One at a Time

As I sit in the airport waiting to fly to Bakersfield, California to start principle photography of “The Pollinators”, I am humbled, thoroughly excited and a bit nervous to be starting this epic journey following beekeepers around for a year. It promises to be a “journey” of many aspects. Literally it will be a journey with these beekeepers as we work to understand the role of pollination in all our lives. It will also be a journey for me as a filmmaker, one that I cannot say where it will precisely end and the route that I will take to get there, though I know the route will change along the way. That dynamic element is exciting and part of the documentary filmmaking process. Ideally we learn along the way (a daily goal for me), meet wonderful and passionate people that open new doors and affect the course of the project.

No doubt, I will get a few stings in the process, literally and figuratively.
These commercial beekeepers I will be working with are some of the hardest working people I have ever met; they literally work night and day. That inspires me to work as hard as them.
I am absolutely thrilled to get going and I am able to do this because of a generous anonymous grant from a foundation that believed in my idea for this project and granted me enough to get started. I wish I could thank them publicly right now, but respect their request for anonymity. So thank you.

I will be continuing to raise funds as I progress with the filming. I have gathered a lot of interest, some very promising prospects and lots of encouraging and enthusiastic support, but if you have any funding ideas or folks who might be interested in helping support this project, please share them with me.

Recently, I asked a commercial beekeeper how he remained so calm in advance of unloading hundreds of tractor trailers with tens of thousands of hives with millions of bees and this wise beekeeper said, “you just unload them one at a time”.
The ultimate pragmatic approach.
And good advice for making a film too.