Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:09 Good planets, a hot Tropic climb. Thriving sea see is winds blowing, some breathing trees and strong on and safe sunshine. Good planets are hard to find.
Speaker 2 00:00:31 Yes, they are good. Planets are hard to find hello case. Good listeners. It's every other Sunday again, and you're listening to sustainability. Now, a biweekly case, quid radio show focused on environment sustainability and social justice in the Monterey bay region, California and the world. I'm your host, Ronnie lipids. We live in a highly visual culture. My, some might say it's too visual. Visual media are not only informative. They are also effective. That is to say they affect emotions sometimes not to society's benefit. As we've been seeing over the last few years, my guest today is well versed and deeply immersed in producing both informative and effective media. Eric Teman during his 40 year career, Teman has filmed, produced and directed hundreds of media projects in over 40 countries. These include art and the prison crisis. The last epidemic, medical consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear war in the nuclear shadow. What can children tell us nominated for an academy award in 1984 and women for America, which received the academy award for best short documentary film in 1986, more recently, he's been involved in creating educational media for children, including a radio show called kids on climate and connected universe, a game like educational platform, where the player is offered an island paradise, which is suffering from climate change. Eric, Teman welcome to sustainability now.
Speaker 3 00:01:58 Thank you, Ronnie. And thanks for, uh, having me on your show and thanks to all your listeners who, uh,
Speaker 2 00:02:04 Who
Speaker 3 00:02:04 Are, who care about this kind of thing, which, uh, is, is important. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:02:08 Thank you. Yeah. Before we get into, uh, into the nuts and bolts, you know, um, I saw on your website that you followed a team, uh, a, uh, citizen diplomacy team to Russia in the late 1980s, and you got to meet MCIL Gobi off and he just died this past week. I was wondering if, if you have any reflections on, on Gobi off, did you meet him and talk to
Speaker 3 00:02:32 Him? Uh, well we, we met him and talked to him and he, he, he spoke Russian the whole time. Uh, I understand that he spends a lot of time in New York, so I think he knew English quite well, but he didn't want to use it. But in any event, we, we had a, we had a private audience. There was about 30, there were about 30 of us in the room. And he spoke for about an hour to us about his relationship with, uh, Ronald Reagan and the whole, uh, you know, the whole area of the eighties when Reagan and he became friends. Yeah. Uh, and when we got back, uh, we, we were asked to post the material online and we had, we had had a Russian translate it, but we found out that the translation was so off that we retranslated it. And if you're ever interested in seeing that, it's quite interesting to, to, uh, hear his reflections on his, what he felt like he accomplished in his life.
Speaker 2 00:03:31 Uh, maybe you can tell us, tell, tell me later where, where I can find it and absolutely I'll post it on the, on the website. So why don't we start at the beginning? How, how do you describe what you do and how did you get into this field of work?
Speaker 3 00:03:43 Uh, it's a good, uh, it's a great existential question. <laugh> uh, how do I describe what I do? Uh, it's like, um, I was thinking a lot about that because I know you want me to say I make films and that's what I do, but I, I it's started much earlier than that for me. And I think, uh, I, I feel like I, what I do is I try to see the potential in things. I see the potential in objects. I see the potential in people, and I try to empower, empower people to be something other than what they, they think they can be. In other words, I think most people have enormous potential. I think objects have enormous potential. And so I repurpose a lot of things in life. Um, so what I do, uh, I started off doing magic shows when I was 12.
Speaker 3 00:04:35 That's kind of when my, I started my professional career, doing magic shows for five bucks, I loved magic. I loved, uh, playing that game with people and fooling people. And then when I got into college, somebody, uh, asked me for a photograph that I'd taken of a group of magical singers up, up at UC Santa Cruz. I was in the first class, the first year UC Santa Cruz started. And, uh, the photographer hadn't shown up in this occasion. So I, I gave her this photograph when it was developed. And she said, can you shoot more photos? And I said, sure. Uh, but I, my camera was kind of like the, the, the equivalent of an Instamatic by that back then. So she borrowed a camera and I started shooting, uh, photos. She gave me a roll of film and a list. I went out and shot it.
Speaker 3 00:05:20 She gave me another roll of film and a list. I went out and shot it. I did this for about four or five months, and a book came out, which was, uh, which was really, uh, thrilling. Uh, then they gave me the contract to do the next year. I got, uh, for 300 pictures printed and I had to learn how to print that summer. Uh, I got $300 dollar a print. Um, and so another book came out and as a result of that, the poet Laureate, UC Santa Cruz, who was, he was, he just happened to write a lot of poetry, came up at me and said, I've got this poem, this very visual, and I'd love to make a film about it. Uh, and I'd said, well, I don't have a film camera. I never made a film. She said, well, we can borrow Paul Lee's camera.
Speaker 3 00:06:04 And Paul Lee, who was an ethics professor back then was my ethics professor. He had this, this high, this regular eight movie camera and Paul Lee's still alive up there, still kicking, still swinging. Uh, I just saw 'em yesterday. Um, and we shot this movie and that's when I got bit, I got the, I got the, the cinema, you know, the film bite. And, uh, that was third year up here at UC Santa Cruz. So I did not graduate from UC Santa Cruz. I transferred out, it was nothing in film or photography to keep me there. I had to learn more about films. I went to UCLA film school, went through their graduate program. And then, uh, you know, that's how I got into it. Right. This was pre Instamatic. It was like, I think pre Instamatic came out about 20 years after 1965. And it was,
Speaker 4 00:06:55 So you got an MFA in motion pictures at UCLA. What was that like?
