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Subject/Author/Narrator Andri Snaer Magnason & Director Sara Dosa talk to The Inside Reel about the face of climate change, authentic voice and visual storytelling in regards to their new documentary based on Magnason's book: "Time And Water" from National Geographic Films.

#TimeAndWater #ClimateHumanity #DocumentaryFilm #AndriSnaerMagnason
Transcript
00:11I'm not ready to say goodbye.
00:18I cannot send you a glacier.
00:23But at least I can send you this.
00:31Because obviously the book, there's a certain writing, a certain voice, obviously, you know, with the audio book and doing
00:38stuff like that, it's a different thing.
00:40Doing it as narration is against visuals is a completely different thing.
00:44Because you talk about because there's such joy we can see, but then the loss, the sadness of, you know,
00:51because like once we lose, you know, the glaciers, they're not going to come back, you know.
00:57But once we lose our family, like if you just listen to a voicemail of a family member that's died,
01:02there's something so heartbreaking in that sometimes and yet so joyful.
01:06That was quite collaborative in the way that they would be sending me, you know, they would, of course, compile
01:14this visual arc.
01:17And I would maybe, you know, try to, you know, point that, you know, if tweaks or things that I
01:28might want to put into it.
01:30And then, of course, the voice comes in and we are, so it's, and they would kind of ask me,
01:40like, you know, would you be good of saying this here?
01:43Sure.
01:44And because, of course, like, as I say, I surrender my material and also a bit of my persona, that
01:51is, I offer myself to be like a character.
01:55So I had to, I had to, like, say, could I throw in a joke or two or, you know,
02:01just could I, could I loosen that up a bit?
02:05And, or I would say, like, I would, I can remember I felt this, but I would, I would put
02:11it in different words.
02:12So I would send them a version of the words and, yeah, so, and then to perform it first, we
02:21did it like in a studio and I was trying to be very professional and, and, and contain all of
02:27the words and, you know, like do it in a proper way.
02:31And, and that didn't really work.
02:33It didn't work until, like, Sarah and Shane and, and Aaron, one of the directors and the sound man, they
02:43were, we were all in the same room.
02:45And I just told them, like, everybody give me attention, watch me, and I'm going to tell you something really
02:53important.
02:54And as soon as their eyes were lost, I was like, watch me, I am telling you a very important
03:00story here.
03:00So, so, so that's, that's how we found it.
03:16I want you to see how our lives move in rhymes.
03:24Funerals live in sunsets.
03:32Birthdays and sunrises.
03:39Sarah, because that's almost like campfire.
03:41That's oral history.
03:43You know, that's the thing that, you know, that's the great thing that documentaries can do is it can have
03:48that sort of vision and not placed in a time.
03:51This is of a time.
03:52But can you talk about that?
03:54Because that's tonality, too.
03:56Yeah, it was really important, of course, that, that the narration felt true to André.
04:01And as he said, it was a character also of André.
04:04It's kind of, we called it speculative André.
04:06It's himself in an epistolary relationship.
04:09Writing is essentially letters to hypothetical descendants who he will never meet.
04:14And so that kind of framework really guided our approach to the writing.
04:17And we began, as André said, it was a very iterative process of always working with the edit, of making
04:24sure that the words kind of match the rhythms and flows of the edit itself and felt true to André.
04:30So I felt like we were always kind of like dancing with each other in the process to make sure
04:34it had that, that feel and flow as well as truth of André's experience.
04:41And yeah, as you use the word campfire, it was essential that the voice of the narration felt situated in
04:48the present moment, speaking to the future and to create that.
04:53And also, again, to make it feel most like André, we did, we decamped to his, his, this room in
05:00his house to, it really had like a clubhouse kind of feel.
05:03And we were like really trying to create this space where that intimacy of his voice could come through.
05:10It was really fun.
05:11It was very, it was long hours.
05:13Like we got weird, but in like the best way that reminded me of like art school or something like
05:19where we were really trying to like, yeah, work with André's experience, call in his grandparents, call in future generations
05:27to create that feel of relationship that would hopefully translate to an audience.
