"Bison filmmaker Becomes one with nature Preservation quest."
Senior water polo player Anna Plante makes a splash in and out of the pool. The quintessential Bucknell student-athlete, she excels in the field of competition and in the classroom. A two-time captain, she has led the renaissance of a program racked by the COVID-19 pandemic back into the win column and into a CWPA force. When not leading the troops into battle, Plante is an aspiring filmmaker seeking to win a bigger game: environmental protection.
Plante journeyed to Bucknell from Mill Valley, California, the home of MASH's Captain Hunnicutt. A natural-born wanderer, she wanted to experience college far from home, and Bucknell fit her criteria: a school where she could prioritize academics and play collegiate athletics. Bucknell is the sort of university where her professors attend the water polo matches.
"When I came on a recruiting trip, it was kind of like nothing I had ever seen before. Everything was super green. It was the fall. So it was just like a great time of year to come and visit. I had always thought I would go to a really big school because I didn't need a small environment. Since coming here, I think it's been really cool."
Playing water polo came naturally for her. Plante's parents are surfers, and she grew up swimming with the proficiency of a mermaid. From the age of eight, she competed in competitive swimming before transitioning to water polo in high school. The teamwork in water polo, compared to the hyper-individuality of swimming, captivated Plante and her leadership mentality. It helped that water polo cut out the staring at the black line on the bottom of the pool.
"It's a pretty standard track out there to go from swimming to water polo. It's much more interesting. My swim coach always said, "I don't want you to be one of those water polo players that stop swimming," but it was just way more fun, and so I decided to pick water polo."
For anyone unfamiliar with the sport's nuances, water polo in California is played outdoors. Like softball in the South, the year-round aspect allows California players and schools to dominate the sport. Bucknell's roster is dotted with Californians, including her teammate Gwen Kallmeyer. The two competed in high school and are now comrades in arms.
She entered Bucknell as an undeclared major. Her tabula rasa status opened her eyes to the possibilities of being a double major in Sociology and Film Studies. Her high school background in documentaries leaned her towards that path.
"For Sociology, I love learning about people and interactions, and I think it's really applicable. For film, I was in a documentary film program in high school. It was a two-year program, and we had accelerated courses for the first half of each semester. The second half would be fully dedicated to making short film documentaries where we would get to go off campus, interview people, collect B-roll, and not really be in the classroom environment, which was really exciting and gave me a lot of responsibility and freedom from a young age."
Plante's taste in film runs towards documentaries. She especially enjoys environmental or free climbing hero films. Her aim isn't to supplant John Ford but to capture nonfiction narratives. Her student thesis film follows that trend.
It will be a short essay film spanning 7-10 minutes on the complex relationship between preservation and land ownership. Historically, the duo has been viewed as enough for environmental stewardship, but the situation demands more attention. Climate change and forest fires are wild cards that no amount of ownership can overcome.
The essay film format uses narration and mixed media. Plante's film will mix photos, found footage, original footage, and lumen prints - a process where paper is exposed to sunlight. The narration follows a young girl - metaphorically, Plante herself - growing up with the woods and how the stories of preservation change throughout the aging process. Walt Disney always talked about "plussing" a film or attraction, and Plante's twist is writing the narration in haikus - a salient addition, as haikus are nature-based literature.
Most of the footage hails from California, but Plante also mixes in photos from the Lewisburg flora. The marriage represents her journey and symbolizes how preservation is truly a national concern. Watching neglectful tourists litter at Yosemite, one of America's most pristine parks, became her biggest inspiration for the film.
"There was a lot of trash around and too many people not really respecting the rules of the parks. It just saddened me to think about how we really need to keep protecting them so future generations can enjoy the parks."
Many filmmakers have to wonder where their next project will come from. Plante might not have that worry. Her postgraduate plan has been solidified. She will spend the next two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone. Plante continues a family tradition - her father served as one in the Philippines. She leaves in July and will return to the States in September 2028.
"I actually had a networking call with someone in the film industry who said it would probably be beneficial to bring a camera with me. Even if it's just photos to document my time and my experience. My professor also said she had a friend who was in the Peace Corps, and it really shaped his filmmaking style."
Wherever Plante's globetrotting exploits take her, her Bucknell tenure will pack itself in the suitcases. The lessons learned in the pool and in the classroom are timeless companions. She acknowledged her debt to Bucknell and the impact the university has had on the documentary of her life.
"I think that Bucknell's really special to me because it was this school that nobody from where I grew up really knew where I was going. Yet, it still has such a wide reach, with alumni and people who have heard of it. It's been such a great school. I've learned so much, and in such little time; it flew by too fast. I really enjoy the community. Coach McBride lives right downtown, and we get to go to his house for Easter. I don't think you can get that anywhere. I never really had a dream school. So I think that's kind of how I ended up here. But it became my dream school. I am leaving here as a much more developed person. I'm really grateful for Bucknell."
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