Speaker 3 00:07:00 Uh, UCLA UCLA was great. We watched movies all day. Every day we made movies. I made five movies while I was at UCLA. And several of them, uh, got distributed, uh, by luck or some such thing. The first movie I made there went out with Woodstock. The, the big movie that, um, you know, started all those great musicians back then. And they wanted the distribu distribution company wanted a short film to open it, kinda like a teaser. And I had made this film about a, a young woman turning into a butterfly and they liked it. And so they said, well, they could pay me $300 for the all rates to that movie. And I said, sure. And then that was, uh, then that went around and then another one was, uh, anyway, a few films got distributed and then I, I left UCLA. It was, it was a filmmaking school. And, uh, you learn when you go to filmmaking school, you learn filmmaking. If you make a lot of films, I mean, if you really work with films, it's like anything, you do it a lot. You get better at it.
Speaker 2 00:08:03 Although I imagine not everybody who graduates from the film school ends up doing it, you know, doing it successful.
Speaker 3 00:08:08 There were only 5% of the people who graduated from film school at UCLA, whoever had anything to do with film afterward. Yeah. And I'm not gonna say that those 5% were the best 5% of the bunch. Yeah. Um, it's, it's a, it's, it's tough. It's a whole nother, um, it's a whole nother thing to get into the business. I thought people were gonna beat my door down when I got outta UCLA <laugh> because I had made these films and I, I did have a, have a pretty good shot at a, at a feature film that I'd written. Uh, Peter Fonda had been in a, um, an easy writer and that in 20th had 20th century had, uh, a seven picture contract with him. So I wrote this, this movie called steel heel back in, uh, back in 72. And I got called from this guy from 20th.
Speaker 3 00:08:56 He says, we want you to, uh, you know, and I had an agent at the time. We want Peter to, uh, Peter Fonda to be in this movie. And I said, well, you know, I've promised it to another friend of mine. Who's an actor. <laugh> and I have to honor that. And I said, are you sure you wanna do that? And I said, you know, they said, you can direct it. And I said, I'd love to direct it by, I already promised it to this other dude. And I wanna honor that. And so that was my shot. I, uh, you know, it, it was fine. I have no regrets. It, uh, I ended up making that movie 20 years later in Santa Cruz, uh, action, adventure, steel heel. A lot of people were involved in that. Probably some people who are listening. Uh, remember it, uh, somewhat, it was, it was a, a really low budget movie.
Speaker 3 00:09:46 Uh, we raised a hundred thousand dollars. We used the, the butcher from shopper's corner to, um, to be the star in the movie. And, um, we had, we rolled semis, we shut down highway 17. We used the Davenport cement plan and both, both, uh, the Watsonville and the Salinas police station. We got every location for free and I've, I've total. I just want to, uh, shout at all the people who helped with that movie. Um, we ended up, uh, you know, it, it went out and I got a distributor and I kept calling him. I said, how's it doing? He said, great. We haven't, uh, we haven't reached profit yet. Uh, we're still selling it in the world markets, cuz they would go out and they'd sell 8,000 Argentina and 20,000 China and 5,000 to Podunk, you know, wherever. And then they turned into an answering machine mm-hmm and I couldn't get in touch with them and I understood, they just went outta business so that they'd already sold rights to a lot of it around the world. And um, so I got another distributor and the same thing happened. So I can say I safely got a really fantastic t-shirt out of that movie. It was designed by Nick kig who, uh, mono kig is, uh, his son mm-hmm <affirmative> Nick kig is an amazing graphic designer graphic artist here in town. Uh, and all I can say is the t-shirt was maybe the best thing I got out of movie besides a fantastic, uh, experience making the movie.
Speaker 2 00:11:20 So, so that's the slow I, I, I made a movie and all I got was this lousy t-shirt
Speaker 3 00:11:24 Right? No, this was, yeah, this was a fantastic t-shirt. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2 00:11:27 I, I, I also read that you worked for Roger Corman.
Speaker 3 00:11:30 I did. When I was, uh, going to UCLA, I had, uh, I was friends with Jonathan Demi who made movies like silence of the lambs and Philadelphia and stop making sense and oh, swing tank on bohi. He made a whole slew of movie. He's probably 20 or 30 married to the mob. Anyway, he was a friend of mine. He was making films for Roger Corman. He was writing films and he got a shot at directing his first, first feature called caged heat about, uh, women in prison. And he asked me if I wanted to be the art director for it. Um, because I guess he needed somebody who would work for $300 a week. I don't know. I mean, that's what I, that number keeps coming up. Huh? The number keeps coming up. I I uh, yeah, 300 shirt. That's my that's my price still is my price.
Speaker 3 00:12:18 Um, anyway, <laugh> I uh, yeah, I did a great job. Uh, for Jonathan of that movie. I, I went, I, I ran sacked LA for free, uh, free props and I brought him, we outfitted a women's prison. Um, and uh, so many other things for $2,000. That was my budget for the entire, uh, feature film for the art department and, and all of the, all the billing and several people here, Richard Forno, who, uh, architect, who designed one of the, uh, student, um, union up at UC Santa Cruz really well known architect. He, he was, uh, he helped me on that and Wayne Cartright and a few other people anyway. Yeah, that was fun too. Um, that was Roger Corman. Um, and, uh, and Jonathan, Demi, yeah, that was, you know, a short thing. And then I got a lot of calls after that to be art director, because I was, I had created so much for these guys and I filled their walls with stuff.
Speaker 3 00:13:21 I mean, just stuff that I got for free. And, uh, so I got all these calls from all these other producers who wanted me to do the same thing for them, but I, I honestly, I wanted to make movies. I wanted to write movies. I wanted to make stories and direct my own movies. And so I, um, I, I, you know, I, I stopped doing that. I said, no, thanks. I, I wanna do something else. Um, yeah. And as a result, I, you know, I done, I did this little stint with this, with steel. And when that kind of went south Sid, Marty Croft, optioned it for a couple of years, they used to make the Donny and re Osman show. It was just not where I wanted to go. You know, it's like, I, no, this is not for me. So I applied for a grant at the American film Institute and I got this grant and I said, okay, let's get outta LA.
Speaker 3 00:14:09 I'm going back to where I love. And I'm going back to Santa Cruz and cuz, and so with that $10,000, I bought some video gear and nobody was the first color video camera that Sony put out that was portable that you didn't have to plug in. It had a big battery and you could walk, sort of walk around with it with a Dolly and a portable deck, three quarter inch. And I started making movies. I came up here and Eloise Smith, who was the wife of Paige Smith, who was the first provost of Cal college called me up. And she said, what's it gonna cost to go around to the prisons and interview prisoners who are doing artwork or they're doing crafts. I want to make an art program in Santa, in uh, the prison system. And I'm gonna, um, and I want, I wanna document what's happening now.
Speaker 3 00:15:01 And I said, it won't cost anything. Let's go. So we went around to five of the maximum security prisons and talked to a bunch of people. Um, I actually have a, a interesting little, uh, um, thing from that, from that movie I'll this is the opening clip of art in a prison crisis. It was typical of the kind of interviews that I did. I talked to hundreds of mostly men. We did go to Frontera, uh, which is a women's prison down in LA. But, um, this was, uh, I can click on click on this if you want and play it. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:15:34 Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. Let's see if it works.
Speaker 3 00:15:36 See if it works.
Speaker 5 00:15:37 I was at a very low E and uh, I recognized it even outside. I went to, uh, a local mental health clinic and I told him, I said, listen, I'm an addict. I'm on parole. I want to quit. Please help me. And uh, the person that interviewed me said, well, I'm very sorry. I can appreciate your problem, but we don't have any groups right now that you would fit into. So why don't you check back with us later? Well, I think it was less than a month. I was in prison for first degree murder.
Speaker 3 00:16:11 So I should give you a context. Um, I think films are a lot about, uh, the sound, but what was happening coincidentally, while this inmate was talking? Uh, he was, he was, he was drawing on a large, uh, piece of poster board and painting the word art, uh, for, because he was in the art program. Um, and, uh, you know, I, so many of these, uh, there's so much talent, well, there's talent everywhere, but just, just like outside there's talent in the, in the penal institutions everywhere. And just talent is just wasting away because people just don't have the, uh, they don't have the opportunities to exercise it. But even now today, William James association, which Eloise and Paige Smith started way back when 20, 20, 30, 40 years ago, uh, it's still going strong. Laurie Brooks still runs that, uh, organization, William James association, uh, they still do, uh, they, they sponsor, uh, teachers and tutorials in the maximum security prisons, especially in Northern California. And they're doing a terrific job. Anyway, I made four move movies for Eloise, uh, mostly PBS type, uh, films and helped. Uh, I think it helped her program helped gain some credibility for her program.
Speaker 2 00:17:37 Yeah. Well, let's talk about the, the films you did about nuclear war. Okay. Okay. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, I remember when the last epidemic was released because partly I had a copy of the book from the conference and especially how powerful a speaker Helen Caldecott was. What prompted you to make a film, make that film?
Speaker 3 00:17:56 Well, my dad was, uh, an activist. My dad, Ian Teman was an activist. He he's, um, he he's since gone into the, he used to call it into the next vibration <laugh>, but he, he was an activist and his, he, he always had this idea that he could, in some ways, save the world from itself on some level. So he was always involved in either the Vietnam war or, or counseling draft, uh, draft draftees of the, of that war, or, uh, anyway, he came to me one day and he said, you know, there's this conference, uh, I'm trying to alert people to the dangers of nuclear war. And there's this conference in San Francisco. There's a, there are a bunch of physicians who are at this conference are gonna be talking about it. And I, I I'd love to get some excerpts from that conference.
Speaker 3 00:18:45 And I, and I, you know, my, my mental brain who's been resisting this since I was 10, you know, this activism, you know, I kind of said, who wants to know about nuclear war? Nobody it's, you know, it's depressing, but I didn't say it. I said, okay, dad, whatever you need. So I went up there and I shot this conference and, uh, I brought it down, back down to Santa Cruz in a box and he said, what's next? And I said, well, you have to go through it and figure out what pieces you want to play to the rotary clubs around Santa Cruz, cuz that's what he, that's what he wanted to do. So he went through it and he pulled all these pieces out. And I, I assembled them kind of together in a rough form and it was about 40 minutes. And then we cut it down to 30 minutes, 35 minutes and he said, okay, I'm going.
