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@SXSW2021

It's here! We’re talking with people about the fun, the purpose, and the impact of their presence at this year's SXSW.

@Taylor
Taylor J
@Taylor · 1:32

SXSW Filmmakers | Chelsi and Gabriel de Cuba, Directors of "Plant Heist"

article image placeholderPlant Heist
Hi, everybody. This is Taylor on the south by Southwest 2021 Open Swell cast. And yesterday I watched a brilliant short documentary that immediately caught my attention so much so that I stopped what I was doing. Messaged my coworker. And I said, Bowie, you have got to watch this. It was so unbelievably well done. And the story was so interesting. I just couldn't believe what I was watching

https://siblingrivalrycreative.com

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@chelsidecuba
Chelsi de Cuba
@chelsidecuba · 1:20
Hi, Taylor, thanks so much for having us so glad you enjoyed our film. We had a great time making it, and we're so excited to be at South By Southwest. The way it kind of all got started was my brother received a news article from a friend of ours, Georgia Pepe, about these plant poaching that were happening in Mendocino, and he started to read all about it. And we both had no idea this was going on
4
@Taylor
Taylor J
@Taylor · 0:58

A brief summary of the the crimes being committed?

So you were introduced to this story from a friend, and then the two of you decided to make a film about it. I love that. I think that's just great. And I think that more people should approach things that they come across with. That sort of creativity and curiosity. We would be getting a lot of really interesting documentary shorts, that's for sure. So you mentioned plant poaching
@Gabe
Gabriel de Cuba
@Gabe · 1:27
Hi, Taylor, really excited that you enjoyed the film so much. I just wanted to expand a little bit on the journey of the film. Like my sister said, it was it all came from a New Yorker article that just just kind of led me down researching on Google and led me to every other article about these poachings going on in California, which started in Mexico and this whole story. And it just seemed perfect for the documentary format. And no one was doing anything on it
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@Gabe
Gabriel de Cuba
@Gabe · 1:25

The thirst for exotic succulents

It's just there wasn't enough of these type of players plants to satisfy plant collectors in the market. And specifically, those markets were throughout Asia. From what we found with our research in the film
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@Taylor
Taylor J
@Taylor · 1:50

Sourcing info for documentaries

They had all the numbers dialed out so that they knew exactly what they were looking for, how much it would fetch. I mean, it was really quite organized. And I know that's kind of insane to say, because most criminal enterprises tend to be organized. But you think about the fact that there are these, I imagine, not fields, but large amounts of these succulents growing in one place. And there was just a coordinated effort to do something that no one else had done before
@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 2:04

Editing & aesthetic choices 🎬

Hi, Chelsea and Gabe, this is Bowie first. I just want to say thank you so much for making this documentary. When Taylor recommended it to me, I was so excited just by the brief description I read about it, and I stayed up late last night to watch it, and it left me just feeling like I want to go out into the world and be with other people and make things like this is what art is about
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@Swell
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15

Welcome to Swell!

@Gabe
Gabriel de Cuba
@Gabe · 1:16

Research process

So it was a lot of just traditional Internet research holes, basically for hours and collecting all the important stuff in one master document. So that's was our process
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@chelsidecuba
Chelsi de Cuba
@chelsidecuba · 0:50

Getting the interviews

Yeah. Another big thing I think that happened for us was getting that first interview with Pat Freeling and getting the okay to get that first interview from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which was a little bit of a back and forth at first first to get that permission. But then once we did, it really validated us and gave us credibility when talking to other people and asking them if they would be open to interview
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@Taylor
Taylor J
@Taylor · 1:00

Tagging on to Bowie’s comment!

And I think that that's sort of what led me to this question because it could take a while for things to sort of fully develop and you're in the middle of shooting. And honestly, I don't know a lot about the filming process. So if you could just make that a little bit more clear for me, say, the film was made with such delicate precision at times, it felt to me when I was watching it like something that was years in the making
@chelsidecuba
Chelsi de Cuba
@chelsidecuba · 1:19

The first edit

Wow. Bowie, thanks so much. That's a huge compliment and so great to hear in the way that it inspired you makes this, you know, doing this all worth it. And as far as far as editing goes, I think in the beginning with documentaries, it's a real challenge when you have all of this footage, this interview footage. And now it's like, okay, what do we do with it? How do we build this story and really make it entertaining?
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@Gabe
Gabriel de Cuba
@Gabe · 3:22

Editing techniques @bowie

And there's so many ways you can go about that. And specifically, this one, the one, the highlighting effect, comes from Frontline documentary on the opioid crisis. I wish I knew the actual title of the documentary, but it was a frontline documentary on the opioid crisis, and they had articles in there, and they had a treatment that was similar to the one we use, except they use a little different artistic approach. And I took some liberties
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@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 1:02

Nerding out!

