Red Stewart chats with Michelle Boley and Taylor Gill about True North…
Michelle Boley is an American filmmaker who has been working in the film and television industry since the mid-2000s. She has specialized in doing documentary-style features focusing on such timely topics as LGBT rights and Standing Rock.
Taylor Gill is an American cinematographer who has been working in the television industry since the mid-2000s as well. Together, the two of them founded Rogue Kite Productions, which has produced satirical sketches and documentary shorts that have garnered more than 28 million views online.
Their latest project is the GO90 environmental series called True North, done in collaboration with The Young Turks.
Flickering Myth had the privilege to speak with them, and I in turn had the honor to conduct it. I began by asking Ms. Boley if exploring climate change was a natural step in her career, given her past experiences of dealing with sociopolitical issues. “I think it’s always been something I’ve been very interested in. It was a fun challenge, and it definitely does tie in thematically with my previous projects.”
One of the things that makes True North unique is that it’s not a conventional docudrama miniseries. It’s more about several smaller, short anecdotal stories that build up to the larger topic of climate change. Given that this approach is significantly different from other documentaries in the post-Ken Burns era, I was curious as to what their reasons were for going with it.
Ms. Boley explained: “What we were trying to do with this series was really make it more about those personal stories. We felt like what has been done in this space so far is that a lot of bigger picture stories tell you a lot of facts and statistics and are more aimed at informing you on a global scale. It leaves you concerned, but not necessarily connected to what it would be like to be there. In True North we are trying to give people a complete picture of this Arctic region – what it’s like to live in a place that’s so challenging and that’s changing so quickly. One that will likely never return to its original state. We enter into the world through people’s viewpoints – everyone has a different relationship to this unique environment and they are all passionate about it. You don’t end up living somewhere like Svalbard unless you love it. It’s not a place you just stumble into- you can’t even be born there. Everyone there made a conscious choice to go there because they connected with something about it. Now that thing is changing.”
Having an idea for film project is one thing, but doing it is another. And in an environment as freezing as the glacial wilderness, the obstacles for shooting are even harder, particularly since most of the episodes are set outside in the cold which can impair equipment. I asked Mr. Gill how he worked to get past these challenges.
“It’s definitely a very unforgiving place to film, especially with such a small crew. So I was constantly dealing with technical issues like lenses fogging up and trying to keep gear safe in wet and cold environments. Navigating steep terrain or climbing up a glacier is difficult enough on it’s own – not to mention trying to frame up a shot with the camera in one hand as well. So for those scenes we relied heavily on GoPros and smaller cameras. And in telling a story as personal as this, especially since it was mostly just the two of us, it was about making sure we had more angles for the edit.”
Mr. Gill related to me to one surprising problem that arose: “One of the issues that we had was with this drone camera, as operating it that far up north was a challenge. They’re performed very well and were important to show the scale of the environments, but it was difficult because the magnetic poles caused interference with the internal compass.”
When it came to reducing their environmental footprint, Mr. Gill disclosed that the team actually relied on natural lighting for the most part. “We were a very tiny crew. Didn’t have much lights aside from an on-camera one, but luckily we were there during the season with the midnight sun, which means it was 20+ hours of daylight a lot of the time we were there. Other gear was used to a minimum.”
“We were out there with nature guides who were very experienced and concerned with protecting the environment, and that was important to us because the terrain is so sensitive. To give you an idea – in Ny-Alesund a guide showed us where a car had driven through the tundra 30 years before and you could still see the tracks.” added Ms. Boley. “You can’t really navigate a place like Svalbard independently.”
As I said before, planning a shoot is one thing, but doing it is another. Prior to the interview, I was informed that almost immediately things didn’t go according to plan, forcing the two to change course. I wondered what some of those specific deviations were.
Ms. Boley answered: “When we headed out to make this show, the plan was to get on a sailboat that we had been booked on, and that was supposed to be the entire program: traveling with an expedition group to do research. But things change really fast in the Arctic. First, the ice didn’t break up, then the boat got damaged, and other stuff happened that didn’t allow us to even go on the boat. So we were already filming the peripheral stories, and what we ended up doing was using the contacts we had met locally to rebuild the series. And it turned out to be amazing for the show. Honestly, I don’t think anyone could understand this environment and its changes better than these scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute. Not only do they run many of the long-term studies that come out of the area, but they are local so they have been watching the changes first-hand for decades and have a personal connection to the region.”
All the episodes are great and absolutely worth watching, but one that I found very enticing was the seventh episode “Ghost Town.” As the title implies, it focused on an isolated community called Pyramiden: a former Soviet coal-mining town that was abandoned, leaving few residents remaining. However, it is also the only episode that does not deal with global warming, leading me to ask why they dedicated an entire part of the miniseries to it.
“Our goal in going up there was really to tell the story of the Arctic: it wasn’t to make every episode specifically about climate change,” noted Ms. Boley. “Only about half of our series deals directly with climate change, although subjects like coal mining, mass migration, tourism, sustainability, or indigenous peoples struggles to protect the land all have important points of intersection with climate change. I think Pyramiden really tells the story of this island, Svalbard, and how difficult it can be to live there. And it really gives you an idea of what life was like at a different time. The entire island is built on coal, but now coal is gone, and it was all that kept these Arctic towns alive. Keeping settlements there was really hard. They’re structured in a totally different way, and to me that was such an interesting piece of the region’s history. A lot of settlements they tried to establish there have failed. It’s a really important part of the story of the Arctic as it transitions away from coal in the era of climate change. How do they sustain themselves now? I connected with that.”
Still, living in a place with only a few other civilians can be a haunting experience. In the episode, comparisons were made between the town’s only motel and the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. “Yeah, it was very surreal. And just the feeling of knowing that you’re one of less than 10 people in a couple hundred miles can be scary, especially when you don’t have cell service,” commented Mr. Gill.
My last question to the duo concerned a recurring aspect of True North, which is its portrayal of polar bears as these forces of nature. On the outside, polar bears risk endangerment because of their habitat getting destroyed, but among these local populations, they are a potential life-threatening danger. I therefore inquired into whether or not their depiction of polar bears was fair.
“I don’t think the show viewed it from that perspective,” said Ms. Boley. “One of our hosts had a really intense and visceral fear of polar bears, and his fears definitely come through in the show- we’re just documenting that element. The show’s perspective is just to help you understand a place where it is illegal to leave the 2 block wide city center without a gun. We expected that to be disorienting for an audience, so to us it was important to give context to what you are seeing – both that there’s a reason people carry flare guns and rifles and are trained in how to deal with polar bears, but also that the attitude towards the bears is respectful – that it’s illegal to shoot a Polar Bear and that the guides there are very dedicated to preserving them.”
“Even when someone is attacked, which does happen, they can be charged with a crime if they shoot the bear. I found that interesting. It’s definitely not disregard or vilification, but it’s very different than what I am used to as well. There are more Polar Bears than people on the island, and being properly trained to go through the steps to scare off a polar bear keeps both the people and the bears safe. I can see how polar bears in relation to civilization is more disconcerting than the view a nature documentary might be able to offer, but I think it’s a realistic one in terms of living in this region, which is what our show is about.”
Overall, True North was a fascinating, fresh look into an ever-relevant topic. Congratulations to everyone involved on a job well-done!
Flickering Myth would like to thank Michelle Boley and Taylor Gill for speaking with us. True North can be viewed on the GO90 website.
Red Stewart
