ECO SPEAKS CLE
ECO SPEAKS CLE is where the eco-curious explore Northeast Ohio's unique and thriving environmental community. Each episode delivers thoughtful and informative interviews with local sustainability leaders and offers tips to help listeners connect, learn, and live with the community and planet in mind. ECO SPEAKS CLE is hosted by Diane Bickett and produced by her son-in-law, Greg Rotuno. Diane draws on experiences and relationships developed during her 31-year environmental career to showcase the impactful work shaping Cleveland's environmental future in a podcast that speaks to sustainability newcomers and masters alike.
ECO SPEAKS CLE
The Making of "Ripples of Plastic" with Filmmaker Chris Langer
In this episode, Cleveland filmmaker Chris Langer speaks with us speak about his new documentary, Ripples of Plastic, which premiered this year at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival and locally at the Chagrin Falls Documentary Film Fest. Chris is a director, producer, and cinematographer and owns Wonderhouse Films in Cleveland. Ripples of Plastic is Chris's first documentary film, which he began during COVID to expose the vast problem of plastic pollution present in our Great Lakes and its effects on aquatic life and human health. Chris tells this story through the voices of those leading the research and working on solutions. Many of those voices have been guests on this podcast. Hear Chris speak about how he came to make this film, the impact it had on him, and the impact he can make through grassroots distribution within the Great Lakes region. Documentary films are powerful tools to transform and spur change. Ripples of Plastic is a call to join the fight against plastic pollution caused by plastic producers and to demand action from our policymakers. Learn how you can help Chris screen this important film far and wide.
Learn More:
About our Guest - Filmmaker Chris Langer
Ripples of Plastic - Trailer
About Wonderhouse Films
The Story of Plastic
Eco Speaks CLE - The Perpetual Problem of Plastic with Jill Bartolotta
Eco Speaks CLE - Trash Fishing with Eddie Olschanski
Eco Speaks CLE - Little Spark Refill Shop with Rachel Regula Gonzalez
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hello@ecospeakscle.com
You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, a podcast for the eco curious in Northeast Ohio. My name is Diane Bickett and my producer is Greg Rotuno. Together we speak with local sustainability leaders and invite you to connect, learn and live with our community and planet in mind.
Speaker 2:The Great Lakes are such an incredible and unique ecosystem Five interconnected lakes that together make the largest freshwater system in the entire planet and it's really hard to appreciate exactly how big the Great Lakes are until you're out on them. About 10 years ago, I had this little question come into my mind, which is how all great science starts. As much as we know about plastic pollution in the world's oceans, I wonder if there's plastic pollution here in the Great Lakes. So I contacted my collaborators and asked hey, what do you think about this idea? Next time we're out, let's drag a net through the water and see what we find. When we brought in our first net, I realized that my whole life had changed. I couldn't sleep at night. I just had all of these questions that came into my mind and really decided that freshwater plastic pollution, specifically, was going to be my research focus from here on out was going to be my research focus from here on out.
Speaker 1:Hello friends, that was Dr Sherry Mason speaking in the new documentary film called Ripples of Plastic, produced by local filmmaker Chris Langer. Chris is a director, producer, cinematographer and the owner of Wonderhouse Films here in Cleveland. Ripples of Plastic is Chris's first documentary film. It premiered this year and I was able to see it last month at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival. This is an eye-opening film that explores the vast problem of plastic pollution present in our Great Lakes. It showcases the various ways that microplastics get into our lakes and our bodies, the effects of that on aquatic life and human health and, very importantly, highlights the work of leading researchers, cleanup organizations and policymakers. Ripples of Plastic tells the story of plastic pollution through the voices of many working on this issue across the Great Lakes region, including many who have been on this podcast. Join us as we talk with Chris about how he came to make this film, what it was like, the people he met and how we might host some screenings of this film here locally. Welcome, chris.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me so excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, greg, you've also seen the film, so we're going to explore a little bit about how you made the film and what it's like to be a documentary filmmaker, especially for environmental films, and how you kind of distribute that and how, how that gets out into the community, because you can't just, like you know, put it in Atlas Cinemas, right. So you want to tell us a little bit about your background and how you became to be a filmmaker.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I kind of got started in college as a filmmaker. I came from a photojournalism background. I went to college up in Rochester, New York, at Rochester Institute of Technology, graduated in 2011. And our industry was kind of moving towards like a multimedia video centric. Everyone was kind of talking about it. Social media was kind of becoming a big buzzword when I was in college so there was a lot of talks of like hey, we need to do more video. I was kind of training to be a newspaper photographer so there was a lot of like emphasis on you have to know video coming out of college and it's like an important thing.
