138. Blue Horizons Continued: A View of Maria de Oca's Santa Barbara Sustainable Seafood Film Project

The first time I was ever exposed to "Seafood Watch" was actually through Yasmin and Mickey von Dassow (I witnessed their marriage up in Washington state). Yasmin and Mickey actually first met and hit it off at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. So, one day Yasmin passed out all these Seafood Watch cards around the Earth Sciences Department (the west coast "2006" guide). I didn't think much of them upon first exposure, but I started to see these cards circulate all over the place. Like they were becoming common currency... or your "ocean action" trading cards instead of those video game action figure Pokemon trading cards that kids like to trade. We've got fish on our cards instead of Pokemon or Pikachu!

Hence, on the last day of lecture in Ben Halpern's marine conservation course, he brought in his wife, Kim Selkoe (at that time, I didn't know they were married and had a kid, and they both work at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), very very small world). Kim an employee at the Ty-Warner Sea Center teamed up to write a grant at Patagonia to help start the Santa Barbara Sustainable Seafood Program, or essentially transfer the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program down to the Santa Barbara region. They both are involved in networking with local seafood serving restaurants in terms of raising awareness of the seafood they purchase and serve to customers. In addition, they are raising seafood awareness among consumers. Maria de Oca, my classmate, had the opportunity to document the innerworkings of this budding program, and she did a great job. I like her style a lot: a very fun news report style. She also used great music--from some French band, I believe. I remember Maria working so hard trying to contact the agents of these musicians just so she can have the rights to use the music on her film... just so she can submit the film to the Santa Barbara Ocean Film Festival! I didn't think music rights would be such a hassle. I guess that's why it pays off to create your own music. You are simplifying your life: instead of waiting five days to get music rights, you use 5 days or less to compose your own whacky music!

I think Maria's film is the favorite of my class because it was short, to the point, entertaining, light-hearted, informative, and NOT distorting the viewpoints of the people interviewed. There were one or two films in the class I felt were badly edited and greatly skewed the point of view of the individual interviewed, and since I knew the people very well, it actually pissed me off greatly. I probably already talked about this before, but I think one of the most horrible parts about film is poor representation of the persons interviewed. That is partly why I like making my films as "dig into my head" films... Why? Because I acknowledge from the beginning that the only person I truly know and can accurately represent is myself and that when I include other people, it is not necessarily them but MY perception of them. If I have this approach to film, then I can NEVER go wrong. And no one can pin me to the wall for misrepresentation. On a rare occasion, I feel just a little bit clever, and this is one situation.

Back to the Seafood Watch cards. I don't know whether they serve their duty or purpose. I am not sure whether these cards are really of any help or use. It just creates the same problem of instant gratification with information. It's just people telling other people what to do and think rather than the individual consumer taking time out to think and do and explore and ask questions (not that anyone has TIME to do that, but it's a nice idea). The individual consumer not only being a consumer of seafood but a consumer of seafood watch information. The card does not ask the consumer to be his or her own investigative sleuth. I guess that's where my philosophy differs here. As I have said a bazillion times, the only goal I have in "teaching" is to teach people to teach themselves. If you skip over that step, then there's no point in anything.

So, Seafood Watch is another situation of INSTANT GRATIFICATION ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION. Then again, these cards are better than NO information at all. Maybe I'm just being a cynic this morning. When looking at these cards again, I couldn't help to think that publishing these cards involved killing trees to save fish. I just noticed "recycled paper" in small font. Didn't say 100%. So, I'm suspicious. Twisted Environmentalism comes back to hit us over the head again!

I had the pleasure of helping Maria on this film. On the first day we went over to Elements Restaurant... Maria was totally on top of things... and I just enjoyed taking pictures of her, Kim Selkoe, and the chef of Elements. It was the best photoshoot I had that summer!

Right now, Maria is out and about with interviews for graduate school. She applied to SEVEN graduate schools. Maria is very determined to get a masters degree and work on research involved marine ecology in the Arctic. Very specific, I'd say, but determined and visionary. I like, I like very much.

106. UCSB Blue Horizons Behind the Scenes: Students at Work (Former "Art" as "Evidence")

Helen is missing too!



UCSB Blue Horizons Collage, Behind the Scenes, Students at Work.
What was formerly a volunteer art project that I was planning on doing out of my own good will ends up being used as "show me the data" evidence for contesting a final grade in concern of contribution to the class--participation and collaboration.

