Ethical climate storytelling: How honest stories move people from fear to action

0:00 The art of environmental documentary filmmaking is changing because the times are changing and the amount of content that goes out changes by the second, literally by the second. We have gone from documentaries that are take about six months to six years to make to going to mini documentaries or just pieces of content that are documentary style that are about two minutes long. And so we're gonna talk about what that's gonna be like, what that looks like, and how it's made in today's day of huge social media content, content creation, and the environmental movement on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Let's start the show.

0:40 Hey everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Angelou and Marine biologist and science communicator here to tell you what's happening with the Ocean, how you can speak up for the Ocean, and what you can do to live for better Ocean by taking action. The last few episodes that I've been doing has been focused on a lot of Marine stuff, which is obviously it's about the oceans, but I've been focusing a lot of like methods of measuring sea grass. We've been talking about fisheries, we've been talking about sort of like how fisheries are sampled, how policies are made. We've been talking a lot about how sea grass is measured across the way to make sure they're standardized. Today's gonna be a little different 'cause we're gonna be really talking about how to speak up for the Ocean, how to speak up for climate change.

1:22 'cause today I have Maya Lilly on the podcast today. She is a climate storyteller strategist and media producer, best known for her work with the years project, a nonprofit media initiative. Focused on reshaping how climate change is communicated to the public. Maya's work centers around one core idea. People engage with climate action when the story connects to their everyday lives. So through the years project, she helps produce accessible, emotionally grounded content that highlights real people, practical solutions, and hopeful pathways forward. The one thing I loved about this episode, we talk about a different way of doing storytelling, even in documentary storytelling, very parallel to how we have moved away or trying to move away from parachute science and getting into collaborative science or even supportive science for local communities.

2:14 Maya talks about how she helps communities. During the filmmaking process to enable them to take action, but also be able to film the process in the meantime and see people confronted with conflict And then how do they get over that, or how they deal with it in a very interesting situation or a very interesting way. And I just love what she's done. We had a very great conversation, longer than normal, but a wonderful conversation nonetheless, because I think I could have talked to her for about three hours and picked her brain selfishly for me as a communicator and a content creator. But also she's just so engaging and just such an amazing person. It's very easy to talk to her, as you'll see. So here is the interview with Maya Lilly talking about climate communication, how important it is in today's world, and how it's changing, or how it has changed with the way content is being created.

3:05 Enjoy, and I will talk to you after. Hey Maya, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Are you ready to talk about climate action and communication? I am ready, Andrew. All right. I'm super excited. This is a lot of fun because Maya, like I, I don't know how, I just discovered you recently through a friend Amy Bullock, who you were on the podcast, uh, before and it was amazing. I listened to it. I got to know you a little bit and, and Amy's like, Andrew, you gotta have her on the podcast. She is phenomenal. What she's doing is amazing for climate action, for just getting people aware about climate and climate science and what we need to do about it. But she also connects people to climate action, which I think is so, so important.

3:46 So we're gonna get into your story, uh, and, and what you do and how you do it. 'cause I'm interested, selfishly, I'm interested as a science communicator myself to be like, how do I connect better? Or how do I just connect with people who may be outside of my audience that want to be aware and I'm just don't know if I'm able to connect with them and how to do that. So I'm super excited for this episode. But before we get into everything like that, Maya, why don't you just let us know who you are and what you. I am Maya Lilly. That is my real name. And, um, I am a film and TV producer that is on staff with the Years Project, which is, we're the TV team that did a, a TV series called Years of Living Dangerously on Showtime and Nat Geo.

4:29 It was basically the first and, um, kind of only TV show about the climate crisis mm-hmm. That took celebrities and made them like journalistic correspondents around the world. So like Harrison Ford went to Borneo to look at orangutans and palm oil depletion of the forests. Harrison Ford, I mean, um, Matt Damon looked at heat in Los Angeles, that kind of thing. Um mm-hmm. And so with that team, we basically have a few different initiatives that we work on. Um, but most of what I do is frontline bipoc climate communication with original content for all different social media platforms. So important. Let me, let's start from the beginning before we, we, we touch on the years project and what you do now.

5:11 How did you get involved in, in, in environmental communication, environmental document, documentary making, and just movies in general? Was that always a passion of yours when you were, when you were growing up? I was kind of a, a, a weird kid. Um, I had a very like, kind of unicorn upbringing with Okay. You know, a still married, happily married, interracial family, that they really encouraged me to do critical thinking and they encouraged me to live spherically. Kind of like, okay, I was in the Renaissance or something. So they really encouraged me to like to, to kind of have a, a wide knowledge base. And my mother was a teacher And so I was always in, also in performing art schools.

5:53 Mm-hmm. And so my first love was the art. But I was always kind of studying, like I thought humans were very strange, you know, as I was growing up and as I think teenagers think their parents are strange. Yeah. I kind of thought humans were strange and right. It was like, it was almost like I had a, a 10,000 foot view or like a wide lens on all the time, whereas everybody else felt a little myopic. Where, where, you know, people were kind of like, well this is civilization, this is how it's set up. And I was kind of the kid that was like, well, but why did we choose concrete? Why did we choose right angles? Why do we live in these buildings like this? Like, so I just kind of had one of those, uh, questioning minds. Yeah. Um, And then when I was 15, I discovered that we were depleting the Amazon to make room for cattle for hamburgers.

6:44 I was like, hold the phone. Say what now? Like, and this was before Google, so I had to kind of like go to the library and research it or talk to people that were experts in the field. And, and I was like, wait, that is not a good idea. So I, I shunned, you know, uh, animal, animal agriculture in general and I started being kind of like an animal rights activist and that didn't work. That basically alienated everybody I knew. Um, So when you, when you did that, when you became an advocate, like, tell me a little bit about that because it's interesting 'cause I think a lend a lot of people turned towards that or start to speak up for that, that alienation happens because you're so passionate about it, right?

7:28 Totally. Yeah. And I even had a, I had a brief job as a spokesperson for peta, so I would go on camera Okay. And do sound bites for, you know, like for animal rights long time ago. Um, but I think, I think, you know, if you're an animal lover like I am, or like any of the documentarians who do Ocean documentaries, there's an animal focus because non-human species are, are interesting. Like they have compassion, they have, you know, families, they have thought processes And so I think it's easier to talk about an animal than it is to maybe talk about a redwood where you're not exactly sure what kind of language they have, even though we know they do. Right, exactly. Um, And so for me, for me it was let, it was kind. It was, it was more about the system of humans having the right to just take another species on mass and do whatever we wanted with them.

8:17 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That was more the issue for me. And then how that tugged on all these other things like taking the Amazon away from indigenous cultures and, and the, you know, it being removed as the lungs of the earth. Like just, you know, fueled by hectare, by hectare. It just felt like, I dunno if we should be doing that. So by the time I got off to college, I went to a theater conservatory. Um, I was really like, I don't think humans know what they're doing. Um, which was. Just in the environment or everywhere, like everything, mostly in the environment and, but yeah, I mean, you could argue everywhere. I mean, we had an Ocean pollution problem. We had a, a deforestation problem.

8:57 Mm-hmm. We had a GMO problem. People were fighting in the nineties. They were fighting for organics and organic labeling. We had the WTO protests. So it was a really ripe time to be like a budding environmentalist. Right. Um, again, there was no Google, so no Whole Foods. So I was like, I had to be scrappy about it, to be honest. I had to like kind of figure it out. Um, and my parents were my dad's Jamaican. So it's all like cured goat cured chicken. Yes. You know, stoop pea and I, he would, they would just bewildered, you know. Um, but supportive. But supportive. Yeah. Because again, like lives spherically, right? Um, So when I was at Julliard and I was training in Shakespeare, chakov, Denberg, all of these like very, very beautiful, but anthropocentric.

9:46 Authors that is all about the human condition, it felt even more myopic, you know? Mm-hmm. I was there, I'm like wearing my glasses. I was there and I was like, why if we, I was learning about climate change and I was like, if we are making the planet uninhabitable, uninhabitable, yeah. Romeo and Juliet's great, but who cares? So I actually did a very hard thing. I decided to leave. Wow. I decided to leave my very hard to get into conservatory education, to go do an environmental studies degree, much to the chagrin of my parents. And I was just gonna ask, I was like, how did your parents feel about that?

10:28 Because, you know, you're, you're at an age where you know, you're making your own decisions. You're, you're living a little bit more independently, and here you are making a very, very, uh, big decision on leaving because of this advocacy thing that's pulling you away. Why learn about. Theater and, and all the, even though it's, it's really important and it was important to you. Yes. This was more important to you at this fact. What was their response to it? I know they're supportive, but that's gotta be a, they must have wanted to have a discussion, let's just say. Oh, yeah. There, there were a few sit downs. I remember, um, a few, like, very convincing because I was also on a full scholarship, uh, a diversity scholarship. Yeah. So it was like, they were really like, what are we doing?

11:09 But, um, I think, I think what they taught me was, um, they tr they trust my instincts. Mm-hmm. And I've always been, I, I always was like a really kind of old soul kind of kid. And so I think they, I think that won out. Yeah. And they trusted that I was lit from within about something. I, I was just kind of out a place beyond which society had reached. Mm. You know, and it felt internally, it felt like I was like a Cassandra that knew that Troy was about to burn and nobody would listen to me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It was very, very isolating. So much so that when, in 2019, when I started working for the years project and one of my first shoots was doing the youth climate strikes and Greta Thunberg was sailing to New York.

