Abandoned

Abandoned followed beloved pro skateboarder Rick McCrank as he explored modern ruins across North America. Rather than just add to the glut of “abandonment porn” already suffusing the internet, we dove deeper into the stories of these derelict spaces (and Rick did some grinds).

We examined the societal and political circumstances that pushed these spaces to the fringes. For each episode we found local people with personal connections to these places, and by anchoring our explorations with these perspectives we humanized issues that often felt distant, faceless, and impersonal.

I was the researcher for Abandoned. I searched out potential locations; tracked down, contacted, interviewed and generally won over understandably cautious people with connections to those spaces; navigated the tricky path to gaining entry to boarded-up ruins; pitched episode ideas to my executive producer and director; helped shape successful pitches for the higher-ups at Vice; and assisted with scheduling and other administrative stuff to keep the show rolling.

Some episodes I’m particularly proud of:

• Two Detroits: Detroit misery porn has become its own cliched subgenre. For our episode, rather than gawk at the silenced industrial landscape like so many others, we focused on the city’s bounce back, incorporating personal stories from community leaders working to rebuild.

• BC Coast: A survey of abandoned industrial sites along British Columbia’s coast that examined the legacy and impact of resource extraction in our province on both its landscape and people.

• Nuclear Waste: A showcase of Doomsday paranoia in the Pacific Northwest, including an unfinished nuclear power plant and a flooded Cold War missile silo in rural Washington. I also found a Doomsday prepper who moonlighted as a professional cuddler, my proudest achievement.

• California Water Supply: We traced the dubious relationship of humanity and water in California, starting with Owens Lake, drained of water and now America’s largest source of air pollution, to the Salton Sea, which could soon face a similar fate, and finally ending in LA, where all that water went.

You can watch Abandoned on Amazon Prime here.