In fall of 2015 I was approached by a litigator that I'd done some branding work for. He had taken on a wrongful death case about three teenage environmentalists who had been killed in a plane crash while on a high school trip. He wanted me to head down to Silver City in Southern New Mexico and capture some interviews of their parents that could be used in a settlement conference. It seemed like a routine assignment. Little did I know that I was headed into an almost 10 year odyssey to tell the story of these amazing young people, their grieving families and the pristine desert river they'd been working to save.
I spent two days with the parents of the kids capturing heart-rending interviews thick with fresh grief but also full of celebration of Ella, Micheal and Ella's legacies. One of the Ella's had recently received advance admittance to the Chicago Art Institute (as a sophomore.) The other had collected 5000 signatures to stop the damming of the Gila River, one of the last pristine watersheds in America. Michael had been his student body president leading a team of eco-monitors working on the river. After my two days with these parents I had enough interview material for three feature films.
The three had lived at a pace that almost presaged their early deaths. They packed more into their short years than many adults do into their entire lives.
I proposed to the parents a concept that was forming in my mind. We would take the mothers on a five day journey through the wilderness on the wild Gila River. We would become closer to the lives of Ella, Michael and Ella by traversing the river they so loved. It would be a journey through grief towards solace.
The technical challenges were immense. The river could only be run at times of high rain which are very unpredictable so we had to have a production crew standing by, ready to go on a moment's notice. Then there was the question of powering 3 RED Epic cameras, a Movi Pro gimbal rig, a professional drone and data wrangling gear solely from batteries that we carried with us. Once you enter the canyons of the Gila Wilderness there is no connection to the outside world save GPS and satellite comms. We designed wheel chair battery rigs that ran in series off of Yeti heads and built everything into waterproof pelican cases. We then designed the low-water catamarans around the pelican case dimensions. With these mobile production rigs our camera PA could offload cards and charge V-locks at camp. It was a once-in-a lifetime journey, but I've made it about 5 times now including scouts, 2 filming runs, pickup shoots and one backpacking (with camera gear) journey covering half of the 45-mile route on foot. To say it's been a labor of love would only be scratching the surface.
We anticipate releasing the feature in 2024, the 10 year anniversary of Michael, Ella and Ella's death.