11:55 Mm-hmm. And I got to film with Greta and like all the kids, I, I actually wept because I was like, this is the community I wanted in the nineties. Mm-hmm. This is the group of people that I wished I had gone to school with, who would've understood me. So my parents were, I felt like they did an okay job about understanding it. 'cause I think they, they trusted that I was on a journey. Right. You know, but like all parents, they want you to be financially stable or, or go into something where you're financially stable. Like I'm a, I'm a parent of, Yeah. Of a girl who's in a, a, a young woman, I should say 18-year-old who's in university right now. And then my other daughter's 16. Like, the big thing as a parent, as, as a Marine biologist who knows like Marine biology's not gonna pay like a lot of the bills, you know, that you have, but it's a passion.

12:39 You also want your kids to be financially stable, do whatever you want, but as long as you can pay your bills, we're happy. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's a, a, a big thing. Um, you know, and, and, and, and especially as like the kid of immigrants, you know, like, yes, my, my father joined the US Army to get his citizenship and he served this country. And I think it's, thank you for sharing, like when you're the kid of an immigrant. Um, I always joke like, immigrants, kids don't go skiing or skydiving because you don't wanna break anything. Like, no. You're like, be happy you're here. Like, yes, you're good. Like, don't break anything. So I, you know, so I think I had like an extra like caution around.

13:19 Making drastic decisions. But yeah, all, all of that to say, acting is not necessary. There are a lot of actors, so I think that maybe my environmental studies degree might have been a step up. Well, it, it's funny you say that 'cause uh, my, my wife, uh, has is a Chinese has a Chinese background. Her parents were from, one of them was from Taiwan, one of them was from Hong Kong. And they both came over, met here and, and, and, uh, you know, uh, had their life here. But they have a very similar way of thinking, you know, in terms of like job stability and don't do anything too drastic, just stay the course. And of course, especially with, um, like Chinese culture in Taiwanese culture, you, it's very much the next generation and, you know, you want to make sure that everybody's good. But yeah, I totally see it.

14:00 It's like, just stay the course. You know, do something that's, you know, you'll get paid for and you can pay your bills. You can enjoy your life and have a family and, and that's and be healthy. That's, that's, yeah, the basics. Like just get the basics there. Yeah. You know? Exactly. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. Very interesting. So, so, so you're getting into this advocacy part. Um, and you're having trouble finding that community up because, you know, it's the nineties and, and, and let's be honest, it, it, climate change was being discussed in, in, in, in my, like, I went to university in the, in the late nineties. It was being discussed in, in sort of academic circles. Mm-hmm. Not necessarily on the news. And if it was, it was immediately shot down because climate denial was pretty much at its peak by then, and nobody was believing anybody, you know, I had mm-hmm.

14:46 Conversations with family and friends, and it was just like, no, you know, the economy's more important, you know, it's not gonna affect anything. And meanwhile, like my professors are like, in 20 years we're in trouble. Like, we, we need to go back. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so, yeah. Um, you're trying to find this community, but you're having the struggle to find it. So your next step after Julliard, where do you go? What, what do you do? So, um, to your point about, uh, you know, trying to, the climate denial, I urge everybody to watch, uh, the White House Effect. Yes. Which I think is on Netflix right now. Yes. But it basically uses archival footage and shows the George HW Bush administration just from archival go from We wanna fight the Greenhouse Effect with the White House Effect and how they were fully on board as a Republican party And then the switch that happened and it's absolutely riveting.

15:38 Crazy. Highly, highly recommend. Yeah. Um, and I hope it gets, I hope it gets an Oscar nom. I should check. It just came out right, like not long ago. Yeah. Yeah. Like this within the last year. Yeah. Yeah. Um. So, you know, when I went and did my environmental studies degree, I didn't quite know what the focus was that I was gonna be. So I took an oceanography class, I was taking astronomy, I was taking like, um, environmental ethics and philosophy, and I was really into eco feminism and deep ecology, which I still kind of nerd out about and like widen that happen and change the world. But, um, I realized pretty quickly that I still was a storyteller. Like I still had this whole set of skills that I'd grown up with.

16:20 Yeah. Um, where I was deeply in love with stories. So I was looking at how do I marry these two kind of disparate fields? And I mistakenly thought when I left, when I got my undergraduate degree in environmental studies, I mistakenly thought that I would just go out and like, get a job with like, I don't know, Greenpeace or three fifty.org as their like documentarian. Gotcha. You know? Yeah. And I quickly realized that those roles actually don't really exist. I was about to say, did they have a documentary at the time? No. A lot of environmental orgs, nonprofits, NGOs, they have a comms team. Yes. But usually that's like writing press releases. Mm-hmm. That's like how helping with the website, they are not doing storytelling at a high level.

17:05 And even now it's still sometimes a struggle to convince orgs that we work with of the need for it, which is mm-hmm. Bewildering to me, Andrew, because stories change culture. Like it is literally the thing that changes, that connects the heart to the mind. You know, I You're preaching to the choir here 'cause Yes, I've been trying to convince, uh, organizations to do podcasts just from a, like what if you have signs that, that you're taking complex information just like document documentaries and you are trying to explain it, you need the time to explain it properly. And podcasts, no matter what people say, there's at least 20 to 30 minutes that people are listening to this episode.

17:45 Mm-hmm. And if you can say that within there, it's great. And compared to a very difficult short form video, which people are doing in, in a really great, great way these days, it's a very difficult thing to get some of those points across unless it's a series of of videos. But yeah. Sorry to go to your point. You're preaching to the choir here. God, and God bless the climate scientists who were speaking out before the world. Really? Oh God. And amidst like massive greenwashing from the fossil fuel industry. Oh Yeah. God bless them. Yeah. Yeah. But I will say that I don't know if scientists were the best people to tell this story. So agreed. Um, and I love some scientists and I love some science. Yeah. Course. So it, it hurts me to say that, but you know, but it's like Yeah.

18:27 Telling people facts and telling, even just looking at like the 1.5 degrees Celsius mark. Yeah. You know, most people are thinking like 82 degrees, 84 degrees. So what? I'm gonna go garden in my outside. It's hot. They don't get it. Yeah. And they don't get it. Yep. You know, I just had a conversation with Louis, so Joos, who was the documentarian that did the cove. Okay. And I was, we were talking about 1.5 and he was like, forget 1.5. Nobody understands that shit. Nobody. It's true. It's same with, same thing with sea level rise. If it rises like a centimeter or two centimeters, like who cares? That doesn't make any, that doesn't make a difference. Like, you don't understand how much, but you say centimeters people are like this much. No, that's not gonna, that's not gonna matter. You're completely right there. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.

19:07 Yeah. So, so I was like, how can we marry? These two, if none of the climate and environmental orgs that I thought I was gonna get a job in, have a job or see the value of it. Yeah. Um, So I, I, I basically packed my stuff and went straight to LA Okay. And I was like, where's the megaphone in the world? Hollywood Yeah. Yeah. Let me just go and again, be scrappy and see who I can meet and what I can do, and try to, and I didn't know what form it would take, you know? Mm-hmm. I could, I, I saw maybe like a writer's room position. I kind of thought about producing but hadn't really done it, you know? Mm-hmm. And so I just kind of took a, a leap of faith.

19:47 Um, And then it, you know, Hollywood is a weird, it's a very weird place. We've heard, we've, we've heard there is a lot of social ladder climbing. And so if you're me, like imagine like a, like an undercover environmental scout who is like, okay, how can I hack the narrative of what we're talking about so that we, we understand we're about to like bite it as a species, right? And we can infiltrate and put these topics, and people were just like, we need more tits and ass. Mm-hmm. You know, like, mm-hmm. What's her rating on IMDB? We need her. Like, it was just bizarre. And I, I have pitched projects in pretty much every room in Hollywood.

20:29 Like, you name it, the streamer. I've been in the room, right? So I've heard like the craziest comments. Like I had one producer who did a bunch of films. I won't mention what they are. Um, he asked me, so what's the big deal about cli? Like he had no climate knowledge right at all. Like, yeah. Didn't even know that the earth was warming because of greenhouse gases. So I had to do like a mini 1 0 1 session. I mean, that's started this podcast. Luckily I started this podcast. Somebody asked me a question, a family member, and I was like, how do you not know this? Like, I don't understand how you don't, how do you know it? Yeah. Well, because, and here's, I'm, I'm trying to reframe this when I talk about this, it's not just that, you know, scientists maybe weren't the best deliverers of the message.

21:15 It's that there was a consistent, a consistent, um, god awful denial of the facts mm-hmm. By the fossil fuel industry mm-hmm. Where they were taking out op-eds. Mm-hmm. You know, they were using a very big PR and advertising machine with their billions of dollars that they had made on a product that their own scientists had proved was, you know, causing like the most crazy ramifications to our earth. Yeah. So, you know, one of, one of my favorite little stories that I, I don't know if I told Amy this on Grounded in Maine podcast, but one of my favorite stories that I was just thinking about is there was a little 12-year-old girl there won her science fair in 1981.

22:01 And, um, she was in New Jersey. Okay. And what she did for the science fair is she took two little Washington monuments, like little, little miniatures. She put thermostats on them. She put them in two glass bowls, And then one she left open uncovered, and the other, she put a plastic wrap over. Okay. And she put a heat lamp on both of them. And sure enough, the Washington Mon Monument thermostat with the plastic wrap over, it was a higher temperature than the uncovered one. And, and in 1981, this little 12-year-old just proved the greenhouse gas effect. But what's interesting about this story is how did she know about the greenhouse gas effect in 1980? Flipping one. Mm-hmm.

22:42 It's because her father was a man named Henry Shaw, and he was the scientist for ExxonMobil. Yeah. And all of the fossil fuel companies knew since the 1950s. They knew since the 1950s. And the problem with that, Andrew, that makes me so furious, is we lost about 60 years of action. Yeah. Yeah. Because they got ahead of it. Figure they got ahead of it. They, and they try, they did different tactics. It wasn't all denial. Like first they were like, we wanna help with the pollution that our products are causing. Then they shifted to, oh no, it's, it's complete bullshit. The science isn't in. Mm-hmm. It's, it's not, it's not, not all the scientists are aligned. Right.

