One of the problems with putting together a documentary on cutting-edge technology is determining what really is cutting-edge, and then also determining if the people who claim they have the cutting-edge technology actually have what they claim they do.

Am I saying that people would make false claims to me, a mild-mannered documentarian?  (Champion of intellectual munificence and hero to the masses!)

Well, unfortunately yes. Mild-mannered or not, a documentary kind of equals free publicity for the people being interviewed -- which in the world of start-up ag businesses seeking new markets, access to fresh capital, etc., can sometimes lead to less-than-forthright claims.  Luckily, living in Hollywood makes one used to being egregiously lied to, often for the pettiest of reasons (though often quite funny).  By contrast, the truth-stretching of a brick-and-mortar business' CEO-type seems almost quaint by comparison.  Certainly it's a breath of fresh air to hear that a certain plant-growing technique can run at 93% water efficiency, when in the past you've been told whoppers like (I'm not kidding) Nicholas Cage can be held in place for a movie, but $10,000 is needed by Monday, and "they" might be willing to take $5,000 if it could be even sooner.

Long story short, I guess what I'm getting at is that whereas a finished documentary looks very cut-and-dried and factual, with the information presented appearing almost obvious in retrospect -- there's actually quite a bit of detective work that goes into a piece like Beanstalk, trying to figure out what is worth pointing a camera at; who's telling the truth; who is still going to be a viable business by the time audiences can see the finished film; and what is just smoke, mirrors, and seeds that won't sprout?

It's actually all kind of fun, the vetting of different people, groups, and technologies to see what's worth flying out to interview.  Luckily, there is so much amazing research (and application) being done in next-generation agriculture that there's no lack of options for us.

I just hope that we make the right choices going in, so we don't roll footage on stuff we won't use later -- and just as important, that we don't miss any amazing trees through the large controlled-environment forest.

All for now...

Some say we live in the Golden Age of the Documentary. They may be right. There certainly are a ton of them coming out these days, many of them very, very good. It's got a lot to do with the comparative ease of computer editing systems, as compared to the old, expensive, and difficult KEM film-cutting machines.

It's also got a lot to do with the fact that Hollywood took notice when Fahrenheit 911 made over $100 million and studio execs realized... Wow, people will actually pay money just to sit and learn stuff! (Who knew?)

The 800-pound gorilla of the "eco-documentaries," of course, is Al Gore's Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth, which also graced the $100 million box office mark, and was a lot more successful in rousing public sentiment in favor of combatting global climate change than Michael Moore's Fahrenheit was in ousting George W. Bush from office. Say what you will about either cause, one thing both movies had going for them was a face-man at the front (Gore and Moore, respectively) that was already a celebrity in the eyes of the public.

For Controlled Environment Agriculture, at the moment, there is no such guy.

Which begs the question of -- what is the best way to tell this story? To make this movie? To get people to watch the movie and get engaged and tell their friends, etc. etc., after the movie is made?

Some of the greatest documentaries out there (Ken Burns' amazing work leaps to mind) cover their subjects entirely through narration, with no "host/announcer" type on camera. There's certainly different ways to go.

Which way we'll wind up going with Beanstalk is an open question at the moment... But it's something this director is thinking about fervently, and will be deciding on soon.

Stay tuned...

And eat a banana.

Wow. The pressure. There are those who say that documentaries are boring, and those who say that blogs are masturbatory navel-gazing, so a blog about the making of a documentary is all of the above, cross-multiplied into something that no one will ever want to read.

Let's hope not.

And let's get this started right.

The goal is simple and the execution will be complex. I want to make Beanstalk the documentary that makes the world slap itself in the forehead. When I heard the term "Vertical Farming" for the first time, just about a year ago (actually a little less), I had no idea what it meant, but I did a little reading on the subject, prompted by my friend and well-known smartie-pants Peter Platt.

The idea caught me by the brain and in no time I was slapping myself in the forehead. "Why aren't we doing this already?" The upsides seemed so obvious. At that point I didn't even know the downsides of the current food system... which as I later learned them, scared the bejeezus out of me.

Anyhow, that is the goal for this documentary, which will make up the meat of my 2010. Get as many people as possible to do that same cathartic forehead-slap that I did back in early 2009. I this documentary can pull that off, if there's enough sore foreheads out there by the time we release this baby in 2011... then maybe we'll really be on the way to a world where things make a little more sense, and our awesome technologies are applied in a few more sensible ways.

I won't go off on the doom-and-gloom downsides of us staying the current agricultural path right now -- I don't want this first blog entry to bum anyone out -- but just suffice it to say: It's important.

All rightey, here's your friendly-neighborhood film director, signing off. More next time.

Eat a banana.