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MillimeterDream Job: Solar System
Mar 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Kristinha M. Anding
Filmmaker Eric Abramson powers up with renewable energy.
Eric Abramson of Yellow Pine Pictures used solar energy and wind-power credits to help produce his documentary about jam band Leftover Salmon.
Eric Abramson isn't just offbeat — he's off the grid. The Colorado-based founder of Yellow Pine Pictures, who spent much of the last decade on the road documenting local jam band phenomenon Leftover Salmon, has built up a home studio and digital workflow system powered almost entirely by renewable energy.
Abramson's home in the mountains near Nederland, Colo., boasts 12 photovoltaic panels on the roof and a battery system in the basement. The energy gleaned from the setup sufficiently powers his studio gear, which is based around an Apple Power Mac G4 with an Xraid array — chosen for its low-energy rating. He also has several LCD monitors, which he says use a third of the energy sucked up by CRTs. For his passion project, Years in Your Ears …a Story of Leftover Salmon, Abramson mixed in interviews shot with a solar-charged Sony HVR-Z1U.
“Because those little Z1Us don't use much power and most of the interviews were done within a radius of 100 miles of my house, I was able to jump out with all my batteries charged and shoot several interviews,” he says.
To offset the energy used during the production that was not generated from the sun — including travel and the online, sound mix, and DVD authoring completed at Denver's Comcast Media Center — Abramson purchased wind-power credits from Boulder, Colo.-based Renewable Choice Energy.
“Basically, say your power costs you $1 a kilowatt-hour and the same amount of wind power would cost about $1.20. [Renewable Choice] takes your 20 cents and invests it in wind farm technology,” he explains. “You're feeding those kilowatt-hours back into the entire grid of the country through wind. It's an offset and a really good way to say, ‘Hey, we're starting to think about this.’ ”
Choosing renewable energy had perks beyond leaving a zero carbon dioxide footprint. “There were 23 substantial days over the last two-and-a-half years where the power's been out in town and it hasn't been here,” says Abramson, who, as a volunteer firefighter, has seen his share of power lines downed by the region's extreme winter weather.
Abramson hopes to install a wind tower on his property, so he can use the unregulated frequencies of the wireless Internet to get high-speed Internet. “That would close my loop — that's the one thing we're missing.”
Years in Your Ears is available on DVD at www.yearsinyourears.com. For more information about Yellow Pine Pictures, visit www.yellowpinepictures.com.
