Methanezilla – Benny Rendell and Deb DeSantos
Reduce or Die – Delia Kenagy and Claire Yezbak
Pay Attention – Maddie Boudov and Wyatt Baker
The Future Is Calling
Written and Directed by
Audrey Kim Chung
with
Jason Hoover, Audrey Hoover, Pierce Elliot, and Kevin Gill
Filmed by Ana Marks
The Sorry Project, Josh Zacher
After two months, I have a finished film! I’ve learned a lot throughout this process both as a person and an artist, but I am very proud of what I made.
I have to thank Justin Scholar a million times for all of his help and support throughout this entire process.
I was very taken by the fact that 3 states have outlawed the term “climate change.”
Please check out some of my inspiration from Greenpeace.org, Rob Marshall, Flint, and Donald Trump.
The film is also on my website!
Final Project for Abrupt Climate Change Fall 2021
Written, Edited, and Directed by Maria Lozada-Belisario
Video Clips provided by Philip Kapadia (YouTube.com), Ron Lach (Pexels.com), Kampus Production (Pexels.com), video.com, Tobacco Free Florida (YouTube.com), The Telegraph (YouTube.com), Luxury Zone (YouTube.com), Insider (YouTube.com)
Music by AFYZ Background Music (YouTube.com)
Poem:
The day will come
The day will come
The day will come
The day will come
The day will come
The day will come when a child playing in the ocean feels plastic touching their small legs.
The sand they build castles with will be littered with beads of waste
The oceanic air that was once refreshing for the generation before will be putrid for the present.
The day will come
The day will come when the earth is breathing out its last breath,
The dry oceans and lands will not be able to weep tears because they have been stolen
Stolen for greed, power, influence that is a fraction of the earth’s lifetime.
The day will come
The day will come when the oceans are belly full of the human race’s deceit.
The aquatic creatures will be immersed in it, as if they are learning from the Nobel peace winning handbook on selfishness firsthand.
That day will come.
The day will come when sea animals will slowly start disappearing from aquariums
A typical memory for child ripped out suddenly from a scrapbook
The next memory ripped out: beach days
The day will come
The day will come when money won’t matter,
our children and their children and their children will throw their hands in the air and say, “What was all this for?”
What was all this for? Was it for an $80,000 Birkin Bag? Was it for the $20 million mansion for one person?
The day will come.
The day will come when children die, generations fade away and life on earth becomes nonexistent.
Earth will be alive, but barely,
The Day is coming. The day is coming. The day is coming.
After I finished writing the piece, I originally wanted multiple people to speak it, but it did not sound right, so I had my friend Nyah be the only person to speak it. Once I received the recording of her speaking it, I needed some background music to support it, but nothing too extreme where it overpowers the words. I found a simple, orchestral piece of music that fitted perfectly. Then I proceeded to gather all the video clips, I wanted to keep it simplistic and not distracting because I wanted the words to shine, but I also did not want the visual element to be repetitive. As I was editing, I let the structure of it happen organically as I was coming up with more and more ideas. For example, I had to find the horror sound in the middle of editing because I wanted to scare the audience with how fast our earth is dying. I gave myself a lot of time to edit so I could get it just perfect, and I am proud of the work I created.
