Transcript
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. This is the Red Eye Podcast. You can hear our live broadcast on Saturday mornings from 10 till noon at 100.5 FM in the Lower Mainland.
Speaker: Coming up in this episode, I'm joined by filmmakers Nova Ami and Velcro Ripper to talk about Incandescence, their new documentary about wildfire.
Speaker: Filmmakers Nova Ami and Velcro Ripper live in Gibsons, BC. Like most of us here in BC, they have experienced wildfire smoke in their community every summer for the last few years.
Speaker: This started them reflecting on what they could add to the conversation about wildfire as documentary filmmakers who have covered crises throughout their work.
Speaker: Their new film, Incandescence, weaves together on-the-ground footage with first-person accounts from first responders and people who have lost their homes to wildfire.
Speaker: Incandescence is produced and distributed by the National Film Board. It has its Vancouver premiere on April 11th. And Nova Ami and Velcro Ripper join me today. Hello.
Speaker: hi Jane. Hi, great to be here. It's great to have you on the show. When you go into a project like this, a film about wildfire is a pretty big idea.
Speaker: How do you decide where to start? That's a great question. um Well, as you said, you know we we experience wildfire smoke directly all the way in Gibsons from fires that were happening far away.
Speaker: And it made us really think about how to explore this topic in a film, because that's what we do. We always think about how do we tell the story of something that's impacting us.
Speaker: And I guess we started with fire itself as a character and what kind of a character is fire and and what is our relationship to that character? And that started us thinking about the different layers that we could explore visually, thematically, sonically, and it just unfolded from there.
Speaker: There are breathtaking scenes of flames in the film. There's burning trees, burning buildings, or just simply burning. How did you get those shots?
Speaker: Well, we captured the fire footage in the film in a number of different ways. um We worked with BC Wildfire, who brought us right to the fire lines to film. um We also gathered footage from people who were right there while fires were happening. and In fact, one of our subjects was actually a camera person and was at the very beginning days of the White Rock Lake fire. So we got some fantastic footage from him.
Speaker: And then there were some detailed footage that we shot using a high speed slow motion camera to film things like a burning bird's nest or personal intimate objects that we we did in a more um abstracted way to to really get in close.
Speaker: And we had an amazing cinematographer, Vince Arvidsson, who did the majority of our filming with our subjects, which included a group of firefighters called Rider Ventures.
Speaker: And we accompanied them on fuel mitigation projects and all their training. And so we were basically embedded with them and all their activities.
Speaker: I found that one of the most engaging parts of the film was the time that we spent with writer ventures. Tell us a little bit more about them and who they are. Sure. We really spent years with them. And they came to call us their film family. And they really loved participating in the film. They got wholeheartedly involved and engaged in it. They really felt that theirs was a story that they wanted to be told.
Speaker: Craig Moore and and Jackie Moore own the company. Craig is Indigenous. About 80% of Rider Ventures are Indigenous. And they're really a community force. They do a lot of amazing work in their community. They really inspired us.
Speaker: Was it through them that you learned about indigenous practices with fire? Partially. We also learned about it through our research and through talking to people in the communities.
Speaker: One of our subjects is Dora Alexis. ah She's a cultural burner and part of the Okanagan Indian Band. And when we talk to people in the community about this project, everyone suggested that we go to her because she has so much knowledge and so much history and a unique relationship with fire.
Speaker: And so we learned a lot from her as well. How did you pick where in the province you were going to film? right from the outset we thought we wanted to make a place-based film a film where we would go back to the same community over the season so we go back in the summer are through a wildfire season we follow it through the fall the winter the spring and through another wildfire season and ultimately we landed on the okanagan because it is the most wildfire prone area of canada and because it also has this extraordinary history of indigenous fire practices that go back thousands of years. So we knew it would also be a great place to capture that element.
Speaker: What were you hoping for with spending those various seasons in the same community? What were you hoping to bring across with that? Well, we really wanted to see and witness the impacts of wildfire.
Speaker: Because what happens oftentimes when we hear about wildfires in the news, once the fire is over, we don't hear anything else. And we wanted to go deeper and really unpeel the layers of how wildfire impacts communities and the ecosystem and wildlife.