Speaker 3 00:19:31 I said, no, you gotta put some visuals on this. I mean, there's, they're talking about nuclear war. And I remember seeing this film in, when I was teaching at the art center college of design in Pasadena, just after I got outta UCLA, I was teaching film production and, and film analysis. And I remember showing this movie called hero Shema, Nagasaki 1945. And it blew my mind when I saw it. I checked it out of the, uh, LA public library. I, they had these 16 millimeter films you could check out. And I remembered that film and I, I re I, I checked it out. I broadcasted on my wall and I videotaped it off the wall. That's that's how much I cared about what I was doing that. I mean, I was just making a movie for my dad to take around to rotary clubs, get it.
Speaker 3 00:20:16 I mean, I wasn't gonna spend some money getting it properly transferred. And it was, so I put these images in where they belonged had, you know, nuclear weapons blowing up. And you know, I got things off the web, not off the web, actually the web didn't exist. I just, no, I just, uh, I just videotaped things off off of 60 millimeter films that I rented and I put this thing together. My father started showing it around. Everybody wanted copies of that thing. So I said, great, let's turn, let's give it, give it to the resource center for nonviolence here in town. And, and they, I think there was four people working for two years sending that thing out to, to churches and schools and hospitals. And I mean, it just went everywhere. It was in six languages. It was shown in Congress. It was in life magazine.
Speaker 3 00:21:10 It, it just went nuts. And I was just like watching this thing that had a life of its own because I, I just, I gave it away. I mean, I didn't, I wasn't interested in making money on it. You, how can you make money off of social issues? It just never really appealed to me. So I would just give these things away. And I was, I, I even made the VHS tapes. I started cranking these VHS tapes out, cuz VHS started to become a thing then. Yeah. Yeah. And I just started cranking them out. And I got calls from the distributors in LA saying I was this bad apple in the barrel for, cause I, they were selling VHSs for the same price as the 16 millimeter film, which was three, $400. And I said, why do that? Let's sell it for 10 bucks. Let's get it out the door. And anyway, it went nuts. It was, uh, it was fun. I can play you that excerpt from Helen Caldecott, which is the last little piece. If you want to hear it. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:22:01 No, I think that'd be great. So our, our listeners can hear her
Speaker 3 00:22:03 And I'll tell you something about what I think was the reason that film made such a, uh, such a splash. Here you go.
Speaker 6 00:22:12 Governments were formed. In fact, in the past to protect the health and wellbeing of the societies, they worked in conjunction with doctors to provide clean water supplies. They worked together to provide adequate sew. And in that way we eradicated much disease, which was rampant throughout time. Governments must therefore work with us to eradicate the most serious problem. The world has ever seen nuclear war, which is medically contraindicated.
Speaker 6 00:22:44 This is the ultimate medical issue of our time. It is the ultimate medical issue. Since man has been on earth for 3 million years, we are all adults, not children. We therefore inherited the earth as our birthright. Each one of us, each one of us can be as powerful as the most powerful person on this earth. We blame nobody else, but ourselves, we must take the world on our shoulders like Atlas as physicians and as mature adults and work towards this ultimate question for no other issue really matters. It doesn't matter if we immunize it babies. So they weren't developed pertussis and TEUs. It doesn't matter if we give them good nutritious food. It doesn't matter if the marital relationships are good. So the children grow in an emotionally secure environment. When you look at the concept that maybe over the next decade, these children that we are working to nurture, protect, and love will be dead.
Speaker 6 00:23:55 There are not communist children and capitalist children. They're all children. You just have to look at a baby, the beauty of a baby to know what the symbol of life should be and what every single one of us in this world should be working to protect the babies of this world, who will pass the gene pool on to future generations. These weapons are biologically totally unacceptable. They must be eliminated. And this too is the ultimate religious issue for what is our responsibility towards God to continue this process of wonderful evolution that we know as physicians is, which has taken billions of years to happen. What is our responsibility to continue that,
Speaker 3 00:24:53 You know, you, you hear her speak there and you can, she could be speaking about climate change. She can nuclear weapons still. Right. So, yeah. And there just as many, if not more powerful nuclear weapons, um, yeah, it's an issue that hasn't gone away. People just, uh, in some ways like climate change, they just kind of stick it under the rug over there. Well, maybe, maybe someone will figure it out sometime, but, um, it's just as, it's just as dangerous as it ever has been. Um, and, but you know, at the end of one of the, what I was gonna say as a filmmaker, she spoke for an hour. I edited it down to four minutes. I, that was four minutes out of that 30 minutes that my dad took around mm-hmm <affirmative>, but at, she was the last speaker and then Linda Arnold came on with a song called sweet mother earth.
Speaker 3 00:25:47 Um, and at that moment, people had been, uh, subjected to a hypothetical, um, hypothetical attack on San Francisco had seen a devastation that had happened would've would happen in San Francisco. If a nuclear weapon went off there, they had took, we heard physicians who are one of the most, most credible group of individuals anywhere. Um, talk about all of the effects that would happen. You're pretty much lying on the ground at the end of this movie. You, um, and she, but she does a, an empowering speech. We are any, one of us can be as powerful as the most powerful person on earth. We must take the earth on our shoulders, like, like Atlas. Well, and then you say, well, what can I do? What can I do? You know, know what I did? The only brilliant thing that I really did with this movie is I put a placard right after Helen KKO speech, cuz I knew everybody was gonna go, what can we do?
