The first day, Jim and I met with Pepa Kotlaba to wrap up interview business. We forgot to ask him some more technical questions about electricity. We stopped for some treats at the town’s confectionary, and then met him at his house to get some more B roll of the turbine.

Jim interviewing Pepa

Pepa on the turbine

On the way back to Soběšice, we found a great hill with a church at the top. Climbing was rough, but the view was perfect for shooting.

Ali shooting on the hill. Photo by Jim

Some water we found. Photo by Jim

We decided not to drive the car around to find more shooting opportunities because the brakes weren’t functioning at all. Instead, we returned to Soběšice and found a lake and a sunset that was absolutely beautiful. Soběšice isn’t so bad, but I still think that Horažďovice is way nicer.

Soběšice from our hotel. Photo by Jim

The flowers picked from the lake are used to add a texture for the straw-bale house. Photo by Zuzana Houfkova

Our second time back to Hradcany U tisnova, a little village in Velka Byte, turned quite rewarding. Not only the  beautiful weather offered us some nice lighting to film around, the relaxing talk with construction workers also educated me more about straw-bale houses.

Our later editing procedure proves the old Chinese saying that the negative and the positive are always with each other. Even we got extra great footage from the second time, how to match the tonality with our b-rool from the first time shooting becomes a major concern.

On the way to Hradcany, the gigantic straw stack in the field attracted our attention. Photo by Zuzana Houfkova

I went to a chamber music concert last night. The hall was beautiful and the show was good.

Wind turbines neighbor many homes in the small town of Loucna, which is right on the border with Germany in north-western Czech Republic.

On the first day of this project, I was assigned to do a story on wind energy.  I thought, “It should be easy.”  But then, I realized, when something seems easy, it’s actually more challenging because you don’t want your video to look like every other video that has been done on the same topic.  My partner, Tomas Randa, and I talked to our coach Tom Kennedy and set out to do a story about the pro’s and con’s of wind energy.

Tomas Randa gets down from the top of a wind turbine into the engine room.

My partner and I went to a few different wind parks in the north-western region of the Czech Republic and visited various small towns near by.  It was a challenge finding people.

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From talking to the villagers in the bar, I learned a phrase, “O nás bez nás,” which means “about us, without us.”  Although this phrase refers to WWII, some people used it to explain that governments build turbines for the good of the people without consulting with them.  We then tried to make that our story.

Mr. Fiala and his wife open up their home for an interview on why they don't enjoy the wind turbines in their village.

With the few Czech words I know (my name is; school; report; wind; energy; camera; yes or no) and with my partner’s outgoing personality, luckily, we were able to interview three villagers.  But after I read the transcripts of our interviews, our story changed again. But I’m not going to say what it is.  You’ll find out when you see the final product.

Nikolas and I got back from our second trip to Pilzen a couple of days ago. We visited more cottages and tried really hard not to get caught in the rain and overall I think we were pretty successful. Our first night was ruined due to a monster rainstorm, hail and all. But todays weather in Pilzen was very beautiful. So now we begin putting everything together and soon we will have our finished product!

Nikolas waiting out the pouring rain.

Nikolas and I getting ready to shoot the sunset.

Shooting our last interview.

On Saturday’s late evening, when the city of Prague fell into deep dreaming, tired and exhausted of amusing the american tourists, who come to visit its wonders, our thirst for beer woke up and we agreed to visit one of the czech classic pubs called “Pivnice pod Petřínem”.

We entered quite small room decorated with thousands of small stickies of independent artist and companies shinning like the stars above us, the evening was getting darker and the silence of sleeping city was like a caress for our tired ears.

-small poem to that night

All pictures can be seen here.

Picture of the pub (photo by: Deborah)

We went back to Sobesice for a few days to finish up filming. We got our interviews and a few shots around the village. Below is a picture of the village.

On Monday, Misa and I spent the day in Kněžice, a small village located 80 km north-east from Prague. This was our second visit in which we sought to capture some footage of the village as well as the biomass station situated at one end of the village. Komwag, the company that transports the waste from Prague and neighboring villages, stops by the station Monday through Friday to feed the waste to the machines that will later use it to generate heat and electricity for homes. On our previous visit to Kněžice, we spoke to Mayor Kazda about the energy system and his experience with the installation and results of this innovative technology. It is most definitely a unique project not only in the Czech Republic but also in neighboring countries.

Komwag employees waiting to get to work.

Biomass waiting to be processed at the plant.

Close up of food waiting to be processed.

Washing the bins after dumping the waste into the feeder.

Misa taking the camera into her own hands.

Reading over the transcript.

Two nights ago Nikolas took a bunch of us to walk around Prague at night. We visited the Castle and walked to the St. Vitus Cathedral. It was the most extravagant building I have ever seen. I was in shock at how huge it was and how small we looked taking a photo in front of it. The site was founded in the 10th century and was finally finished in 1929. The construction took 600 years. If you haven’t had a chance to see it you must. And visiting these spots at night is incredible because the lighting is beautiful and there are no crowds at all. I would love to learn more about the history of the Cathedral. And if I had time to make a story about it I definitely would. Too bad it isn’t run by renewable energy.

As for our project, we are finished filming for the most part and are sitting in the lab editing our footage. I feel as though I am learning a lot about the differences of structure between English and Czech. It’s very interesting and a cool learning experience. I can’t wait to see it done and with complete subtitles.