As an environmental studies major, I find anything involving the interaction between society and the environment really interesting and a meaningful topic to explore.

I have actually done research and a few projects that focused on fracking in Pa and the negative human health effects associated with it. For the LV story “What the Frack is going on?” I think human health impacts would be an important to discuss and explore within the film. Also something to be wary of is that there are a lot of people and opinions at play when it comes to issues surrounding fracking. It’s important to keep in mind the motives behind theses opinions when bringing fracking in the Delaware watershed to light.
Another LV story that I find interesting is “Saving the shad”, again going further to uncover human’s interaction with the environment, and what the consequences of these interactions are. I also think this is a topic that people aren’t aware of, making the film both interesting and important.
Lead Poisoning in the Lehigh Valley, was actual my LV story idea but I do have some concerns about the feasibility of the project. I think this is such an important issue in the Lehigh Valley and unfortunately does not receive the attention it so desperately deserves. Lead poisoning even in small quantities has severe affects on children’s development. It affects adults as well but not in the same ways or to the same degree it does it children. And studies have shown that in Lehigh Valley, children have unusually high levels of lead in the their blood. That is something we can not and should not ignore. Uncovering something of the culprits such poisoning like old paint, could be an interesting way to uncover this storyline.

Lastly going outside of environmental issues. I think the LV Story “Criminal at the age of five” is something that needs to be addressed and told now. The time frame of this project although might be considered somewhat short by conventional documentary standards, allows for issues today to be addressed now and that’s significant. As this nation’s political climate continues to change. This story centers on an issues that affecting not only residents in the Lehigh Valley but our peers. It is current, it is important, and for some residents in Lehigh Valley unfortunately may be seen as controversial. All reasons way it is something that needs to be talked about and it’s own spotlight.

We encountered a struggle early on in our making process: our recorder’s batteries somehow died. One of our brilliant solutions to this was replacing the rechargeable batteries, before realizing that wouldn’t work. (Anna dug through the trash to reclaim the old ones.) We returned to the sound office and exchanged it for a new one, then began our journey.
First, we created bad audio. We used a fan as background interference noise while recording a mock interview question on a phone audio app, and then explained this clip.
Next we went down the hill and recorded a few different things that we thought were possibilities for each of the categories (non-human, human, and made.) Downtown Easton seemed like a good idea for thoughtful sound recordings. We recorded the Bushkill, the dam on the Bushkill, and various sounds of cars driving past. One of the car recordings became our Made World. We went to the Easton Public Market for dinner and recorded sounds as we walked around there; one of these clips became our Human World. Finding audio to record for the Human World and Made World was easy; the great challenge was the Non-Human. This was disturbing. We knew Easton was a city environment, but we couldn’t find something ‘natural’ to record. We kept remarking on this as we walked, frustrated that any recording we made was contaminated with cars. Even the sound of the Bushkill was unnatural, dammed by humanity.
We were slightly dejectedly walking back up the hill to try to find something natural on campus, when we heard the sound of crickets. We stopped here, recording their chirping; that became our Non-Human World.

Working title- Lead in the Lehigh Valley?

Longline- Lead poisoning in children is a serious issue in PA.

Lead poisoning has had a lot of attention in the media in the past two years. Places like Flint Michigan have been in the headlines for severe water quality issues involving lead. Lead can have significant health impacts especially in children. Even at low levels lead poisoning can interfere with growth, harm hearing, make learning difficult and delay development.
The threat of lead poisoning does not only exist in Michigan or in drinking water. The leading cause of lead poisoning is lead dust from lead-based paint. Lead paint was commonly used in housed until 1978.
In Pennsylvania, this type of lead poisoning has become an issue. Over 13,000 children were found to have lead levels high enough to cause the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concern. Allentown, in particular has some of the highest rates of lead poisoning in PA. I think this could be an interesting story to uncover further and bring attention to through documentary!

If you want to learn more about this issue here just one recent article that addresses the issues in PA and Allentown! http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-lehigh-valley-lead-exposure-flint-20160204-story.html

I was really excited to jump into Monday’s activity! I had never used such high tech equipment before, and I could not wait to get my hands on it. At first, I didn’t think it would be difficult to get enough footage and cut it in the three or so hours we had for class. But, I would soon see how things can easily go wrong on a film set, and that 60 seconds is longer then it may seem.

Unfortunately, my group faced a lot of obstacles. The first being that we picked a difficult place to film. We thought filming outside would make us unique and make our interview more comfortable aesthetically pleasing. This combined with all of our technical issues would prove to be a somewhat bad idea.