Speaker 3:So I've always kind of gravitated towards it. I think it's a better medium to tell stories than photography no hit on photographers out there that are listening. But I feel like having video and audio mixed together kind of creates a different level of experience for the viewer. And I was really gravitated towards that in my work and I've done a lot of short films over the last like 10 or so years and directed some uh filmed a lot Like I mostly come from like the cinematography background and I was interested going into like kind of ripples of plastic. I was interested in the issue and just kind of thought like, okay, this, this kind of needs to be a little bit longer than a short film, because most of the times I'm like I'm just gonna make a short film it's such a big story to tell.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that was kind of you know a little background about myself and it's.
Speaker 1:And your film is forward, ended up being 45 minutes long.
Speaker 3:We had like three different cutdowns. My editor, josh he's, and I we've kind of started with that 75 minute film got it down to like 50, 56 or so. Got it down to like 50, 56 or so and then we said it kind of feels like it's a little redundant, especially with you can only show so many cleanups and talk about that from different perspectives. So we kind of said let's just cut back and let's get to the nitty gritty as quickly as possible and keep the viewer engaged. And we found when we were kind of talking with film festivals that they loved the 45 minute kind of time slot, because we always try to program a Q&A afterwards. And it was the perfect kind of 70 minute block where you a typical feature is about that length.
Speaker 1:So and you had a Q&A after the second showing at the Chagrin Film Fest. I wasn't able to be there. What was the audience reaction and who was on the panel with you?
Speaker 3:So we had we had three different people on the panel discussion at Chagrin Documentary Film Festival and I've wanted to kind of invite local people to kind of tell the story to the people that were there watching the film. And so we had Dr Sherry Mason, we had Jill Bartoletto and we had Rachel Gonzalez, so all three of them are in the film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and listeners will remember Rachel from our interview with her. That was a couple years ago when she owned the Little Spark Refill Shop. It was like the first refillery in Cleveland. Hope she's doing well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was there on her first opening day here in Rocky river and filmed kind of like the ribbon cutting and stuff and that's in the film and got a chance to talk with her. So Rachel unfortunately had to close the little spark refill shop and kind of moved more to like an operations type person at Cleveland refill and so at the Q and a she kind of announced that Cleveland Refill was moving away from retail even here in, you know, northeast Ohio and moving towards more of an online business model because they found that it could able to get the products out to more people, and not have to pay rent.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, we'll have to check back in with her. That's great. So when did you first become aware of the issue of microplastic pollution and what led you to want to do a documentary about it?
Speaker 3:So the issue kind of came to me. It's kind of like a very personal issue. I grew up here in Northeast Ohio and I was recently, at the beginning of COVID, kind of taken aback with how much plastic.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was everywhere. Yeah, the mass. It's just so much waste. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So at the beginning of COVID there was, they kind of say like it's, it's kind of like called like the spring Lake Erie dump on beaches and what happens is all of the winter ice dams, all that stuff just kind of creates havoc in the lake and it washes up on the beaches, like in February, march, when the lake starts to thaw. And so that was the beginning of COVID and it was in 2020 and I was walking on different beaches with my wife and kind of found that there's tons and tons of plastic. And I've walked on beaches before when I was younger and I don't remember there being that much plastic. So it was kind of like a little spark there.