— Maria Fernanda Lozada-Belisario, 12/8/2021
RISING SEAS
MAYA TREITMAN
Green World, May 2021
For my final project, I chose to create the first part of a potential paper cut-out series that focuses on how different countries around the globe are affected by rising sea levels. This project and video is about Bangladesh and how the rising sea levels are causing dangerous river bank erosion forcing many people to flee. As early as the 1960s, the Bangladesh government has been building embankments along these rivers to protect low-lying communities, but these structures are deteriorating over time. The government has proposed a 2-Billion dollar multi-phase plan to reinforce these structures. This was new ground for me, I have never worked with paper cutting before, but I was excited to combine that with my love of watercolor to create something really beautiful. Being able to work and create with my hands is a rare opportunity so I fully intended to take advantage of it and enjoyed learning on the go. The execution of this project did not go exactly as I envisioned it, but it is still something I’m proud of. The first daunting task became obvious to me right at the beginning. How can I summarize this massive issue in an easy-to-understand, aesthetically looking video, so that it has the best chance to circulate online? Personally, I follow many artists online and on platforms such as Tik Tok, and am mesmerized by timelines of them working in whatever medium they choose. I can scroll through videos like that for hours, so I attempted to mimic that all while educating my viewers on climate refugees. It was also important for me to stick to a certain color palette to match my work so the video seems more cohesive and aesthetically pleasing. You only have a few seconds to capture someone’s attention. That being said, my film can not be posted on a platform like Tik Tok because it is too long, It would probably have the best chance of gaining attention on YouTube. As of now, I have posted it on Vimeo and NYU Stream so it is too soon to tell how successful I am at reaching a large group of people
My piece consists of four separate layers. The deepest layer represents the 17,000 km2 of land that will be impacted if sea levels rise by one meter. Approximately, 15 million people live within this section near the Bay of Bengal. The second layer expands on the first and depicts the more heavily populated areas of Bangladesh. The painting on this layer emphasizes that the majority of people live near the Padma and the Surma-Meghna rivers. As the sea levels rise so does the salinization of these rivers which is already causing erosion. The increase of salt in the water is also affecting farmers and has caused many to either move more in-land or to switch farming items like rice to shrimp and other seafood. The third layer is an outline of the whole country. On this layer, I did the most detailed watercolor. Towards the bottom of the layer, I painted some buildings famous in Dhaka’s skyline. I tried to include both modern and traditional architecture. The purple shapes represent the interesting windows of Bangladesh’s National Parliament. The blue cascading lines on the upper right corner are supposed to represent the National Martyrs’ Memorial which was built to remember those who fought in the Bangladesh War of Independence of 1971. I included water lilies, Bangladesh’s national flower, as well as palm trees. The fourth and final layer is a boat which represents the importance of the many rivers that flow and connect the country. 
This project has definitely encouraged me to learn more about how rising sea levels affect populations differently. I have also become more aware of the difficult decisions climate refugees make. The strategies of these migrants are different from migrants fleeing from corrupt governments or war, the families who leave will not have a home to return to. Families need to decide if it is worth relocation if that is an option they can afford. Additionally, in the US, high-income communities are often located by the coast. Many of these wealthy families are choosing to relocate inland to avoid rising water and severe weather. Unfortunately, this is causing the gentrification of many low-income inland communities. 
There is so much more I could have included in my video, and another hurdle I came across was what to cut and what to include. This problem is enormous, but no one will want to watch a 20-minute video about rising sea levels if they stumble across my film on a whim. I tried to just explain the basics and end it on a happy note. I am not trying to downplay this problem but make it more digestible for the average viewer, and hopefully pique their interest, and encourage them to click on my next video (if this becomes a series). Works Cited: https://phys.org/news/2019-09-refugees-seas-home.html https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ocean-fact-sheet-package.pdf https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/the-world-s-coastal-cities-are-going-under-here-is-how-some-are-fighting-back/#:~:text=So%2Dcalled%20%E2%80%9Cdelta%20cities%E2%80%9D,%2C%20Rotterdam%2C%20Tokyo%20and%20Venice. https://ejfoundation.org/reports/climate-displacement-in-bangladesh#:~:text=By%202050%2C%20with%20a%20projected,exacerbated%20by%20rising%20sea%20levels. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-019-0002-9?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_campaign=NRRJ_2_SJB_reviews_editorial_socialposts&fbclid=IwAR2mLfaV467f76gkwbsuKBOWMJ80NqLxwToyUBwXIAQI_avYLb2_ZJTjZlQ Music by Alexei Surovyk 
Hard To Breathe
Erika Prihadi
Green World, April 28 2021
The ocean is an ecosystem very dear to me. Ever since I was little,
I’ve sought beaches and islands for a peace of mind. I’ve been swimming in salt water for as long as I can remember. At the very same time, I’ve been able to see the changes to it with my own eyes. Marine ecosystems such as coral reefs are sensitive to heat. Corals have algae that help them grow called zooxanthellae. These zooxanthellae leave the coral when the temperature of the water is too hot.
