and The Washington Stormwater Center. In the port, shipping giant Tote runs twice weekly freight runs between Tacoma and Anchorage Alaska (that takes 66 hours nonstop one way). Tote has had great success in reducing the heavy metals and specifically zinc in their storm water runoff from their property. Working together with 12,000 Rain Gardens of Puget Sound, they’ve installed a series of rain gardens designed to filter and process water runoff. The water which collects on the paved surfaces of their facility and warehouse roofs carrying industrial pollutants and heavy metals, are filtered and absorbed by the garden now prior to it returning to Puget Sound. This video is being produced by Pangeality Productions for Pollution Prevention Research Center, with funding through a grant provided by the Russell Family Foundation, and is geared toward recording and sharing best practices among industries for managing and treating specifically zinc in storm water.
Mt Rainier towering over the Port of Tacoma
Rain gardens like this one take water running off warehouse roofs through gutters, and filter it for heavy metals with soil and plants.
Courtesy of 12,000 Rain Gardens of Puget Sound.
Varied materials used in similar conditions for measuring and analyzing stormwater runoff.
Water that previously flowed out of this pipe untreated now passes through rain gardens that filter it before returning to Puget Sound
Water collected in each zone for comparison
New and rental cars for summer tourists shipping up to Alaska.
Varied materials used in similar conditions for measuring and analyzing stormwater runoff.
Old metal chains leaching heavy metals into runoff
New and rental cars for summer tourists shipping up to Alaska.
Where the vehicles that load onto the boats stage.
Illustration of water passing through to be absorbed by soil, not funneled into Puget Sound.
Flat and sloped roofing samples that are being used in research to determine zinc and other metals leaching from rain
Tote owns and operates two ships weekly between Tacoma and Anchorage AK.
Tires are a big source of zinc pollution that reaches Puget Sound.
Cyrus and I have been working together on this story for PPRC Pollution Prevention Resource Center
Discussing the various research projects they have going on at the WA Stormwater Center.
Roofing samples intentionally leeching zinc into captured water for comparison. At The Washington Stormwater Center at Washington State Uinversity Extension Center in Puyallup, WA.
Hustlers, cabs that pull trailers on and off of ships
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
