September 28, 2009 by Mark.

Dear YERTians,

Thanks to some extraordinary efforts by Ben and our trusty new editor Scott Irick, we have submitted a rough cut of the YERT feature film to Sundance. It is a milestone and a launching pad to the next round of YERT filmmaking efforts. Read on for more information…

* YERT submits feature film to Sundance Film Fest
* YERT to be featured on FireDogLake.com TONIGHT
* YERT presenting at two Bioneers conferences
* We need donation$ for music and motion graphics

YERT submits feature film to Sundance Film Fest
THANK YOU YERTIANS!! It’s true, after countless late nights (and a true all-nighter from which I (Ben) am still recovering), at 10:36pm last Thursday night, the YERT editing team rushed a relatively watchable ROUGH cut of the film out the door and through the Louisville rain to FedEx and on to the Sundance submission office in Beverly Hills - a whole 24 min. before the late submission deadline! Even a week ago, this literally looked like an impossible deadline - and now some “lucky” intern at Sundance will have the privilege of watching Ben manure-wrestling with pigs, Mark getting “faced” by a snowblower, and Julie giving birth to a conehead (albeit, an adorable, life-changing conehead). And so, this is the part of the blog where we send out an ENORMOUS THANK YOU to all our transcribers and other volunteers who worked diligently to help us comb through our mountain of footage and get this rough cut out the door. You know who you are, WE know who you are - and we are eternally grateful for all your time and care spent on behalf of YERT and the planet. It would not have been possible without all of you. But our work is just beginning, as we revise the rough cut and zero in on our final cut, we’ll need all of our wonderful YERTians more than ever so stay tuned. (A special thanks to Ange Vesco who transcribed over 30 hours of tape single-handedly!)

YERT to be featured on FireDogLake.com TONIGHT @ 8pm EST
Mark recently visited the Netroots Nation conference when it came to Pittsburgh back in August, and at the event we bumped into some folks from Firedoglake.com! They became interested in the project and to make a long story short, YERT will be featured on the front page of their blog tonight during a live “meet the ‘author’ book salon” session focused on our Dugout Dick video and also our recent efforts to get into Sundance. It will be a Q&A text chat format– go to FireDogLake.com website at 8pm EST and click on the link for Dugout Dick. It should take you to a page where you can submit questions to Mark, Ben, and Julie all about YERT. In the meantime you can see we’re queued for action at this book salon link.

YERT presenting at two Bioneers conferences
Mark (in Pittsburgh) and Ben (in Louisville) will be will be presenting all about the YERT project at their cities’ respective Bioneers events. They’ll be sharing stories from the road, YERT short films – and sneak peeks from the upcoming feature film… Catch Ben’s YERT Presentations at Louisville’s Bluegrass Bioneers event at the UofL Rauch Planetarium Friday 10/16 at 4:15pm and Saturday 10/17 at 8pm AND at Mark’s YERT Presentation at Pittsburgh’s 3 Rivers Bioneers at the Pittsburgh Project on the North Side Sunday 10/18 at 10:30AM.
Click here for more details about Ben’s presentation in Louisville
Click here for more details about Mark’s presentation in Pittsburgh

We need donation$ for music and motion graphics
The YERT submission to Sundance had almost no music in it. That’s because we need to lock down much of the video before it makes financial sense to tie music to it– and there are many more changes in store for the film. That said, once that golden hour arrives, we have several excellent musicians eager to score portions of our film and we’d like to hire them, but we don’t yet have the money. The other element that we’d like to add to our film is animation! We have some professional animators on deck, ready to go, but we need up to $9000 in the bank before we feel comfortable setting them loose.

Can you help us add music and motion graphics to our film? DONATE HERE.

And if you haven’t yet, can you send this link to friends and family, and embed the video in your blogs? YERT FEATURE FILM TRAILER

We’ll be working our tails off this fall the pull the loose ends of the film together and prepare it for viewing by audiences around the world. We couldn’t do it without your support and encouragement– thank you for believing in us and this project!