As they provide food for the corals, losing them means that the corals are left carbon-deprived. When the corals lose their algae, it’s called bleaching. Coral bleaching is a very common phenomenon that we are well-aware of now. It’s upsetting that seeing bleached corals are more common than seeing healthy corals.
The island I’ve been going to since I was a toddler is just further out of Jakarta’s bay, in the Thousand Islands. I chose to shoot my short music video there because it felt authentic to me. I was kayaking in the video, then I fell into the water. At first, I was in awe of the ocean’s beauty, but eventually I realized it was also accumulated with garbage. I blended visuals of myself with coral reefs and plastic bottles in the sea bed. I was depicting a marine organism suffocating underwater from the pollution- wriggling in pain and defeat. I chose to do this because I feel like it’s only easy for most people to emphasise when they’ve felt what the other is feeling. Through film, I wanted the audience to feel the pain of the marine creatures.
“In Jakarta Bay, Indonesia, researchers now have to travel at least 25 kilometers offshore to find any coral reefs-and even farther if they want to find undamaged ones. Twenty years ago, healthy coral communities could be found in the bay’s nearshore waters, some within wading distance. No longer. All have been done in by pollution, dynamite fishing, sedimentation, and collection for building material.” (Hinrichsen, Don)
“And with the corals have gone our fish. We now have to travel six hours out of the bay to fish. You can still catch some fish in the bay itself, but no one wants to eat them because they are full of poisons and disease.” (Hinrichsen, Don)
We have only explored 5% of the world’s oceans, and somehow we have damaged that percentage already. However, there is still hope. The corals are bleached, but they are not yet dead. I created this song and music video in light of raising awareness about the well-being of our marine ecosystem. Efforts have been made by many great people, but it is a good reminder that we all can be of help and impact by simply throwing our trash in the right place, picking up after trash if you find them in the ocean and volunteering for clean-ups when you can.
We live within the circle of life; what goes around comes around. We throw waste in the ocean, then we eat the fish from that same ocean. Eventually, everything we consume will have microplastics in them and it will be irreversible. Not all of us can contribute to a governmental change, but we can at least mend the damage that has been done and educate the younger generation.
Citations:
Hinrichsen, Don. “Coral Reefs in Crisis.” BioScience, vol. 47, no. 9, 1997, pp. 554–558. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1313160. Accessed 27 Apr. 2021.
Van Woesik, R. “Contemporary Disturbances to Coral Communities of the Great Barrier Reef.” Journal of Coastal Research, 1994, pp. 233–252. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25735601. Accessed 27 Apr. 2021.
Schmidt, Charles W. “In Hot Water: Global Warming Takes a Toll on Coral Reefs.” Environmental Health Perspectives, vol. 116, no. 7, 2008, pp. A292–A299. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25071083. Accessed 27 Apr. 2021.
Aleka Agre:
Citizen Researcher
For my final this semester, I’ve been creating a 60-second video that’s a combination of interviews and animations to highlight and help introduce people to the Citizen Researcher project. This project is a Sea Level Change Digital Elevation APP that’s currently in development by David and Denise Holland that will allow anybody who wants to participate to collect scientific data by recording their location and the date to help create a detailed map of the land surface elevation of the UAE.
Working on scientific projects like this that have real-world implications is such a privilege and I’m excited to continue to work on more visualizations for and with scientists in the future.
Thwaites Glacier: Icefin Robot
This is the final version of the Thwaites Glacier Icefin Robot animation that I made for David and Denise Holland. The main goal of this project is to help high school students gain an interest in climate science, not as a topic of doom and gloom, but as an exciting exploration of the planet in new ways never seen before.
Through this project, I learned a lot about Thwaites and the amazing robot, the Icefin, which are both incredibly interesting and so important to understand the changes happening on the planet today. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to work on this project and I’ve really enjoyed being a part of it.
For anyone interested in learning more about either Thwaites or the Icefin you can check out this link or if you want to see the full, unedited footage from the Icefin under Thwaites you can find that here.
