A Week in the San Juans: Crude Truth in Production

After months of research, phone calls, planning, fundraising, and conversations, Beyond the Salish Sea: Crude Truth finally moved from an idea on paper into full production this summer.

Our principal photography took us throughout the San Juan Islands, spending six days on the water, on ferries, along shorelines and in the communities that call the Salish Sea home.

For a film about this place, that mattered.

It would have been easy to make Crude Truth primarily through interviews with scientists, environmental organizations, and experts. Those voices are essential to the film. But from the beginning, we’ve also wanted to capture something harder to explain: what it feels like to live here, and why this place is worth paying attention to in the first place.

Listening to the people who know this place

Over the course of the production, we sat down with people whose relationships with the Salish Sea come from very different directions.

Scientists helped us understand what is happening beneath the surface. Conservationists talked about the work being done to protect habitat and wildlife. People who live and work on the islands shared a perspective that can only come from years of watching the water, weather, and wildlife change around them.

We also talked with people involved in oil-spill prevention and response—an important part of understanding what increased vessel traffic and crude-oil transportation could mean for these waters.

An afternoon spent talking with Josiah French Feld and Erin Corra at Lime Kiln Lighthouse was particularly moving. As the sun set, Josiah told me about his ancestors who have fished this part of STOLȻEȽ (San Juan Island) for many years with reef nets. And Erin Corra, who is with F.O.L.K.S. got very emotional when she spoke of the decreasing Southern Resident Orca population. These are two very special people who care deeply about the Salish Sea.

Those conversations continually reminded us that Crude Truth isn’t simply a film about oil tankers.

It’s a film about risk, place, and what we’re willing to protect and live with.

Letting the Salish Sea speak for itself

We deliberately left room in the production schedule simply to observe.

The San Juan Islands aren’t background scenery in this film. They’re a character.

We filmed from shore and from the water. We followed ferries through the islands. We watched working boats cross channels traveled for generations. We photographed wildlife, beaches, forests, harbors, and the everyday rhythms of island life.

Sometimes the most important thing we could do was stop talking and point the camera.

For one of our pickup days, I hired a private ferry out of Bellingham to take my very small crew, 4 of us, to Vendovi Island. A nature preserve owned by the San Juan Preservation Trust. It was here that I got a real feeling about how precious these islands are. Vendovi is uninhabited except for the caretakers and their 2-year-old daughter. One of the caretakers, Elaina Thompson, executive director of IOSA, the islands’ community oil response organization, gave some particularly insightful information about oil spills in the Salish Sea.

Those moments will provide the breathing room between the larger questions the film asks.

A small crew and a lot of ground to cover

Documentary filmmaking tends to look considerably more peaceful in the finished film than it does while you’re making one.

Our small crew spent the week moving people, cameras, sound equipment, lighting, and cases on and off ferries, into vehicles, onto boats, and across islands—often several times a day.

And inevitably, the schedule changed.

That’s documentary production.

Weather changes. Boats move. People become available—or unavailable. An interview takes you somewhere you hadn’t expected. Occasionally the thing you thought would be important turns out not to be, while something you hadn’t planned becomes essential.

Someone actually put their hands out in front of our lens while we were shooting a training session; an overly aggressive member took it upon themselves to act for the group and halt our filming. It was later smoothed over, just a little miscommunication.

Through it all, our crew stayed remarkably nimble, and we came home with far more than beautiful footage. We came home with a clearer understanding of the film we’re making.

Now comes the hard part

Principal photography doesn’t mean the cameras are finished.

We still have a handful of interviews and pickup shoots ahead, including voices we couldn’t capture during our main production period. But the center of gravity has shifted.

We’re now deep into post-production.

We’re shaping months of interviews, location footage, archival material, and research into a film. And as anyone who has made a documentary knows, this is where you discover what the film actually wants to be.

Some of the ideas we began with have become stronger. Others have changed. Connections we didn’t necessarily see while standing behind the camera are beginning to reveal themselves in the edit.

That’s one of the things I love about documentary filmmaking.

You start with a question.

If you’re paying attention, the people and places you encounter along the way begin changing the question.

What’s next

Over the coming months, we’ll continue editing Beyond the Salish Sea: Crude Truth, complete several additional interviews and pickup shoots, and begin moving toward finishing and eventual release.

We’ll share more from that process here—including some of the people we’ve met, stories behind individual shoots, and glimpses of what happens between principal photography and a finished documentary.

For now, we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who opened a door, offered a boat ride, sat in front of our cameras, shared their expertise, supported the production, or simply pointed us toward the next person we needed to meet.

And we’re grateful to everyone who has helped us get this far.

The cameras may be slowing down for a while. The story isn’t.