Speaker: And that was our intent with going back over time was to witness the impacts. Yeah, I think one of the differences between documentary film action, especially what we work in the long form documentary, is you take time, you build relationships, you go back again and again, you're not just parachuting in and parachuting out. So for us, um the relationship to the communities and to the land was really important.
Speaker: We hear the voices of a lot of different people in the film, but although we see their faces, we never see them actually talking to the camera. Why not? Well, when we set out to make this film, we wanted to create an immersive experience, and we wanted to move away from the convention of talking heads.
Speaker: And so we decided that we weren't going to have our interview subjects speaking directly to the viewer, that we would record their interviews using audio only.
Speaker: We would see them in action and we would hear them share their stories, but we didn't want to have the talking heads as part of the experience because we felt it would take people out.
Speaker: And we also decided that we weren't going to have conventional music score as part of the storytelling. And so we created a soundscape that acted as the score.
Speaker: And Velcro actually is was the sound designer for Incandescence. I wanted to ask you about that because it really was quite unusual. Tell me about the sign design of the movie. what What were you aiming for with that or what did you incorporate in that?
Speaker: Yeah, well, as fire is a character in the film, we really wanted to find the voice and the language and the sound of fire. And many of the people we interviewed would describe the way fire sounded, that it was at one point somebody said they thought it was a train rushing towards them. But no, that wasn't a train. It was the fire.
Speaker: And Chief Brolin from Kelowna Fire, he said it was it just felt like the sound of this river rushing towards you, and it just assaulted all your senses. So we really, in the sound design, we really wanted to bring out the character of fire and also the character of the land.
Speaker: We create this point of view with the various animals in the film. So you go into their point of view through cinematography, but also I created the point of view with the sound of breath, their breathing, and their movements and things like that. So sound became very expressive in the film.
Speaker: I've read that you said we didn't have any security blankets, no talking heads, no music. Yes, it posed a bit of a challenge for our editor as well, because like I said, it's a convention that we would go to the talking heads while we're editing to tell the story. But we set out to do it in this manner. And I think that it worked.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, there's a term in documentary filming they call the footage B-roll, and the talking heads is kind of the A-roll. So, you know, okay, we better have some coverage here for the talking heads, but, you know, then you can always go back to the talking heads. But we didn't have that. So there is only A-roll in the film. It's all A-roll.
Speaker: But also, you know... One point which I love about not having the talking heads and recording the interviews just with audio, kind of like what we're doing right here, is that there's just less of a presence of the technology pointing in your face.
Speaker: There's no camera pointing at you as you're telling your story, some of some of which were quite traumatic stories. So there we were able to create this extra safe space by not bringing a camera into the room.
Speaker: The two communities that you filmed as they experienced catastrophic wildfires, both in the Okanagan, one was the Okanagan Indian Band living around Vernon, and the other was the people who lived in West Kelowna when the fire went through there.
Speaker: And I'm wondering, how were those two situations different? How were they the same? Well, the West Kelowna fire was an urban fire.
Speaker: you know It was a city under siege from a a massive mega fire. And so in that situation, they rallied fire departments from all over the province to come in to help. it And it was an actual local fire department that was primarily fighting that fire.
Speaker: In fact, international fire crews came to help with that fire, particularly from South Africa. Yeah. The White Rock Lake fire was a bit more of a rural situation.
Speaker: It was also an interface fire, but it wasn't a big city fire. It was really hitting the outskirts of town and the actual Silk Nation people who were living around closer to the forest.
Speaker: So there were somewhat different levels of response, but the communities were all deeply impacted. We have our own preconceptions of what Wildflyer is like and and what it would be like to experience that in a community.
Speaker: But I'm wondering what really surprised you in the process of making the film? What did you find out? Well, in exploring our relationship to fire, i feel like what really came to the surface was that there's good fire as well as bad fire.
Speaker: It's not so black and white. Our relationship with fire is complex and really learning how to work with fire and to really respect fire and use it as a tool to manage the land.
Speaker: That's something that is really becoming more prominent now. And when we first started making the film, we didn't hear about that so much. And was actually only just recently that, for example, the Pentincton Indian Band and BC Wildfire are working together on a prescribed burn.
