We just wrapped a second day of green consulting for Mario Van Peebles and his family, along with the help of Ed Begley, Jr. From left-to-right: Shena, Elizabeth, Mario, Me, Ed, Brent, and Ryan:
We were hired by Hour One productions to come in and consult for Mario and his family for a green home makeover and today we got to get down with him, his family, Ed and his daughter and really have some fun with each other while showing them some quick and easy (along with a few major technical points concerning electric use and meter reading, which the kids just loved!), steps to go green as a family.
Brent, Elizabeth, Ryan, Shena, and I rolled out in her biodiesel Jeep Liberty from our base of operations at the Sugar Shack (an intentional urban community house going green too), arriving on site at 1pm sharp. Our team met the complete production team and Van Peebles family, then completed our assessment of the house, prior to shooting everyone’s first scenes.
The day went by very quickly as everyone had a lot of fun. Elizabeth and Shena shot some scenes with the boys, girls and Mario’s wife, while Brent and Ryan went through the electronics with the boys in their room, followed by a fun meter-reading session with them outside.
Then it was off to shoot our arrival scene with Ed, walking up the street with him and his daughter and our team. This was followed by our initial arrival into the house and meeting with Mario, then quickly dispersing off into our respective area’s of expertise throughout the house.
We shot some other various bits and pieces and were able to get nearly every one completed before the latest round of rough, west coast weather hit again.
And that was that: At a wee bit past 5pm, we packed up our gear, said our goodbyes and returned back to HQ for a homemade team dinner (along with our household’s weekly meeting). It was a great day of fun and learning for everyone involved and we look forward to the show airing on HDTV.
We’ll keep you posted on this as more details come our way, along with some promo clips, once the show launches.
Best of luck to Mario and family as they continue the greening of their beautiful home!
Shena and I recently attended Co-op America’s annual Green Festiva, in San Francisco.
We drove up with The Do LaB twins (Josh and Jesse) in a Honda Civic Hybrid from LAX to downtown SF on one tank (…nice!) and then met up with some old friends for a long night of wide-ranging talks.
The next day we hit the Green Fest at about 12-pm, where we met up with an even older friend Brent Hurley, a fellow Twin Valley graduate of mine. I also ran into an old friend from LA, Onyay, who had performed the day before with the Shakti Tribe, which I was sorry to have missed. Most of the day was then spent nearly fighting through the ample crowd for numerous free samples of holistic goodness in all shapes, sizes and colors; examined nearly each and every vendor for the latest, innovative Green…stuff.
And boy was there stuff, so much productization in fact, that we were literally stumbling over it all to get from booth to booth. Not only had the event not evolved from last year’s nicely balanced collection of (yes) products (they’re still a hook-line-and-sink for many), new technologies, services, and speakers to this year’s onslaught of nearly pure products. It was really quite disappoint, at least to me.
From an event that claims to be the world’s leading expo in sustainability, I really expected some measure of progression, anything to keep things fresh and innovative, not inundated with the same ol’ recipe for products waste known the world over.
That all being said, it’s still a great time for those curious about all the fuss and in need of alternative resources.
Just like Burning Man, the Green Festival has seemingly reached a pinnacle or threshold for that genuine raw creative inspiration I admire in innovative, truly ground-breaking events such as The Do LaB’s own Lightning In A Bottle, an alternative event growing in mass appeal that combines both the latter two events prized distinctions: radical self-expression and sustainability, respectively.
Anyway, the event was worth attending at least to see first-hand, just how much the Green wave has spread in the last year alone. In terms of sheer publicity for this movement, Co-op America is doing a fine job at getting the word out.