It took us awhile to mount our camera on the tripod. Once it was all set, we realized our first battery was dead. We ran to get a new one, but unfortunately this one actually had a low batter too and half way through filming died. So we ended up filming the rest with a different camera. The batter in our microphone was also dying. And by the time we realized all this and positioned the tripod with the new camera perfectly it was to dark to film.

We decided to quickly abandon our mission to film outside and ran back to the room we began in. With a new camera and full batteries we began filming. We only had 20 or so minutes to shoot our interviews. The lighting wasn’t great since all natural light was gone. Things definitely didn’t go super smoothly, but everyone in my group kept a positive attitude. There are things we would all have liked to change about our film and the way it was shot. But for me, not being super experienced with this type of equipment I learned a lot from my team members and from all the technical issues we had. Everything that went wrong is something that I am now better prepared to face in the future. In regards to filming I learned to check batteries first, and film second. In regards to editing film, I learned to make sure your B-roll connects in some way to what the film is talking about, otherwise it might seem a little silly.

Going into this assignment I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was really surprised that as soon as I held the frame out and began walking I felt like things right in front of me became more focused.
I was looking down at the sidewalk something I tend to not really ever pay attention too. It was strange because immediately I notice these high weeds sticking out between the cracks in the side walk. I stopped and thought for a second how crazy it is that those little weeds found a way to grow through concrete. From then on I really became fascinated by the side walk. I never really noticed how the side walk cement sometimes just randomly change. There are so many different shades of gray sidewalk, and some sidewalk wasn’t even completely gray. I found myself stopping multiple times and staring at this sort of speckled sidewalk, which look although there were almost rocks trapped inside.
I just walked and walked. In way it felt like I was in the video game Mario carts. I felt this sensation that I wasn’t really walking I was almost floating. I have terrible eye sight and I have worn contacts since fifth grade. I really don’t like wearing my glasses because I feel as though I lose all peripheral vision and can only focus on the things in front of me. In a way it felt as though I was wearing my glassing when I look inside the frame. In a way it’s like you are inside a tunnel and just focusing on what was is front as you walk and you can’t really tell how fast you’re moving until you look outside the frame. The assignment made me notice things I usually overlook and think in depth about the simplest things like cement and weeds. I enjoyed it!

I am a dual major at Lafayette in Environmental studies and Economics. I am interested in these two fields of study for many reasons. Two of the biggest reasons, being my interest in how society interacts with the environment and the issues that arise when we fail to take in consideration the effect of our actions. Environmental studies focuses on both how people interact and these affects, but I feel as though to have the full picture you need to understand why people act the way they do and that is where economics comes into the picture.

Economics in its purest sense focuses on why people do what that do, centered on the principle of maximizing benefits and minimizing costs. Through an economist perspective the world functions because people act with their own self-interest as the top priority. This ides is important when addressing issues in the environment especially one’s involving human rights, and issues like water quality. To solve these problems one must not only look at societies actions, but the motives behind these actions.

So where does documentary come into play? In my opinion documentary, is the one of the most powerful tools to address environmental issues and human health concerns. Not only can it be used as a tool to educate, but allows for all sides of issue to be brought together. In regards to environmental problems, documentary allows you to expose not only the issue but the reasons behind the issues. It goes further than a single disciplinary, and allows a full picture to come together that incorporates both the environmentalist and economic perspective.

There are so many environmental issues that I would like to bring to light through a documentary based in the Lehigh Valley. The first one that comes to mind is lead paint crisis Pa. To further explore the issue and maybe even bring more awareness to it. I am not sure specifically where to start, but I feel like there would be a lot to uncover.

When pick up a camera I find it difficult to put it down. I document everything from my shoes to the sky because I don’t want to feel as though I missed a part of the full picture. Especially, when I am in nature I need to have a camera with me or I feel like I am not fully prepared. My favorite thing to document is the outdoors, more than people or even life events. Whenever I travel or plan a hike, I pack two cameras just in case any batteries die or something gets lost. After a trip, I am always overwhelmed by the amount of photos I took. At times I have tried to cut back on the amount of photos or videos I take. I have tried to not document and instead “to make every shot count”, but I feel like this leaves me feeling as though I missed something.

Even if it can be overwhelming I rather take hours sorting through photos or film, then feel like I missed something. Sometimes the shots I felt like were unnecessary in the moment end up being my favorite. In that way the camera allows me to see something that I didn’t fully appreciate the moment I took it.

Documentary represents more than just a photo or a video it is almost a memory. Part of the reason I document things, is because I have a terrible memory and I want to be able to remember experiences more vividly.

I was lucky through school to visit some of the most breath taking places.  Documenting these moments gives me a way to relive the experience, but also gives me a way to share the experience with others. I have taken footage from some my favorite hikes and made a short video recently. This not only allows me to preserve those memories, but share the experience in a more personal way than I could ever explain with words.