23:22 And now in like the two thousands and whatnot, they shifted to, oh well, um, we are actually going to put money into renewables and we are going to help support shifting. Which ends up being greenwash. 'cause it's like 1% of their, their budget or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I even find too there's, I've seen some. Uh, talk in publications from them and what I mean, publications, just like white papers and, and, and action and media of like, oh yeah, well climate change is here, but there's not much you can do about it, so you might as well just go with it. And you're just like, what? Like you went from denial to Yeah, let's just go with it. Like, it's not happening. It's not happening. No, it's happening. We, we kinda lied, we apologized for that.

24:03 We had this whole strategy to make sure you didn't do anything about it. Right. And now it's like, nah, it's too late. There's nothing you can do. Like, we're just gonna have to ride this out. But also if it is, but if they really believed that they wouldn't be infiltrating the, the UNF CCC Cop climate talks the way that they are Oh, Yeah. They're infiltrating them to make sure it's like, it's like the tobacco industry being at the bedside of the lung cancer patient and advising the doctor on Yeah. What they're gonna do for their, their rollout, you know? Yeah. Their medication treat well, and, and you see it even, uh, you talk about plastic pollution, the, you know, obviously it's a petroleum product, so you see lobbyists there at the UN treaty for, for the UN plastic treaty negotiations.

24:43 Mm-hmm. And they're k bing those all the time. And, and you just sit there and you're just like. How are they in everything? They're everywhere. 'cause they got all this money where their lobbyists were outnumbering, the scientists and the, and the, the policy makers that were at those meetings. And same obviously with cop, as you mentioned, like the oil, uh, the oil and gas and, and the climate change agreement. They're just everywhere. And they're, they're very interesting in the way, they're very strategic in the way they go. Sometimes you don't even realize it, you know? Yeah. They had, uh, at one of the cops for the UN treaty, the plastic treaty in Ottawa, uh, a uh, somebody from Oceania was on the podcast, Anthony Marta, and he was telling me that they had, um, people from other countries come in and they paid them to come in and, and stand beside signs saying, no, actually we're okay with everything that's happening.

25:30 Like, we need plastic, we need all this. And then so they actually went up and asked them the people, they're like, Hey, do you, do you really believe this? Like, no, actually we're just, we got paid to come to Canada. We got paid to do this. We're just doing this for the money. We don't even know what we're talking. Like, they didn't know. They didn't understand. Like what the, what it was for. Yeah. They were just taken advantage, unfortunately. They were taken advantage of, and this is not to speak, that they weren't intelligent or anything like that. They were just offered some money, offered an opportunity, and they went. And I don't know any of the backgrounds of the people, but you're just kind of sitting there, like, these people are sneaky, you know, in terms of Oh Yeah. What they're doing. Like they are, Yeah, they are pulling like everything, every stop. Uh, this is, you know, this is like kind of parallel to fossil fuels, but I've done stories about the utilities.

26:14 Yeah. And I did a story with journalists in Florida, uh, journalists from a, a outfit called Floodlight, which looks at the people that are stopping climate progress, really great news outlet. Um, and they were telling the story about Florida power and light and how Florida power and Light ran a ghost candidate to pull votes away from the liberal candidate who wanted solar, who was, who was promoting solar in the Sunshine State. And so that candidate lost because they had a ghost candidate and they had hired a PR firm called Matrix, who was literally having journalists like followed and like their photos. So all this treasure trove of information came out in the investigation.

26:57 And you could see the photos of the journalists like walking his dog. And they're, and the journalists were like, what are they gonna do? Are they gonna take us out like hitman? You know, so the util for, for me, utilities are no different than fossil fuels, you know? Yeah. So whatever you're getting your energy from Yeah. It's the same kind of battle. You know, it's the same kind of battle. Yeah. They want position, right? That's all they want. Mm-hmm. For government favor, and they want position and they're willing to do anything, and they use the law to do it. I mean, we've seen it with, with Monsanto, uh, in terms of their GMO seeds and how they were, they were basically blackmailing, um, uh, farmers who didn't want their seeds, but because wind brought it onto their system, like onto their farm, they're like, Hey, by the way, you owe us money for taking our seeds.

27:38 Unbelievable how they got. And then they ended up getting human rights before their corporation, which is, which is crazy. I mean, but here's the thing with all of this type of, um, misinformation systems that we're, that you're battling, and especially from the, you know, from the start of your filmmaking career trying to figure out what to do. And this might be a bigger question than, than I, I'm not sure if, uh, like we have the time for, to, to, to answer, but how has has your, um, process skills and abilities evolved over this time from like going like, you know, back when you were in, in high school, understanding what, like learning everything that's happening, getting educated through university, getting your degree, this, doing the storytelling, going to Hollywood and like to now where you're working with the years project.

28:31 How has that storytelling evolved from like, when you first started compared to now? I think, I mean, this is a answer, I could answer many different ways, right? But I think the, the hitting the nail on the head would be, um, I think when I first went to Hollywood, I, I, it was kind of the same thing that I did when I was an animal rights activist, which is. If I just tell people they'll change. So I was appealing to the ethics and morality of the people in the room. Mm-hmm. Like we have this giant problem, giant pro, the biggest problem of all time, which is a livable, habitable planet. Yeah. That is, it's going to be taken out by rising temperatures.

29:12 Mm-hmm. And we might have all of the ice melting And then creating at least 200 feet of sea level rise if that happens. You know, and, uh, Hollywood is a business. Mm-hmm. Hollywood is, is a business. And what that means is, the biggest thing I was confronted with was people don't wanna tell people what to do because then they think they won't watch. Right. Who wants to watch something where they're being told what to do? Hit on the head. This is the entertainment industry. And also quietly, they do have some involvement in taking money from fossil fuels, you know? Mm-hmm. And there's product placement of fossil fuels. Mm-hmm. So, so, so what saved me in starting to work at a higher level was, oh, but the, one of the tenets of good storytelling is somebody confronting a problem and having to overcome it.

30:04 That is what a good story is in the Western tradition, you know, the hero's journey being the classic version, but there are different ways of doing it. Mm-hmm. And so people wanna, people wanna watch and wanna listen to somebody confronting a problem, and Hollywood is not opposed to that. What they were opposed to is doing it for a cause. You know, without like any, any due reason. So what I quickly discovered was, ooh, I am an activist. I come from an activist, activist background, and I know how to work with organizers, and they are doing some serious conflict shit. Like they are shutting down the MTA on game day for Black Lives Matter. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

30:44 And getting arrested on mass, they're shutting down like the streets of LA by by UCLA to protest the prison incarceration system with undocumented immigrants. Like they're doing some high level, you know, conflict. That is something that is good storytelling, you know? Yeah. We wanna watch people with urgency and high stakes and emotional vulnerability that have to do something, And then that's how we connect the heart with the facts. That's how we grab people in the audience, no matter who they are in the audience, even though you can fine tune two specific audiences. Right. Um, I think that's the biggest thing I learned in my time because, you know, when I first moved to la, like one of the first projects I worked on was the US Release of The Secret, which was the doc about like manifesting what you want, you know?

31:35 And so the whole community I was around, they were very big on like manifestation. It was very kind of spiritual cinema circles. Yeah. You know, and, and I kept, I was like the squeaky wheel. I was like, but what's, what's the pro? Like, I wanna see a character that doesn't believe in it. Exactly. And then sees, And then, you know, And then get something manifested And then has to like, overcome it, you know? 'cause I think that's, I think that's good. Storytelling is like, what is the problem? What do we do about it? Agreed. And I think the, uh, what I like to see too, from a story is the, the outcome, but almost being like a positive outcome, which is very difficult in the environmental world to come out with a positive outcome. Mm-hmm. Maybe if you could say like a fictional story where the outcome comes a little better, but like in the, in the reality world, when I first started communicating, before I did the podcast, I started doing YouTube videos.

32:23 And it was very interesting. I was at a, I do, I did CrossFit back then and mm-hmm. You know, it's a very community based, some people say it's a bit of a cult, but it was very community based. Right. And we were at dinner and we were talking and the owner of the gym's, like Andrew, I watched some of your videos. They were really great, but I had to stop watching after a while, I'm like, oh, I'm curious. Like, no judgment, like, why did you stop watching? It was like, it was very doom and gloom. Like everything you talked about was making me depressed. And I'm like. And I was like, oh, interesting. I'm like, obviously that's not what I, I wanted to do. Um, but I went back and looked at the videos and I looked, I'm like, I'm talking a lot about problems facing the Ocean, right? But I wasn't necessarily doing interviews or doing some solo episodes where I was talking about some of the solutions that we found, or in practice, some of those solutions being put into practice in local communities and, and things like that.

33:09 And so I, I, I did change, you know, in looking at like, let's start, like, I'm not gonna be able to say it every time. Mm-hmm. But I am gonna be able to say it a lot of the times and, and have the people on who are doing some great things and working with communities and trying to get, you know, better fisheries, better, you know, understand climate change and how it's being affected and sharing data and all this kind of stuff, and trying to introduce people to that and the people working in that. And I felt like it got a lot better received not from that, that, that person, because I never asked her again after that. But I was like, oh, okay. So there are like, you know, people don't want always the doom and gloom, but I, I see what you mean by like a, a. Having a problem come to them or being confronted with the problem And then having to overcome it and what happens to it.

