COMPENSE SU HUELLA Environmental Communications in Monteverde

Written by Guy Ginsberg (George Washington University), Internship in Sustainability and the Environment.

My internship focus was on creating a promotional video for Compense Su Huella, CORCLIMA’s fundraising initiative which encourages travelers to offset their carbon footprint. My role included conducting research, writing a script, speaking to community members, gathering footage and editing the final video. I was only able to do all this with the help and guidance of my internship supervisor, Mariela Vásquez, and CORCLIMA coordinator Katy VanDusen.

This internship was perfect for me due to my personal interest in film and video production, and my extensive background producing video content for organizations like the Los Angeles Times, Planet Forward, the GW Hatchet and D.C. United.

Through this experience, I learned to invest more time in the planning phase of production, as Mariela showed me the value of investing time on the front-end to reduce headaches on the back-end. I also learned the importance of getting a firm grip on your story and understanding that the producer of the video must always know more than the audience does. Only then can the producer truly boil down the story to its main ingredients and deliver a clear and valuable product.

My greatest contributions in this internship has been helping make this wonderful initiative known to the public. I was able to put my audio-visual skills to use in a way that I think will promote carbon balance and will help change the minds of many tourists still to come. Helping facilitate the distribution of important sustainable knowledge is a pleasure and a privilege that I would not have had without this internship opportunity.

I am incredibly excited to pursue a career in environmental storytelling, and I find that my experience working with CORCLIMA has made me only more thrilled to be working in the field I am at a time as critical as this. Thank you CORCLIMA and thank you CIEE!