·       Collective Eye is creating a Grassroots Grant Program to provide films to organizations for educational institutions and grassroots organizations.  This will help the filmmakers connect with people interesting in furthering their message, get paid for their work, and give engaged individuals and organizations a valuable tool for outreach, fundraising, etc.

·       Katrina Taylor stepped up the plate to head up Distribution as Cole Stamm moved on to his first loves of animation and writing.  Through Katrina’s efforts, Collective Eye has brought on many new films and connected with filmmakers worldwide.

·       Collective Eye Distribution began creating and collecting educational study guides to accompany films

·       Taggart will began Collective Eye’s “screening nights” to showcase films and promote discussion …. at  its centrally located Southeast Portland studios sometime this fall.

·       Queen of the Sun Documentary Film was in full production during 2008 and continues to post production in 2009.  Jon Betz was hired as Producer helped get the project going forward beautifully.

Taggart Siegel’s Queen of The Sun, an HD feature-length documentary, celebrates the renewal and reverence of honeybees.  The film is a creative exploration of the escalating global bee crisis. For 10,000 years bees have been a barometer of the health of the world, flying millions of miles to pollinate the earth, providing humans with honey, medicine and fuel. Now, however, they’re in a state of emergency.

The film follows heroes dedicated to the survival of bees, from ancient cultures to biodynamic communities. Queen delivers a cohesive message: people of the world must work collaboratively- as the bees themselves- in order to avoid the cataclysmic disappearance of these essential pollinators.

We cannot rely upon scientific strategies alone: doing that keeps us locked in the rationalistic framework that has produced many of our current problems.   The unfolding crisis requires philosophical insight and-heretofore unrecognized- voices to develop applications for change. Einstein was right: it’s impossible to solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it.

2008 was a year that has helped define how Collective Eye will look in the future.  Scott Ray Becker moved the San Francisco office to Sausalito and decided to make 2008 his last year of involvement with Collective Eye.  December 31, 2008 marked the closing of the California Collective Eye office.

In Portland, Collective Eye started its Distribution Department.  Cole Stamm was hired to serve as Director of Distribution and, with Taggart’s guidance, got this project off the ground.  Loretta Callahan designed and installed the back-end eCommerce and order processing function of Collective Eye Distribution and in January, we made our first sale to educational institutions.

Collective Eye Distribution introduced 17 new films into its catalog to accompany Taggart Siegel films.

Work on Taggart Siegel’s documentary on the honeybee crisis, Queen of the Sun, went into full production mode.  Taggart Siegel traveled across the United States and to Europe, Australia and New Zealand to film beekeepers and obtain interviews for the film. 

Taggart obtained interviews from powerful spokespeople and advocates for sustainable beekeeping, agriculture and food production that included Michael Pollan, Vandana Shiva and Gunter Hauk