One aspect of being independent freelancer has always been a bit of a soft spot for me. It is working alone. Thus every opportunity to work together with a professional, solid team is a blessing which I enjoy very much.
Some time ago, actually two years ago already, Petteri Saario – one of our most highly respected award winning nature documentarists – and his company DocArt approached with an idea.
He had been asked to do a documentary on the myriad of challenges our forest industry faces presently: the need to evolve, to create innovation, to come up with clean, sustainable way of running a business, to face the ecological challenge, not to mention climate change…
He suggested to me that we’d pitch a web documentary to go along with the full length feature he was creating. Goes without saying, I was thrilled.
And on top of that, the client accepted the proposal.
I worked on this for the past spring with DocArt – and enjoyed it tremendously. Delivered it to the client for approval and now, the client gave a green light to show this without limitations.
The Anatomy of Arvokas Metsämme
The work consists of an introduction and 12 articles. All custom coded touch-natively – i.e. not using any ready made canned templates – and thus work on all devices. We used video, lots of aerials, stills, animated graphics, virtual objects, interactive 360°-imagery, etc.
All the tools I have in my toolbox, so to say.
Focusing on different themes, all related to our forests: from biodiversity to biodiesel, wooden furniture and wood architecture to cloth made out of wood, not to mention the health benefits of nature and the benefits we achieve by experiencing it – even virtually.
The core and soul of the whole project is the 90min. documentary Petteri did. I have personally seen it probably ten times — on screen and in a big theatre – and it does not cease to impresses me. There is a trailer in the introduction so you get the feel of it. And if you want to arrange a screening, it can be arranged (there is contact info for this).
Our work challenges the way we are used to seeing our forest industry, looking for new ways to use the biggest natural reserves we have in this country in a way that is sustainable and best for all of us.
We don’t offer all conclusive answers – or pretend that we even know them – but present twelve stories which we believe show that the future as we’d like to see it develop. The biggest industry in this country should not be toilet paper production or just making pulp to produce generic paper, but something totally different.
All the challenges we face — both nationally and globally — speak for the need of change in our thinking. In this matter and in many others. This work should be seen as a conversation opener in this matter.
I think this is the most extensive piece of work I have ever done — maybe the most important as well.
I am very, very happy – and proud – of the result. I learned an enormous amount while working on it myself. It is a body of work which most probably will evolve and be expanded in the future – but it depends naturally on the client.
My sincerest and most humble thanks to Petteri, Antti, Tiina and Sari for the possibility of working on this together.
It was simply an awesome experience.
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