Speaker 3 00:26:52 And there was a placard that said you can help by showing this program to your local organizations. That's all it said. And that's why this movie went crazy. Everybody wanted a copy. They were taking, people were grabbing copies and taking it to their churches, taking it to their, uh, synagogues, taking it to their, uh, hospitals, taking it everywhere. They played this movie because somebody said, I've got a copy of it. I'm gonna show it to the group. So that was probably one of the smarter things that I did with that. With that film, that film, uh, was never, never went up for any awards. It was just, it just went out and I was, I was glad it was, it was so widely, uh, seen,
Speaker 2 00:27:40 Yeah, it was a power. It was a powerful film. And it came out at a, at a time when, when lots of people were very worried about what the Reagan administration was up to. Exactly. You are listening to sustainability now I'm your host. Ronnie Lipshitz. And my guest today is Eric tier who has been a filmmaker for most of his life. If that's, if it's fair to, to use the term, um, and media production, how's that that's the, the today today's term. And we're just talking about his, uh, film, the, uh, the last epidemic, but, and then you made a film in the nuclear shadow, uh, what kids, what was the, the,
Speaker 3 00:28:18 What can the
Speaker 2 00:28:19 Children tell us? What can the children tell us? And I mean, I named the, the program, you know, in the climate shadow, what can the children tell us? So what was that? And that one was nominated for an academy award. Yeah. What
Speaker 3 00:28:29 Was that about? We got, uh, it, wasn't actually an original idea cuz John Mack of, of Harvard university had done this, uh, had done something similar in rush. I think we went over and talked to kids about their impressions of a nuclear war. And I thought, well, why don't we do that with kids here? And so we got 50 kids and the, and our parents agreed to let us talk to them. Uh, they were six to 17 ages, six to 17. And um, over a couple of day period, we had a list of questions. We gave the questions to the kids and the parents and they would check the questions that they didn't want to answer or they, you know, and then we just asked them the questions and you know, out of every, every child we would spend maybe 15 minutes, 15, 20 minutes talking to them and then out of 50 year 50 or so kids, we came up with a 30 minute film.
Speaker 3 00:29:22 Um, and I mean, filmmaking is about the editing process. It's about what you leave on, what you leave on the cutting room floor. I mean, it's, that's, that's gone. You, you, you, what, what you save, how you juxtapose the pieces together is really what filmmaking's all about because if it were about shooting, we'd all be Steven Spielberg's because we all have a camera in our pocket with our iPhone. That's way better than anything I used in the first 30 years of filmmaking, way better. Um, and it, it records better sound, it records better, uh, better visuals. So it really, then it boils down to shoot whatever you want and then put it in front front of your yourself and figure out what other people, what kind of story you're trying to tell and what, what, uh, what other people will listen to. Um, when my son went off to, I think it was Peru or someplace, he was doing something on coal Coalfire power plant down there, and he's a surfer, um, a big wave surfer.
Speaker 3 00:30:31 So he was gonna do some surfing and this Coalfire power plant was gonna destroy this area, uh, this surf, uh, spot. And he said, well, what do I do that? And he was kind of on his way to the plane and he was gonna shoot this movie and he never made a movie before. I said, well, just make it under four minutes. And I think you've got an audience for it. You know, I, you know, a lot of times films, they're just too long. Yeah. They're just too long. Yeah. Just cut it. When I was my first film film that I, uh, did at UCLA, I showed it to this guy, his friend of mine, David war, he wrote the sting and a couple other movies. Uh, I mean, there was a lot of people there that got famous, but he, he, I showed this movie to him. He said, cut it in half. And I said, cut it in half. How can I cut it in half? And he just said, take the beginning and end off every cut. And you'll probably have a good movie. So instead of a 10 minute movie, it was a five minute movie and that five minute movie got distributed with Woodstock.
Speaker 3 00:31:30 So it, a lot of times films are just too long that that's, I mean, that's, I can just tell you that almost every film there's something great in it. That could be cut down to that greatness. And it would be a great movie.
Speaker 2 00:31:43 Yeah. And our, well, our attention spans are much shorter today than they were 30 or 40 years ago too.
Speaker 3 00:31:48 I mean even 30 or 40 years ago. It was true though. Yeah. Just like, I just like
Speaker 2 00:31:51 <laugh> yeah, no, I've been actually wrestling with that, you know, question of how long will people watch something before they zone out or turn it off. And it's, it's not a lot. It's not a lot. Yeah. Hey, let's go on and talk about your, your, you know, talk some more about your current work. So you just retired right from impact media, which
Speaker 3 00:32:11 You found. Yeah. I've been working, uh, with some, a great group of, of, of folks at impact creative, which coincidentally is right across the street from case quid. Did you know that? No. You know, the, in anatomy metal place right here, mm-hmm, <affirmative> across the street Uhhuh <affirmative>, we're the building behind. Uh, so that's where the studio is. Um, it's really funny. Um, yeah, so a great group of folks for years, everybody, uh, impact has been fantastic. And I think what happened to me is that I met, I was kind of interested in the newer media, the, the VR, uh, and where things were going there. I'd made enough corporate, uh, corporate videos. I'd made millions of documentaries. I didn't really get into filmmaking to make documentaries. I did it because that's what people needed. They called me up and they said, can you do this?