33:52 Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not so good. Right. With, with overcoming that problem. Yeah. And it can still, it can still be a hero's journey. It's never, you know, the story arc that people, humans love story arcs. Right. And the story arc is never just, it's all bad, it's all bad. Orcs, you know, ring a fire, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. You know, there, there are good points in the Shire and there are sad points, you know, I don't know why I keep doing. Um, but you know, like it's a, it's a journey and sometimes you have to have the, the offset, you have to have the comparison to make the bad feel really bad. Right. You know? Yeah. Like, I just saw that movie, the Drop, which is about this single mom who finally gets a babysitter and goes out with the guy from 19, uh, 23, the actor who's really hot right now.

34:37 Yes, yes. And they're on like a, they're on like a single date and it's going really well. And then she's in some blackmail scheme where somebody starts texting her and they threaten to kill her date if she doesn't follow, And then they're gonna kill her kid. And it's a cute, it's a cute little movie that's very unexpected. But if we didn't have that contrast of like, yeah, oh my God, she's going out with the guy from 1923. He's so hot. Oh my goodness, she at this beautiful restaurant. None of that would matter, right? Yeah. A hundred percent Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure, for sure. But that's, that's really interesting. Now with the years project, um, this is a very interesting, you know, as you mentioned before, it was, uh, there were a lot of celebrities that were, it was almost celebrity driven and, and very like celebrities that were, have been traditionally very, um, conscious and environmental and social issues in the past.

35:28 Right. You mentioned, uh, uh, Matt Damon, uh, you mentioned Harrison Ford. Mm-hmm. Um, but also people, people who, who are. Uh, iconic in ways, been in movies and people want to hear them and they're very like, you know, I think Matt Damon has probably the more, not necessarily controversial, but he is lovable and, but also very passionate about what he feels when he feels, you know, you've seen him do a lot of different things and for teachers and, and all that kind of stuff in the past. And it's, it's really interesting to have that water and, and, and of course now you have, so you had that, that moment where that series that came out, huge viewership, you know, on, on great channels. How do you continue the momentum afterwards?

36:11 Um, you know, they move on to different projects and, and, and, you know, the series eventually ended and now you're moving on with different types of content. So is that when you came on, or you came on during the episodes And then, And then stayed on came right. I came on, I came on right after. Um, I really wanted to work with them on the series, but the whole team was based in New York and I was in LA so a lot of their producers were New York based. Um, but so we, so the celebrity idea is one that's used in Hollywood a lot, and it's just for a simple reason. You'll have like, you know, you'll have like, uh, why can't I think of a single sl? You'll have Gisele Bunsen. In a chair being the narrator for something, and it might, might have other characters, they're mm-hmm.

36:53 They're actually living the thing, but she'll like, narrate certain facts and it's just to get people to watch something. Yes. You know, like celebrities pull attention, you know, as much as I hate that fact model, everybody, they just pull attention. Yeah. Um, we realized that two things, the climate crisis is going at such a, a frenetic, urgent pace that even unscripted TV series are take too long to produce. Don't even get me started on documentaries. And I, you know, I, I was the producer for a documentarian named Lauren Greenfield for many years. Mm-hmm. Um, she did Queen of Versailles about this very rich family that loses everything.

37:33 Um, right in the housing crash, uh, we did Generation Wealth together, which was looking at how wealth has shifted our moral compass around the world and. I mean the, we're talking three years, four years, six years to make a doc. Um, a famous documentarian that I was just talking to has a doc on plastics in the body coming out. It took him six, I dunno if I wanna watch that, but that's Yeah. Oh, Yeah. Yeah. And he connects it. The infertility it, he said it, it, it was taking him six years. And I, I almost wanted to beg him, can we please go faster? Mm-hmm. Can we please go faster? Because, so, so that realization, um, that we don't have, I mean, if we're gonna hit the 2030 mark, which we already blew past last year, just for one year of the 1.5 degrees, like Right.

38:21 We don't have that kind of time. Sure. You know, And then also the other thing documentarians will do is they'll, they do like a year of development where they'll, they'll fly in and they're kind of trying to find characters, but they're not connecting to the, the climate campaigns and groups on the ground who already know the lay of the land, who've already built relationships, who've already like. Worked on this, And so it's like people keep starting from scratch rather than let's connect this to a campaign that groups know people know what they need locally. You know, like when I went to Cancer Alley for the first time in Louisiana, you know, I mistakenly asked Sharon Levine the Goldman Prize winner. I was like, why don't you leave Yeah.

39:01 Yeah. Now that she's like a friend and grandmother, I'm like, oh God, I winced when I think about that because Right. Her whole thing is, why should I leave? Mm-hmm. They need to leave. Yeah. I've been here for multiple, my family's been here for generations, you know, and rightfully so. You know, locals know what they need And so documentarians the whole, and even news, the whole fly in, fly out, extractive, do like all this new research and not have any idea of who you're filming. We are really like, we're really ha hacking that, that algorithm. Like we, we aren't doing that anymore, so Right. We shifted our focus to, if everybody's getting their news from social media, let's flood the zone in on social, on social platforms.

39:44 We have just as many viewers as we did for the show, which is crazy Yeah. Yeah, right. We get like million of views. Yeah. And we, you know, with, we have an influencer network of high level celebs that push out our work that we call the network. Mm-hmm. You know, it's 750 million, like Yeah. All of their followers, you know, unreal. Unreal. Which is a crazy amount of people. So, so the time, the time it takes, we're trying to shorten that so that we can just get these, get this content to the groups faster. I'm focusing more on like bipoc and frontline storytelling that we can like win the campaigns for the groups. So basically like stacking the impact producing. That sometimes a production company will do sometimes at the end of the shoot, you know, like Right.

40:27 Partic participant was good at having an impact producing arm, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, like waiting for Superman, the film about teachers and schools, they, they, they partnered with schools around the country to get that doc in the school so kids could watch it. Right? Right. And teachers could watch it. So that's an example of impact producing. What I'm, what we're doing is we're, when we go in for the story, we're looking for a good story. So it's all the good principles, but it's also what do you guys need? What will help you in this moment? Um, I'll tell you another story, Andrew. So when officials decided to blow up vinyl chloride over the town of East Palestinian, Ohio, and nobody will admit who gave the order, and you saw that mushroom cloud go up after the train derailed, yes.

41:15 We were some of the first people on the ground there with a, like I had my DP who had done the circus for Showtime and who was so fast and like psychically connected to me. We went in and I said to the community, I was like, what do you need? What do you want this story to be? They said, we want, we want investigative scientists testing our water because they keep saying the plume went one way and we know that it went the other way. We want Governor Mike DeWine to get us emergency funds. 'cause he didn't declare an emergency for a year. Took a while even though people were breaking out in rashes and all sorts of crate. Yeah. Gonna the hospital with breathing problems. And then they also said, we want vinyl chloride banned. We want it put on the list of banned chemicals. So with that instructions, those instructions, I.

41:59 Told a good story, found all the great emotionally vulnerable characters. Even even had some kids in there, had followed some action. So we like followed the activists going to disrupt the capitol to say like, our children are getting sick. You need to do something. Yeah, so they, you know this and we got kicked out by the police And then we partnered with Beyond Plastics And then basically use that. And we targeted EPA regional and federal officials with the dock and we said, here it is. This is what's actually happening. Maybe the news didn't show you that their water has all this, all these chemicals in it. You know, here you go. Whatcha gonna do it? So you to prepare for the story to prepare for the dock.

42:40 You guys had water tested. And everything like this while we were filming the dock. So you didn't wait for government testing to happen. You guys did it as a private sort of entity to be like, okay, well you guys want to test the water, give us samples of your water. We'll get it from a bunch of different people. We'll test it, we'll give you the results as well before the dock goes. So they have what they need And then you are able to do it. That's really interesting. Very, very interesting. Luckily like universities were frothing at the bit to get down on the ground there. Of course. So it was like there was no shortage of investigative. Yeah. So you had the people to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So yeah. And then because of our targeting of the EPA officials, vinyl chloride was put on the list of chemicals to consider banning.

43:21 It's kind of, it's one of my finest moments as a producer. 'cause I'm, so, I just, and who knows, I actually haven't checked, I haven't had the heart to check since the current administration of what's happened with that. But we succeeded in changing minds because they saw that doc and it was, it was what storytelling to, in our opinion, should be four. Yeah. And then, and last thing I'll say about like this and how we do it differently is Hollywood locks up the content. You know, if, if you wanted to use the cove, which won the Oscar, about the Japanese dolphin killing, if you wanted to use that in your community, good luck. Good luck getting the footage. Good luck not getting sued. If you wanna use it, good luck. If you wanna use the footage for fundraising, you know, I'm just using that as an example.

44:05 Like Yeah. Yeah. So we are also trying to get fully funded so we can gift this to climate groups to use. Right. Because everybody needs content. That's the biggest thing, right? Everybody needs story. Everybody Yeah. Yeah. And good story. Like, like you with your nice microphone, you know, not like, you know, not like a shotgun mic, but like an actual sound. Yeah. On set with you, you know, that's getting the good stuff. It's, it's, it's, it's so interesting 'cause in my evolution of through the podcast is, um, you know, I, you connect with so many people. I interview a lot of people over, over my time. Uh, we were talking before, I've done over 1800 episodes.

44:48 Many of those have been interviews. And so I have a pretty big network of people. And, and one of the things we've been working with, especially over the past year is I, I've, I've been part of a science communication sort of advocacy group, right? Where we are online and we're like, okay, we need content creators to talk about this, who's ready to do this? And people will put out videos and we kind of like, so it's kinda like a bit of a network that, that we have that's controlled by No, I like that. Um, not controlled, but that's kind of led by, uh, Chris and Alex, Christopher Berro, um, and. Like, it's amazing. It's a lot of fun. We've been able to do a lot of things off of it. We're always in the know. We're sending each other information that we find out. And so like one of the things that I've wanted to do is be able to tell stories, like bring in different interviews that I've done and clips from different interviews and have a narrative that might be a little easier to follow instead of having to watch every interview that's like 60 minutes.

