Working with Pip that week was interesting. It wasn't the smoothest of weeks, our trip nearly got cancelled or fell though a few times, but it finally went ahead. Pip generously shared his hard found contacts for the story, and shared his knowledge of getting to the very remote islands, having been there previously ( and caught malaria). He was 100% dedicated to bringing back the story of the Carterets Islanders and of the waters encroaching on their fragile atoll home. After that trip Pip went back to the Carterets again, living there for one month in hard conditions, to do more filming, in particular to film the winter storms which engulf the islands.
Pip didn't have much money for his documentary but he did what he did, he got a commission here, a commission there, sold a bit here, did a bit there, and finally got a grant to continue working on his Carterets project.
I can't say I knew Pip well, but we had that week working together, and kept in email contact, so I was saddened last night to find out that Pip died on Thursday, I believe in Melbourne. It is a sad loss, he was a determined independent film maker, who 100% believed in his projects.
His website can be found here, and below is a film from the Carterets shot and produced by himself. Further videos can be seen here.
2 comments:
This is really sad for me too. I'm a climate scientist in Hobart. Pip interviewed me last year about sea-level rise in the Pacific. While in Hobart, he learned of some other work I had done looking at sea-level rise over the past 160 years at Port Arthur, Tasmania - he decide that, on another occasion, it would be good for him to visit Port Arthur with me to add a bit of further footage to his documentary. He contacted me a week or so ago and we agreed to go down to Port Arthur on Tuesday, 22 January. I and some colleagues were to meet him at Hobart Airport on Tuesday morning and drive him down to Port Arthur. We made the final arrangements late afternoon, Monday. He never turned up and I never heard from him again. I hardly knew him, but as well as being devastating for his friends, it is sad that his work of broadcasting the importance of climate change is now over.
John Hunter
I'm stunned. I had no idea until today that anything had happened to Pip. I interviewed him last year about the Carteret Islands on ABC radio and I was really looking seeing what he brought back from Bangladesh.
I only spoke to him on the phone a couple of times but he struck me as a person passionately dedicated to telling stories that weren't being heard. Very sad.
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