|
|
Rising Suns: Movies with a conscience
When they say 'action!' they really mean it
by Jacob Shafer
From the moment they arrived on the cultural scene a century or so ago, motion pictures have been a powerful communications tool. While they are most often used to entertain, their power to enlighten cannot be underestimated. That's a truth Suzanne Harle understands, and she's put it into action by creating Green Planet Films, a Marin-based distribution company that specializes in environmentally conscious documentaries.
Before setting out on her current career path, Harle worked full time as a graphic designer. She was good at what she did, but couldn't help wondering "if there was more to life than PowerPoint."
Harle is a longtime wildlife enthusiast who channeled her love for animals into, among other things, volunteer work at San Rafael's WildCare center.
"I felt like I didn't see enough wildlife shows on TV, so I thought, 'Maybe there aren't enough being made," she recalls. "I decided I might want to focus on becoming a wildlife filmmaker."
Harle began attending film festivals focused on nature movies, and quickly discovered there were plenty such pictures being made. The problem was not one of production, but rather distribution.
"It's very, very difficult to get on TV," says Harle. "That's sort of the 'Holy Grail,' to be broadcast."
This realization hit Harle in 2002. At that point, she says, mail-order movie pioneer NetFlix had only 100 wildlife films, give or take, and their meager collection was hardly representative of the great work being done worldwide.
"[NetFlix] didn't have any of the wonderful independent things I had seen at the film festivals," recalls Harle. "I realized that what I really wanted to do was to get these films out to the people who wanted to see them."
Harle decided to "put another hat on," and to use her skills in promotion and marketing—honed during a previous stint as a band manager—to help disseminate environmental docs to a wider audience.
"I met with some folks through a business networking Web site," Harle remembers. "Before I got too serious I wanted to see if I had a good idea."
The meeting helped confirm that Harle's concept was indeed a solid one, and a year or so later Green Planet Films was born. The fledgling company, operating out of Harle's Mill Valley home, attained nonprofit status in 2003.
While Harle maintains an interest in producing original content down the road, for now she says Green Planet is content to serve as a hub for other filmmakers' creations—helping to showcase movies that might otherwise have been ignored.
Over the past few years, Green Planet has seen its collection grow rapidly, along with its customer base, which includes folks from across the U.S. as well as various international points.
Harle says that with the company's growing stature and popularity, filmmakers have begun to seek them out in droves.
"When we started, we had to solicit for everything because we were an unknown entity," she says. "We had a handful of people who would buy at film festivals. Then we started getting our name out there, placing Google ads and such, and [filmmakers] started coming to us."
Harle cites a few examples of international films her company carries: an Australian doc about park rangers; a British movie focused on the Amazon; Tongpan, a film produced in Thailand about that country's poverty-stricken northeast region.
A cursory glance at Green Planet's Web site shows a wide array of movies from around the globe covering a diverse range of topics—from animal rights and bicycle advocacy to urban sprawl and the plight of indigenous people.
"We want to become a one-stop shop," says Harle. "We want to carry whatever people are interested in watching."
Harle says she keeps a close eye on what search terms seem to be popular on the site, and uses that information to tailor her collection.
"We recently had a lot of keyword searches for birds, and particularly toucans," she says as an example. "So I e-mailed a Venezuelan filmmaker I know who supplies us with a lot of bird DVDs, and asked him if he any footage of toucans. He did, so he spliced the footage together with some music and he got me these DVDs with all these different kinds of toucans. We put it on the site, and just to show how international this really is, we had people from Italy buying these movies made by a Venezuelan, being put out by a little company in Marin."
Green Planet distributes films in a few different ways. Customers can buy DVDs from the site, or, if they live in the United States, rent them via mail without late fees, a la NetFlix.
The company duplicates many films itself—getting one copy and then burning it, packaging it and sending it out on demand, with royalties passed on to the filmmaker for each sale. This accounts for about 80 percent of their library, Harle estimates, with the other 20 percent coming from wholesale purchases of already replicated movies.
Green Planet's staff is currently all-volunteer; Harle herself still works part-time as a designer on the side, while dedicating some 40 hours a week to her labor of love. She acknowledges the commitment can be a strain, but looks forward with irrepressible optimism.
"We just keep growing every month," she says. "We're riding this big green wave, and it's about to go 'whoosh.' How could I stop now, or even slow down?"
Green Planet also helps facilitate educational film nights, supplying movies for these get-togethers nationwide and hosting them here in the Bay Area, both in San Francisco and Marin—just another way to reach out to their target audience, and to forward their mission of environmental education.
"The goal is to get people to think, to make them want to learn more," says Harle. "Whether it's wetlands conservation or green building or whatever else, it starts with awareness. I hear so many stories from people who see these movies, and it leads them to action—that's why we're doing this."
To buy or rent films from Green Planet, or to learn how you can help, visit www.greenplanetfilms.org.
| Article Statistics: |
| Viewed:12630 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|  |
|