Speaker 3:And I saw a film that was inspiring to me called the Story of Plastic, and that was a feature film and it was kind of out in right before COVID. It premiered in 2019. And it was more of a global film and it kind of highlighted where does the plastic go, how does it get recycled? The collapse of recycling kind of are pushing all the different plastics off to poor countries and what does that do to those countries. So it was kind of like a couple different things that led to one thing led to another.
Speaker 4:I did a bunch of research and found that no one really kind of told the story of freshwater plastic pollution, and so I started my discussions with Kathy at the sustainability office in Cleveland and it one thing led to another and she's like you need to talk to these three people and we need to talk to those and so it just kept cascading and cascading, where I just found so many passionate people yeah, well, I was gonna say that I like the way you approach the film, because there's so many high level like global impact ones, and it's harder to see how individuals can be of help to these issues and when you make it hyper local and are talking about people's actual communities, which you did. You know you outlined, I think, five or six different locations in the film and talked about what people were doing in those communities.
Speaker 3:You know, I think that's what makes people actually realize that they can have an impact in, in these things day to day yeah, I've always kind of gravitated, uh kind of back when I was mostly a photojournalist and now as kind of like a hybrid photographer and video guy. That telling stories in my backyard is so much more fascinating. I think so many creative people want to go chase those faraway stories because it's exotic and sexy and it's like let's just go tell the stories in other countries and I'm like, well, what's you know, there's stories in our backyard that need to be told.
Speaker 3:Like who's telling. You can name a bunch of different things. And so I wanted to kind of tell the story of freshwater plastics and kind of integrate the different lakes and the watersheds and kind of how it all ends up there and what it does to our health, how it all ends up there and what it does to our health.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought I really liked the way you told the story, because you covered it from sort of the origin of the plastic consumption back in the 50s and I mean there was a time when we weren't flooded with plastics and we lived without them, and now we can't live without them. And I mean you cover, um, you tell the story through the, the people that are interviewed, but there's no narration. I thought that was interesting. So you know you're. I mean, is that a style of filmmaking or um?
Speaker 3:yeah, it's call that um, it's very like cinema verte, it's kind of that. Let the people in the film kind of tell the story. I didn't want to put originally when I started the film. I kind of wanted to put more of a stance on it and have different, different voices that weren't just all activists or scientists to kind of have like, well, what's the plastic industry saying? But I found that like the more and more I talked to people that were working in the field, it was kind of striking in itself that like the story is really about the people that are every day in this, dedicated their lives to it and that's the story.
Speaker 3:Like I don't I don't want to put myself in the story. I think that kind of like. I think for some films it works and for some especially like this. I think like just letting you know Dr Sherry Mason, let Jill talk. It's really easy because you can see through the film that they're just so passionate about what they do and it made my life easy. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 1:Well, you lead with Dr Sherry Mason and she's a leading researcher around. She's like one of the first people to identify the problem of plastic microplastics in the Great Lakes. I mean, we've all the science up to that point, I think had been on the ocean plastic problem and I think what she's finding it is much worse in the Great Lakes because it's it's starting to accumulate. It. You know, as the water drains from Lake Superior down to Lake Erie in Ontario it's much more concentrated Yep, and that's our, our drinking water. What was Sherry like?
Speaker 3:She was great. She was one of the first people I talked to Just her enthusiasm when COVID was happening. There's so many unknowns. She's just like, oh, I want to get out and film, I want to show you everything that's happening. And she's up in Erie, pennsylvania. So she had research going on along the rivers. They have different kind of garbage booms, that kind of collect the trash, so she was tabulating how much trash was coming down the the different rivers out there.
Speaker 1:So and then she got somehow, got that big ship and started sampling out on the lakes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was so. That was before we were filming. That was one of her like. I don't know exactly when, what year that was, but I know it was when she was first starting out, so, um, some of the other storytellers in your film.
Speaker 1:Do you want to give a shout out to some of the other locals?
Speaker 3:yeah, um. So jill butterletto, she just uh recent grant yeah, so when we were filming she was at the ohio sea grant. She now took a position at the city of lakewood as their new sustainability director I didn't know that yeah, so she's.
