So, (I realized recently that I start a lot of my writings with “so”) my documentary path has taken me to Maine to follow the story of the Maine Lobster fishing industry and how climate change and global warming is effecting the lobsterman, their families, the economy as well as talking to members of the Citizen’s Climate Lobby (these folks are rockstars) about the actual boots on the ground of doing and getting things done regarding the effects of climate change.
My travels took me to the island of Vinalhaven. The single largest fleet of lobster boasts in Maine comes out of Vinalhaven. Lobstering is the way of life here and has been going back to the 1800’s. You would think that coming here would have been a jackpot for telling the human story I am trying to tell and normally you would be right. But unfortunately it was a jackpot for someone else and not in a good way.
To make a long and horrific story short, A reporter who shall not be named spent the summer with the folks of Vinalhaven a few years ago promising a documentary type story about the hard working lobstermen of Vinalhaven, What she delivered was a hatchet piece insulting the town, calling them drug addicts and hooligans, and money hungry. Making them out to look like what she wanted for her story and not what they really are. She won an award for the bullshit she published. The end result is that the good people of Vinalhaven are now very wary of talking to any outsiders and particularly documentary filmmakers meaning me. I get it, and I can’t blame them. I got a lot of good info - not as much as I wanted - off the record which I will include in the film, as well as tons of beautiful B-Roll as the town is stunning. That will have to suffice for Vinalhaven’s part in the film as that is all I got and I have a low life, propaganda writing, disgraceful yellow journalist to thank for that.
So Thank You P.O. low life extraordinaire.