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Sharon Pieczenik
Biography:
Raised in Chevy Chase, Maryland, Sharon's love for film arose from her family's weekly Sunday night dinner-and-a-movie tradition. At a young age, she was politically curious and involved in environmental conservation groups. Her college years were spent at Stanford University studying International Relations. While at Stanford, Sharon rounded out her education by taking zoology and behavioral biology classes as well as Business school classes for entrepreneurship. Combining her political activism, environmental concern, and passion for thinking out-of-the-box, Sharon returned to graduate school (after two years of production work in Los Angeles) to be a part of Montana State University's Science and Natural History Filmmaking Program. She aspires to create films that are socially active and yet still entertaining.
Journal Entries
Friday October 7, 2005, 9:58 am
I am here to make a promotional video for Polar Bears International. I am constantly worrying that I will get the shots I need (the right color, composition, sound, content, etc) to make this a great piece. It is important that my mind is on my work and that I take the time and care to cover all aspects of what I need to get done...however, it is too easy to become consumed by the every day details and minutae of life and work and miss the big picture.
I have been given the opportunity of a lifetime and I am in a part of the world that very few people will have the pleasure to enjoy. I wake up and go to sleep with wild polar bears twenty feet away from me.
It is too easy to become consumed by our personal lives. We forget that other people have their own worries. We forget that the world around us has larger problems. Many personal situations seem so important and serious at the time. Questions like, "if I take this job, will I be setting my life in stone," or "if I follow this course of study, will it be the right one." But when you fast forward a couple of years and look back on many of those "life or death" choices and decisions, they really don't seem as heavy as they did when you needed to make them.
If we can view our life and choices with more levity, it gives us a chance to look outside of ourselves and look at the world in its entirity...an interconnected network of lives and choices. Each individual life is like a piece in a larger puzzle. If we only focus on our own puzzle piece, we miss the majesty of the entire puzzle. We miss the opportunity to be and act larger than ourself...to help make the puzzle work as a whole.
Taking some time away from our own personal problems will not only reduce the personal stresses in people's lives, but it will give each person a chance to be involved in life in a way that might be grander than their own existence.
One person can make a difference in this world...as long as they take the first step to notice it.
I have been given the opportunity of a lifetime and I am in a part of the world that very few people will have the pleasure to enjoy. I wake up and go to sleep with wild polar bears twenty feet away from me.
It is too easy to become consumed by our personal lives. We forget that other people have their own worries. We forget that the world around us has larger problems. Many personal situations seem so important and serious at the time. Questions like, "if I take this job, will I be setting my life in stone," or "if I follow this course of study, will it be the right one." But when you fast forward a couple of years and look back on many of those "life or death" choices and decisions, they really don't seem as heavy as they did when you needed to make them.
If we can view our life and choices with more levity, it gives us a chance to look outside of ourselves and look at the world in its entirity...an interconnected network of lives and choices. Each individual life is like a piece in a larger puzzle. If we only focus on our own puzzle piece, we miss the majesty of the entire puzzle. We miss the opportunity to be and act larger than ourself...to help make the puzzle work as a whole.
Taking some time away from our own personal problems will not only reduce the personal stresses in people's lives, but it will give each person a chance to be involved in life in a way that might be grander than their own existence.
One person can make a difference in this world...as long as they take the first step to notice it.
Friday October 7, 2005, 9:37 am
My experience with this program has been quite unique. I am embedded in the videography process and, as such, I am an observer of the program and the development of the students. Most of my time is occupied by chaotic moving of heavy equipment to different locations concerned with catching good light and a perfect sound bite.
However, as an observer of this Leadership Camp, I have had the ability to watch the process of development and maturation of these students. The interviews I have conducted with them have been surprising because in a short period of time many of the students have broadened their views and beliefs in themselves and their leadership role in the conservation movement.
One pleasant surprise came out of Mary Blake's interview the other day. She explained to me that by nature she tends to be on the more quiet side...a characteristic she viewed as a weakness when having to be a leader. She believed that all leaders are out-going and relatively loud and aggressive. Yet her view about herself has changed and she now knows that she is and can be a leader. It is conviction and persistance that gets a message across. She has more than enough of the tools necessary to become a leader in any movement she chooses all she needs is practice leading and a belief in herself and her cause. I think that she is beginning to understand this fact and it is amazing to witnesss a young woman's moment of eureka and self-growth and awareness.
However, as an observer of this Leadership Camp, I have had the ability to watch the process of development and maturation of these students. The interviews I have conducted with them have been surprising because in a short period of time many of the students have broadened their views and beliefs in themselves and their leadership role in the conservation movement.
One pleasant surprise came out of Mary Blake's interview the other day. She explained to me that by nature she tends to be on the more quiet side...a characteristic she viewed as a weakness when having to be a leader. She believed that all leaders are out-going and relatively loud and aggressive. Yet her view about herself has changed and she now knows that she is and can be a leader. It is conviction and persistance that gets a message across. She has more than enough of the tools necessary to become a leader in any movement she chooses all she needs is practice leading and a belief in herself and her cause. I think that she is beginning to understand this fact and it is amazing to witnesss a young woman's moment of eureka and self-growth and awareness.