CSAbyCYCLE Video

It has now been over a month since I’ve done any serious video editing work. The big spring planting push has pretty much come to a close, and plants in the ground are growing well (now that they have drip irrigation on them!). The days are getting hotter, making an afternoon inside and in front of the computer a bit more appealing.

Before refreshing my memory with video footage, I’d like to jot some notes here on what I see this documentary video project becoming.

Some major concepts I would like to get across in the video:

• CSA is more than a clever way to buy/sell fresh veggies. CSA is re-creating culture. As Michael Pollan points out in Omnivore’s Dilemma, most of our ancestor’s food choices were dictated by culture: accumulated wisdom of what was tasty and good for you, of how (for instance) one manages to eat year round in a climate that only allows plant growth for about half the year. Somehow, we’ve let science and policy (in the form of nutritional analyses, recommended daily allowances, toxicity levels, etc), and technology (refrigerators, refrigerated airplanes) take over in deciding what and how we eat. CSA offers a platform to begin thinking differently about what and how we eat. Relationship and connection to people and to place comes in to play. To think of food as more than belly-filling fuel to get through the day, or obsessive comfortings, or even one’s culinary pallette, but instead as a profound connection to a piece of land, to the earth and a particular environment, climate, etc., and to particular humans that care for and nurture that food…that’s a major cultural shift. CSA certainly encourages eating more veggies and probably more diverse veggies, both clear boons to health. Some choice in what to eat is given up - you eat what comes in the CSA box - but this, too, has a logical and spiritual(?) progression through the season: the food in the box is what is in season and available. Much more to say here, but let’s move on.
• I want to challenge people’s stereotype of a farmer. The farmers will do this themselves, but this is something I want to stay conscious of as the film comes together. CSA farmers in particular are quiet activists creating big changes in their community (see the first point).
• I want to emphasize the “community” part of CSA. An increasing number of people know loosly the basic economic concept/arrangement of CSA. The connections and feeling of belonging that come along with it is probably less obvious from the outside. We can help flesh that out.

I’m still struggling a bit with the overarching structure of the film. My initial idea was that I was creating more or less a “marketing” piece, albiet one told through the fun story of a bicycle tour, but nonetheless marketing the more subtle ideas of selling points of CSA. Something that farmers could show to potential members, that community activists could show to garner support for CSA, etc. I saw it as being largely topic driven, broken up into “chapters” that focused on a particular topic area or concept, and using a collage of interview and footage from throughout the farm to illustrate the topic. I am now beginning to wonder if the whole thing would be much more watchable and, successful basically, if it were told more as the story of our trip, perhaps landing on a few farms where some of the topics of interest are particularly apparent, but maintaining more of the trip sequence, keeping footage from a farm together in blocks, (maybe) pulling from our blog from the road for both insights into farms as well as juicy pieces about our trip and our personal drama, human story, etc. Hmmm.