Prompt 1
You know, sometimes you read something on your Facebook feed, or an article online, or some kind of platform and the content just hits you. It hits you in a sense that you would have a range of shower thoughts, contemplating: “Damn, I feel like I should understand that better and earlier.”
I feel that is the case for me with climate change. Climate change has always been there as a point of talking or writing about for me since I started learning English properly, which was (I think) at the age of 7. But I must admit, I never really liked to dive into the matter. But what could you care more about being a kid? Well, a lot more other stuff.
Then slowly, life starts to bring me around this subject more closely. My dad is a plastic bag collector. He just hoards them and reuses them at any chance possible, which slowly changed how I throw garbage away. “One individual cannot make a big change, but it’s still a change”, he said. Wow, climate change is quite a big deal in my everyday life after all.
Then, I got an internship at Vietnam Television (VTV – the national broadcaster of the country). I joined at the peak of the bush-fire situation last December. The event then became my daily norm. Waking up, see what’s new in NSW and VIC, then write a report if anything stands out. And yes, a lot of things stood out. I watched footage of firemen driving through fire, reported how a helicopter fell down and took away the life of four firefighters, and wrote a report on koala’s chance of being extinct. It was horrible.
Yet, I feel like there must be more to this. “How have we come to this?”, I asked myself. I have the urge to learn more about the matter. Hence, this studio became my first choice. I wonder what I would learn going forward, and whether or not my perspective over climate change could change or extend.
This is actually exciting. Let’s see.
Prompt 2
Jem Bendell’s Deep Adaption: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy is a highly interesting article. Bendell discusses the matter of climate change in a way that I have never seen before in any documents, or at least in any scholar articles. This is due to the manifested nature of his writing style, and at times it feels really blunt. But it is effective in that way because the point he wants to make is a depressing and devastated: “Climate-induced societal collapse is now inevitable in the near term.” It has to be straightforward so the message can be easily processed, as climate change is a vital catastrophic reality.
When given the prompt, my initial thought of approaching the task was to be blunt but effective. I was really intrigued in the sentence: “But when I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war, I mean your own life.” This is a powerful sentence but quite simple, just like the whole excerpt. I want my materials to be quite similar, addressing the catastrophic nature to our livelihood in a clear and straightforward way.
When researching, I found a video of Greta Thunberg’s speech at the UN recently when she stated that their new climate law has “surrendered”. The message in the speech draws certain similarities to Bendell’s, especially the point that a climate disaster is closer to us than the norm would expect. I decided to take that speech as the main material and divided it into a simple three-component format: the bargain that nature never makes; the unsafe future of children; and the existential threat to all livelihoods.
The next step was to find suitable materials for the three parts. I somehow felt that for the first part, footage of threats to polar bears would be suitable. Not too long ago, I read an article that polar bears are eating each other more frequently due to their natural habitat being diminished, which was horrific to me. Then, I researched for some footage of children and starvation, which led to a video about the drought situation of life in Malawi. The important thing about the footage is it contains a lot of children, which sets in tone with the sentimental value of the point. For the last component, I found an incredible (not in the good way) first hand footage of an avalanche. I decided to end the video with Greta Thunberg saying “anything else is surrendered”, which I thought would be a powerful ending.
When editing, I felt that there was no need to make it fancy because the footage contains its own weight already. Hence, I felt it would be a great idea to play around a little with the colour coding, hence three footage was in noir because I thought this would contain more of an impact. The background track, Global Warming by Kai Engel was a suitable one to use after some research. However, I felt that I could have adjusted the sound a bit better as occasionally, the music seems to overwhelm the voice.
Overall, I was quite pleased with what I managed to produce. With more time to produce it, I would look to find some more footage, because chances are there could have been more suitable ones. Also, trying to add some more effects into the video might not hurt, and I was reluctant to do so because I did not feel the necessity. Maybe with another take, the whole approach of my project could have been really different.
Reference
Bendell, J 2018, Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy, viewed 15 February 2020, <https://jembendell.com/2019/05/15/deep-adaptation-versions/>.
Prompt 3
One effective example of climate media that attracts me is a classic Michael Jackson’s song and music video, Earth Song. Considering the high amount of things that could be mentioned, I think it would be best appropriate to discuss about this masterpiece in two different ways: the song itself and the music video.
