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MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Plastic is Fantastic – Teaser

Jan Vozenilek — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 05:24:04 +0000

Coming soon… Chris and Victoria enjoy the wonders of a plastic lifestyle in their makeshift house on Midway Atoll.

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Junk Food III – Looking into the Mirror

Chris Jordan — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:36:51 +0000

Chris Jordan peels back the ribcage of a decaying albatross chick to reveal yet another belly-cargo of plastic. The ever present bottle cap is joined by a ballpoint pen cap, fishing float, and other assorted plastic junk from the human world that albatrosses forage from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, mistaking it for food.

Video by Jan Vozenilek
Written by Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Junk Food II : Our First Dissection

Victoria Sloan Jordan — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:55:26 +0000

Stomach contents of another dead baby albatross are revealed as Chris Jordan cuts the bird open with scissors from a dissection kit provided by US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Filmed by Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Midway Brushstrokes III

Jan Vozenilek — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:20:09 +0000

Young Laysan Albatrosses look wizened and world-weary in their grizzled down, but they have only just begun to test their wings on the wind and water, and the success of their journey remains uncertain.

Jan Vozenilek captures the presence and vulnerability of the fledgling birds of Midway in this next installment of his Brushstrokes vignettes.

Filmed and edited by: Jan Vozenilek
Written by: Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by: Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Junk Food

Jan Vozenilek — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:22:41 +0000

Brace yourself for this short video of the horrifying contents of the stomach of a dead baby albatross on Midway Atoll.

The island will soon be covered with tens of thousands of carcasses like this, as the plastic-filled birds die from starvation, dehydration, and choking.

Video by: Jan Vozenilek

Music by: Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – First Impressions

Chris Jordan — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 10:38:21 +0000

Dear Friends and Followers of Midway Journey,

Thank you for your patience as we have taken a few days to find our bearings and connect to the Internet. We are astonished and delighted to find ourselves back here again on remote Midway Atoll. The tiny island is now covered with several hundred thousand fledgling albatrosses inhabiting the paths, walkways, roads, meadows, and even the runway.

It’s hard to describe the complex mixture of feelings that arise in the presence of this incredible abundance of wildlife, especially as we are keenly aware of the devastating effects of the plastic that fills the stomachs of a huge percentage of these young birds. One purpose of this leg of our journey is to witness their annual die-off, which will result in thousands of plastic-filled carcasses covering the ground as we saw when we visited here last September.

We’ve already begun to acquaint ourselves with the new stories that this chapter of our journey holds, and we look forward to sharing them with you over the next couple of weeks. Thank you for joining us in this process.

With warm regards from Midway Atoll,

Chris, Victoria, Jan & Joe

Video by: Jan Vozenilek Vimeo.com/JanVozenilek

Music by: Christen Lien itsnotaviolin.com

See the area where this video was filmed on BlooSee’s satellite imagery.

A visit to Cortes Island

Jan Vozenilek — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:44:07 +0000

A walk on the shores of the remote and wild Canadian island of Cortes illustrates that plastic is polluting even the most remote and beautiful corners of our planet.

Midway Journey members Chris Jordan, Manuel Maqueda, Jan Vozenilek and Bill Weaver reunited in May 2010 to attend the Media that Matters conference in Hollyhock, Cortes Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Music by Christen Lien

Video by Jan Vozenilek

Midway Brushstrokes 2

Manuel Maqueda — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:29:57 +0000

In the midst of the tragedy of plastic pollution on Midway, Jan Vozenilek’s camera tuns, for an instant, to the triumph of life over decay.

During our journey, Jan would occasionally steal away from the group, and wander alone in the island with his camera. The rest of us would wonder where he was, and what kind of footage he would be capturing.

The scenes on Brushstrokes 2 speak of moments of intimacy, where the cinematographer is alone in the field, tuning into the pulse of the land, and letting its natural beauty tell an ancient story of survival and renewal.

In this short video lies a reverence for nature so profound, that our eye has to concentrate on the small details, and peek shyly through blades of grass, lest the direct contemplation of the greatness of it all be overwhelming. As we watch, we feel the emergence of that peculiar sense wonder that is often thought to belong only to childhood. A sense of awe and discovery that we are taught to suppress and forget as we grow up.

As time slows down, and the rays of golden light fall gently on the tortured landscape of Midway, subtle brushstrokes of natural beauty are painted over a canvas too many times torn and blotted by the blindness of man.

Video by Jan Vozenilek. Music by Vanessa LeBourdais.

Plastic Water

Victoria Sloan Jordan — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:31:40 +0000

Scientists say that plastic now outweighs plankton 6 to 1 in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The lagoon of Midway Atoll is the perfect laboratory to witness all sizes of plastic slowly breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. A variety of plastic washes up on the beaches daily, but not before some local fish make a meal of it.

Video by: Jan Vozenilek. Voiceover: Victoria Sloan Jordan.

Music by Christen Lien