Dirty Little Secret Wins Top Green Student Film Award

Dirty Little Secret, a film by UC Santa Barbara students produced in the Carsey-Wolf Center’s GreenScreen environmental filmmaking program, has won top prize for the Green Living Project’s inaugural Student Film Project. The film follows two surfers on their quest to make an eco-neutral surfboard. Along the way, the surfers learn about environmental concerns and modern-day solutions.

The five-minute film was created by UCSB students Samuel de Castro-Abeger, Aubrey Morales, JJ Nugent, and Cameron Lund.

Green Living Project showcased Dirty Little Secret at its 3rd Annual New York City Premiere on July 28, 2011.

Rob Holmes, president and founder of the Green Living Project, said the film “was a great example of positive storytelling and conveyed a message of hope and specific action related to sustainability.” Green Living Project is a production and marketing company that documents sustainability initiatives worldwide.

“Dirty Little Secret is really well done, combining the elements of a good film making with a call for environmental responsibility,” said Richard Hutton, Executive Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center. “We applaud our GreenScreen students for winning the top GLP Student Film Project award; what a great way to start their careers!”

GreenScreen is an environmental media production program that brings together students in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences to engage environmental issues in Santa Barbara through artistic production. The goal of the program is not only to increase awareness about the environment, but to expand the ways that these issues are represented and communicated. This involves working across disciplines, artistic genres, and developing a critical approach to environmental media production. The program is open to students from all majors.

GreenScreen is funded by the Associated Students Coastal Fund and the Carsey-Wolf Center. Thanks also to Sony Pictures Entertainment for it’s annual gift of equipment, including HD cameras.

Student Testimonial: Samuel de Castro-Abeger

“Dirty Little Secret was the product of the Carsey-Wolf Center’s Environmental Media Initiative. We started as a group of students in UCSB’s Film and Media Studies class, Films of the Natural and Human Environment, where we learned about how media and the environment interacted. We watched films and discussed characteristics and styles of films about the environment. We continued the next quarter in the GreenScreen program working with documentary filmmaker and instructor, Chris Jenkins, to produce films about the environment using the tools and techniques we had learned about. Our group started with the idea of how action sport industries like surfing and snowboarding have taken steps to help protect the arenas in which their sports are played. It developed into the story you see in Dirty Little Secret. It was a great experience! Making Dirty Little Secret was a springboard for my new job working for an IMAX documentary film company as an internet video content producer and editor making promotional videos for social media.”