Growing up, I was introduced to foreign music (USUK mainly) quite early. In those days of early ages, I would just go home form school, watch cartoons or surf through all the channels on the television. That was when I came across the music channel MTV, and that was where I first came across Earth Song. Of course, at a young age, I was not fully comprehended with the message that comes from the lyrics. However, the music video struck to me as a bolt of lightning in a way that I was quite shocked watching it because of its brutal scenery (which I will dive into later on). I had never seen anything like that before. Arguably, that was my first and initial access to the wide matter of climate and environment – how everything just falls down, and how responsible humans were (and are).
The lyrics are a series of questions with emotive and evocative language. “What about sunrise? What about rain”? These are all essential elements of life on earth, setting the tone for natural scenery. The lyrics then mention “killing fields”; “Did you ever stop to notice all the blood we’ve shed before?”; “this crying Earth”. All of these help giving a sense of the catastrophic damage being done to Earth. This overall forms a message from the song that we are damaging Earth to an extent that our actions are war-like towards Mother Nature. The lyrics also mention God, as if to ask God “why do we do to nature and to ourselves”, which indicates a level of anxiety and helplessness at the impact towards nature.
It is essential to mention that (and I only found this out on Song Facts) Michael Jackson felt “so much pain and so much suffering at the plight of the Planet Earth”. He wanted to let the people “hear the voice of the planet”, which means we could consider this song as that voice of the planet. This makes the song not only an effective measure of climate media, but also a powerful one in my opinion as the message could be easily conveyed.
The music video is also very powerful and could be seen as a catalyst to emphasise the urgent, lethal and teary message of the song even further. A glorious scenery of nature is set at the start of the video (just like how the start of the song goes) that shows different animals in the forest, supporting an idyllic mood. This changes drastically as the song plays out with a dark and red tone, possibly regarding apocalypse. A dead elephant with no tusks fall on the ground, stressing the sense of a “killing field”. Some buildings fall down as people run away from what seems like a war-zone. Everyone seems to fall down on their knees like they try to pray, indicating a sense of helplessness. Everything seems to be powerless against the ongoing destruction, which just enhances the impact of the song further and further. I think that from all the points I have shown, in my opinion, the song could not bring more impact as it is perfectly adequate to show the message with the way it is.
In a different end of the spectrum, an example of ineffective climate media could be the video game Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley (HoLV). I grew up during the rise of portable video game devices and cherished my PSP fondly to the point that I still keep it carefully after more than a decade. HoLV was one of my favourite games at the time. Essentially, the game is a farm simulation, surrounded around a village that could be turned into an amusement park. You have to take over the role of a farmer with a task of making as much money as possible from his farm in order to rescue the village from being demolished. The way to do this is through raising crops and livestock, discovering mine ores and other secrets that the Leaf Valley possesses to aid to the task.
The thing that stands out in the game is its sentimental value. There is a wide range of animals and crops that you could grow and raise. Many of them are considered “rare” and “close to extinction”, which certainly helps players to be more sympathetic to nature. As it is an RPG game, players could find themselves living inside Leaf Valley and after a certain time of playing, they could start growing sentiments to the village. The task could then become more authentic: you have to try your best in order to save your own home (or at least that was the experience that I had: grinding as hard as possible because I did not want my home to be turned into some theme parks!). Despite just being a simulated village, Leaf Valley is a beautiful representation of what nature treasures: a forest with a beautiful spring; authentic changes of weather and seasons; and even the tumbling sea is there for you to discover.
However, the impact of climate change presented in HoLV is minimal. Considering the Valley is under threat of being bull-dosed, I feel that there could have been more focus on this main aspect of the game (because you are supposed to rescue the village). A lot of the time, the villagers seem to not be bothered by this and just carrying on with their everyday life. At some point, the players are just focused on growing crops and raising animals and forgetting the main purpose of the game: their livelihood is at risk. It is a shame that this aspect could not be conveyed clearer. Something the developers could have done is to put more interaction from the theme park business to the game, such as their people doing damages to the Valley in order to put more pressure on the players. With the lack of this, the game felt like a stroll with something missing, such as a climate catastrophe indication.
Reference
Michael Jackson 2009, Michael Jackson – Earth Song (Official Video), YouTube, 3 October, viewed 20 March 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAi3VTSdTxU>.
Song Facts 2020, Earth Song by Michael Jackson, Song Facts, viewed 20 March 2020, <https://www.songfacts.com/facts/michael-jackson/earth-song>.