Every year, on Sept. 11, 88 powerful spotlights illuminate the New York City sky, in tribute to those who lost their lives as a result of the 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. While these lights symbolize deep respect, they also pose a threat to 160,000 migrating birds.
The short film “A Dark Future,” produced in association with their 11th grade Media Arts Program class by seniors Riley Adler, Janelle Lim, Curran Randhawa and Dylan Wilson, opens with this reminder of the growing issue of light pollution and its negative effects on our planet. The film explores a significant American Issue, created as part of a collaborative project guided by history teacher Mike Davey, media arts teacher Joel. Tarbox and English teacher Natasha Ritchie.
At SMASH’N, the annual awards ceremony for the Media Arts Program, the film received a nomination for the Best American Documentary. The following August, “A Dark Future” won the International Environmental Film Award of $350 at the One Earth Film Festival. On top of this, the film was selected for One Earth Film Festival’s Re-generation International Youth Film Festival and separate organization Lift-off Global Network’s Film Festival. The team began the film in November 2023 and took around three months to finish.
The One Earth Film Festival, based in Chicago, offers opportunities for students in middle and high schools to conceptualize environmental issues through the art of filmmaking. The festival has been around for 10 years.
“A Dark Future” highlights how light usage has increased significantly over time and how it now affects human and animal health throughout the world. The film also helps viewers understand ways to fight the issue and work towards sustaining our planet’s natural ecosystems.
The group began their 6-week process by first emailing different professors at universities and community colleges and experts at organizations that seek to prevent light pollution. DarkSky was one of several organizations emailed that work to restore natural lighting and environments around the world.
One of their most successful interviews was with Andy Kreyche, the vice president of the DarkSky International’s Santa Cruz chapter. They achieved a captivating visual effect by turning all the lights off in the interview’s setting — a gym — and creating a backdrop using separate lighting. Adler said the creative choice worked because it incorporated the film’s themes of light and darkness.
One place that the group traveled to film was Santa Clara County’s Rancho San Antonio County Park. Adler, Lim, and Wilson spent hours filming animals for the B-roll part of their film in an effort to show light pollutants’ effect on animals. Wilson and Riley also would go out late at night to film the lights and night sky.
Throughout the production, the team faced challenges with capturing the film in a way that would resonate with its viewers. For Lim, one of the greatest challenges was editing the footage.
“Since this documentary is so dense in statistical content, it was a bit overwhelming for an audience unfamiliar with light pollution to take in,” Lim said. “Maintaining an engaging story while editing was a big struggle and something I had to keep in mind.”
Lim and Curran also worked rigorously on the story-boarding process, consisting of sorting through interview footage, finding key information they wanted to highlight and integrating footage relevant to that information. They aimed to create a coherent narrative through a variety of b-roll, voice overs and interviews to illustrate the causes and consequences of light pollution in a compelling story.
After three weeks of editing, the producers submitted a rough draft to many film festivals for feedback, which helped them polish their final result. After the film was published, DarkSky International decided that they would put the film on their website, which Adler feels is an immense honor.
“I loved working with the group because we all wanted the same thing out of our project,” Wilson said. “We knew what each of us had to do every day in order to hit that goal.”