I began my morning this Thursday of our spring break by watching episode one particular of an awesome Netflix sequence, “Tales by Light-weight.” In this publish I’d like to mirror on how this documentary combines my enjoys for electronic storytelling, photography, the stewardship of our planet, and effective media narratives that can both enthrall and inspire us.
IMDb presents the next description of this 3 time sequence of 15 episodes:
Driving each individual potent graphic is a strong story. Uniting exploration, pictures and the natural earth, Tales By Light-weight follows photographers from Australia and around the planet as they drive the boundaries of their craft.
Tales by Light. (2015, May well 24). [Documentary]. Canon Australia, Untitled Movie Functions.
The description of episode a single, of season a single “Submerged,” is:
Planet-renowned Australian underwater and mother nature photographer Darren Jew captures a Humpback Whale mating chase in Tonga and the 70-year-outdated wreck of a Mitsubishi Bi-Aircraft and lively volcano in Papua New Guinea.
Tales by Mild. (2015, Might 24). [Documentary]. Canon Australia, Untitled Film Will work.
Again in 2006 to 2008, when I was operating for AT&T right here in Oklahoma Metropolis as the condition schooling advocate, I commenced to be struck by how extremely impressive and distinctive our media entry was at household as opposed to faculty and operate. Many thanks to World wide web connectivity and evolving systems, I had obtain to DVDs AT Household (which even now arrived via the mail at that point instead of streaming in excess of a high-speed link) and bigger structure televisions and projectors.
This was “a flip” of how details entry worked traditionally. When I grew up, we had to go to the library to have entry to powerful new sources of information. From microfiche to inter-library bank loan to filmstrips to 16 mm movies, it was just far more complicated to obtain unique types of media content material at property. Libraries and movie theaters were our portals to the earth of media ordeals.
Enter Netflix in 2022. How incredible that I can use the advice algorithm on my Netflix account, where by I’ve been observing documentaries about cooking, our world, space exploration, and other topics, and “serendipitously encounter” this wonderful sequence which the Netflix algorithm acknowledges / predicts I’m probable fascinated in. Applying my smartphone, I’m able to perspective the collection trailer on my mobile phone, and then “cast” this online video up on a 65 inch plasma tv on the wall of our guest bedroom… and be completely enthralled with these incredible visuals.
As the showcased photographer, Darren Jew, points out in the collection, media can have astounding Electric power to seize our imaginations and transport us (nearly) to spots we could not go otherwise. The drone shots they utilized in episode 1 (of snorkel dives and a climb of an lively volcano in Papua New Guinea) definitely are remarkable. This is an instance of a thing writer Stephen B Johnson phone calls “the adjacent feasible.”
In earlier several years of human historical past, photographers and explorers simply just did not have accessibility to systems that allow visuals like these to be captured. I appreciate watching compilations of character drone pictures on YouTube, established to tunes and so inspiring to enjoy. Just as the climbers access the lip of the volcano crater in episode 1, the drone captures the scene. Genuinely extraordinary.
This reminds me of my most memorable and spectacular face with a volcano, in the winter season of 1993, when I experienced an opportunity to climb the Popocatépetl volcano just south of Mexico Metropolis when I was living there for a year finding out on a Fulbright.
It was a challenging climb, the 1st and only time I have climbed a mountain in excess of 17,000 ft substantial, and breathtaking to appear down into the using tobacco mouth of a dormant volcano.
Watching a Netflix sequence like “Tales by Light,” I am inspired to think about approaches I provide persuasive media photos into my personal classroom with college students, and invite my learners to not only Eat astounding video clips, but also look at the methods they can use and Produce media to connect their possess tales. When the products applied in this online video documentary is slicing edge and amazingly pricey, the smartphones to which lots of of us now have obtain are able of astonishingly strong photographic and video clip capture. Paired with a nicely composed script and some deliberately selected tunes, it genuinely is amazing what we can do with digital storytelling.
What a good day we are living in! To be alive as learners, to be academics, to be storytellers! What an possibility we have to not only transport ourselves and our learners to incredible components of our earth we may possibly not otherwise see employing media, but also catalyze conversations about the worth of being “stewards of our planet” and getting passionate about the care and preservation of our remarkable natural earth.
I really like dwelling in the intersection of these subject areas and technologies. If you have not previously, look at out “Tales by Light” on Netflix. Prepare to be influenced!
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