Speaker 3:she's kind of switched careers after the film premiered and so she's great. In the film talks about her research at Ohio Sea Grant. We go out in the laboratory out over on Put-In-Bay and kind of do trials and pull up pieces of plastic down on the bottom of the lake and you know, she's really great at kind of communicating the science behind all of the health issues that happen because, of plastic entering our bodies and some other locals I saw that you interviewed Eddie from Trashfish.
Speaker 3:He was great and went out with him. I took out my own kayak and was out on the water with him filming, had all my camera gear just like hanging out and we were going up and getting all the nooks and crannies that he talks about in the film.
Speaker 4:We did too when did you record with Eddie Like 2021?
Speaker 3:or so.
Speaker 4:It's funny because he, because, like, he's still just doing the same thing. He meant it Like he'll do it every day until he doesn't have to. Yeah, that man is very committed, very impressed.
Speaker 1:We talked about Rachel and Dan Brown is also mentioned in a little blurb about Rust Belt Riders. He's got some good quotes.
Speaker 3:The film. I don't know if I mentioned this, but the film is kind of like a three-part. We start with kind of the history of plastic and the history of the lakes and kind of what is the watersheds and how it goes in, and then we kind of talk about cleanup um, what's the problem? Kind of in the middle of the film. And then the end is kind of where dan comes in and he talks about you know, we can't clean our way out of this, we can't. You know, we can try to use composting and stuff, but it's really it's almost like greenwashing the problem. We're still creating single use type plastic. So it's. It's kind of an interesting perspective as as Dan's all about composting with West Belt Riders to kind of have an expert like that who can talk about. Hey, composting is great, but you really have to get a very specialized type of plastic that can be composted. It can't just be any type of whatever you can just throw in the bin.
Speaker 1:You have to be really conscious about what goes in that bin. Same thing you can't we can't recycle our way out of the problem either, um, but you tell this story in a way that you highlight the, the corporate responsibility and but also the individual responsibility and sort of our role as consumers to kind of say no to some of these products where we can, and in doing so we're making a statement that may hopefully the manufacturers will hear. But, um, it's difficult because we don't have much control over over it. You talk about the various kind of pathways of the microplastic into the lakes. Can you touch on that a little bit?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so all of our water kind of goes into Lake Erie and more part Lake Ontario and stuff and all the lakes kind of up in the northwest kind of flush into our lakes. So the Lake Erie, lake Ontario are kind of like the two dirtiest of the lakes because that's where everything flushes out into. There's a lot of big cities Detroit, toledo, cleveland, erie, buffalo, um so just a lot in those cities come from industrial manufacturing waste, uh, during you know, the industrial revolution and stuff. So the the lake has had a lot of troubles and a lot of different stressors on it. So adding plastic to the mix through microplastics, and now they're even discussing nanoplastics. Like we have the fabric on our. They're making things with polyester and different types of plastics, our clothing and that's slipping through filters into the water stream and that's. You know, that's just the demand for fast fashion and kind of use, getting things cheaper and cheaper it's. You got to start using recycled plastics and stuff to make that fabric.
Speaker 1:It's not cost effective because the demand is there, so it's yeah, having multiple pathways from like the combined sewer overflows and just the street trash running into the lakes and our waterways and our washing machines you know, washing all of our sportswear and stuff like that it's really kind of a depressing problem because you think how do we even attempt to solve it? But I think the first thing is awareness and understanding how our activities impact the environment. I mean, something like 11 million people get their drinking water from the Great Lakes. And microplastics, which are just plastic particles that are broken down into smaller and smaller pieces, and what's a nanoparticle Like an even smaller, even smaller.
Speaker 1:So really no way to filter that out. So the focus has to be sort of on the front end and the reduction part of it 30 million 30 million people.
