Furthering on from the history element to Riparian – this week also saw the completion of the Ecology and Educational relationships of the river. Thanks to Clinton Devon Estates, Sam – Head of Wildlife & Conservation and Kate – Countryside Learning Officer, both agreed to do separate stories for Riparian.

Both audio recordings were made at the Estate offices and proved a challenge in that it was a working environment. However, they have come out well.

Sam focuses on the developments of the ecological and conservational themes of the river. His Story is one of evolution and demonstrates how the river and its natural ecosystems have evolved.

Visually I had to find ways to represent this and decided that landscape visuals of the river itself would be most relevant, especially to the audience viewing the work. Sam makes several references to the valley and local area, so it seems fitting that such visuals are used. Sam’s Story can be seen below:

Kate’s story, on the other hand, was focused more closely with the river and its ability to educate and inform local people. Kate’s focus is to show how the local environment and ecology can be an exciting and expressive space and that it is also full of wildlife that often goes unseen.

Kate tells a very emotive account of her work and her passion for the local environment. Visually I saw this close focus as a mirror to Sam’s story and therefore decided to create underwater scenes to go with Kates piece.

This brings the focus of the story into a more fluid, emotive view as Kate is often working with young people – whos own imaginations and energy can create whole scenes with little effort.

I felt that the energy of the underwater view of the river matched the energy of her work and the resulting inspiration it entails.

I am happy with these productions for Riparian as they feel like they have the right balance of visual and audio narrative and are a reasonable length in time. I also feel that both subjects are very relevant and revealing and would be enjoyed by a local audience.

I am having, however, a hard time quantifying some of the stories and how they fit together. There are natural collaborations within the work that I can identify, such as with History, Ecology and Education. However, how these interlink with more emotive stories such as Rosie’s and Charlie’s is still not clear to me.