An elaborate test of equipment became a chance to spread a message.

In 2006, University of North Texas Radio, Television and Film Department Chairwoman Melinda Levin joined UNT philosophy professor Irene Klaver, plus filmmakers local and abroad, for the Global Rivers Project, a documentary examination of eight rivers worldwide. It shows the history and various uses of the water forms, plus the effect they have on life in areas obvious and otherwise.

“I have to speak globally, because we’re not just cutting this for a U.S. audience,” Levin said. She added that one goal of the series is to draw attention to where most water comes from. “I’ve asked people in Texas, ‘Where does your water come from?’ and they’ve said, ‘It comes from the faucet.’”

Courtesy photo/Liz Daggett

University of North Texas professor Melinda Levin is part of a team making a documentary about the world’s rivers. She’s pictured here testing a “tapeless” camera while rafting down the upper Rio Grande in Rio Grande George, N.M. Levin is chairwoman of the UNT Department of Radio, Television and Film.

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The project includes high-definition footage of the Rio Grande, Amazon, Danube, Mississippi, Mekong, Nile, Ganges and Los Angeles rivers. This was done by use of several Panasonic P2 cameras — small, high-end “tapeless” units that record onto memory cards. A partnership with Panasonic was part of the work, Levin said. Discounts later became available, and several P2s are today part of the UNT film department arsenal.

But the Global Rivers Project was made possible by the Centre International de Liaison des Ecoles de Cinema et de Television, an association of film and television schools. The initiative was based on a decision to put these cameras through the process of filming a collaborative project in difficult natural conditions. Klaver, active in ecology and director of the university’s Philosophy of Water Project, had conceptual involvement.

She is currently on sabbatical in France and commented by e-mail. “Rivers are fascinating,” Klaver wrote. “They have been anchors of civilization and bones of contention; the word ‘rival’ is related to river. They cover great distances and connect a wide diversity of people and places, from high-altitude snowy mountains to lowland deltas. They are rich ecological and cultural corridors.” She and Levin had discussed the idea of an effort similar to Global Rivers around the time it became available from the film association on its tremendous scale.

“Their real interest was in testing the high definition,” Levin said about the association, which gave seed funding. “In some ways, the subject matter wasn’t their top priority. For those of us working on the film, the subject matter was always top priority; it never came second. It was really the subject matter that really brought us along. And it was really a privilege to be able to do all of that.”

Klaver also helped with the documentary’s Rio Grande footage.

The UNT team shot that segment, with local filmmaker and recent graduate Liz Daggett doing extra work in Serbia and Slovakia to shoot the Danube. Student-and-faculty teams from California State University, the University of South Carolina and the University of Southern California, plus filmmakers native to the foreign regions, shot other segments.

Levin is director of the project’s Mekong River segment, still in progress, so her itinerary has included several trips to Asia. But her work as an executive producer had her helping oversee all crews, negotiating equipment around the globe and helping decide the project’s thematic direction.

Part of that is to celebrate eight bodies of water.

“Our goal was not just to show the negative or preach to the environmentalist choir,” Levin said. “Most of us on the crew are on that choir and can just keep talking to ourselves.”

The process so far intends to speak to audiences who might not be conscious of the importance of their own water supplies.

“It’s for urban audiences to really think through, because any river, whether it be the well-known ones we’ve included or little watersheds, or the Elm Fork of the Trinity, is impacted by who lives on or near it,” Levin said. “Our lives really depend on that water. One of the things we decided early on, with the various crew members working on these rivers, was to not simply focus on the environmental problems — though we look at that — but to show how communities and cultures, including wildlife, rely on these watersheds in a variety of ways, including spiritual, including recreation … and yes, including health and sustenance reasons.”

These factors exist here and now, as they have, and they loom. But it may take the documentary approach — showing what goes overlooked or ignored or unseen locally — to translate them into information that registers.

“Most documentarians decide to go into this field because they hope to affect change. It can inspire, it can challenge. Does it affect change? That depends,” she said. “This is my opinion: I think stylistically, if you can help the viewer somehow see themselves or the interest embedded within the film, [they can see] their own future, perhaps. There are ways to do that. That is more likely to make them embrace change or to reconsider assumptions or to perhaps just consider something they have never considered. I think, working on this, the past couple years, a lot of the general public thinks they are aware of environmental issues. Not as many people seem real aware of the critical importance of the health of the rivers on this planet and the historical roles they play for humanity and for wildlife.”

A short version premiered for the Beijing Film Academy on Nov. 7, as per the original seed funding requirements. Longer and shorter versions of the footage are being prepared for future broadcast, Levin said. Completion is set for late 2009. One version of the Global Rivers Project may become an “unbundling” of the material, creating separate short documentaries about each river.

Upon broadcast, Levin hopes the project makes public viewers think more about whatever river they live closest to, if none other.

“At a minimum level, I would find that most successful,” she said. “And, if it goes beyond that, then all the better.”

GREG RUSSELL can be reached at 940-566-6861. His e-mail address is grussell@dentonrc.com.