The Boundary Waters, Minnesota

As part of an ongoing project with The Conservation Alliance, we visited Ely, Minnesota to film the stunning Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area and interview conservation and business leaders who have joined forces to fend off a potentially devastating copper mine. We got here just after the leaves had turned and luckily caught the two sunny days between rain and snow. Thank you Becky, Steve, and Joseph for sharing your stories with us!

Sacramento Goes Greener

We teamed up with the City of Sacramento and Circlepoint to help teach Sacramento residents how to use the new green recycling program, looking at everything from wrapping paper to dog poop! We worked directly with the team at the city to deliver their message on video. We had a great time collaborating with them and Circlepoint to create this educational video series!

Disappearing Billboard

Climate change is decimating our kelp forests, an essential and often overlooked coastal ecosystem. To bring awareness to the issue, Bank of the West partnered with Sustainable Surf and artist Andres Amador to create a massive sand mural at Dillon Beach. The dramatic “disappearing billboard” washed away the day it was made and left no trace. We took on post-production for these videos and included our own original kelp forest footage.

Manure => clean energy

Our latest video and its accompanying article has been rolled out on Bank of the West’s Means and Matters, a site dedicated to finance and sustainability. The project’s goal is to get dairy farmers interested in using methane digesters to offset their energy costs, create power for electric vehicles, and fight climate change. Using Bar 20 Dairy in the Central Valley as an example, the video encourages dairy farmers to get on the methane digester train by partnering with Bank of the West and BMW.

Catching Up With John McEnroe

We had an amazing time interviewing John McEnroe during the BNP Parabis Open tennis tournament! In partnership with Bank of the West, we produced a series of videos with McEnroe discussing gender equity, the pressure on young athletes today, and how he sees his former, 1980’s big-haired self.

We also got to speak with several other tennis stars off the court alongside a vibrant living wall and managed to avoid getting sunburned in the desert sun of Palm Springs!

Better Place Forests

Last year a couple lost their son in a tragic accident. Instead of a traditional cemetery, they chose to work with Better Place Forests to find him a final resting place. They located the perfect spot at the base of a tree with a view of a valley and mountain beyond and had a ceremony there with their loved ones where they told stories, held each other, and remembered their son. We worked closely with the bereaved couple, editor Eva Brzeski, and BPF’s Creative Director Lindy Kae Patterson to create a piece about the couple’s powerful experience. See our video Remembering Andre: A Forest Memorial in Flagstaff as featured in Forbes magazine.

Conservation Alliance Award

We just received the great news that The Conservation Alliance gave Bank of the West the Outstanding Partnership Award for our series of short films Guardians of the Owyhee! The series, which tells the story of the movement to protect the Owyhee Canyonlands, screened at Oregon’s Wild and Scenic Film Festival last October.

Here's Conservation Alliance’s full news article and the related press release.

EXPLAIN IT LIKE I'M 5

We collaborated with LA-based Third Shift Creative on a series social videos for Bank of the West that explains the economy in simple terms. As co-producers on the project, we combined our talents and crews to make a truly unique product. From casting the little ones to helping them and their parents find the makeup room on set, the young actors were a delight to work with.

Special thanks to Cynthia at Church of All Faiths for providing us with everything we needed (and more!) to create a classroom using their historic space, Bridget Bruce for her creative set design, Kadidja Sallak for her smart styling and easy way with kids, Susan Gill for being a stellar set teacher, and Covid Compliance Officer Blair Hunt for helping us all stay safe.

North Beach's famous fudge shop

In collaboration with the owner Mike Zwiefelhofer, we created six videos about his artisanal candy shop, Z. Cioccolato, and its famous fudge. We made sure the footage was as mouth-watering as possible and worked with Mike to distill the story of the shop and illuminate his creative process. Needless to say, we are now fudge fans. As the holiday season approaches, we hope these videos will entice others to try and gift Z. Cioccolato’s delicious specialty.

LIFE ElderCare Tutorial Series

Treat our elders with dignity and respect. That’s the main lesson of all the training videos we’ve made for LIFE ElderCare, whether they teach Meals on Wheels protocol or LGBTQ sensitivity. These latest videos for student nurses and general volunteers could not have been made without the expertise and dedication of our crew and cast. Special thanks to Director/Producer Ephi Stempler and actress Mica Daniel, who always knows how to hold down a scene.

Guardians of the Owyhee

Endless rolling golden hills, expansive plains, deep rugged canyons, snow-dusted mountains and jagged spires of reddish rock – the Owyhee Canyonlands in Southeastern Oregon is wild, vast, and heartbreakingly beautiful. It is also increasingly under threat as development, overpopulation, mining interests, wildfire, and drought put pressure on the landscape. Luckily, it has many fierce defenders. In 2019 an unlikely coalition of tribal leaders, hunters, recreationists, ranchers, environmentalists, business owners, Republicans and Democrats came together to craft the Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act (S.2828). Soon Senator Wyden will introduce the bill in Congress in the hopes that the Owyhee will finally get the federal protection it deserves.

In May we spent a week in the Owyhee interviewing members of this coalition. The six videos that came out of this project will be used by various groups to promote the bill and Guardians of the Owyhee will be screened at Oregon’s Wild and Scenic Film Festival in October. The videos can be found alongside an accompanying article in Means and Matters, Bank of the West’s online publication about finance and sustainability. Thanks to all the people who let us into their lives and shared their passion for the Owyhee!

Protecting the Ruby Mountains

A local group of activists, Native Americans, ranchers and business leaders are all coming together to try and preserve the Ruby Mountains in Nevada, one of the most beautiful and hidden places in the West. We produced a series of videos for Bank of the West that highlighted these efforts and showcased the breathtaking landscape there.

Our crew spent several days over the summer in Elko, Nevada, close to the base of the mountains, where we got to meet and interview key people involved in these efforts. Through their generosity and stories, and our collaboration with Bank of the West, we were able to put together a series that we are truly proud of.

A bill that would protect the range from oil and gas development will be advancing to the Senate for consideration, where we hope to see the efforts of this coalition create permanent protection of this amazing land.

Back in person for the Women's Build!

After a long break from in-person volunteer events, Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley hosted the annual Women’s Leadership Build! The Oakland warehouse was filled with laughter, talking and hammering as old friends reunited and new volunteers joined the crew. At the end, the walls were all framed up for the upcoming Esperanza Place development in Walnut Creek. Glad to see Habitat putting on this event again to celebrate women’s leadership.