IMPACT VIDEO
I create videos to communicate stories, concepts, and campaigns that advance biodiversity conservation.
Wild hope: Does Nature have rights?
28 mins • featured conservationist • contributed footage • by HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, Part2Pictures, Wild Elements on PBS Nature
This new documentary follows my team and local partners as we work to save Ecuador's Dracula Reserve from illegal gold mining activity, centering our case for hope around Ecuador's constitutional Rights of Nature clause. I was honored to help give voice to this story both on screen and through footage contributed from our previous four years of expeditions in Dracula Reserve.
2023 Jackson Wild Finalist: Conservation, Long Form • 2023 World Wildlife Day Film Showcase Official Selection • DC Environmental Film Festival Official Selection • EcoAdor Official Selection (Ecuador) • EDOC Official Selection (Ecuador)
2022 Jackson wild media lab: sodalacken
5 mins • small team produced, directed, filmed, and edited • Neusiedlersee Seewinkel National Park
The Jackson Wild Media Lab is a collaboration with Day's Edge Productions and HHMI Tangled Bank Studios. I was honored to be selected as a JWML Fellow, and lucky to work alongside my teammates Kelso Harper, Ago Bila, and Nanticha (Lyn) Ocharoenchai to create this film over the course of five days.
Otra cosa - character reel: Julio C. Carrión (spanish)
2.5 mins • produced, interviewed, filmed • ReservaYLT
Julio is a 23-year-old biologist from Ecuador who is one of two narrative voices in Otra Cosa, an upcoming hour-long documentary.
Otra cosa - character reel: Bella Lack
2.5 mins • produced, interviewed, filmed • ReservaYLT
Meet Bella Lack, the 18-year-old nature advocate from the UK who is one of two narrative voices in Otra Cosa, an upcoming hour-long documentary.
We Are Dreamers (SPANISH)
3 mins • produced, interviewed, filmed, edited • ReservaYLT & Connect4Climate (The World Bank Group)
Marco is an Ecuadorian researcher specializing in orchids who knows Dracula Reserve like the back of his hand—both its biodiversity and its many threats. Carrying this knowledge with him, Marco attended the UN Biodiversity COP15 on behalf of Reserva. In these reflections after the very first day of GYBN’s COP15 Youth Summit, Marco shares why he feels it’s important for young people from diverse backgrounds to have the opportunity to be at conferences like this one.
Our 30x30 | uncbd cop15 global youth statement
6 mins • produced, edited • ReservaYLT & National Geographic Campaign for Nature
Youth from 16 countries, mostly from the Global South, share their messages to world leaders negotiating over the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at COP15. The video played for a week on loop in the National Geographic Campaign for Nature Immersion Space café. The US Special Envoy for Biodiversity, Monica Medina, later commented, "I watched the whole thing; I wish I'd had a notepad on me to write down what they were saying!"
In 2020, Reserva received support from National Geographic Campaign for Nature to gather youth voices in support of 30x30 for COP15.
Why youth?
1.5 mins • produced, interviewed, filmed, edited • ReservaYLT
At the start of an ambitious project to create the world's first entirely youth-funded nature reserve, our local partner, Javier Robayo, explains why he took the risk of working with an unproven group of youth conservationists.
Meet Daniel Valencia (SPANISH)
2.5 mins • produced, interviewed, filmed, edited • ReservaYLT
A short character introduction, 2019.
UN Global Youth Video Competition: 2019 winner
3 mins • produced, filmed, edited • ReservaYLT
This video won the 2019 UN/tvebiomovies Global Youth Video Competition competition in the Balancing the Use of Land for People and Ecosystems category, with a presentation at the UNFCCC COP15 Madrid climate conference.
drone reel: 10 minutes flying in the cloud forest
10 mins • filmed, edited • ReservaYLT
Flying through the 1,050-acre Dracula Youth Reserve expansion plot, this footage enabled friends from the Basel Botanical Garden community to identify tree species and analyze forest quality, determining the site is almost entirely primary forest.
Instruction & mentorship
Summit workshops: documentary filmmaking
4.5 mins • Junior Instructor with Expert Instructor Katie Schuler • Summit Workshops
This first edition of the Summit Workshops on Documentary Filmmaking produced two films, with each instructor taking one team through the production stage. I was delighted to spend a day supporting a team of filmmakers of diverse backgrounds and career stages through the production of this film, Teeming with Life, about Maine's vernal pools.
Our students created this film over four days: 1) learning camera movements, media management workflows, interviewing techniques, how to use their new Sony gear, and pre-producing their story, 2) filming and interviewing their character, 3) editing their first assemblies with feedback from instructors, and 4) bringing their films from rough cut to fine cut on a tight deadline.
Special thanks to Katie Schuler for bringing me on as her junior instructor, guest instructor Nick Rogacki of Coral & Oak Studios for his invaluable additions to the class, Summit Workshops' Chris Steppig for taking the leap into film with us, and Sony's Ben Manlove for the literally tireless camera support—and of course to our sponsors, Sony, B&H Photo, and Lacie.
Reserva, climate change, and hope with NG Young Explorer Lucy Houliston
5.5 mins • filmed, mentor / expedition leader • Reserva Youth Council, a film by Lucy Houliston
By far the most rewarding experience as the founder of Reserva: The Youth Land Trust has been seeing the young people who drive the organization's mission gaining traction in the conservation field as leaders. I make all footage caputred on Reserva's expeditions available for use by the Youth Council and our local partner so they can curate their own messages using these shared assets.