”Georgia Tech News Front Page,” Georgia Institute of Technology 2 Apr. 2015
“Icefin Robotic Vehicle at the Seafloor under the Ross Ice Shelf.” Georgia Tech, Youtube, 4 Apr. 2015
“PBS NewsHour.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 19 Feb. 2020,
“Thwaites Glacier.” ITGC Thwaites Glacier
Other Projects
I’ve also done a wide variety of work for many different types of clients using After Effects, Illustrator, and Photoshop.
alekaagre.com • IG: @alekaagre
To make this simple track I used Ableton and used the given instruments. Originally I strummed a C chord on my guitar but it didn’t really match the theme of the video so I scrapped it.
Eric Carrera
April, 2022
Dr. Yan’s data and graphs are used as projections. Specifically, we used one that went from blue to yellow to red over time, and this is the sequence we followed throughout our video. This was to simulate the world getting hotter and hotter, ending with a red projection and the ice melting at an alarmingly fast rate.
We included many different facts and statistics that coincide with what we are trying to achieve through our video and make this information digestible and accessible to a wide range of viewers. We must band together and find ways to reduce our ecological footprint on an individual level, and also urge decision-makers of our planet to implement change on a grander level.
-Marlee
May, 2022
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- Between 1900 and 2020, the sea level rose by roughly 8 inches due to ice melt in the planet’s polar regions.
- Between 1930 and 1940, the speed of ice melt began to increase due to an increase in human-caused carbon emissions.
- Since then, the rate of sea-level rise and burning of fossil fuels has only been exacerbated further
- If we keep burning natural gas at similar or accelerated rates, thriving cities may be underwater by the end of the century, rendering them uninhabitable.
- If we want to prevent Miami from becoming Atlantis, we must act now to slow down carbon emissions and allow our ice caps time to heal.
Vincent Huang
05/04/2022
For our final project, Vincent and I used candles to create a time-lapse video of ice melting.
Given that we were a group of only two people, it was easy to collaborate throughout the production process, from research and planning, to shooting and editing. Vincent was the one who edited the video into a time-lapse and added the captions, while I wrote them. Aside from that, we worked together every step of the way. We met several times over zoom, talked in/after class, and met at my apartment to finalize our research before shooting the video in my bedroom.
While planning our project, we theorized ideas about how to visually represent the impact of climate change on polar ice caps. Early on, we decided our film would be somewhat minimal and relatively experimental; we felt these techniques would help condense and visually illustrate complicated data and important issues in a brief and easily digestible way.
We knew the impact climate is continuing to have on ice melt, but through our research, the human hand and rapidly increasing speed of carbon emissions was put into perspective, and I was surprised to learn how recently carbon emissions spiked. We learned that their was a steady rise in emissions until around 1970, when there was a huge increase. Since then, emissions have increased exponentially and have reached dangerously high levels. Our video represents this metric with the candles, each of which represents one metric ton of carbon emissions (we added more candles every decade, starting at 1900). It is clear just how much faster the ice melts with increased heat. Also, we chose between two versions of the video. Initially, we had cut out any footage where you could see us adding/replacing candles. However, after reviewing it, we thought that including this intervention made a powerful statement: it showed that humanity’s actions were solely responsible for the increasingly damaging environmental atrocities.
This project was important to me because we hoped to visualize how drastic the effects of ice melt and sea-level rise might be in the coming decades and centuries. Although not to scale, the addition of the Empire State Building model is meant to show the devastation that can be caused when entire cities – many of which are much beloved by a global community – fall victim to human-induced environmental issues. We are moving towards a water world in which some energy and food sources, living spaces, and ways of life at large for (at least) millions of people will be jeopardized by a no-longer preventable issue. It is an uncomfortable reality that the damage done so far is irreversible and that the total extent of its effects will not be realized for many years to come. With that in mind, our project represents a disaster scenario, one which may well become a dystopian reality in the not-too-distant future. It is at once a call to action and a reminder to brace for disaster because things are only getting worse from here.
See some behind-the-scenes images from our shooting session by clicking the thumbnails below!
— Lyle Miller
05/04/22
