Below is a short documentary film shot in January in Bangladesh for Caritas Australia. For me, it’s a bit of a milestone as it’s my first documentary film that has been produced and used in a widespread campaign which I’m very happy about. It was all shot on a Canon 5D Mk11 and separate audio taken on a Tascam DR-2D. The Caritas editing team have done a great job putting it all together.
As always there is room for improvement and I’ll describe how I’d approach it differently next time. First of all is the time issue. I had two excellent field staff helping me as interpreters and guides but the filming, stills and audio were all done by myself. I also had to collect stories and case studies from a number of different projects so the workload was very high.
Originally this was just going to be a photo assignment so the mind set was on photography and filming came second. What I realise is the importance of b-roll to help in the editing process and the flow of the story. Filming is very time consuming so I’d make sure to build in extra time to get much more b-roll.
Everything considered however I’m very happy with the outcome. Like most people filming with DSLR it’s a fairly new process which takes time to master but I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to take it to the next level. Please have a look and any comments would be much appreciated. Thanks.
For more information please click here. A Just Climate.
Sweet Water
Sweet Water explores the impact of climate change on communities living in the coastal regions of South-West Bangladesh. The short documentary exposes the rapid rise of sea water, the destruction of vital soils through increased salinity and the increased frequency and ferocity of cyclones in Bangladesh.
The impacts of climate change will be of significant detriment to the health, food security and livelihoods of some of the poorest communities in the world, exacerbating existing development challenges in these vulnerable regions. Ironically, it is often the poorest communities who have contributed the least to global warming who are the most vulnerable to its impacts. Sweet Water illustrates how the vulnerable coastal communities in South-West Bangladesh are responding to the impacts of climate change in their region.
Thanks and credits to: Caritas Bangladesh and the communities of Satkhira District, Richard Wainwright, Lisa-Anne Morris and Cam MacKellar.