Humbly Yours,
Mark, Ben, and Julie
team@yert.com

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September 28, 2009 by Mark.

Mark will be presenting all about the project at this event - Sunday at 10:30AM. Pittsburgh Project on the North Side. Check it out!!

“This is the most important national conference in existence. If you go to one conference in your lifetime, go to Bioneers now.” ~Mark Dixon

****************************
Contact:
Maureen Copeland, 412.334.2072
mocopeland@3riversbioneers.org

Three Rivers Bioneers Conference Exposes Breakthrough Environmental Solutions – October 16, 17, & 18

World-renowned leaders - Andrew Weil, M.D. and Michael Pollan– meet local change agents to unveil solutions for healthy living, green jobs, and social justice

[Pittsburgh, PA] – September 22, 2009– The first Three Rivers Bioneers (www.3riversbioneers.org) conference takes place this October 16-18, 2009 at the Pittsburgh Project on the Northside. The Three Rivers Bioneers (3RB) conference is a leading-edge forum highlighting breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet.

As a satellite conference of Bioneers (www.bioneers.org), 3RB provides a hub for people who are hungry for change and are working to make a real difference in their local communities. Bioneers is a nonprofit educational organization hosting the national Bioneers Conference in California for its 20th year. 3RB will broadcast live fifteen visionary speakers from the national conference to Pittsburgh, including Andrew Weil M.D. and Michael Pollan. Weil is the nation’s foremost authority on holistic medicine and Pollan is author of the bestselling The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.

The Three Rivers Bioneers Conference will also feature local leaders in the areas of green jobs, sustainable agriculture, and environmental restoration. Among the forty local presenters will be keynote speakers Khari Mosley, Pittsburgh’s liaison for Van Jones’ organization Green for All, and Greg Boulos, Western Region Director of Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA). 3RB endeavors to give residents the tools and inspiration to be catalysts for change in their own community. According to organizer, Maureen Copeland, “Combining Bioneers national speakers, with presentations from Pittsburgh’s brightest and most passionate change agents, in addition to interactive art, music, and wellness activities makes for an event to inspire and re-energize Pittsburgh for our greatest work ahead.”

Three Rivers Bioneers builds upon the success of two previous conferences hosted by the Urban Ecology Collaborative—the Green Forum and MERGE (Methods to Engage Residents in Grassroots in the Environment). Providing a space to learn, network, and reflect, 3RB is an incubator for ideas and strategies that inspire positive change. A youth studio, activist network room, and peace garden complement the daily workshops and speakers. The Pittsburgh Project (www.pittsburghproject.org), a community development center on the Northside, provides the backdrop for the 3RB conference.

To view a full list of national and local presenters, visit www.3riversbioneers.org. Registration is open and a discounted early bird rate is available until October 1st. Register at www.3riversbioneers.org/registration.

# # #

About the Urban Ecology Collaborative

The Urban Ecology Collaborative (http://www.urbanecologycollaborative.org/uec/) is a ten-city collaborative that cultivates healthy, safe and vibrant cities through collective learning and united action.

UEC does this by developing a unique multi-city network for urban ecosystem research and restoration that makes the connections to issues of social justice; combining programs in education, urban forestry, and advocacy to address common urban ecosystem issues; and creating an integrated tool-kit for sharing these strategies.

About Bioneers

Bioneers (www.bioneers.org) is a nonprofit educational organization that highlights social and scientific innovations inspired by nature and human creativity. Its acclaimed annual national conference brings together people passionate about making a difference and serves as an incubator for new strategies for just and sustainable change. Through the conference, recordings, books, a radio series, online social network and other resources, Bioneers provides the tools and inspiration to help people connect with each other and catalyze positive change in their own communities.

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September 26, 2009 by Mark.

