So I was a little drunk last Saturday

And I sent one of my professors an email which I had been thinking about sending for quite some time. In fact the first time I had this idea I stayed up half the night contemplating wether or not I should sent him an email right than and there. But thankfully cooler heads prevailed and I relegated this idea to the list of things I probably shouldn't even try to attempt. That was about 6 months ago. Last week I say a bunch of short films made but I assume grad students. Most were filmed in video and I got the brilliant idea that I can do that too, make a film. I've I also been contemplating going to the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar which is a film seminar for documentary films.
So I send my professor telling him I want I want to make a film. He said that as a film historian he doesn't know much about film but he would be more than happy to sponsor me.
So... what is the film about? My school does this thing where during one of our two week spring break we go down South and help do something. Its what we Yanks do so they can forget about Sherman (Mclwee was actually an inspiration). Last year I went to a "National Recreation Area" called Land Between the Lakes www.lbl.org. It was a pretty place, I didn't think it was particularly spectacular. We did most of our work on a homestead which sough to teach people about the lifestyle during the 1800s. They had a working farm which was very interesting. They also grew tobacco which they smoked for chewing tobacco. Very strong stuff, I almost passed out.
The park has (according to them) only OHV park in a Park run by the forest service or something like that. Within LBL thee is an area which allows most anybody bring almost any vehicle and do whatever they want with the terrain. The park rangers took us to this one area which had deep gashes carved into a hill. There were just so many riders and so the park had been opened for so long that the land is almost completely destroyed. The rangers have tried to impose a map on the riders which would allow them to roam free through the park and would allow the rangers to try to heal some of the land. There is a lot of opposition from the riders and the rangers simply cannot police the park enough to enforce the rules. There are other related issues but that is the base of the problem.
I feel this story reveals so much about competing ways of life. There is the tension between tradition and novelty, how one might be ruining the other. There is the question about our place in this world. The tensions between preservation and conservation. In so many ways there seems to be one right answer, Fuck the riders. But it is in many ways a microcosm for our own existence in relation to this earth. We are a parasitic species for centuries we have destroyed this earth and there will be a time when we have to confront our role. We will have to draw lines in the sand limit ourselves to certain areas. We will have to change our lives in order to preserve our lives. There will be those that do not with to change that seek to do whatever they want to do; if people like that dominate we will end up destroying ourselves.
Hegel in the philosophy of right begins by allowing for self determination, the individual is all that really matters. But the individual cannot enforce their own will without coming into conflict with the wills of others. So there has to be a civil union of sorts whereby the wills are order so as to accommodate everyone. Hegel was a bit full of shit, but this is an interesting idea, he just left a few will out. We have to learn to live in such a way that we achieve the ends we desire by so living. We cannot think of the immediate future and ignore the long term consequences. At least that is what I keep telling myself.
I would interview a series of people and create some sort of story, based on subjects and on the chronology. This part would be filmed in video. The other part would be filmed in film and it would be long shots of the course's "challenge areas" contrasted with other parts of the park that are undergoing conservation efforts. The film would be shown on one screen and the video on the other. I assume most people would look at the video, for several minuets the video would cut out to a blank screen and the film would continue. I do not know how to shoot film. The equipment is very expansive and I do not know where I would have the facilities to edit it. Furthermore I do not know how I would be able to record the sound. I am not sure if this will happen, in fact I am rather sure I will end up embarrassing myself somehow. But if nothing else it was an interesting idea.