Inside the Climate Studio and Farm in Ojai by Common Ground Filmmakers

Two llamas are bounding up a small hill in Ojai, drawn to the sounds of filmmaker Rebecca Tickell yelling in a high-pitched voice, “Rama! Yoda!” Tickell has in her hand a bucket filled with feed, and the 2 shaggy, snow-colored mammals are able to eat.

“When the chickens received to an extreme quantity, they began getting picked off by coyotes,” explains Rebecca’s husband and collaborator, Josh. “These guys, they in all probability do away with about 60, 70 p.c of the coyotes.” What in regards to the different 30 to 40 p.c? “What occurs is whenever you run a farm, you start the cycle of predator and prey,” Josh says. He provides, “Most individuals have a bucolic fairy story [image] of what sustainability in farming appears to be like like. And then you definitely get into it and also you notice, ‘Wow, that is actually exhausting.’”

At their all-encompassing residence, movie studio and farm in Ojai, the Tickells are working to follow what they preach. In 2012, the husband-and-wife environmental documentary directing group behind 2020’s Kiss the Floor and 2023’s Frequent Floor relocated from Los Angeles to this small valley metropolis, nestled inside the agricultural hotbed of Ventura County. The couple initially had a imaginative and prescient of making a dwelling and studying middle the place they might make movies about environmental options, elevate a household and dwell nearer to nature. One other impetus to maneuver to a farm: That they had discovered a couple of potential device within the battle in opposition to local weather change that has knowledgeable the best way they keep their distinctive hybrid area and would find yourself turning into the subject of their newest movies — soil.

The Tickells have lengthy centered on making movies in regards to the surroundings. Initially, they specialised in telling nonfiction tales about America’s dependence on oil and advocating to cut back it, beginning with 2008’s Gas, by 2011’s Freedom after which 2012’s The Large Repair. However earlier than they started cultivating crops on this 4.5-acre former avocado orchard over a decade in the past (for themselves and mates but additionally for native eating places and a few natural shops), they discovered about organic carbon sequestration, or the method of pulling carbon dioxide from the environment and storing it in crops, the soil and the ocean. “We have been like, ‘Oh, wait a minute. We will’t simply scale back emissions. We even have to attract down the carbon and put it someplace,’” says Rebecca.

That led them to drill down on soil of their filmmaking. In 2020, they launched the primary movie of their ongoing soil-focused trilogy, Kiss the Floor, which was narrated by Woody Harrelson and argued for the advantages of regenerative agriculture — an umbrella time period that always refers to farming practices that prioritize sustainability in addition to soil and human well being. That advocacy was expanded within the Laura Dern-narrated Frequent Floor, which is ready to stream digitally within the fourth quarter of this yr. The Tickells at the moment are engaged on a 3rd movie, which is able to take a extra world strategy to the topic.

These movies have put the couple on the forefront of the ascendant regenerative agriculture motion, which has picked up steam and press consideration previously few years. (The motion additionally has its critics: Some consultants say regenerative agriculture’s potential climate-change advantages have been overblown. Of current Hollywood narratives about restoring soil well being, together with Kiss the Floor, as an example, College of California Berkeley soils science professor Ronald Amundson wrote in 2022, “soil is actually not a double silver bullet as some movies, and a few scientists, suggest.”)

Within the meantime, the Tickells’ farm has develop into not solely what the couple calls a “regenerative meals forest,” but additionally the positioning of their full-fledged movie studio, Large Image Ranch. All the things up to date of filming — scripting, analysis, budgeting, pre-interviews — and the majority of postproduction takes place in a spacious repurposed barn and across the Tickells’ property. The couple has constructed out the world accordingly: There’s a transformed pool home the place the group has preproduction conferences; a “tiny home village” of two small studios for visiting collaborators to stick with them as they work; suites within the barn to do an entire 5.1 sound combine and colour correction; and Sprinter vans, parked exterior after they aren’t on the highway filming. The farm is solar-powered (the movie studio quickly shall be, too) and has a nicely: “We’re chargeable for our watershed,” says Josh. “One hundred percent of the water used on the property goes again to the property. No water leaves the property” — besides when it’s evaporating.

With views of the Topatopa Mountains and a plethora of meals sprouting throughout — mulberries, kumquats, passionfruit, peaches, strawberries and extra along with the previous monocrop of avocados — the ranch has additionally offered a bucolic setting for on-camera interviews. These have included talks with Misplaced actor Ian Somerhalder for Kiss the Floor and Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s Donald Glover for Frequent Floor. (Movie star activist appearances are a trademark of the Tickells’ movies.) The property even has a small water tower with the Large Image Ranch emblem emblazoned on it, framed on a current go to in Could by bursting bougainvillea and firestick crops.

The Edenic setting is “decisive” for the work, says Josh. “If it will get too irritating or too daunting or too tough, individuals simply stroll exterior. You’ll see the editors taking a stroll, a tree or simply sitting underneath the avocados or subsequent to the llamas, having a chew to eat.” He provides, “For those who’re going to inform tales about regulating the planet, it’s good to have that capability your self.” The Tickells have integrated tenets of the regenerative agriculture motion into the farm: rising a variety of crops slightly than only one or a couple of, preserving cowl crops of California native grasses of their yard and incorporating animals into the panorama. They are saying they’re nonetheless studying and dealing on enhancing their little ecosystem.

The couple is hoping that the movies made right here will assist encourage others to undertake these regenerative practices. They undertake affect campaigns for his or her movies themselves, hanging offers with distributors the place they keep rights for a 45-minute reduce that they will provide totally free to varsities, educators and nonprofits. In the course of the COVID-19-era launch of Kiss the Floor, they offered blow-up screens totally free to any farmer that wished to host out of doors screenings, and so they say hundreds have been held.

These efforts are all within the service of reaching some formidable targets. The Tickells cite information from North Dakota rancher and regenerative agriculture advocate Gabe Brown revealing that in 2020, the yr Kiss the Floor was launched, round 250,000 acres have been within the strategy of being regeneratively farmed within the U.S., and by the point Frequent Floor premiered in 2023, that determine had risen to 34 million acres. The Tickells need to assist contribute to 100 million acres — or about 10 p.c of U.S. agriculture — being at the least within the strategy of being regeneratively farmed by the point the third movie of their trilogy comes out, round 2027. “The eventual purpose is a billion acres globally — that might be 10 p.c of world land that human beings handle,” says Josh.

It’s a tall order, however the filmmakers are pushing forward, at present with the intention of escalating their output of movies. The Tickells have simply struck a three-movie cope with a studio that they received’t title but. They’re additionally planning on upgrading their area and “exponentially increas[ing] our quantity of manufacturing,” says Rebecca, with 22 tasks exterior of the 2 movies they’re actively engaged on now — the third within the soil trilogy and a movie on pollinators — and new hires within the works.

And although they received’t say a lot else particularly but about their growth, “We’ve a imaginative and prescient for being a really massive presence in Ojai,” Rebecca explains. “We’re turning right into a local weather studio.”

This story first appeared within the June 2024 Sustainability difficulty of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click on right here to see the remainder of the problem.