Student documentary dives into climate change and wildfire
By Lauren Irwin
Photo听by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm'18)
Media Production student Jay Hager has two specific interests, filmmaking and climate change. For his media production capstone course, he finally was able to combine them.听
Growing up in Colorado, Hager knows the state鈥檚 history with wildfires. He also knows climate change effects are becoming more visible in the Rocky Mountains and across the Front Range. In the first months of 2022 alone, Boulder County residents were shocked to see wildfires crop up in developed areas, like the Marshall Fire which destroyed more than a thousand homes.听
Hager wanted to better understand and explain the effects of wildfires in his home state. So he created a documentary film, entitled Combustion.听
鈥淥ne of the things that I'm super interested in is climate change,鈥� Hager said. 鈥淟iving in Colorado my whole life, wildfires have certainly been a huge part of our environment, and kind of just an example of how climate change is impacting [us] here.鈥�
Over the summer, Hager worked at , a film production company, helping with various advertisements and commercials. Using the knowledge he gained working there, Hager turned his attention to his senior capstone project.听
Combustion, released fall 2021, uses local and national news clips, alongside outdoor b-roll footage, to conceptualize issues presented in interviews with environmental experts and researchers at CU Boulder.
Hager鈥檚 climate-centered documentary dives into the effects of Colorado wildfires and what solutions must be pursued to protect our landscapes. He speaks with local experts about what we can do to confront the increasing number of wildfires in the Centennial state.听听They say weather and human-generated effects have caused droughts across the country, which can lead to more drastic natural disasters. Because of climate change, fires can be worse and more frequent. These climate-fueled fires are hurting potable water, requiring water decontamination efforts and causing respiratory issues through smoke, dust and ash inhalation鈥攁ctual effects that people can see.
His interview subjects say we must act sooner rather than later.听
鈥淥ne of the things I鈥檓 also super interested in is climate change. Living in Colorado my whole life, wildfires have certainly been a huge part of our environment and just an example of how climate change is impacting here.
听What got you interested in this topic?
Well, it was for a class I had at CU. It was for my capstone for my major, which was media production. Over the past summer, I had worked at this production company, Colorado Arts Productions, and I really liked filmmaking. It sparked my interest in it.
听What was your most important takeaway from working on this project?
The most important takeaway would be that these fires are only going to get worse, and they鈥檙e not going to stop unless we do something to change [our actions]. These [climate] issues that we鈥檝e been going through, it might not just come in the form of wildfires. Our climate is not built to handle these [extreme weather] scenarios this often. We really need to act now in order to make real change. This problem won鈥檛 go away with time鈥攊t needs real solutions.听
听Do you have plans to make more documentaries?听
I would love to one day become a documentarian. I would love to do this professionally; that鈥檚 a little easier said than done. I would love to travel, interview people, hear their stories and make videos that people would find interesting. That鈥檚 my goal鈥攈opefully I am doing something at least in a creative space.