#2: The new Mono Lake Story film

December 30th, 2011 by Arya, Communications Director

One of the classic Mono Lake Committee history stories starts something like this … in the late 1970s, Mono Lake Committee founder David Gaines toured tirelessly around California with a carousel of slides and a call to help a dying lake—talking to anyone who would listen. Well, you know the rest of the story … so, clearly, it worked. To this day, we meet people who tell the tale of how they learned of the plight of Mono Lake and joined in the effort through one of Gaines’ slideshows. We continue the tradition by showing an actual slideshow at our headquarters here in Lee Vining every day to anyone interested in learning the story. Over time we’ve updated the show, and a few years back we even made what felt at the time like big technological strides by retiring the projector and putting the slideshow on a DVD.

In 2011 we completed the Mono Lake Story’s biggest upgrade to date: a high definition, 27-minute film complete with historical footage, animations, its very own film score, a whole year’s worth of beautiful footage of Mono Lake, and of course, the Mono Lake story told by people like Sally Gaines, Martha Davis, Richard Roos-Collins, Scott Stine, David Winkler, Geoffrey McQuilkin, Bartshe Miller, and more.

A still from The Mono Lake Story film. Photo courtesy of Jonah Matthewson, Bristlecone Media.

We’ve been showing the film in the newly upgraded Theater & Gallery inside the Mono Lake Committee Information Center & Bookstore since the summer, and have seen everything from explosions of applause to tears of joy in reaction to the film. Due to constraints of our film permit, we cannot sell the film, but we are showing it to anyone who will watch it here in Lee Vining, and if you become a Guardian of the Lake you can get a copy of the DVD.

We could not have made the film without the support of Mono Lake Committee members and the Board of Directors. We also want to thank Ryan Christensen and Jonah Matthewson of the Bristlecone Media film team as well as score composer Cody Westheimer for their expertise and hard work on this important project. We are looking forward to the film’s premier at this year’s Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City in January.

We hope you stop by and see the film soon!