Speaker: This wasn't happening when we first started making this film. The information wasn't out there on their website, on their communications. And so that was something that really was Wonderful to witness.
Speaker: Velcro, how about you? What surprises were there for you? I think the thing that surprised me the most in making the film was this entirely complex array of impacts and responses that happened in the wake of a wildfire.
Speaker: It's so complex and so multilayered. um As featured in the film, you'll see people like the Animal Lifeline Emergency Response Team working who go behind fire lines during a wildfire and rescue animals, everything from alpacas to horses to cats and dogs.
Speaker: They'll rescue them when the owners had to flee, and they'll actually harbor them while the fires are burning for even months if necessary until the owners can find a way to rehome them.
Speaker: To people like the yeah Mennonite Disaster Service who come in and help to rebuild people's homes, especially people who don't have insurance. They bring in volunteers from across Canada to come in and for free help to rebuild homes to the firefighters on and all the levels of firefighters that are involved from the helicopter pilots who go in and for the rapid attack crew that's in the film that they go down by lines and drop right into the behind the fire line to get into the first attack on a fire.
Speaker: There's just so many elements to a fire and it goes on for years and unfolds and the way people are impacted personally, that the survivors and what they have to go through.
Speaker: I wanted to ask you both how it affected you personally, because you live on the Sunshine Coast, which has had some pretty severe droughts. and anyway, we know that anywhere in the province is really at risk. How it affect you personally to to make this film about wildfire?
Speaker: Well, we know that anything could happen at any time, and particularly and in these times when we're experiencing the impacts of the climate emergency and such dry conditions and extreme heat.
Speaker: And we live, as you said, in the Sunshine Coast. We are at an interface. We have a lot of trees where we live, and we actually had our FireSmart assessment done a couple of years ago when we started working on this film, because we learned about how to protect your surroundings from catching fire. And so we had an assessment done and actually we failed the assessment.
Speaker: The firefighter who did the assessment said that he hadn't seen a worse so scenario for the potential of catching fire. And so we learned a lot from that and we took ah some action on that and and did some mitigation work.
Speaker: So that's one of the ways personally, and I guess to just really an appreciation for the work that people do in this field to fight these fires.
Speaker: I had no idea what exactly was involved and to see the conditions that they work under and the hours that they work nonstop. I have a deep appreciation for these people that put their lives on the line.
Speaker: Yeah, I feel like I have a much deeper understanding and connection to fire itself, fire as a force in our lives, um how to respect it and and the importance of trying to protect our communities.
Speaker: One of my favorite ways the film is being used right now is that like on April 19th here on the Sunshine Coast, going to show the film. It's going to be introduced by the local chief and council of this of the Sechelt Nation. And then someone from FireSmart is going to give a talk.
Speaker: And then a week later, after the screening, they're going to actually gather the community together to go out together and do a community fire protection project. And so if the film can help inspire people to take more action to protect their families, to protect their homes, and to protect their communities, that would be wonderful.
Speaker: It was really great to speak with both of you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jane. Yeah, great to talk to you. I've been speaking with filmmakers Nova Ami and Velcro Ripper.
Speaker: Incandescence is a production of the National Film Board of Canada. The Vancouver premiere is this coming Friday, April 11th at 6.20 at the VIF Center on Howe Street, and Nova and Velcro will be in attendance for that.
Speaker: There are also matinees on Saturday and the following Monday, April 14th. And the fourth and final showing at VIF is in the evening on Thursday, April 17th.
Speaker: If you're not in Vancouver, you'll be happy to know that Incandescence is going to be available for free streaming across Canada on nfb.ca starting on Monday, 26th.
Speaker: And as Velcro was saying, there are screenings in communities. Keep your eyes open for screenings in your community. You can check nfb.ca and their events page will have information.
Speaker: You've been listening to the Red Eye Podcast, produced by an independent media collective based in Vancouver. If you enjoyed this episode, it would be great if you left a review on Apple Podcasts.
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Speaker: And you can follow us on Blue Sky at Red Eye Radio. I'm Jane Williams. Thanks for listening.
