EcoFilms 2011 What are we working on?

Posted by Ecofilms on Dec 31, 2010 in In Production | 3 comments

We’re planning a number of exciting new titles to be released in 2011.

Urban Permaculture DVD

One of the complaints we often get from people living in the city is that we focus a little heavily on Permaculture titles that require a large scale farm to get the most benefit from practicing Permaculture.

So we are happy to announce that in 2011 we will be working on the Urban Permaculture DVD with Geoff Lawton.

Actually we really started shooting a lot of footage already that we were going to include in the Permaculture Soils DVD that we completed, but for various logistic reasons we found the segments would work best in a video that focuses in detail on adopting Permaculture techniques in small scale domestic environments.

From courtyards to backyards to places where you thought you could never do anything with, we want to make this DVD a Permaculture techniques DVD where people can be inspired by what is really possible.

Here’s an example of the kind of thing we mean:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1IzCZRfRSo[/youtube]

A sneak preview of Geoff Lawton visiting a beautiful Mandala garden in an urban Permaculture garden. It shows Permculture can be aesthetically pleasing to the eye with a richness of patterns as well as a productive food source.

Along with the Urban Permaculture theme, we’re going to focus on one of the creatures that most Permaculture people can’t live without in their backyard – the humble Chook or Chicken as it’s known to our overseas friends.

Backyard Chickens DVD

If you’ve ever been interested in raising chickens from incubating your own fertile eggs, or raising baby chicks to adult hens and want the details on what breed to choose, meat or egg layers, how many to fit into your suburban backyard, what to feed them, how to house them, how many eggs to expect, and how to cure them if they get sick – then Permaculture Cheese-maker and now Chicken wrangler Elisabeth Fekonia will guide you through the whole process. From building a perfect coop for your backyard or a sleek mobile chicken enclosure, this DVD is going to drill right down in great detail and show you everything you need to know to guarantee success.

We’ll also investigate Permaculture Chickens. Does such a breed exist and why would you want to choose heirloom chicken breeds in the first place? Chickens do in fact make great pets if you manage to handle them and tame them, they end up being very inquisitive birds. You’ll meet some of the people that love them as they share their experiences in raising these fascinating productive animals.

This is an intensive DVD designed to get a newcomer up to speed on keeping chickens in a suburban environment. Even if you’ve never kept a chicken before and are curious to start from scratch, you’ll get a lot out of this title as we will cram a lot of helpful knowledge, practical tips, lessons and fun things on owning your own small flock of birds for egg laying purposes and err…meat processing. We’ll even show you how to pluck them and carve them -if you’re game enough to watch.

DIY Aquapoics DVD

Then there’s the DIY Aquaponics DVD thats been already announced elsewhere. Murray Hallam is eager to get this one out around February so check back here regularly to see what little clips and tips and short You Tube video’s we’ll continually add and blog and share with you.

We’ve enjoyed working with Murray and Geoff and Elisabeth over this last year. Its always been a pleasant and creative experience. Its never been tense or difficult. The odd thing is that we as filmmakers have learnt so much working with these creative and inspiring teachers that it kind of rubs off on you. We had no intention of getting into Aquaponics but when we saw how well it all worked -we were hooked. With Geoff, we have a modest sized food forest system planted where our front lawn should have been and now we also have four free ranging chickens digging holes in our backyard as well!  That’s the side benefit you get making films with these crazy Permaculture people – you end up with a lot more knowledge than you began with.

Oh, its not too late to add your thoughts and tell us what you’d like to see covered in any of these films, except the DIY Aquaponics video as its pretty well locked in and complete.

So ends 2010.