Selection and manipulation of the Landscape in service of story:
The landscape is the main character. It’s what everyone is fighting over and dying for. This story brutally highlights the deep innate human need to belong ; to be in connection with the land beneath them and the eternal struggle for one’s Home. These people were living on the precipice of the Future - at the very edge of what is known. That’s terrifying and exciting! To capture the urgency and immediacy of this experience a fine balance of the micro and macro is needed. It requires variation and constant visual anchors. If the anchor isn’t there we bring one with us. We need to know where we are because the land itself is what carves out much of the human behaviour that determines the trajectory of the story.
Each frame should be approached like a landscape painting: what’s in the foreground? where’s the middle ground? and does the background offer contrast for coverage? If an element is missing we need another location or we create the element ourselves through relocating or creating organic sculpture; re-planting trees, adding rock face, enhancing the sky in post etc.

The land is sacred. These words are at the core of your being. The land is our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land away and we die.
- Mary Brave Bird, Lakota

Landscape Selection and Design from Under the Banner: