Passion for the Planet: On Location

In September, A Passion for the Planet — an hour-long oratorio for live orchestra and two choruses composed by Jeffrey Hudson — comes to the HOPE Center for the Arts. Produced in partnership with Hybrid Vigor Music, the piece moves from the staggering beauty of the natural world through the hard discomforts of climate reality, building toward something like collective hope. It is an environmental call to action written in music.

The performance is live, immersive, and multi-media. Behind the musicians, a full-length film will carry the audience through the visual journey — evoking the landscapes, the moments, and the environmental stakes the music names. That film is yours to make.

Passion for the Planet Film Camp puts a team of student filmmakers in the field for a full week. Every day is full-day and on location — forests, rivers, coastlines, urban landscapes, and pollution sites across New England. You'll hike. You'll scout. You'll move through terrain and look for the image that says what the music means. You're not illustrating the piece — you're helping frame it. Working alongside our production team, you'll shape decisions about what the audience sees: what to show, what to hold, how the visual arc builds toward the environmental call to action at the film's core.

Some of the best shots will require a trail. Some will require patience — a moment of stillness where the light does exactly what you need. All of them require you to pay attention to the world differently: as a filmmaker whose work is going to matter.

At the end of the week, your footage is edited into the final film. It debuts at the HOPE Center for the Arts during the live performance — projected at scale behind a live orchestra, in front of an audience who came to be moved.

Your name is in the credits. Your family gets tickets to the show.