Singing to the Earth Until a Tree Grows

04/22/2015

A film scripted by Patrick Lawler and Theodore Schaefer and directed by Theodore Schaefer

"Singing to the Earth Until a Tree Grows" is a short film set in the future about the effects of climate change on our world. It explores the lives of two people, possibly the last man and woman on Earth, as they try to live their lives in this new reality.

The man, who wishes he were a standup comic, spends his days exploring the post-apocalyptic cityscape, where he discovers an old VHS camera. With it, he decides to create a reverse time capsule, a chronicle of the world that now exists, for the past. The woman, an artist, is pregnant. She struggles with finding meaning and attempts to capture that struggle in her new painting — a giant canvas spread on the floor of her living room, which she is painting for her unborn daughter.

The film was scripted by ESF Professor Emeritus Patrick Lawler and his partner in the project, Theodore Schaefer, who was the director. "Singing to the Earth Until a Tree Grows" could serve as the launch for a series of environmental short films.

ESF helped support the creation of the film. Dr. Valerie Luzadis, chair of the Department of Environmental Studies in which Lawler teaches, said the film project could benefit ESF students by giving them new ways to learn about film as a tool of environmental communication.