45:41 Yeah. Still have the interview out there, but put in like a bit of a narrative kind of episode, but do it in a fashion that's quick so that I'm not doing, spending six months on it, I'm spending a week just taking interviews and being like, okay. Clips from the interviews and be like, this is what we need to say to get people to comment. Right. And I think totally. I feel like that's where, but I, I really like the fact where you're just like. You can do documentaries and help out the communities you're telling the stories for by quickening the process of getting stuff done, such as water testing, such as whatever that might be. Mm-hmm. To be able to make sure that, hey, we think something's happening here. Mm-hmm. Alright, well let's figure that out.

46:22 You know, let's test that. Let's use, there's a lot of labs around that will test this stuff like before anybody else gets their hands on it. And we can do that and do it at a much faster process. Um, yeah. Here's a question for like, for you, for me, as someone who wants to do this and always looking for funding to do this kind of stuff, like who are the, like without saying the people, who are the types of people that are willing to fund projects like this? 'cause it has to be fast acting, like when something does come up. Mm-hmm. It has to be fast acting. It has to be something where you're saying, Hey, look, like if you guys want to be a part of this, this is what we're gonna say. Or I've had con, I've had connection with you in the past, you might be interested in this project. Like, what are the, are, are they just like.

47:04 Sort of Holly, like typical Hollywood funders for this type of content? Or is it like small organizations, small businesses that are like, I wanna be a part of this. I'm, I'm just curious of like where that funding comes from. Yeah. Well, well luckily not everybody are the Koch brothers and the Heritage Foundation, you know? Right, right. There are some very good philanthropists in the world. Right. That are aware of science and the validity of science and believe in the climate crisis and wanna Yeah. Put their money in that. And so there's, there are a lot, we're a nonprofit, there are a lot of private foundations that fund us that Gotcha. That really want to be talking about this. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, a good example is like the Rockefeller kids, like their, you know, their family basically created the modern oil industry.

47:54 And That's true. They don't believe it at all. You know, it's kind of, it's inspirational, you know, it's like they're, they're big climate activists and they're working to dismantle that. And that's just one of many, many, many, you know, Bloomberg is another classic good billionaire. If Yeah. If you can believe those exist. You know, who, who are on the right side of history. Mm-hmm. And who are actually like giving, who are giving their money. Oh. With the awareness that a lot of their money came from colonization and. Arguably racist practices. Yep. Um, that, you know, created the current climate catastrophe. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. They exist is what I'll say.

48:36 Yeah. And Hollywood sometimes too, like we're partnered with Adam McKay. Um, who did, don't look up and Yep. You know, he such a good, he and I, I've never connected with a movie more as a scientist than that. Meryl Streep as the president. I was dying. Oh my God. Hilarious. Hilarious. But when people ask me like, why'd you love that movie so much? I'm like, I'd live it every single day. Like, what do you mean when I talk about climate change and you guys talk about football or you talk about something else? 'cause you don't want to think about it. That's what we're talking about. This is, this is what we live with every day. It's just not an asteroid coming to hit us. Yeah. It's what we're doing already. You know, it's so interesting. Yeah. I don't know if you ever heard that little story about how the guy who coined climate change, he was actually like an ad guy who the fossil fuel industry hired to find a term that sounded very mild.

49:26 Oh, interesting. Oh, it's just climate. It's just clean. Everything changes. And that same man was living in the Hollywood Hills when it caught fire and he had to evacuate his house And then he suddenly. A vowed that he was gonna help the climate movement because that same ad exec who created that for the right was basically like horrified at what he had done. Yeah. Can you imagine? Like, yeah. I, I never knew that story. I didn't know that. 'cause I mean, I knew it was global warming. Was was the one that everybody's like, oh my gosh, like the world's warming. Like, And then, but they used it eventually to fight against it. Be like, well, it's not warming in every place. I remember all that kinda stuff. And then climate change came, right? It was like, no, just, you can refer to it as I always say, you can refer to us as whatever you want.

50:09 We're in trouble. This shit's hitting the fan. We're in trouble. We need to, we need to help and we need all help. Yes. All hands on deck. Uh, yes. Exactly. One of the things that, that is very curious to me about your work, uh, your, uh, ability to hit, um. Different audiences. We talked a little bit about it before. You mentioned though, your focus right now, and I don't know if it if it was always, but your focus definitely right now is on like, sort of like bipoc uh, audiences and really focus on bipoc communities. I guess one thing is, is, you know why, And then the other question, the follow up is, is how do you, do you focus some of those, some of those content pieces or all the content pieces to attract or, you know, hit the, the, the heartstrings to, for, for, to get people to really be aware and understand?

50:59 So Um, so I've prioritized working with Bipoc and Frontline, um, organizers and activists, um, mostly because I'm so grateful that we have a group of, in terms of indigenous, a group of people that already live in right relations with the earth and have done so historically for time immemorial. Mm-hmm. Um, like if we had to start at scratch with our. Colonizer extractive, top down humans are the best approach. Oh, Yeah. Yeah. And we didn't have anybody who had any sort of relation to oceans and living, oh my gosh. Ecosystems. I, I would just be so much more upset at life.

51:41 The fact that we have groups and I've had the honor of working with the Anishinaabi, the Navajo, the Hopi Thein in Alaska. I've worked with indigenous Hawaiians that invited me to the mostly indigenous island of Molokai and even took me to their sacred beach. Wow. But said, stick close by. 'cause you'll get beat up if you go to the bathroom by yourself. I'm like, don't I look Hawaiian enough? And they're like, no, you'll get beat up Um, So like, so for me, indigenous storytelling gives me hope. Gotcha. Um. Black storytelling is, and frontline storytelling where the people are like at the front lines of pollution is a very awful, dirty narrative. Mm-hmm. Um, I've worked a lot in Cancer Alley.

52:22 I'm working in Houston this year with the petrochem build out there. Mm-hmm. It's, you know, it's, they've, they've picked historically black and brown communities because they think people can't fight back there. And then they treat people as disposable with products that they have to dispose of somewhere, even though they cause cancer. And even though they're lying about the amount of the emissions that they're self-reporting to the EPA, they're like, let's put it somewhere. Why not put it in, in black and brown neighborhoods? And so I think, you know, telling the stories of the people who are hit first and hardest mm-hmm. And who also may not have. The generational wealth to be able to rebound.

53:02 I think that already imbues an urgency into the story. Right, right. That already ticks one of my boxes as a storyteller of like for sure. What are the high stakes? What's the urgency? I could lose my house if a hurricane hits. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have a second or third house to go to. Like, this is it, this is the house I inherited that my parents 40 acres and a mule freaking inherited, you know, at the hard, hard work and hard labor of relatives Um, So, so, but the audiences like audiences is a slightly different conversation. Like nowadays you can do organic reach with social or you could do like targeted reach. You can target whoever you want with social media. And it's really interesting because you can, you can look at like value systems.

53:45 Um, there's an organization called Harmony Labs that did this really good like narrative breakdown of like, who are the climate audiences? And it was, it was broken down into value systems. So we don't just work with Frontline and Bipoc. We did, um, a whole campaign with the Department of Energy where we were basically trying to, um, rebrand renewable energy for purple states before the election of basically how like power doesn't have to be like solar and renewables don't have to be looked at as like pansy, you know? Yeah. Like that this could be like a distinctly American proud moment that we like, kind of what China's doing now. Like this could be a moment where it's like, it could be masculine, it could be all of the things that appeal to a different value system that maybe purple states or red states are more into, you know?

54:35 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, So I think there are ways of like hacking the algorithm if you figure out like, okay, well what base are we, are we targeting? And then how do we do that? And then we also track all of our, like who watches, how long they watch. I hate to break it to you, but like most people tap out after 15 seconds for a lot of videos, so you're lucky if you get, that's why you gotta do cold opens, Andrew. Yeah. The hooks. It's the hooks. When I, when you were talking about putting together all your videos, I kept thinking start in the middle, like in Mattius race Yeah. Start with the problem. Yeah. What's the problem in the interview? And then go from there, you know? Yeah. Like almost a clip, right. Of the interview of like the worst part and you're like, all right. Or the best part, but the worst, what they're saying. Yeah. To get people Yeah. Yeah.

55:16 But, you know, with, with style, not Of course, just like, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah. So, but I find, you know, if you have a, if you have a emotionally vulnerable character that's facing a really great villain, there's no shortage of really great villains in this fight, unfortunately. Um, then you can appeal to a, a really wide array of people. Mm-hmm. If, you know, if you stick to certain, like, storytelling principles that are just tried and true. I mean, Hollywood has known this for. For decades of how to do this. Yeah. And so it's, it's nice to be able to apply it to groups on the ground that don't have that infrastructure and need it Absolutely. To tell their story.

55:58 If you're telling the story of a, uh, black and brown community that's facing adversity because of the climate crisis, is your audience the same, like the, the, a black and brown audience of other people who would, um, connect with them a little bit more? Or is it a little bit of a wider variety of people who want to fight for and to help other people? Um, that might look like me. How do you, and how do you decipher what that is? Or do you just do like different types of content And then put it out to different audiences? Um, that's a really good question. When I was working in unscripted TV for a network, they would usually decide who they were targeting.

