The Project:

POINT OF NO RETURN follows the world’s first ecological refugees, residents of a small pacific island nation (Kiribati) whose days are numbered, as they live their lives knowing their island will soon be unable to sustain life.

The project will utilize modern and emerging web and video technologies in an educational outreach program to youth and adults across the globe. The film will look to immersive environments to create a unique educational experience for visitors within online spaces such as Second Life and Google Earth. We will also create an ongoing photography, video and editing workshop for students and adults in Kiribati so that they can be part of a living oral history archiving project and so that they can share their experiences on a day to day basis with visitors to the film’s website (including micro sites on twitter, vimeo, facebook, myspace, youtube, etc).

Involvement:

I was brought onto the project as the Lead Virtual Environment Engineer and Graphic Designer. I am heavily involved in the creation of a game environment to accompany the documentary and work with the film’s Director to ensure creative and aesthetic ubiquity.

POINT OF NO RETURN reaches beyond the film, and is an ongoing education laboratory that will deal with issues covered in the documentary: global warming, mass migration, segregation, diaspora, prejudice in foreign lands, wildlife and marine life endangerment.

Some ideas we’ll incorporate early on:
* Build a “1:1 scale” version of Kiribati using Unity3D, tracking the water’s rising tide
* Build a virtual reef using Second Life as a tool for education an outreach on the effects of climate change on reef systems
* Institute a photo/video/editing training program to give Kiribati high school students the opportunity to engage in social media (posting videos and blogs to the film’s site, second life, and to facebook and twitter and vimeo etc) which will be staffed year round.
* Build the islands and their current dwellings to scale in Google Earth – tree for tree
* Build an interactive website to connect people on the issues we’ll be covering.
* Partner with multiple schools in the US and Canada, Australia, NZ, UK to give them access to the content we and the youth and adults in Kiribati will be documenting.