ANE On Turning Point October 11th

by John Aldrich

All those who have been aware of this video project have been eagerly awaiting the announcement of its airing. In the spring, volunteers attending the Rainbow Food Box packing events at the warehouse or the Many Farms food run were aware that a major video project was in the works. BYUtv in Provo had conceived a series called Turning Point which would feature non-profit and humanitarian endeavors and their founders. The concept was to explore what had affected the lives of these key people to alter the course of their lives and pursue these new goals. BYUtv had contracted with Cosmic Pictures in Salt Lake to produce a segment about Linda and ANE.

As we watched the video crew at work in the warehouse and on the food run, we realized that this would be a very special production. And now the air time has been announced. If you're in the viewing area for BYUtv plan to be watching on October 11th at 8:00 p.m. (Please note that BYUtv is a differnet channel than KBYU.) Each one hour broadcast in this series will feature two segments of roughly 25 minutes. ANE will be featured in one of those segments on that date. If you are not able to watch or receive the broadcast, there are several options. If you are out of the viewing area, check with your local PBS station to see if they will be airing this series. It should also be possible to watch the segment via streaming video  through the BYUtv web site once it is released.

Here's an online feature from BYUtv about the upcoming program.

The Cosmic Pictures video crew that was assigned to this project was very personable and engaging, and a number of volunteers made nice connections with the three who came to Chinle to film the Many Farms food run.

Here are a few photos from the production process:

The first filming event took place at the warehouse when we were packing food boxes on April 9th for the upcoming food runs. Here is Rich Patch who was the field director, both on this date and in Chinle:

 Here is the filming of an interview with Linda that day. Rich is watching over the shoulder of Gordon, the cameraman:

In Chinle, the crew of three accompanied  Linda on home visits to local Elders for two days prior to the food run at Many Farms, and I was able to join them for the second day. The next three shots were taken at Jennie Todechine's homeland in Nazlini, south of Chinle. The first shows Jennie with Elizabeth Clah who was along to facilitate and translate, and the other two shots show an interview with Jennie.

The next two shots were taken at Elizabeth Clah's homeland in Many Farms, the site of the Many Farms food run. In the first, Phil is setting up a camera on the roof of the storage building to do a time-lapse sequence of the outside activity at the food run. I hope some of this footage makes it into the final production because I expect it is fascinating.

Last is Greg Kiefer working on the ground. It appears that he's interested in the sanitation facilities, but he's really documenting the box crew setting up the Rainbow Circle which is out of sight to the left.

A technical note that might be of interest to a few readers is that the crew used digital SLR cameras with video capability for this production rather than what most people would think of  as traditional video cameras. Digital SLR's offer certain advantages over videocams in achieving what is considered the classic look of movie film.

All told, the crew produced many hours of video from which the final production was made. It would be wonderful to be able to see it all, but we'll still eagerly anticipate the 25 minutes that will be available for us to see on October 11th.