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Photo by Ed Murphy

The “podcast” as a communication medium is a throwback to the storytelling tradition.  Filmmaker and creative director Jim Aikman and his partner Graham Zimmerman are co-founders of Bedrock Film Works in Portland.  The team produced a podcast series for REI about the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire that scorched over 48,000 acres in the Columbia Gorge.

As of September 2, 2017, there had been no rain in Gresham, Oregon for 50 days.  The fire that jumped the Columbia River shut down portions of Interstate 5 and closed many area hiking trails.  It was sparked by fireworks carelessly tossed into the woods off the popular Eagle Creek trail.  Hikers on the trail that day were cut off from the way back to the parking lot and hiked through the afternoon and into the next day to reach the extraction point further up the trail.  Complicating things was another fire that loomed in the distance above their path to safety.  Many of the hikers were unprepared for a long hike and an overnight stay in the chilly pre-autumn air.  Some hikers had little food and wore only flip-flops.  Among them, though, were a few experienced hikers who rallied the group and led them out of peril.

According to Aikman, “podcasts allow a deep dive into a subject.”  Any story can be boiled down to an adventure.  The elements of a good story, including the characters, challenge, conflict, danger, and resolution, were already apparent in the saga of the Eagle Creek Fire.  The team of Aikman and Zimmerman had to work backwards to leave breadcrumbs along the way for the listener to follow.  Mr. Aikman’s goal for this story was to challenge preconceptions and bring people to a compassionate view of the teenaged boy who started the fire.   “The boy is the backbone of the story,” noted Mr. Aikman.  Although the team of was never able to interview the boy or his parents (who did not speak English), they talked to people who knew him such as teachers, church members, and others in the community.  The boy’s identity was heavily guarded because of his age and the death threats he and his family received in the aftermath of the fire.

The boy is paying dearly for his transgression.  He is on probation for six years, is never allowed to visit the Columbia Gorge again, and has been ordered to pay restitution of a staggering amount of money.  Jim doesn’t believe the fire was one person’s fault, rather, “the fire was a statement.” His view is that society failed to inform the boy and his immigrant parents.  He also pointed to the systemic problem of 100 years of fire-suppression in American forests.

According to Jim Aikman, there are four stages to producing a podcast: 1. Development and research, 2. Pre-production, 3. Production, and 4. Post-production. Post-production–including editing the transcripts and developing individual episodes–easily takes the longest amount of time.  The goal is to make the podcast “immersive” so that people watching it forget where they are.  The podcast of the Eagle Creek Fire, with its elements of mystery and suspense, achieves this goal.

Jim Aikman is an independent filmmaker and content contractor for REI.  He has 15 years’ experience making outdoor adventure films.  In 2015, he relocated to Portland from Boulder, Colorado.