Designer, editor and researcher, Steve Kennedy is one third of Planetary Collective, a group of creatives making films that bring the lesser-told stories thrown up by planet Earth to the big screen.
Planetary's first film was Overview, a short documentary about astronauts' experience in space. They're following this with Continuum, which explores mankind's interdependence through interviews with anthropologists, environmentalists and social theorists.
Steve left his base in London over a year ago and has been travelling ever since, so I started by asking him about life on the road, and how he balances Planetary's film work with exploring the world's beauty spots.
You've been working while travelling for over a year. What's planet Earth like as an office?
The last film I edited was done in a tiny, dark room in South London, so it's a pretty massive difference. I've had desks that overlooked Brazilian Mata Atlantica jungle, vast Patagonian mountains and Balinese rice paddies.
But it's not gratuitous: every stage has been massively influenced by the people I've met, the stories I've heard, and the constant expansion of my worldview that has come about from travelling this amazing planet.
What's the story behind Planetary Collective?
About five years ago Christoph Ferstad, Guy Reid and myself got together to form a company that could devote itself to telling the stories we felt were most important in the world--and do it in a way that didn’t compromise on aesthetics and design. We come from different backgrounds, and all bring different skills to the table, but we’re united in believing in the importance of storytelling, the power of visual media and a desire to do something good in the world.
Was Overview the first project you worked on for Planetary? What's the background to the making of the film, and where did you first learn about the Overview Effect?
We had already made a few short documentaries, but Overview was our first serious short film. I heard about the Overview Effect when I was about 15 years old through reading Peter Russell’s The Awakening Earth, and was immediately struck by the idea of astronauts having profound, mystical-type experiences through seeing the Earth from space.
When we first conceived of our feature documentary Continuum we intended to use the concept as the opening chapter of the film, but we decided to also use the idea in a stand-alone short film as a means of raising funding and awareness for the project.
Can you give a little background into your interest in outer space? My impression is that you have a very interdisciplinary reading of it, one not limited to the scientific or astrological but taking in philosophy and literature, too.
It's funny how indifferent people can be about space--I know a few who are not interested in the slightest. And yet, as David Beaver says in our film, "We're in space already, it's just that we haven't brought that into our perspective as we live here on Earth." It's something that's relevant to all of us.
Frank White, who coined the term 'Overview Effect' explicitly calls for the development of a 'philosophy of space'. You might think it's jumping the gun since there is still so much to explore in terms of how we interact with the more immediate environment of our planet--psychogeography and ecopsychology are still fairly young disciplines. But I personally think we need a sense not only of how we are embedded in the world, but inseparable from the wider cosmos.
It’s a subject that runs across a number of disciplines, from astronomy and cosmology to mythology, literature and philosophy, and I try to devour them all.
What's the premise of your forthcoming film Continuum? How's work progressing on it?
Continuum is about the future of life on this planet. It explores where we've come from in a deep cosmological perspective, where we are now both as a species and a civilization beset by numerous interconnected crises, and where we might be heading in the future.
We've interviewed a number of highly intelligent, articulate, and amazing people, but the challenge in putting the film together as editor is to ensure the film is not one-sided or didactic: but rather open and contemplative. There aren't necessarily clear answers to many of the questions we're exploring in the film.
The whole journey has been far more amazing than we could have imagined, but is also taking longer than expected. There's still a lot to do, but it's starting to come together. 2014 is going to a big year.
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