56:38 Gotcha. Um, with our new algorithm that we're trying to do, uh, that we are doing. It's more about what does the community want? Like who is their target, you know? And so I would argue, let's take the example again of Sharon Levine and Cancer Alley and Sharon Levine. The short story is that Formosa Plastics wanted to build a giant plant in her neighborhood, which would've tripled the air pollution, which is already called Cancer Alley for a reason. It's got like 150 petrochemical plants on this one swath of the Mississippi River, which is all former plantation land. It was sugar cane, slave plantations. And there are still bodies on these sites that they haven't exhumed, and they don't treat them as heritage sites.

57:19 So, so I asked Sharon, what do you want? What do you want with this story? Like, what do you, you know, everybody's telling your story, but what do you want? 'cause we're gonna gift you this content. What do you wanna do with it? And she was like, well, I'd really like to have a, a, a talk with the president of the the parish, because we've never actually met face to face. And I was like, I wanna film that. Yeah. And we got some great, we basically got some great footage where he was like, this is not Cancer rally. He denied the name, didn't believe the name, and she was like, and she rightfully so, starts arguing back with him, Sharon is fiery. And she was like, this is Cancer rally. This is cancer rally.

57:59 So then that was one thing she wanted, and she also wanted to have a, a conversation with her parish representative who had voted yes to Formosa Plastics coming in, despite what the people wanted in his parish. So I arranged a meeting where we're filming with this man who I, I, I, I beg you to watch it because it is the most bizarre thing I've ever filmed. But he basically kind of just. Started citing that God was pleased with what he had done. And, and he got his, you know, his, his recommendations from God and God was plea. And then, you know, he gets into an argument with the, with everybody in the room because they're like, this is not about the kingdom of God.

58:41 This is about St. James Parish. You are our representative. And so it's a very antagonistic scene. Of course. And then everybody afterwards asked me, and I've had like, documentarians wanna license this footage, like on repeat. And they're like, how did you get the conflict? And I'm like, well, she wanted, she wanted this and I, I knew it was gonna be a conflict. So I set it up knowing that this was a contentious situation. Yeah. But it was the next step for her to win her campaign that she wanted to get this guy kicked out. And so because of our piece, he was kicked out as a pretty quickly on as her representative. Yeah. And, and the funniest moment that I didn't get to film of that whole scenario was.

59:23 I, I called Sharon in the car with my ap. She was in a separate car driving away from that crazy situation. And I said to Sharon, well, I think you might need a new representative. And she was like, well, what I need is a new AC repairman, because it turns out he was also her AC repairman. Small parish, I guess. Yeah. I laugh so hard. Oh lord. But this is, you know, it, this is surprising to me. It, I almost feel like it's, uh, it's, it's very, there's, there's, there's definitely a parallel with, with science and conservation to this. It's almost like ethical filmmaking. Mm-hmm.

1:00:03 You're coming into a community and you're, like you said, you're asking questions And so you ask this, this wonderful woman, you're saying, what do you want? I wanna meet our representative. 'cause I've never met this person before. Okay. If we, if you meet them, do you mind if we film? No, that's fine. You film it. You get the content you need, but also she gets, whether it's a conflict or not, she gets the next step of, of mm-hmm. What her process is to help the community out. It's not a, it's not a, I'm gonna come in, I'm just gonna film, I'm gonna put you two together without telling you, And then hopefully there's a conflict that I can get juicy stuff out. It's, I'm helping you get to your next step And then.

1:00:45 With that is you're allowing me to film that whole process and hopefully bring about more awareness to that. But you're doing it with her permission and, and everything and saying, Hey, if you help me out, for sure that, that sounds great. It's very similar to the way conservation has moved where, you know, we used to have parachute signs. You kind of mentioned it in filmmaking where you go in, you get what you want, you get out, you don't help the community, you're just trying to get the story. Same thing with parachute science is your scientist goes into a, say a for all intents per a coastal community, uh, say a fishing village. And you go in and you do all your studies there, but you don't share the information with them. You probably use their boats. You use the people, you don't talk to them and you don't, you know, you may be make nice with them, but you don't share the information.

1:01:26 And they're probably like, well, we want to know, like we don't have this capability and stuff. And so then we call that parachute service, which that's why we set you up with the airplanes and the boats. Exactly right. They wanna help and they're always friendly, always willing to help for the most part anyway. They're always willing to help. And so now conservation has moved towards, uh, there's a great organization called Rare, um, where they, I know Rare Yeah. Yeah. Where they do the Fishing Forever program, where they'll move into a village, they'll, they'll come to a village if they're invited, they'll come to a village and they're like, what do you need? Like, what are your problems facing the Ocean? And is, And then they look at, is there a way we can support in getting, and sometimes it's as simple as, and I I say simple in terms of. You don't have to do crazy experiments as simple as like, Hey, we're fishers.

1:02:09 We just want to be recognized as a professional designation like an engineer. Because if we're recognized as a professional designation, the the regional government will take us more seriously and they'll start to track how much fish we start to take and how much money that brings in. And then we get more recognized for that. And the, and valued for what we bring in is not necessarily conservation focused where you're trying to make sure tracking how much fish they take or anything, but it ends up being that they track more fish, they end up, but it's helping out the community. So it's like a bit of more. It's more ethical than coming in, going out. Way more ethical. Yeah. And you're helping it out, but you're also getting what you need and saying, we want this community to be better for the Ocean.

1:02:51 They're doing that. Same with you. You want this woman to be able to get to the next step. I really love this idea. Is this, I'm gonna ask this question. I think I know the answer. This is not done normally in Hollywood where you're trying to, this is like a, a, a sector, like a branch of the way document documentaries are being done. Correct. Is that, is that my unfortunate No. Crazy answer. No. No. Unfortunately it's not. I, I think my, yeah, I think my worst story to that effect was I was filming a TV episode in Minneapolis, about each episode was around the country about different, um, problems that black communities face across America. And this episode was pre George Floyd and it was about police brutality.

1:03:35 Mm-hmm. And I was interviewing Jamar Clark's mom, his birth mom. And she, he, I don't know if you remember, but Jamar Clark was the young man who was on the ground handcuffed with his hands behind his back and shot Yeah. By a cop while he was handcuffed on the ground. It was bad. Yeah. It's disgusting. Um, and she, she had a eye patch over one of her eyes and it was just because she was, she was mi missing an eye or something had gone, gone wrong. And I had worked to set up this connection with her 'cause I knew she was gonna have to talk about the hardest thing she'd ever have to talk about, which is the loss of her son in such a brutal, violent way.

1:04:15 Mm-hmm. But the network was there and they were like in the ear of one of the other producers. And I had, I had gotten her to the place where she was just like really in it with me and trusting me. Mm-hmm. Course, you know, knew that I was, I was a woman of color and I was on her side regardless of the fact that I was a producer. Mm-hmm. And then I hear the other producer, like, he like. You know, tugs at me and he says, Hey, Maya network is asking, can you ask her to take off the eye patch? Jesus can't, we can't really see her face. Can you ask her to take it off? And I was like, no, I don't wanna do that. And then they pushed back and network was in the other room, like listening, and they pushed back on me.

1:05:00 And I, I really like, adamantly was like, I do not wanna do that. I do. It's gonna, And then it's her pride. They fought me on it. So, so they made me take off her iPad, ask her to take off her iPad. She went into another room. She was so embarrassed, of course, so embarrassed after that she had to redo her hair so that it covered her face. It's like her biggest vulnerability other than like talking about something that is awful. Exactly. Exactly. And she's, yeah. Ugh. And then I had a conversation with the producer who was on my side, but he kind of had his hands tied. And then I got chastised by the network for it. You know, and, and they were like, you shouldn't ever like counter what we're asking for. And I was like, I'm the person that knew this community.

1:05:43 I'm the person who has been working to build relationships with them for the last six months. You should be asking me what I think about like, and we should be asking her. Yeah. Like, we didn't default at all to her. And that's just one of like, so many stories I could tell you of people like not trusting that the community knows what they need. Mm-hmm. Or being extractive, I mean Yeah. Or just holding the licensing and not giving the footage. It's, it's a really rough, rough and tumble industry, but the reason people do it is 'cause it, you could win an Oscar with the piece And then everybody knows your name. Everybody, you get instant fame. So it's that one shot. They want that one shot. That's the true. And we're in a very different society now from a content perspective.

1:06:26 We, the, the, the faster the content, the better. I mean, we're in such a fast paced world. Um, the stories matter. You could argue that you don't need as much production in a way like that. I see from my, like, I can get a lot of content out now. I'm not getting millions of views by, by any means. There are some people who will create content where it's just them talking and, you know, on TikTok or on Instagram, and they are talking about very, um, relevant issues. There's, there's actually a guy I watch, uh, who, who's been working in the oil and gas sector for a long time, and he explains. The markets very, in a very easy fashion that I can understand.

1:07:07 And he talks a lot about, you know, some, like everything that's going on in, in Venezuela and everything that's going on in the world and, and how like, you know, some people who are expecting certain things to happen probably won't happen. 'cause he has a very good understanding of the history and the whole world market. So it makes it, but he just talks out of his car or wherever he is out of his home. And, and, and I feel like there's such a fast pace, but it's almost like a bit of a pressure to get content out very quickly. Mm-hmm. The, I I was watching a few of the, of the videos today, a few, like 50 or 60 of these short beast contents that you, that you had because they're, they're very interesting to me. And I want to kind of look at, and I love the, the style that you did.

1:07:48 You, you, you guys have been able to, as a team, put out a lot of, a lot of content. Is it like how like. What's the process there? Like, are you looking to hit like a piece of content a day because they're very well researched, very well edited. The storytelling's there mm-hmm. That's not done in an hour or less than an hour or in, in a, a couple of hours. Uh, like what's the shoot? Like, what's the, the, the goal in terms of pieces of content a day, And then how long does it take for those pieces of content to be made? I'm just curious from a content creator's perspective. Yeah. So, so we're very clear that we can't be at a news type pace, right.

