Making a mini-documentary with Austin Smock

This summer, independent filmmaker Austin Smock contacted me out of the blue. Austin explained that he’s relatively new to Salt Lake City, and looking to build connections by creating mini-documentaries about local people and issues. He had seen my photography and my Great Salt Lake conservation work, and also happened to have a nice lens rented for the weekend and wondered if I would be interested in filming?

Since I love it best when things just drop into my lap, of course I said yes. A couple days later, Austin arrived at my house with a full film setup. We chatted about Great Salt Lake while Austin arranged lights and reflectors all over my living room and tried out a few different angles. Then we sat down for an interview, where Austin asked questions and recorded the voiceover snippets that you hear in the documentary.

That afternoon we went out for a shoot at Great Salt Lake, the smelliest, muddiest, birdiest place in Utah. It was hard for me to be in front of the camera for a change. I’m not accustomed to being filmed (we might even say it’s not my strong point), but Austin was a total pro and made it easy for me.

Seeing Great Salt Lake in that place and time, however, was not easy. First we spent some time trekking across the exposed lakebed. This was in the 100F heat of July, and the lake was every day smashing records for low water elevation. I had just spent the morning telling Austin why Great Salt Lake is so magical, why I keep returning. But that afternoon, wandering about the stinking wreckage of a dying lake, it was not magical. I felt that we were like ants on a carcass, trying to reconstruct a vision of the living beast by crawling along its stinking bones.

As the light started to soften, we abandoned the oozing lakebed and drove to one of the remaining marshy areas, which was absolutely packed with shorebirds on the leading wave of fall migration. I was a little bit concerned about getting in full mud mode with a film camera trailing along, but the birds were surprisingly tolerant of us, and eventually they accepted us as part of the landscape, as shorebirds sometimes do. At some point, I forgot all about the filming and the existential dread of a dying lake and just went to work, enjoying the birds and the beauty still thriving in those remnant puddles. It still feels like a miracle to be eye-level and face to face with a tiny creature in its own element, plucking bugs off the water, looking out for raptors, breathing, flying, hoping, living.

There were two more short filming sessions. I had applied to fly over Great Salt Lake in a small plane with the aviation conservation organization EcoFlight, and Austin arranged for another filmmaker, Asher Brown, to film the flight. We did another session out by The Great SaltAir, a bizarre event center on the South shore of the lake next to I-80. There were no birds to be found that evening but there was water, and even under the shadow of the US Magnesium smokestack and amongst the detritus of a century’s worth of ruined resorts, the rare magic of Great Salt Lake shines through. Austin filmed the beautiful water scenes there.

A few weeks (and I’m sure a ton of editing work) later, we have this little film. It’s a beautiful work by Austin, and I feel very proud to have been involved. I hope you enjoy it!

Please direct inquiries to Austin Smock https://www.smockaustin.com/.