Dear YERTians,

I recently met one of the folks working on A Sea Change and bought a copy to watch. Last weekend I sat down and watched it and was quickly charmed by the beauty of the film– and quickly saddened by its sobering message: ocean acidification due to excess CO2 in the atmosphere is turning our oceans into a hostile environment for the little shelled organisms that live in it. Here’s the website: http://www.aseachange.net

I encourage you to pop some organic popcorn this evening and sit down for an educational journey into a lesser known (but perhaps more damning than climate change) consequence of CO2 pollution from all of our silly cars and planes.

You’ll find additional details below– I’ve copied an e-mail I received from the filmmakers.

Humbly Yours,
Mark

P.S. The more I work on the YERT feature film, the more respect I have for people who assemble independent films. Please show your support by watching A Sea Change!

**************************************************
“This film is both a love letter to the planet and
an urgent plea to its citizens.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Ocean acidification is the flip side of global warming and if you have children,
grandchildren or any investment in life as we know it
continuing on this planet, this is a must-see film.”—Marin Maven

A Sea Change premiers on Sept. 26 on Planet Green, 8 pm EST. The premiere comes at the tail end of Climate Week, a week of inconclusive UN discussions on climate change. On Monday, there was a Global Wake-Up Call, citizens around the world showing their concern about climate change: 2632 events in 134 countries, so many calls to elected officials that phone lines were jammed.

But ocean acidification is still not on the table at COP-15, the December climate talks.

So, please help raise awareness about the urgency of acting to reduce carbon emissions, the effect they’re having on ocean chemistry.

Please watch A Sea Change on Planet Green, and let your friends and family know. Or invite them over to watch with you, discuss it together and take action. (You can find your Planet Green channel on their website.)

If you’d like to host a house party, just go to the Sea Change page on Brave New Theaters to sign up.

**BONUS** If you’re hosting a house party on Sept. 26 to watch Planet Green, we’ll send you a free DVD to say thanks for helping make a big splash about climate change and the ocean!

Special thanks to some friends for helping get word out about the TV premiere: Martha Stewart,350.org, 1Sky, Brighter Planet, Green Drinks NYC, Green Edge Collaborative, Oceana, We Add Up, Student Conservation Association, and Project Aware. And to our Twitter followers: a flutter of pteropod wings.

Let’s get ocean lovers and climate change activists working together for a fair, ambitious, and binding (FAB) climate treaty in December! And start a tsunami of action before COP-15!

Thanks so much for your support.

Best wishes,

AA signature001.jpg

Angela Alston

Outreach Coordinator
A Sea Change: Imagine a world with no fish
+1 718 407 0670
http://www.aseachange.net/

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September 3, 2009 by Mark.

Dear YERTians!

Mark and Ben are headed to California (SF and LA) for a film-screening, fundraising, film-networking visit, and we’d love your help! The approximate window for our visit is 11/6/09-11/15/09.

We’re looking for venues where we can give snazzy YERT presentations, show sneak peeks of our feature film, and raise a bit of money for our feature film post-production work (i.e. $$ to prevent our starvation, pay for editors, motion graphics, and custom music). Check out our presentation page for more detail.

We’re also looking to meet with potential donors, filmmakers, and distributors who may be interested in helping us finish this film. We want them to see our feature film trailer and synopsis page.

You’ve seen the Fund-O-Meter on our website. We’ve received about $4,300 towards our post-production efforts, but we need to get to $60,000 to do it right, and every dollar helps! We’re shooting for $1,500 per presentation… Maybe you can host a screening/meet-the-filmmakers event at your home, with a “suggested donation” for entry? Maybe you know of a local university (Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, USC) that would enjoy a visit? Or a business that might like some green biz eco-inspiration (Google)? Maybe you’d just like to help us afford our plane tickets by giving us a tax-deductible donation? We’re open to every form of support, and thank you in advance for reaching out on our behalf.

So far we have scheduled presentations/screenings at Sony Pictures Entertainment in Los Angeles and at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena– but we’re hungry for more events/meetings and I have a hunch that you can help.

And, if YOU live in California and would like to meet us and see a sneak peek of the feature film, let us know so that we can keep you informed about such opportunities as they develop!

Humbly Yours,
Mark (and Ben and Julie!)

team@yert.com

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