05:34So from the writing itself to then the actual performing of the narration, I feel like there are these through
05:40lines, but it all kind of came back to kind of collaboration, a sense of play and trying to create
05:46emotional accessibility for a story that can feel so opaque.
05:51Like, you know, a story about the climate crisis, rather a topic that can feel so opaque.
05:57Weddings live in fellow creatures.
06:06Our summer migrations live in streams.
06:14Harvests in the floodplains.
06:19All this time, nature keeps records all around us.
06:26In these cycles of time and water, I feel a direct connection to all ancestors
06:32and to all descendants.
06:37It's existential.
06:38I mean, not to put, you know, it's existential, it's educational, but the aspect of generational, the fact that, you
06:44know, our grandparents are our children in some ways.
06:48You know, you can see their awe that they had like your grandparents for the glaciers that they saw, but
06:54down to your daughter and how she sees the world.
06:58Two different ideas.
06:59We spoke quite a lot about this, exactly like how much information should be in it, or like how much
07:07of the educational aspect should be there.
07:12Which, of course, has much more space when it comes to the book.
07:15And sometimes when you put things like that into it, it almost becomes like product placement.
07:24It becomes like, in a good way, of course, but still it becomes awkward that you're squeezing something in that
07:32maybe doesn't come naturally.
07:35And in a strange way, it was like the plaque became like an alibi because the plaque says this monument
07:42is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done.
07:46And so I think the audience doesn't have to be done, they come like naive children to the film and
07:54have never heard of the topic before.
07:56And if they have never heard of it before, then they have a so-called internet to look it up,
08:02like if they need deeper information.
08:05So that alibi was kind of freeing us a bit, and I was also a bit conflicted because I was
08:12like, okay, the world is burning, but let's talk a bit more about me.
08:18So I felt almost inappropriate to put my persona in the way of the important information.
08:49It's about our home.
09:14But I think the big emotional thing that we wanted to establish is kind of the same intention as in
09:24the book.
09:24So the idea is that when a scientist says 2050, 2090, 2100, we don't feel anything because that is occupied
09:34by inner imaginative culture.
09:37It's occupied by Hunger Games, Blade Runner, Mad Max.
09:42So it's kind of dystopia anyway.
09:44So why should I be surprised if a scientist talks about all hell breaking loose somewhere up in the 2100s?
09:51So to establish a meaningful place with 2100, we create this scene of pancake sci-fi where my grandmother and
10:04my daughter sit together and have pancakes and calculate when my daughter becomes as old as grandmother.
10:11And eventually she would be maybe sitting in the same kitchen, fully loaded of life and experience and hopefully having
10:19pancakes with somebody that will remember that moment up into the year 2170 maybe.
10:28So I think we're trying to establish more like emotional spaces or kind of translating data to soul or something
10:42rather than to drive in too much info.
10:46And also the culprits.
10:47We don't say so much about oil companies or politicians or stuff like that.
10:54In the chaos rose Auðhumla, a cow made of frost and snow.
11:05From her body came hundreds of glaciers
11:11That carved mountains and valleys
11:19From her udders ran four rivers that nourished the world
11:29Her eyes made a home here in Iceland
11:32And Iceland became a home for all of us
11:36I think for me and my team we were so moved again by the intimacy of one family story in
11:44one country
11:44And that being kind of the focus of the film to invite people to feel it for themselves
11:50To think about their own families, their own homelands, what might be lost themselves
11:54So that kind of emphasis of like what we love and what there still is to fight for
12:01What still remains was of the utmost importance to us
12:04And really kind of sculpted the approach to the film as being kind of this family story
12:09That is at once hopefully quite expansive
12:11It can show us how glaciers in Iceland are connected to the water systems all around the world
12:19So, yeah, there's a lot more I could say about my hope for the message of the film
12:24But maybe I'll just leave it at that time
12:33My sense of home is slipping away
12:42If you'll get to know closely with you
12:48I'll just ask you to know, thank you
12:52And as I want to look out, my friends are coming together
12:59I
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