Ron Naveen, a former lawyer turned scientist, has worked fervently over the past 30 years to conserve the stunning, but fragile continent of Antarctica. He is, in essence, a penguin counter, tracking more than 200 colonies of penguins throughout his years of research to identify why many of these gentle creatures are dying off.
Naveen and his crew have been working on a powerful film that documents why and how the survival of penguins directly correlates to climate change. They are currently trying to raise money via Kickstarter to complete the project. “For six weeks our team ““ Peter Getzels, Erik Osterholm and Harriet Gordon ““ shot over 71 hours of material. This was a labor of love, a film we dreamed of making for many years. Now we want to share this story with as many people as possible. But in order to make this unique and inspiring film, we must edit a cut we can submit to film festivals around the world. This work will include two additional shoots about the science behind the Antarctic Site Inventory; securing archival footage to build a scene we filmed about Ernest Shackleton’s story; plus do the scripting, editing, music, voice-over, sound mixing, color correction and graphics,” says Naveen.
So far, $32, 250 has been raised towards the project’s goal of $50,000 (13 days remain). To lean more about The Counting Penguins documentary film, please visit the project’s homepage.
Photos via The Penguin Counters on facebook