Speaker 3 00:33:01 And I said, sure. And so I got into making documentaries and then lots of corporate videos for, you know, Google and apple and Cisco. And I mean, they took me everywhere all over the world. I went to 40 countries because of the companies that I worked for and made millions of, of, you know, documentaries, too social documentaries. But I really wanted to tell stories. Documentaries are like, you videotape, you document something and then you try to make something you're, you're, you're in documentaries. You're trying to, you, you videotape something and you try to stitch it together into some meaningful way. And what happened, what happens with stories is you, um, we're talking about the difference between documentary and, and dramatic filmmaking. And I like telling stories. So I met a, uh, a motion graphic artist named Ethan Summers and his wife, Anne Marie Summers, who, uh, Anne Marie Napole, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 00:33:56 Um, who had a company called almost human, almost human media. And these guys were making some of the best, uh, motion graphics I'd ever seen. One day, Ethan said, what do you think of this? And I walked into the, you know, I was in the studio, he'd rented a, one of the, one of the offices in this building that I I impact was in. And he showed me this environment that he created, which was photorealistic. He said, put these goggles on and walk around in this environment. And it kind of blew my mind. And I thought this could be one of the most, uh, powerful educational tools. You could take people into these environments, teach them science, teach them anything. Um, so we started building out this E educational, uh, demo. Uh, we, you, it was, we created photosynthesis as a, as a, as a, as a model.
Speaker 3 00:34:55 We had labs in the forest. We had, you could go in this lab, you could dive into the water, you could study the fish underneath the water. I mean, it was just like amazing. And we decided after talking to several big publishers and they were interested, but eh, you know, they're not quite ready for it yet. That kind of thing that what really needed to be taught worldwide was, was climate change. Uh, people need to, they're looking for teachers to teach climate change everywhere because it's such a critical issue. And there's so many careers that can come out of it. So I said, well, why don't we make, uh, a, an immersive, uh, game where you know, where you, uh, you're offered an island and who hasn't ever wanted, who hasn't ever well, there probably some be some people out there who never wanted an island, but I always thought, wouldn't it be cool to have an island your own island?
Speaker 3 00:35:53 And so you're offered an island, a virtual island that you, you land on and you look around it as paradise. But as you start to walk through the island, you realize that this island is beset with climate change problems. The ocean has risen. The town is under wa is, is partially underwater. Everybody's left. This island is abandoned. The farms are abandoned. They've they've, they've, the crops are ruined. Half the forest is burned. There are some, some species of animals that are still on the island, still trying to eat out a meter meter existence, and your job should you choose to accept it is to abate the problems on that island and the way you do it is you travel off island to other places in the world, which have become known, uh, as places where climate change is being abated through very innovative methods. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Speaker 3 00:36:57 And we used, um, this book regeneration, uh, uh, that, um, um, oh my gosh. My brain is, um, anyway, I'll think of it in a minute. We, we used several books. S the Brookings Institute has a, a wonderful, um, a wonderful whole tutorial on teaching climate change to kids. And we just started amassing all of this information to, um, to create this island. So now we have a, a demo and, you know, I think we could give this thing away. Uh, it's the only way it's gonna get out there. If we sell it, it'll get bottlenecked. Like most things do. So kind of like the last epidemic I thought, why don't we just give it away? And there's gotta be philanthropists out there who wanna see this game, who will see the potential in it, who will support us finishing it. It's, you know, we, we wanna build it out so that it has right now, it has, uh, a lot of the things that we'll propose that we've we've proposed, and you can actually put goggles on and dive underneath the water and look at coral and go into a lab underwater.
Speaker 3 00:38:12 Um, but you, but, but I, I, so we're gonna, I basically, I'm gonna hit the road. Mm-hmm <affirmative> next week, we have a demo. I'm gonna hit the road next week. And I'm gonna talk to people who wanna support this, uh, this venture mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I think giving this thing away, what person who's teaching climate change in the world is not gonna say, stream this game, look at this game, you are gonna learn so much about climate change. We're giving away points. You know what carbon coin is? Yeah. You read that, you read that book, the, uh, the ministry of the future,
Speaker 2 00:38:47 The ministry for the future. Yeah. We're actually gonna have him on case squid in a couple of weeks. Cool.
Speaker 3 00:38:51 Yeah. Well, we're gonna give, we're gonna give away carbon coin. Carbon coin is this was, um, this were proposed in this great book called ministry of the future. Where if you se que you can sequester a ton of carbon, you get a carbon coin, which is valuable. You can. And so we're gonna, we're gonna get away carbon coins. We're we're gonna have the players earn carbon coins, which will be, have a real value to them. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I even propose giving away some land cause, and then everybody goes, what you're gonna give away land. And I think I can get some land to give away that could be stewarded by winners of this game. If it's, if it's it's gonna be a competition, people will learn this thing. We want people to learn it fast. We want them to learn it as fast as possible.
Speaker 3 00:39:39 Mm-hmm <affirmative>. We want millions of people to learn this game fast, because it will teach you so much about sustainability. Now it will teach you how the world is working. And it brings to me, it brings those two parallel paths that we're traversing one, we're living our lives. We want everything to be normal. We want everythings to be comfortable and secure. And then over here, parallel to that is climate change. And it's, we're barreling down this track where climate change it's hotter today in Canada, then it's ever been and everybodys, oh, it's hotter over there. It's was blistering hot in my backyard today. I'm going, do I want it like this? So I, what I'm saying is we need to bring these paths a little closer together. So people are going, well, maybe I can do a little bit more. Don't do too much more.
