Unhanging Tobacco

Back in October 2012, we blogged about hanging tobacco.  Much of the fresh cut tobacco we've filmed has been a strong mix of yellow and green.  In bright sunlight, the yellow has often overwhelmingly dominated, producing an almost irritating color.  In shade, and on the underside of their semi-translucent leaves, the green has seemed much more pronounced.  

During our last shoot (December 2013) we filmed crews unhanging their tobacco. As you can see from this behind-the-scene shot, it was raining.  What you can't see is that it was also 35°F and windy!  For our crew, the weather meant long wet, bone-chilling shoots... and we loved every minute of it!  For tobacco farmers, the season's weather had been remarkably cooperative, yielding beautiful, fragrant golden brown leaves likes the ones above.   Many we spoke to were quite buoyed this year as harvests from the previous two years had been especially poor. 

We are working to return to Kentucky this spring and summer to finish up our shooting. While farmers labor under the Damoclean sword of potentially poor weather... doc filmmakers need a different kind of rain, namely, dollahs. To that end, we headed to Los Angeles next week to attend a fundraiser for the film thrown by a woodworking son of a farming family. If you're going to make it, please let us know!