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Ok. What is happening with my project?I interviewed/filmed Kate Zidar as she built a compost on site at a home in Brooklyn. Got great shots of worms and compost to be going into the bin. I also got voice over narration for my Nutrient Cycle visual.

I need to go to the dump and get footage of mountains of trash. I hate checking out equipment and lugging it around on my back. I need a sheerpa. 

Kate Zidar

the nutrient cycle

visual strategy

Opening montage of urban gardens, mixed with the city scape and garbage. The end of the montage will be images of the city dumps.

Interview with Kate Zidar on the nutrient cycle

Cut with visual representations of the nutrient cycle

why worms?

interview with Kate Zidar explaining worms

cut with images of worms and worm bins

setting up a compost bin

images of a compost bin being started from scratch

how can I compost?

 

in life i believe

In life I believe that environmental awareness begins at the community level. My film will show this in action by exploring the community that surrounds the composting movement. The main conflict is between the over abundance of garbage in New York City and the vital nutrients that are lost when it is exported.

Composting is an important alternative to garbage export. Currently, our waste in New York City is trucked around and exported for landfill or incineration in New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania and so on. The impacts of dealing with garbage this way are felt in communities who live all along these truck routes, transfer stations and disposal sites. Trucking garbage is polluting the air and wearing down the roads to export thousands of tons of compostable material each day. When the vital nutrients that are being trucked to landfills are instead turned into new soil to grow plants, everyone wins.

Ultimately I want the audience to feel inspired to get involved in their local composting project and to understand that it is easier, less smelly, and more fun than they think.

In my film I will explore a group of composters in Brooklyn that call themselves the North Brooklyn Compost Project. Head by sustainability consultant and eco-warrior Kate Zidar, the North Brooklyn Community Compost site in Williamsburg Brooklyn, is a project that brings people in the community together over a pile of worms. Weekend visitors to the site can come get dirty moving the compost through its various stages and get to know about the nutrient cycle up close and personal.

The Background information that would be useful to the audience would be the statistics of how much garbage goes into landfills that could be composted and what that would do for our environment. The Information about the start of the North Brooklyn Compost Project and who was behind it’s conception and why.

Action Sequence

1. North Brooklyn Compost Site

The factual information that it contributes to the film will be the process of composting. What the different steps are and what goes into keeping up the compost pile.

   a. Worms

   b. The Garden surrounding the compost project 

2. The Nutrient Cycle

Interview with Kate Zidar explaining the nutrient cycle and how it plays out in nature and in urban environments. 

3.Footage of the trucks driving to the landfill 

4.The landfill in Greenpoint

How hard is it to compost at home?

What does that look like?

Is it smelly?

What does good soil have to do with good food?

Are there local restaurants composting their scraps and in turn growing more food?