CCM: Prompt 5 / Political and Poetic Climate Media

Prompt 5: Political and Poetic Climate Media from Media Factory on Vimeo.

Honestly, this piece of work wasn’t my finest. Ideally, I wanted this video to be a reflective and nostalgic video aesthetically capturing the environment both in mundane moments and in its beauty. When it came to collating footage I found myself easily frustrated, and nothing ever quite fit what I was looking for. I had hopes the video would look as though it was shot on film, every shot carrying a sense of photogenie.

As I discussed in my earlier post, I didn’t want to be overly pushy and dramatic, I wanted to gently remind people what we’re working for, what we’re protecting and preventing from happening. My aim for this piece of media was to showcase a number of aspects of our planet and how the simplest of things hold so much value and beauty. I briefly mention the current situation with COVID-19, and how we should take this time as an opportunity to reflect.

Reflection is a key element of my media. I wanted to create something to remind viewers what we’re working for, why we need to care for the plant and how important it is we treat the planet with the same love we give to others. I attempted to find mostly cinematic and ‘aesthetically pleasing’ shots that captured the simplest yet most beautiful parts of our world.

I’m a nostalgic person and often find myself reflecting on my life and the way life was in the past. It’s something that stems from anxiety, I can’t help but look to the past. As much as this reflection and nostalgia for a different time can be negative, I think it’s important to take time to reflect on the past. We learn from our mistakes and actions and strive to change them. The same should apply for how we take care of the planet. We should look at that damage we’ve done and work to try better, do better and be better.

I don’t want to come to a time in my life where the acts of climate change are irreversible and I spend the rest of my life missing what once was. It’s not healthy. I know many of my friends and peers feel the same, we’re growing up in a world with so much uncertainty, and it’s undeniably unsettling.

Media is so crucial in educating and informing people. It’s important to not scare people but to remind them that we need to improve ourselves and how we treat our planet. We as a society need to become more conscious and aware of the consequences of our actions, in the short and long term.