Speaker 4:Okay, 10% of the US population and 30% of the Canadian population.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, wow. That's even more depressing. Good fact check there, greg.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the thing too is we share the lakes with Canada and so there's discussions. You know United States is over here. We kind of lean a little bit more, I'd say conservative. Canada has more progressive policies in place and in the movie talk about how Canada has banned single-use plastics in 2022. And it's kind of a step in the right direction. But if only one side of the lake is doing it, it's kind of like you know cool, we're turning the tap down, but the tap's still on Right.
Speaker 1:So are there any legislative attempts here in the US that you think show promise?
Speaker 3:So currently, kind of in my research in the projects, I found that kind of a fifth of the United States already has bag bands in place and I found kind of that that's a great start and it's kind of why can't we have that across the entire United States? To have kind of rid ourselves of plastic bags. That would be a great start. You know, there's kind of a culture around plastic bags and banning them. The people get angry and they say like, oh, I don't want to lose my bag, my precious bag.
Speaker 3:And you think about stores like Costco, where they've never had bags. They got their reusable like their boxes. They pulled off the shelves and stuff. They got their reusable like their boxes, they pulled off the shelves and stuff. So it's definitely like the stores can also put a foot forward and take initiative. Our government's not going to take initiative, so, and lastly, kind of bag bands are great, but it's really about going further up to the top and doing bigger legislative type things.
Speaker 3:So I'm hoping the film, now that we kind of just finished the film festival circuits and I'm hoping that I can start working with different organizations and giving them clips of the film or saying like, hey, how can I give you the tools so you can be a better advocate and get a way to? You know, maybe my film inspires some politician or legislative person to say like, oh, you know, I never thought. Inspires some politician or legislative person to say like, oh, you know, I never thought about it like that and the power of filmmaking is a great tool to kind of not use. So I want to just I think that's probably my next steps after into 2025 is getting the film in front of the right people to kind of give them those tools.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd like to see legislators and policymakers. I'd like to see legislators and policymakers. I think everyone should see this film just to know what this issue is. Going back to the bag ban. A lot of people don't know that there is a bag ban in place in Cuyahoga County, passed by county council many years ago, and the state legislature kind of hobbled the law by not allowing the county to assess any fees on non-compliant businesses. So in the beginning there were some businesses that were complying and handing out paper bags or charging for plastic bags, I think, but it's kind of gone to the wayside a little bit. But anyone going into a store could talk to the manager and say there's a bag ban in place, why are you still handing out plastic bags? I do that.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And then the county office of sustainability is working to implement the bag ban as much as they can. You know, on the voluntary level. They have a sustainable stores program. We'll put some links in the show notes about that, but just know that that's still there, people, so put some pressure on you. Know the stores that you go to. What was it like to to film this movie? I mean, you've been the various locations you were in toledo, erie, pennsylvania, putin bay, toronto, cleveland I'm sure I'm missing a few.
Speaker 1:You met tons of people like local activists that are just like science teachers doing cleanups and you know, some of it was beautiful footage, you know, from the your drone, and some of it was just really icky because it was, you know, it's garbage. But, um, what was it like for you and how long did it take to get all the all the footage that you combined into the film?
Speaker 3:yeah, so I started filming. Um, it was actually surf riders, uh, here in cleveland and they had a cleanup in the fall of 2020. So I'd say that was like my first day of production and we filmed over two years or so of different times. Covid kind of made things a little tough with like restrictions and stuff, so we had to wait for um regulations to chill out and a lot of the scientists kind of had the university's policies in place, so it probably could have been a little faster. Um, but I found kind of the most like a story I want to tell is like when I was in toledo it was like 2021 september.
Speaker 3:It was their annual cleanup that they do, where they activate a ton of people across the city and it's really cool to kind of see.
Speaker 3:I picked specifically this one place and in the film there's kayakers and there's this water dam where the logs kind of jam up and create plastic dam of different types of aluminum plastic, all different types of shapes and sizes, and so they kind of go in the water and clean it up.