1:08:32 Um, you know, documentary isn't news, right? It's a deeper look at the thing that made the news. Gotcha. Um, So news can fly in, fly out, and they have a deadline. We will try to find a deadline with whatever community or what the funder wants, and usually the funder will have some idea deadline, but we're more at a, like, we're more at a fast paced, very short doc schedule. Yeah. So, um, I'll have about maybe two to three weeks of research and reaching out to characters and building relationships and building logistics, finding the crew, um, hiring the crew, hiring an assistant, um, associate producer.

1:09:13 Um, And then our shoots are a little more, um, refined in the sense that I try to, and I learned this from like unscripted tv, you try to stack as many of the events that are happening in a community in the shortest amount of time, you know? Gotcha. So, like, and that's hard because sometimes there's a hearing for this, you know, fight, site fight, And then a month later there'll be a hearing for something. So. So maybe you don't get both hearings. Maybe you get what you need out of the one hearing, And then you also have a scene with somebody or a walk and talk or the intro this. So I usually start my shoot with the sit down interviews because then you know what you're gonna get for the B roll.

1:09:55 You know what you need to tell to fill in the story. So, you know, if somebody's talking about the rights of nature, nature in relation to Ocean, like legal framework of oceans, you know, then you know you wanna get some lawyers like figuring out something with rights of nature or like earth justice. Yeah. Lawyer in a, you know, in a courtroom. Mm-hmm. You know? Um, And so then our shoots will be like a week, you know, probably like a week max. I'll bring a crew of like four to six people. We always have a sound mixer, like I said, because you audios And so far you can't cheat. Bad audio Yeah. Yeah. Um, I try to hire local as much as I can in the community, but usually we'll fly in like some pros that mm-hmm.

1:10:39 We, we just have a flow with and we know that they do like really high quality work. Gotcha. And then we have a, a suite of editors. We have, I think at this point we have, um, five, wow. Two, three. Four. I think we have like four or five editors and GFX artists that are on staff. So this part is probably the most time consuming because we'll start with, um, a paper cut. From transcripts. So we do like kind of the 60 minutes version of where we get the transcripts. Usually in unscripted tv you're actually doing like string outs in Avid or Premiere. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, And so you're cutting from a string out. But paper cuts are good because then you can kind of like see what facts you're missing to tell.

1:11:23 Gotcha. The picture and our goal this whole time, our goal is to simplify this as much as possible for a wider audience to understand it. So you don't have to be a climate wonk of course, or climate policy nerd or even a Marine biologist to understand what the, what in the hell the, um, jellyfish are doing. Right? Yes. Yes. So, so we do the paper cut. Then I create a rough cut. With my editors. And then we go back and forth like a bunch of different cuts, you know, like what piece are we missing? Oh, that, that doesn't make sense if we don't have that. You know? And luckily we have a writer's room process that's like very democratic, so everybody in our company weighs in, even interns.

1:12:08 Yeah. And I like, I like when interns are in the room because I'll be like, all right, raise your hand when you start losing focus and attention. And so they'll just be like. I'm like, okay, that's where we lose steam. We need something else happening here. 'cause the interesting, we lost the interns. Yeah. You know, And then, you know, and you have to kill your babies. Like, that's the moment where I'm like, oh, but I really want the Earth Justice lawyer expounding on the rights of this. And, and the team's like, it's not, no. Just lose that part. So, And then we finally get to like a, a fin Well, sorry. So in the rough cut, I'm talking to community, we'll send a cut to them and say, how's this looking?

1:12:48 You know, what are you thinking? What are your thoughts to kind of have a collaboration there. We don't want any surprises on the end where people are like, oh, why did you put me, why I, and I've had people call me and say, so, I like what you've done this one sentence, we are gonna get vilified by the fossil fuel industry for this sentence. Right. Can you take this out? And we, we'll, we'll take it out. Yep. And it's like, we don't want you to, we don't wanna do harm. Right, right. Of course. And then we, we from, we usually start with a YouTube cut 'cause it's a longer form. And then from there, the longer, and by long form I mean like, yeah. Eight to 15 minutes, you know, which is long on the internet. And then we'll cut down for different social platforms and Yeah.

1:13:30 Use the, the algorithm of what those platforms like, you know, so like what kind of editing does it have to be square format, you know? Is it Yeah. Vertical is not my favorite, but you know. Yeah. It's what it is because you can't get the full breadth of it and Yeah, no, it's like why would we, yeah. Why would we wanna see this tiny little sliver when I could see the whole landscape? But you know what, it's, it's what? It's, oh, I totally, totally, totally get it. I've actually seen some situations where in vertical, and I don't know how they do this. You can, it shifts switch it. Yeah, well, no, not just the length, but like from a vertical perspective, it almost just like, it pans over and you see the, and it kind of goes back and forth and you kind of see it.

1:14:14 Um, it's really interesting. I, I don't know how they do it. I've always tried to, as a, like someone who's dabbling in editing, I'm like, how does the one do that? I'm like, that's interesting. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I don't think we've done it recently, but I think I could ask for you. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, for sure. No, no biggie. I'm always in, I'm always interested. Um, So just as we, as we kind of end this off, um, you know, there's so much content and before we, I ask the last question, like, love to have you back on because I feel like this is such a productive, uh, interview and I know you're busy love, but whenever you the time I, please let me know 'cause I'd love to have you back and talk more about this. But, um, I guess like, you know, for, for, for now, things are kind of crazy in the world. Um, people are worried about a lot of things and it seems like the environment, people are worried about it, but it's almost taken a bit of a, it's kind of, I guess it's kind of like, you know, you look at people in, uh, a place like Cancer Alley.

1:15:05 They're more worried about be, like, getting sick chronically than worried about the climate crisis. Right. And so, yes, they're worried about the climate crisis, but they have to worry about survivability first. Mm-hmm. There are a lot of people now with everything going on in the world, you know, especially in the us uh, there's a lot of new stuff that's been happening over the last year. Uh, you know, uh, immigration policies and affordability and, and medical bills and all this stuff seems to be dominating. How do, uh, you as content creators try and I guess you're almost competing with that attention or try and keep environment at the same level or close to the level to keep people aware to and, and try inspire action.

1:15:51 Mm, God, that's a hard question. Right. I mean, I guess it's more of like, how do I help, like how do I do this? Yeah. I mean, you know, the US military called climate a threat multiplier. Yes. And so it, it. It really multiplies the impact of whatever is already going on. So, you know, the people that are having, um, health risks because of the pollution from benzene mm-hmm. Or chlorine that's being spewed in cancer alley. You know, that's only gonna get worse. Like Yeah. It's, unless we do something, you know, it's like the Ocean acidification, the Ocean taking on the bulk of the greenhouse gas warming.

1:16:31 Mm-hmm. What is it like over 90% at least? Yeah. Um, of the heat that is, it's acting as a carbon sink, you know? Mm-hmm. Like all of that. These are threat multipliers and it's also so exponentially expensive to not do something. Yeah. That, you know, a good example is during the pandemic, we really couldn't talk about the climate crisis during the pandemic. We had to, we had to shift to kind of parallel storytelling. Oh, interesting. Okay. But we still kind of had things in the works that were, um. S looking at the climate lens, but pairing it with the pandemic. Right. So it was like we were looking at, um, how they, how companies were getting bailed out.

1:17:17 Mm-hmm. And then we'd use, you know, like a metaphor of like how this has happened with the fossil fuel industry subsidies. Right, right, right. So we kind of would like bake into the cake in a time where everybody was focused on Renee good. Or you know, ice or COVID or what have you. Right. Um, I'm also a part of the Hollywood Climate Summit. I'm like on their advisory board and they are baking into the cake on fe like, like fictional TV shows. I saw that. I heard that climate. Yeah. So like Abbott Elementary. Yes. It's not about climate, but No. Quinta Brunson will be like, why is our AC out? It's hotter than it's ever been, you know, what is happening?

1:17:59 And, and Quinta, rightfully so. She'll talk about how she wanted to create a show that her mom would wanna talk about climate when her mom has no knowledge of climate. And so her mom could connect to a teacher who doesn't have AC in a classroom with kids on the hottest day of the year Yes. In the school. And what a problem that is, you know, Yeah. Yeah. So their product placing climate in a very effective way. Uh, and the Hollywood Climate Summit basically like brings all the people who care about climate and Hollywood together once a year to figure those out. But I mean, it's by far an imperfect science. We are still of trying to figure out like how the best ways to. Yeah. To do this when all eyes are focused on something else and, and where climate always gets kind of shoved under the bed Yeah.

1:18:42 Or put on the back burner for later. And we just have done that for 60 years now, you know? Well, a hundred percent. But I, I do think that's a really good strategy where we bake it into stories that are already being told, but just sort of in the not main, maybe not the main story, but as difficulty where people can understand, wow, man, it's really hot. You know, or, or maybe they're talking about, you know, oh yeah, well I ha I just got the new house rebuilt because, you know, you remember the fires back in the, you know, when we lost the house in the final Oh yeah, I remember that. Like, and talk a little bit, you know, you can have that as a little bit of a understory to the, to the main story. I think that's, yeah, that's very key. Oh, and, and where we're having success with it is we have a coalition we're working with right now of a bunch of different partners, including one advertising company.