Chelsea and Gabe, I am nerding out so much right now. There's so many things about what you just shared that I wish you could see my face. I'm lighting up. I absolutely loved hearing about how you made these choices around the treatments. And also, Gabe, when you cited Frontline, I started laughing so hard because I was like, yes, of course. This is why I love this
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@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 0:45

SXSW excitement & what's next

And it's leaving me wondering where you both are now in your focus, creatively and what's maybe one of the biggest things you learned working on this documentary and how are you applying that and thinking about your next creative pursuits and whatever the next challenge lunges
@chelsidecuba
Chelsi de Cuba
@chelsidecuba · 1:27

Production timeline

And so it's kind of working around that schedule and trying to get these interviews in and get Broll shots on the weekends or any days we had off and really just dedicate ourselves to this project and make time to get it done and definitely hit some roadblocks with COVID. And actually we're supposed to get one more interview before we wrapped and ended up having to just Nix that due to lockdowns. But we just went straight into editing after Covet and definitely had some challenges there
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@Gabe
Gabriel de Cuba
@Gabe · 2:27

Things learned along the way. @bowie

I'm sure this is definitely a technique used by a lot of documentaries, but it was huge for us after that transcribing the interviews, it just make more sense. And it seemed more surmountable, like we could start to approach this instead of just looking at a pile of interviews and trying to weave a thread of story arc through them, seeing it on paper. Our minds know that from reading books and stuff. So, you know, you can start to build an art that way
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@Taylor
Taylor J
@Taylor · 1:06

In closing! Thank you so much @Gabe & @chelsidecuba

And I just so appreciate the two of you coming on swell to share your story with us and your process with us. And in pretty much every interview I do, I try to give the floor to the people that have graced us with their minds and their presence. So please let us know anything that you'd like to let us know whether it's about this project, one that you might be working on, causes that are important to you, and you want to bring visibility to absolutely anything
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@bowie
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 0:36

Yes! "Grab it anyway" Excited for more of your work

Thank you both so much for taking the time. I just feel so nourished creatively by this conversation. And I'm so excited to watch for what you do next. And I wrote down that quote, Grab it anyway, Gabe, because those are really good words to live by, and I will not forget them. And please do let us know when we can share plant heist far and wide
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@chelsidecuba
Chelsi de Cuba
@chelsidecuba · 0:51

Closing: protecting the plants 🌱

And I think a lot of it is just about knowing where we're sourcing these things, just like we do with other things, like coffee and chocolate, making sure you're getting them from a reputable nursery that's growing them from seed, and they're not coming from the wild, which affects our biodiversity. And we really just need to protect that right now. So yeah, thank you both. And we'll definitely share future projects and look forward to keeping in touch
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@Cartier
Ryan Cartier
@Cartier · 4:48

https://s.swell.life/SSSeJSghr4BlLGW

There are endless documentaries which are excellent for raising awareness, and this one you can already tell from the responses is doing a great job of that. How do we thank you for your contribution by addressing the problem? How does this go from conversation to action? I don't have the answer, but I'll share some ideas that you can float through your mind
@Cartier
Ryan Cartier
@Cartier · 3:19

https://s.swell.life/SSSeKoqRy3Aw12e

Parents can start basing their decisions on providing for their children and the home that they will inherit from you. Like, I understand people love their children, and it's very evident in many ways. For example, people place such a high importance on their College education, rationalizing it for their future. Then where are they going to participate in this future? What condition will the world be in so they do not suffer when they have this education, right? It was recently reported
@Cartier
Ryan Cartier
@Cartier · 4:27

#succulentshaming #poaching #plants #NFT #hack #culture

It may be more powerful if the celebrity is local to the country supporting the black market for these plants. However, a lot of the world still looks to the US for their celebrities to live through. So you might want to start with someone local, but you really only need to get one or two and a whole slew of their fans ends will just blindly follow anything that they do so those are the culture hacks and I got two more in a second. Here
@Cartier
Ryan Cartier
@Cartier · 3:07

#Baitplant #invasivespecies @sxsw2021 @Taylor @chelsidecuba @gabe @bowie

I don't know what the diseases or the insects would be, but is it illegal in some of these countries to have black market plants because of that? And if only one of several countries does something, it begins to set a precedent. And maybe that's all you need is one to start. So I think there's an opportunity to move this work that you've done from awareness to conversation to action. Not necessarily you doing it, but you're at the ground level right now
@Cartier
Ryan Cartier
@Cartier · 0:12

#succulent #poaching in #Africa https://s.swell.life/SSgDjCB2juSC5ZX

I see recently there's an article that this poaching is also occurring in Africa. I'll put a link
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