Speaker 3:And that was the first time I was filming cleanups before and talking to different people, but that was the first moment where it was kind of that shock factor where I was like, oh, shoot, like this is, this is bad, like seeing, because I was looking for that moment. I think, as, like a filmmaker, everyone kind of says we're looking for that shock and awe, that one moment where people are kind of taken aback and say like, oh, wow, that was like I didn't know it was that bad or something. That was kind of the first shocking thing. I think the coolest thing to film was, uh, irresponsible in toledo. Uh, he has. Well, he's more like sandusky and he had access to these robots that was provided by myers and yeah, I saw those like beach cleaning robots and that was the cool.
Speaker 3:They call it like the pixie drone and the bebop and it was an investment. Myers did they. They bought a couple of those and different cleanup organizations can use those and I thought that was the coolest, like new way of thinking about it, where you know it's the plastic. It's so easy to see it on the top of beaches or on top of the water, but over time it sinks, it falls down, it gets into the crevices. So having just different ways of cleaning it up, I thought that was just really do we need to.
Speaker 1:Willis is barking at the train. Let's talk a little bit about your process, I guess, and what it takes to make a documentary film. Um, how did this subject matter influence your filmmaking approach?
Speaker 3:So when the biggest hurdle to kind of making a feature film is one, you need kind of like the idea to make something that long and stick, and also you need funding. And I had the idea I didn't have the funding. And COVID was kind of like the perfect storm where I could kind of take a step back, where I didn't have as much work in my day job, where I could say, okay, I can put my heart and soul into this film and not necessarily have issues with income and stuff, because a lot of it was self-produced, self-funded, so I was able to kind of put my time into it. Otherwise you have to juggle your job and juggle the filmmaking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you had to pay for all your job and juggle the filmmaking. Yeah, so you had to self. I mean, you had to pay for all your equipment, travel expenses, overnight stays and all that yourself.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:Is that typical of how a documentary film works?
Speaker 3:for someone starting out. I say for like the, the go-getters, yeah, there's definitely the right way to do it, which is you go get a grant, you go get a funder, someone who's like, yeah, I'll give you a couple tens of thousands of dollars to make it get started and stuff.
Speaker 1:But if you waited for that, you may never have made the film.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's always the thing is, I get impatient with certain aspects of filmmaking and I'm like I'm just going to make my own success in this and kind of say, okay, let's go tell the story and maybe we can find funding for some post production or licensing of different types of footage. That's always gets crazy and all the most of the stuff at the end is what costs the most money.
Speaker 3:I find is like getting distribution in place, lawyers fees, all that fun stuff they don't talk about you know, in the end, when the film's done, it's premiered, it's all fun at film festivals, but you get to that part where it gets legal. You have like a work of you know body of work, like a film, and you have to worry about copyrights, you have to worry abouts, you have to worry about, okay, what is the distribution channels, and go from there yeah, and you had to pay your editor too now, so shout out to josh um.
Speaker 3:him and I have been working together, uh, probably almost six, seven years, so he was really passionate about the film and I I'm not a very good editor myself and so I was going to edit it and just you know, stick my head down and be like I'm going to do this, but it really I really benefited from bringing josh on. He was almost like another outside voice who kind of looked at the film and said, you're kind of this, this is working, this isn't. And he was really good at kind of going through all the footage and kind of being my eyes and at it Sweet.
Speaker 1:That must've been really challenging. And then he did a great job. I think it. It just comes together seamlessly.
Speaker 3:I think, yeah, so that was, that was always. The big thing is like what, what length do we want the film? Who, unfortunately, might get the chopping block or something like that, because I wanted to let everyone talk. I wanted the film to be nice and long, but it also needs to be engaging and people that watch it yeah, so where has your film been shown so far?
Speaker 1:and then, what's your plan for distribution and how can we help?
Speaker 3:yeah, so uh, we premiered the film at wild and scenic film festival out in california and we had a great reception there and that was this year february yep, and that was.
Speaker 3:They're very like environmental focused film festival. I thought it was kind of the best place to start and the other film festivals we went. We just got back from Fresh Coast, um, which is up in the upper Pensilva in Michigan and that is like a water environmental film festival that has a bunch of different films about the Great Lakes there. So it was great to kind of talk with like-minded filmmakers and just get a chance to see some films and stuff. So is that? In Marquette yeah, and then probably next is.
