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A time of harvest: Greenacres documentary project begins post-production as 2024 agricultural cycle concludes
Instructor of Film & New Media Nathan Buck shares highlights of the summer and fall—from filming in three states to welcoming a new team member.
Humans are deeply attuned to the changing seasons and their effects on the natural world. It’s a harmonious cycle of dormancy, rebirth, growth, and harvest—and a logical yet symbolic cadence for creating a documentary about regenerative agriculture.
“Our production plan was always to follow an agricultural cycle for a full calendar year,” says Nathan Buck, an Instructor of Film & New Media who is co-directing the Greenacres documentary project with Claire Collins. “We started shooting in January 2024, and our plan was to shoot through the end of this year.”
The film—which is being produced in partnership with the Ohio-based Greenacres Foundation—began production as farmers planted the first seeds of the 2024 growing season. Now, as we celebrate the harvest, the Greenacres team is preparing for the next stage in the documentary’s own life cycle.
We caught up with Buck to learn more about what the Greenacres team has accomplished since our last update—and what’s in store for the next semester.
Capturing the growing cycle in Michigan and beyond
While students returned to their homes for summer break, the Greenacres team’s faculty collaborators kept working to capture the most significant part of the agricultural cycle.
“We continued the project over the summer out of necessity: Summer is the prime growing season for agriculture,” Buck says. “For many of our participants, this is the most involved moment.”
The team’s first focus for the summer was keeping up with regional participants—including Indigenous partners, farmers, and Interlochen’s sustainability team. One of the project’s student members, who lives in the Grand Traverse area, joined faculty for several of their local projects.
Beyond northern Michigan, the Greenacres faculty also checked in with two of the film’s other student collaborators. The visits were more than social calls: Students’ efforts to learn more about regenerative agriculture have become a focal point of the documentary.
“As we slowly developed the case for the film back in April, we decided that we really wanted the film to be by, for, and about these students,” Buck says. “This film is being put together in a really unique way. The faculty have a dual role as teachers and filmmakers. But at the same time, we’re taking a step back and trying to have these students front and center—both in front of the camera and in shaping and driving the film.”
Collins traveled to Sacramento, California to spend a few days with Creative Writing student Iliana. During their visit, Collins followed Iliana as she spent time with her family and interviewed a farmer who supplies food to local schools.
The team also visited Film & New Media student Cooper, who lives in an agricultural community near Atlanta, Georgia.
“[Cooper’s community] is an interesting concept,” Buck says. “We were able to meet with the founder of the community to learn more about the philosophy of integrating agriculture with community.”
The start of the fall semester aligned with another important moment of the growing cycle: harvest.
“The early fall was a busy time for us—both in terms of students coming back to campus and in terms of the agricultural cycle,” Buck says. “We took a lot of field trips to visit our Indigenous partners. We also visited a farmer who was conducting a burn to create an agricultural input called biochar; our students even got to participate in the burn.”
Finding and refining the story
As this year’s agricultural cycle concludes, the Greenacres team is turning their attention to the post-production process.
Award-winning film editor and motion graphics designer Elizabeth Kaiser joined the Greenacres team in August as the film’s editor. While the rest of the team wraps up production, Kaiser has been cataloging the material gathered over the course of the 2024 growing season.
“We have something like 140 hours of footage now,” Buck says. “Liz has been working brilliantly to bring together all of that footage and organize it so we can tackle the editing phase.”
The documentary’s faculty collaborators are also leading conversations about the film’s narrative.
“We’re currently working on finding the story within the material that we have and slowly refining it,” Buck says. “One thing we’re focusing on is finding 15 to 20 key scenes and using those as ‘islands’ around which to build out the full story. Claire, Liz, and I have been collaborating closely as we debate, discuss, push, and pull on how we’re shaping all of this material into a story.”
Students have also been involved in the process of defining the film’s story—which has provided opportunities to learn about the elements of storytelling.
“One of the ways we’re encouraging student buy-in is to have them really think about story structure,” Buck says. “What is the inciting incident? What’s the hook? What’s the first-act climax? What is the midpoint of the movie? Who is the protagonist? All of these generic story ideas are applicable to any film; we’re applying those same paradigms and templates to this project.”
While there’s still a long post-production stage ahead of them, Buck is impressed by how far the Greenacres team has come.
“It's been an amazing journey,” he says. “Considering where we were just over a year ago—when we were first grappling with this idea—and where we are now, we’ve really deepened our understanding of regenerative agriculture.”