Speaker 3 00:40:33 I mean, don't actually get involved, but just do a little bit. How about one meal a week, less of red meat? You, you know, it's not asking for a whole lot. How about one less trip to the store? Or one less trip across town that you don't really need to take in your car? Because you find out that the average automobile in the United States puts up. Guess what? 4.3 tons metric, tons of carbon every year, maybe just drive a little bit less, maybe get an electric car sooner than you thought. How about it? I don't know. I, you know, I'm having fun. That's the thing. I think you can have fun and know the facts. You don't have to get depressed and know the facts, know the facts and try to solve some of the problems. I think they're, they're solvable and it's one of the funnest things I, I like to do is solve problems. I really, I really enjoy it. Uh, and I think, uh, that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2 00:41:38 You are listening to sustainability now I'm Ronnie Lipchitz and I'm in the studio today, which Eric Teman, who we've decided is a media producer. He's just been telling us about a game that he is developing, helping to develop, uh, called
Speaker 3 00:41:53 Earth. It's called earth island. Earth
Speaker 2 00:41:55 Island. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:41:55 Earth island universe is the name of the
Speaker 2 00:41:57 Company. That was the name of a, of a film back in the 50, this island earth. It was called. Yeah. Um, what's the radio station show gonna be about
Speaker 3 00:42:05 The, what? Oh, the radio show. By the way, I wanted to correct one mistake here I've been at, I, I, a lot of people think that I got an academy award for women for America. I didn't, uh, oh, it's not, you'll not, you won't read that anywhere. Um,
Speaker 2 00:42:20 I read it in several places, but
Speaker 3 00:42:22 Okay, well maybe you, maybe you will read it. I didn't print it there. What happened with women for America is when I've we finished, uh, in the nuclear shadow, I said, let's make a movie about the powerful women in the country who are politicians, who are movers, shakers, you know, the, the Shirley Chisholm's the Ellen, Goodman's the Elizabeth Holesman, pat Schroeders of the world. Yeah. Yeah. And so we got a little bit of funding. I, we, uh, I went out as co-producer director and camera audio on that film. And when it was finished, uh, I took a walk. I decided I didn't wanna be a part of it, even though it was turned out to be a great movie. Uh, I had other things that I wanted to do. Mm. And so, um, I do not have an academy award, even though I was scope producer at the beginning, I ended up taking a walk and, uh, I have a film credit on the end at this point.
Speaker 2 00:43:17 So, so the film got the award, but not, but you don't have it. Okay. Well, I mean, that's,
Speaker 3 00:43:21 That's
Speaker 2 00:43:22 Correct, you know, but I
Speaker 3 00:43:23 Still, somebody else got the award.
Speaker 2 00:43:24 It's fine. Still that's something, you know, some
Speaker 3 00:43:25 That's not, no, no. I was happy to be involved with it, for sure.
Speaker 2 00:43:28 Yeah. So, okay. Kids on climate, what's that going to be?
Speaker 3 00:43:31 Well, kids on climate is a radio show that I am working on, although it's taken a backseat to earth island at this point, but I, I think we're almost there. And, uh, you'll be able to go to a website where you can, and we thought about doing this with kids, but then Rachel Goodman who works here at K squid. Yeah. Um, said, you're gonna have to get in order for kids to be on a radio program, you have to get permission. You have to get permission from their parents, everybody. So you can't really go through the web to do that. Yeah. And so I said, okay, we'll have the kids ask the questions. So these questions, these kids are gonna be asking questions of adults. Uh, what is going on, folks out there? Oh, I heard the ice. You know, the ice sheet is melting off of Greenland and we're gonna get eight inches of wa of ocean rise. Uh, can you tell us what's happening, folks, adults. And so any adult can answer these questions. They'll be like six or 10 questions on this website. They'll just press a, a button on the website and answer the question or speak as long as they want to. And then in my little editing room, I would cut together the, uh, most, the best, most fantastic humorous, uh, unbelievable responses that adults, uh, are coming up with as solutions, uh, as solutions for these children. I mean, we have to tell 'em something, right.
Speaker 2 00:45:02 We do. It sounds like this would be good for adults too.
Speaker 3 00:45:06 It'll
Speaker 2 00:45:07 Be good for, to ask question masquerade as a child. Right. Which is usually not legal, but
Speaker 3 00:45:12 We're all grown up children, whether we want to admit it or not. We, most of us haven't really gotten to.
Speaker 2 00:45:20 Yeah. So, so when is this gonna go live?
Speaker 3 00:45:23 Uh, as soon as we get it finished, we will get, you'll be the first to know because, um, Rachel Goodman said that if I get a little, two minute show, we could play it. Yeah. And we'll, and I was hoping to do something on a daily basis, uh, which is a lot of work of course, as you well know. Uh, so we'll get the earth island up and running probably first and then I'll and I'll attack the other one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:45:48 You know, I thought that, uh, we're, we're getting close to the end of the show and I thought we could engage in some film, criticism and analysis, because I saw somewhere that you had taught that kind of stuff right. When you were teaching. And do you think there are any commercial films that have seriously addressed climate change? Can you, well,
Speaker 3 00:46:07 Well, don't look up obviously as is the most recent one Leonard DiCaprio and Merril Streep and you know, all wonderful actors that they have in that movie. Um, you know, I think, uh, Michael Moore just exec produced a movie called planet of the humans
Speaker 2 00:46:26 <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:46:26 Which, uh, I made it through to the end of it. I don't know. Have you seen that one,
Speaker 2 00:46:32 Ronnie? No, I haven't, but okay. Is the, is the statue of Liberty offshore at the end of it?