Speaker 3:So I have a distributor lined up for oh yeah and then earlier this month went to the chagrin documentary film festival and they were great. They had. We had two showings um, and it was great turnout. We got a chance to like really have that Cleveland local premiere that I really wanted. And it's kind of it hits home when you see people that are like, oh man, this is happening in my backyard. I didn't even know, or that's shocking, or so having people. It's great when people in California come up and say like oh, that was interesting, but you know that's on the other side of the country. But to be like, oh, this is my freshwater, thank you for showing this, and here's a director or filmmaker from my town telling my story.
Speaker 3:that's, that's really great so, um, next steps is kind of like educational distributors interested in kind of putting it on their platform, which would be like streaming and in class kind of learning, and that's great because I think the film really serves that population kind of in creating the next generation interest in this problem and getting them activated I think is kind of the perfect outlet for the film. There's also, you know, traditional ways of going. There's some interest from PBS to kind of have some regional showings along the lake and community events.
Speaker 3:We have a couple coming up in 2025. Can't really announce anything right now, but, uh, stay tuned to the website ripples of plasticcom. We have a couple coming up in 2025. Can't really announce anything right now, but stay tuned to the website ripples of plasticcom. We'll have announcements there and on our social media to kind of we're going to partner with some different people along the lake Erie, cleveland and Toledo. We're going to have like really big community events to kind of get people out to watch the film so if any of our listeners wanted to host a screening, what would?
Speaker 1:what would that look like? How? What's entailed with that?
Speaker 3:uh. So reach on out, uh directly through the website ripples of plastic dot com uh all my contact information is on there and set up a community screening and it could be a fundraiser or it could just be a free event that you kind of want to show to your constituents or folks that are interested in your organization. So I think it's getting the film out on the local level. So, since everything was kind of self-funded, there is like a small fee with it that I can work on, based on organization size, but it's very nominal and it's just kind of to get back some of the time that we put into the film.
Speaker 1:So OK well, I think we can work on that. We know people. In the meantime, can you leave us with something positive, maybe a tip or a favorite quote from the film?
Speaker 3:Oh from the film or a favorite quote from the film oh from the film.
Speaker 1:Or a favorite quote, just so we don't get so sad about this problem.
Speaker 3:Okay. So in the film at the end Dr Sherry Mason kind of wraps it up really beautifully and she talks about there's an old saying that we plant trees that we don't sit in the shade of, and I think that's really poignant to. What we're doing now will affect future generations. It's not necessarily like an instant. If we do policy right now, it's going to instantly clean up the lake, clean up our waterways. It's about the future generations that will benefit from the work that we put in right now.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I think it was struck the quote from Sherry Mason too. This film, this issue, is a call for us all to act as a species for the benefit of future generations. Yeah, and then Dan Brown had a good. For the benefit of future generations. Yeah, and then Dan Brown had a good quote Don't sit on your hands. Find a kind of challenge that resonates with you and do something. Do anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's. It's kind of in making this film it's. I resonate with that quote a little bit where I could have just sat on my hands and said I'm not going to make this film or I don't want to, you know, but I got out there and told these people's stories in a very accessible medium that hopefully will inspire future viewers to kind of make the change in their own lives. And I think what more could you ask for as a filmmaker to kind of inspire future viewers of the film?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:We wish you all the best and, yeah, let's work on getting this out in the community, because everyone's going to want to see it Now that we've been talking about it for 45 minutes we hope you've enjoyed this episode of eco speak CLE.
Speaker 4:You can find our full catalog of episodes on Spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available the first and third Tuesday of each month. Please follow EcoSpeak CLE on Facebook and Instagram and become part of the conversation. If you would like to send us feedback and suggestions, or if you'd like to become a sponsor of EcoSpeak CLE, you can email us at hello at ecospeakclecom. Stay tuned for more important and inspiring stories to come.
