Introduction to Permaculture Design DVD
The Introduction to Permaculture Design DVD has finally been pressed and printed and will be dispatched to all pre-orders from Zaytuna Farm (base camp for PRI headquarters here in Australia) on Wednesday September 30. We said we’d do a September release and we meant it, and even made it – just!! A big thank you to all the many people who had faith in us but were wondering what happened to their pre-order. It is on its way!
We spoke with Frank Gapinski, the producer – who recorded and spent countless hours fine tuning and preparing this release – to find out a little more about this important DVD:
When we first approached Geoff Lawton about the possibility of presenting a condensed version of the big 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate Course, which normally takes two weeks of intense study, suggesting we somehow squeeze it down to an 80-minute introduction course, Geoff said nothing for a moment, then thought about it some more, and then quietly said, “Yep. I think I can do that.”
That was a bit of an understatement. I don’t think we knew what we were getting ourselves in for, especially if you want to leave the classroom environment and yet still make the video visually compelling and present it in a fresh and interesting way.
It proved to be a bigger challenge and probably the hardest DVD title we had to make so far because the Permaculture Course is very complex for anyone really to understand in an hour and bit.
Obviously we couldn’t show the whole course in 80 minutes. It would be impossible to achieve. We didn’t do that. We had to be selective and reveal the main themes of the Permaculture Design Manual, stay faithful to Bill Mollison’s original vision, but illustrate the broad themes and concepts with tangible examples so people would say “Oh, I understand what he’s saying now. I can see how it all fits together.” It’s those little aspects that make it interesting and unique.
I did a PDC course a few years ago, but it wasn’t until we began editing this title that many things began to make sense. They began to click for me. It was like being introduced to the PDC for the first time. I wish someone had made this DVD many years ago as Geoff is a terrific teacher.
Geoff explains the theory and then he shows us an example to support the claim. Permaculture Design is about activating the mechanism in the viewer’s mind to look at the world differently. The way a Permaculture Designer would look at it. The world needs such people today. Geoff doesn’t work to a script. He knows the material so well that if you ask him to do a different take for the camera you will get a different interpretation which is just fine – because it all interconnects.
Geoff screened an early cut of the DVD to students for feedback. The response was terrific. We listened to their comments and added extra graphics and changed a few things around to make it more accessible but not simplistic. This DVD will reward you if you look at it a few times. You will suddenly see new aspects to things you didn’t notice before.
Thank you Frank for all your work!! I’ve seen a little of the early edits myself, and so am looking forward to getting my own copy in the next few days too.
The good news is that Permaculture has reached mainstream media as the world grapples with climate change and a myriad converging problems, and begins looking for people who have solid solutions. For example, last week American CNN Television flew to Zaytuna Farm to interview Geoff Lawton for a new documentary series they are producing called ‘Eco Pioneers’, to be screened later in the year. (Look out for it.) People are hungry for answers – people are really beginning to see what’s coming, and they’re searching for a way out of this mess. Material like this DVD, which takes critical knowledge and concepts and boils it down into viral sound bites for a multimedia-oriented world, can only but help fill the void.
We put the Introduction to Permaculture Design out there, trusting it will help jumpstart the urgently needed transition into a post-carbon world.
by Craig Mackintosh
Recent Comments