1:19:29 That we wanna hack the narrative when a, a fossil fueled climate disaster happens. Like the LA wildfires or Hurricane Melissa hitting Jamaica. Right. Right. Now the news is always talking about poor land management. Yes. Or like who messed up. Yes. And they never talk about climate. And, and our coalition, we had climate, we had, um, climate scientists telling us that hurricane, it was almost a cat six Yeah. Yeah. It was like they had to make almost a new category. Yeah. Yeah. And, And so why on earth would we not connect that to climate? So we are working to create like fast made social content that can do that, that can like, respond to these disasters and like bake that into the atmosphere of everybody focused on something, you know?

1:20:18 Amazing. I think that's so important. So I had to evacuate my, my home in la I lived in Topanga Canyon. Oh. So sorry. I had to evacuate multiple times. And all the firemen kept saying, oh yeah, this place is gonna be the next to burn. And I was like, you know, it's so terrible. It's horrible. We had, I had a, a, a, I guess an online friend that had, that lost her house in, in the fire. Um, luckily, you know, she was, uh, privileged enough to have some place to go and, and, and nothing happened, but all just watching, you know, the fact that she had to leave her cats behind and trying to go back and get her cat, like the stories of that. As you know, as someone, you, you're a cat owner. I'm a dog owner, like a pet. I like Cover your ears, guys. Cover your ears.

1:20:58 Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, but you, you don't. Oh, no. That really made me think of how quickly people had to leave to leave their pets. It's like, you know, as, as you know, as a pet owner, you're like, no, let's grab the dogs, grab the cats, let's go. But. It's that fast and you're just hoping for the best's when you get back. And obviously people did not get the best, uh, news when they got back and, And so forth. And so, yeah, like it's, it's, I I do agree, like content has to be done quickly and has to be, and, and I feel like there are, there are more people who are, who are coming out as individuals, especially in the Ocean space, to do this kind of content create. And we're starting to organize, you know, as I mentioned before. And I, I really like that idea.

1:21:40 I feel like there needs to be more funding around supporting the people around that as a collective to be able to get those stories out and become mm-hmm. Like even better creators and better storytellers to, to help that in the Ocean space. I just don't know if that infrastructure is, is there yet, I feel like Right, the years project is doing a great job with, with climate. I feel like the Ocean space needs a little bit more of that concentration. 'cause a lot of times, oceans and climate. They merge, but they don't get talked a lot about, you mentioned the Ocean acidification and sea surface temperatures and things like that, but it doesn't get the same. Um, like you go to climate week in NYC or you go to Toronto here and it's, you know, they, you may have one session on it and it's like, it should be paired together and it should be, I obviously, I'm biased 'cause I'm a Marine biologist, but like, you're just like, we need to talk about this more, you know?

1:22:34 Yeah. Well, I, I, I totally agree and I think there's a big gap in the storytelling around oceans that mm-hmm. I would love to tackle in the future. And yeah. There are a few gaps and, and, and I'd love to just, I'm sure it's like probably a different episode, but if I can just quickly say what I think the gaps are and hope people run with it. Absolutely. Please do Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of like, rightfully so, animal focus. And I love a good whale in a dolphin. Oh yeah. But I think like focusing on co-producing of, uh, Ocean management with the indigenous is really interesting. That's a really interesting story. And how indigenous have been successfully fighting back for like, treaty rights with mm-hmm.

1:23:15 Like the high Seas treaty. Mm-hmm. And like Ocean management. That is a story that's not being told. No. Um, the, uh, like fighting to protect natural systems like mangroves. I know that you've talked about in the past. Yeah. Yeah. And like them being used as a carbon sink in the com. And that's a nice positive story, like the communities that are actually seeing the before and after of a place that would get hit by a hurricane. And then what happens if it gets hit this time, but they have a restoration project. Yeah. Like that's, you know, human centric. It's not about a dolphin, you know, and it's like, okay, we haven't really told that story. And then, um, like global shipping. Is an interesting angle to me because it's like, oh, if you google bunker fuel, you'll be like, what are we doing as a species?

1:24:02 Like what these massive ships use is like the sludge that is left over from the refining process mm-hmm. Of oil and gas. Mm-hmm. It is this thick sludge. It's disgusting. And it, it has, I mean, not only is it like crazy greenhouse gas emissions, but it's also particulate matter gets released, gets into the Ocean. So they're leading the air as well as the Ocean that they're traveling on Yeah. Yeah. And their, their solutions, like they're working on treaties right now. Mm-hmm. So that they're gonna phase out, like to those emissions to, And then all the, the ships above like 5,000 tons will have to be net zero by 2027 Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of work being done on that Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Stories that need to be talked about Yeah. Yeah. I think those, those are all really interesting.

1:24:42 Oh. And um, rights of nature. Yes. You know, like all of the fights, you know, Ecuador, Panama, India. I would love to see a, a rights of nature story and like legal fights around the Ocean and waterways. Yeah. And. I mean like the, the potential collapse of amuck, the circulatory system in the Atlantic. Don't you wanna think about that? Not only keeps me up at night, but it's also like, how did the day after tomorrow get that right in like 2003? And we all laughed about that movie with Jake Al. Yeah. And now we're like, what, 20 years later we're there. Yeah. And like I would do a story about that in a heartbeat.

1:25:23 Oh yeah. Oh, Yeah. Yeah. No, there's so many stories that need to be, that need to be told. And I think especially from an Ocean perspective or about the Ocean and coastal communities, like good and bad of course. And, and, uh, there's a lot of conflict. There's a lot of overcoming. And I think it would be, uh, great to see, to, to be covered. So, um, yeah, maybe we can talk about that, uh, afterwards and we can see how we can get those stories told. I've got a lot of connections within that, that area. Um, yeah, no, this has, this has been wonderful, Maya. I think you and I can speak for about three to four hours and make a great, great, great episode. But it's always been, it's already been fantastic. I don't wanna hold you up any longer. I wanna thank you so much, not only for the work you do, but coming on here and telling us about it. I am very, very inspired, uh, and by, by the videos you guys produce, by, uh, what, the work that you've done, the passion that you have.

1:26:10 Uh, And then I think my audience will be very inspired as well as a community. Thank you. So I wanna thank you so much. We're gonna put all the links that you, you ed me very nicely beforehand so that people can get a hold of you. And, and again, thank you so much for being on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean. Thank you so much. And we didn't touch on it, but go see Sinners. Yes. Yes, that's right. Hopeful. Some awards this season. It's a magnificent film. Unbelievable. I think they already got, uh, this, the Critics award. I didn't see it. I didn't see it. I mean, oh, now they're golden broke. I heard they're up for some nominations. I heard they're up for some nominations. I, I did it again. So it's, it's not a climate story, but it is a really interesting racial story. Yes. Yes.

1:26:51 Which can have some ties to, to a lot of climate stories. Yes. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much, ma. I really appreciate you being on the show. Thanks, Andrew. Bye. Thank you, Maya, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. It was so great to have you. I love the way you do documentaries. I think it is the way of the future in terms of ethical documentary making. Just like I said at the beginning of this episode where we talked about how we're moving away from parachute science, which is basically a scientist or a team of scientists coming into an area, a local area, study science, use their boats, use their people, but not share any of the work with them to find out what, like to share their findings and what that means for their local community.

1:27:33 We saw a lot of that in the past. Hopefully that's being less and less and less as we go through. Haven't been in the field in a long time, but there are a lot of people working against that and trying to make sure that it's more collaborative or even supportive work. Just like I mentioned in the interview, an organization like Rare in Their Fish Forever program, where they work with villages, fishing villages. Across the tropics to ensure that not only do they understand their area and they can support that understanding, but support them in their fisheries and also support communication across villages across the equator, which is absolutely phenomenal. So if you haven't checked that out, you can check out Rare either through this podcast if you search it up, or you can just go to their website. It's wonderful. But Maya's work is very similar to this where she, as she mentioned, you know, she works with people in a community and be like, how can I help you?

1:28:18 If we do a documentary on this story, how can we help you advance this story or advance the work that you're doing and be able to connect the right people, get the meeting set, And then film the interaction that happens to be able to get a great documentary and see how people work and see how things can develop. And I think that's really great because you're not just coming out there to exploit people for a story. You're coming out there working with them, teaming up with them to put them in the right places for the right decisions or right actions to be made. And whether it moves in a positive direction or in a negative direction, you're helping the local community see something. That happens, right? Just as when she talked about documentary in Cancer Alley. I think it's wonderful. We're gonna put a bunch of links to connect with Maya as well as the years project.

1:29:02 It's such an important way to do documentary filmmaking in today's society. Short form videos, long form videos in terms of internet videos, and of creating these documentaries quickly. Even if it's quickly. Sometimes it seems like it takes a long time, but just on a regular basis and being able to be fun for that. I very much feel like we need this for the Ocean, not just climate, and to get these Ocean stories out there. So it's always wonderful to be able to do that. So I'll be talking with Maya behind the scenes, see if we can get that going at some point in time. But she is such a wonderful person, as you can see from that interview. Very collaborative, very interesting in terms of the filmmaking and her background. It was awesome to see. So thank you again, Maya, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

1:29:44 And of course. I wanna thank you guys for listening. If you have any comments or questions or anything related to this episode, let me know in the comments below. If you're watching this on YouTube, and if you're listening to this through your favorite podcast app like I normally do when I listen to podcasts, you can connect with me 'cause I always find it frustrating. Like if I listen to an audio podcast and I want to like I have something to say, there's no real place to go say it directly there. You can go to speak up for blue.com/feedback. You can leave a voicemail or you can just leave it in text. I will look at those comments and even answer back if I can because I'm always interested in having a conversation. These are just conversation starters or even we continue like a bigger narrative And then we continue the conversation with you.

1:30:24 Who's listening to this is such an important part of what I feel like we need to do, and that's what I'd love to do to engage with you even more. So speak up for blue.com/feedback. I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host Angela from the true nor strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.