[March 5 2008 Vic Retroactively Cuts out an Image and a Paragraph Due to Previous Misunderstandings]

Despite her absence during the last week, the following photocollages are solid evidence demonstrating Victoria Minnich's extensive volunteer PAing for three different final projects for Blue Horizons during the weeks previous to the final week (summer of 2007):

http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa109/stokastika/BlueHorizonsMariaDeOca080907/?start=all
Blue Horizons Behind the Scenes: Maria de Oca filming Dr. Kim Selkoe and the head chef of Elements Restaurant, Downtown Santa Barbara, California, August 9, 2007 "Santa Barbara Sustainable Seafood"

http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa109/stokastika/BlueHorizonsTamHuntDulceHannah072507/ Blue Horizons Behind the Scenes: film shoot with Tam Hunt, JD, Community Environmental Council, Dulce Osuna, Hannah Eckberg, Downtown Santa Barbara, California, July 25, 2007 "A New Wave of Energy" (Ocean Energy as Alternative Energy)

http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa109/stokastika/BlueHorizonsGeneralMiltonLove080307/?start=all
Blue Horizons Behind the Scenes: film shoot with Dr. Milton Love, Dave, Ben, Logan, Dr. Love's office, UC Santa Barbara, California, August 3, 2007 "Rigs-to-Reefs Issue"

The group photo was taken with "self-timer" on my Nikon D80 at Coal Oil Point Reserve around July 6, 2007. Students took a walk during our first social gathering at Dr. Constance Penley's house. Also missing from the image is Helen (besides Logan)!

My brain hurts thinking about this.... I am at a Starbucks in Camarillo and I'm trying very hard to hold back from crying....

Michael Hanrahan's Response to Blue Horizons Promotional Video

At first, when Nicole and I wanted to do a promotional video, we didn't want to worry about lighting, so we cheated and decided to use Golden Hour around sunset. The drawback with Golden Hour is you have a narrow window of time to work with. We had the fortune of Maria joining us later because the audio of my interview ended up having a "beeping noise" in the backdrop. Right then and there on the spot, Nicole and I learned how to use the wired lavalier (though she did have a wireless lavalier with her for her research in the Solomon Islands). We were fumbling with our idiot question on how to figure out the anatomy and physiology of the wired lavalier of UCSB. By the time we started filming, we had one minute remaining of Golden Hour, and then? The sun set. Dxmmit. Those summer days were long, yet too short. *sigh* I had to implement "artificial" sunset warmth to all of Nicole's scenes, which ended up turning okay. We had one problem with Nicole's backdrop: THE FENCE. Ugh. I agree. For my part, in the beginning, there was too much editing, "over-editing" to a point of clutter of visuoacoustic information. At that point, I later explained to Michael that I was being experimental with certain final cut pro features. Before I start any new project, I MUST EXPERIMENT AND LEARN SOMETHING NEW WITH THE EQUIPMENT AND EDITING... I just can't go into the sam project knowing what I already know, remaining stagnant within the SAME BOX. Michael pointed out that we had no spatial connectedness between Nicole's interview spot and the ocean, though we did HEAR the ocean. There was also severe contrast between Maria's UCSB Faculty Club environment versus Nicole's ocean environment. Plus, I was in the beginning and later edited out due to audio.... Minor, annoying inconsistencies. Oh well. Whatever. I wanted to do an "acting reel" for "The Matrix: A Reality." But it never happened. Something tops on the to-do list. Overall, I had to let go of the assignment. It was the first and only time I was collaborating with others and turn in for a grade "two grades." I feel democracy is important, and combined with my "adaptive" personality around other people, Nicole, Maria, and I basically had fairly equal inputs into the project. No one played dictator, though I did play "starter" of the project. I like starting projects, because that's always the hardest part. I did that for the Green Screen Goleta Beach Project. Because, thanks to my knowledge of fractals and shifting baselines, the end result of the project is largely dependent upon the initial premises and starting point of the project. So, if I start it, I have significantly more impact on the overall project than if I joined the Bandwagon somewhere in the middle or the end. He he he. I really think maybe I should write a practical Ph.D. dissertation on "How to Manipulate Humans."

Blue Horizons Flagship Class Promotional Video, UC Santa Barbara, Summer 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9jDLqesF8I

Above is the "Blue Horizons" Flagship Class promotional video that was co-created by me (Vic), Nicole Bulalacao, and Maria de Oca. It's a bit rough in certain places, but overall it's superb. This is the only graded assignment I turned in for a grade that was a collaboration with other people. I learned that through collaboration, there involves great sacrifice (not in this circumstance, everything went well here, but in future projects I'll be working with). Several extreme views become canceled out, and the resulting film becomes... "conservative." *sigh* That's why sometimes I like to be solo. Simply because I'm not strapped down with "compromise" of other people's views. I was talking to Oscar Flores last night about how producing films is like being a part of a human experiment of governance and coordination of individuals in small human societies. Patterns and skews in communication and resource-energetics exchange regimes. You learn A LOT about human behavior under these conditions. It's better to play a real-live video game than play "human civilization" video games (Civilization 4 and Spore) on computer screens....

This promotional video will be used for a larger promotional video for Blue Horizons, which is currently being created by Hannah Apricot Eckberg and Nikki Ferri.