An ex-advertising agent, a marine biologist and a mechanical engineer walk on screen. The mix might sound odd. But this combination of minds, plus the lens of an Emmy-winning documentarian, proves effective — it’s a connection of perspectives with the capacity to change the way climate change is presented to the public.
The three characters appear in “Chasing Coral,” a documentary that explores the mass death of coral reef systems across the globe, from Hawaii, to the Caribbean, to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Jeff Orlowski is the filmmaker behind the movie, and he is one of six people to be recognized on Sept. 9 at the Dairy Center Honors, a celebration of outstanding figures in Boulder-area arts.
“It is a rare privilege to be able to travel the world. And that privilege has translated to responsibility,” said Orlowski. “Not many people are seeing an entire ecosystem getting lost en masse like this, who bear witness to it. There is definitely a responsibility in trying to share.”
Hailing from Staten Island, New York, Orlowski was a small fish in a big pond until his premiere film, “Chasing Ice,” received an Emmy award in 2014 for outstanding nature programming. The film documented mass glacial melt across the arctic using time-lapse technologies. He was 30 years old.
“When I was a kid, my family would go camping in upstate New York all the time,” he said. “We spent a lot of time in nature, having access to nature and engaging in nature. It was a formative experience for me.”
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