AT 16, JULIA BARNES DECIDED TO SKIP COLLEGE AND MAKE HER FIRST FILM, THE AWARD WINNING “SEA OF LIFE”
A film called “Revolution” by Rob Stewart, inspired Julia and changed the course of her life. “Sea of Life” has inspired others to go into ocean conservation.
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From a conversation with filmmaker Julia Barnes. For the entire conversation, please click on the link to the YouTube video.
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HART HAGAN: My guest returning for a second appearance is filmmaker Julia Barnes, producer of Sea of Life in 2017, and Bright Green Lies in 2021. Julia, how are you today?
JULIA BARNES: I'm doing well. Glad to be talking with you.
HART HAGAN: Julia, tell us about your first film Sea of Life. What is that about? And what motivated you to spend three years making this movie?
JULIA BARNES: The motivation to make Sea of Life came on one particular day. It was April 12, 2013. I went into a theater and watched a documentary called “Revolution” by Rob Stewart.
That film completely changed my life. For the first time I was learning that we're in a mass extinction and learning about all of the major problems facing life on the planet. I had always been in love with the natural world since I was a kid. But up until that point I was really not aware of how much trouble we were in and how urgent the situation is facing life on the planet.
So I threw all the plans out the window. I was 16 at the time, in high school. I was looking at either going into science and biology or fine arts like drawing and painting, something I was really good at.
But then I said to myself, “Oh, this is a really urgent problem.” I didn't want to wait or go through a process of getting a degree before I did something about it. So I just decided to become a filmmaker and an activist.
I took out my college fund---a lot of people thought I was crazy--and used that to make a film instead. I learned how to scuba dive and learned how to use a camera.
I explored some of the most incredible places in the ocean. I explored some of the really big problems facing the ocean. I interviewed over 50 different scientific experts. I read a lot, learned a lot and got an education about what's happening. I also attended the big conferences, like the very first “Our Ocean” conference.
Sea of Life looks predominantly at ocean acidification. What a lot of people don't realize is that carbon dioxide gets absorbed into the ocean and creates carbonic acid.
Ocean acidification makes it very difficult for organisms who build shells or skeletons to form those shells and skeletons. This includes all species in the ocean aside from some jellyfish and cartilaginous species that don't grow skeletons. Most life in the ocean is dependent on being able to take calcium and carbonate, and forming calcium carbonate.
Ocean acidification is something that affects plankton who are the very base of the marine food web and who produce most of the oxygen in the air that we breathe.
Ocean acidification affects coral reefs. 50% of the world's coral reefs are already gone, and they are predicted to be pretty much wiped out by mid-century because of ocean acidification and ocean warming.
People know coral reefs are beautiful and full of life. So they have this real connection to them. But they're also very significant for life in the ocean. About 25% of all species in the ocean are dependent on coral reefs for some part of their life cycle.
So if you lose corals, you will see huge ripple effects.
Sea of Life also looks at things like ocean warming and also industrial fishing, the fact that 90% of the large ocean fish have been wiped out.
Ultimately I attended COP21 (the United Nations Conference of Parties, in 2015) in Paris. I saw the way that the Paris Agreement was celebrated and glorified. But we really didn't come close to doing anything to address these problems.
So Sea of Life is critical of that movement as well. But mainly, it was created to inspire more people and hopefully to make people want to get involved in doing something about it. We need a lot more of that.
I've traveled everywhere with Sea of Life and done presentations. It won 11 awards and film festivals. It's been screened all over the world. A lot of people have told me that they've gone into ocean conservation because they watched that movie. So that's been pretty inspiring to see.
For the entire interview with filmmaker and ocean activist Julia Barnes, please click on the link to the YouTube video.