Speaker 3 00:46:37 It's a bit like that. It's a bit depressing. Yeah. If everything in that movie is true, which I can't say, I know whether it's true or not, but I hope it's not, um, it's a pretty depressing picture and I think we need to be, I think we need the ice water challenge, you know, wake up folks. But I, I, I don't think a lot of what was in that film is, is accurate. Mm. But it certainly, I wouldn't recommend it, but it's certainly maybe worth watching. Um, what other films are, um, are, are out there that are, that are doing climate change. I don't know. I haven't seen anything else. Mad max, you mentioned, I, I'm not sure that's gonna help us, uh, you know, the walking dead series, um, you know, the, you know, the, uh, all of the, the zombies, the
Speaker 2 00:47:39 Zombies. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:47:39 Yeah. I, I, I think peop I think people think maybe it's gonna get like that, but I think they hope that it's not,
Speaker 2 00:47:47 I think zombies are metaphors for capitalism, for consumers, you know, but I've seen different, different explanations of that. Right. But, but of course, nobody thinks about that. They just think there's, they're dead people walking around. Um, yeah. I mean, that's part of the issue with commercial films. Right. They have to entertain. And so any kind of didactic lesson often gets lost in, in the noise. Um, have you read Kim Stanley Robinson's ministry for the
Speaker 3 00:48:14 Future? I got through, I got through part of it. It's brilliantly written and, uh, it, it, it got me, it, it was a little overwhelming for me, although yeah. Yeah. Um, the carbon coin sequence was sent to me by another friend of mine, Francesca Hampton, who got through the whole book and, um, sent me some interesting ideas about carbon carbon coin, which I'm gonna include in the, in, in the earth island game. Uhhuh. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Uh, you know, we, we pick up little pieces here and there from different people, the network out there, you know, I don't think this climate changed thing is unsolvable. Uh, I, I think, I think people just have to kind of go inward a little bit and decide they don't need to consume so much, this, this land is such a land of plenty, you know, next door to my building.
Speaker 3 00:49:09 They just built, uh, a extra storage space. Yeah. I mean, it was, yeah, it was rented before it was even finished. And 40 years ago people were storing things in beacons. I remember these big beacons buildings, but there was nothing. We have so much in this country that we don't need to buy anymore or buy it used, buy it less. I, I mean, I, I can only say there it's the land of plenty I'm in the flea market junkie. So I, I, I, I go to the flea market and I repurpose things. I haven't bought a new shirt pair of pants or shoes in 15 years. Not one, not, I never go into new stores anymore because why
Speaker 2 00:49:56 You're bucking the, the fashion tide there, I guess. Huh?
Speaker 3 00:49:59 Fashion.
Speaker 2 00:50:00 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:50:01 Yeah. Fashion. Well, I look at fashion. I go, okay. Terrific. I think it's terrific. I think every everything everybody's doing is terrific.
Speaker 2 00:50:08 As I wrote to you what, you're on radio, nobody can see whether you have pants on. Right. And nobody cares what you're wearing. And I think that's an advantage.
Speaker 3 00:50:16 I have pants on today. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:50:17 Well I do too, but, um,
Speaker 3 00:50:19 I have one thing I wanna play though, that I
Speaker 2 00:50:21 Think, okay. One last thing, because then we have
Speaker 3 00:50:22 Wrap things up. Okay. Then, and this is a film that I, I hope that you, uh, will, will remember, uh, it was made a while back. And, um, here it goes. And I think it's very powerful.
Speaker 8 00:50:35 I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows. Things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's outta work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth banks are going bust. Shop keepers, keep a gun under the coder. Punks are running wild in the street. And there's nobody anywhere seems to know what to do. And there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad, worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything, everywhere is going crazy. So we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller.
Speaker 8 00:51:20 And all we say is, please at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel built in radios. And I won't say anything. Just leave us alone. Well, I'm not gonna to leave you alone. I want you to get Matt. I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to ride. I don't want you to write to your Congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime and the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've gotta say, I'm a human being. God damnit, my life has value. So I want you to get up. Now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it and stick your head out and yell.
Speaker 8 00:52:08 I'm as mad as hell. And I'm not gonna take this anymore. I want you to get up right now, said up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell. I'm as mad as hell. And I'm not gonna take this anymore. Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chest, open the window, stick your head outta yell and say, I miss mad as hell. Hey, I, we gonna take this anymore, but first you've gotta get mad. You've gotta say, alright,
Speaker 2 00:52:40 Well, we're gonna, we're gonna cut that off there. That of course was the scene from network. Um, if you've, if you haven't seen it, I think,
Speaker 3 00:52:48 Yeah. I think that's a powerful movie.
Speaker 2 00:52:50 Yeah. Well, Eric, thank you for being my guest on sustainability now. It was great. It was a great fun. Um, you can watch some of the films online. I've put hyperlinks to them on the blurb for this show on the radio station, uh, website. And you can also see the work of impact creative on its website. Thanks for listening and thanks to all the staff and volunteers who make case Goodyear community radio station and keep it going. And so until next every other Sunday, sustainability now,
Speaker 1 00:53:26 Good planet. It's a hot tempera zones and TRO climbs, not through currents and thriving seas, winds blowing, some breathing trees and strong zone. And good planets are hard to find. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:53:52 Good
Speaker 1 00:53:53 Planet and demand, clean beaches and sparkling sand land mass and room jet gets,
Speaker 0 00:54:24 Let
Speaker 1 00:54:33 Good planets. So, and planet earth and.
