My name is Dan Berman. I'm a filmmaker from Toronto, Ontario and this documentary project is both a Canadian and Toronto story I’m excited to share. It brings together several issues I am passionate about: city building, design, and sustainable urban environments. It also comes at a crucial moment.

Toronto's most distinctive physical attribute is also one of its least appreciated: its 44,000-acre ravine system. That’s thirty times the size of Central Park in New York that is distributed throughout the region, interconnecting the entire Greater Toronto Area from the Oak Ridges Moraine to Lake Ontario. Many people don't even realize that we all are linked by these indented spaces and the water that flows through them. Development over the last century and a half has engineered, and sometimes buried, the ravines and watercourses out of our sight and minds. 

We want that to change.

As is often the case in Toronto and Canada most of us don't realize just how unique and advanced our city is in a global context. When it comes to urban green space and its protection, Toronto is a bit of a marvel. We have, partially by accident, avoided the pitfalls and missteps that many other contemporary cities blundered into when it came to caring for local waterways and preserving natural spaces in the urban context. People come from around the world to see how the Toronto region preserves and manages its watersheds. With this documentary, we want even more people to know about this bounty and burden.

Toronto and the surrounding region also has some stunningly beautiful landscape and topography that we’ve filmed for this documentary. We hope viewing it will change the way people think about the nature of this place. 

Why Support Us?

Toronto’s system of ravines and waterfront are more important than ever. Changes to the way the region approaches growth and development mean that the ravines are a key piece in the future shape of our city. We explore the very real threats to our green network, though these issues are not the whole story. Residents of the GTA must come to understand how  intrinsically important our watersheds are to our quality of life. We can all enjoy these spaces now, but few people really appreciate the role they’ll play in the city’s resiliency against storm surges and climate change threats in the future.

I love discussing this project with people because just about everyone gets genuinely excited as they come to realize what we are discussing and exploring. To finish out and deliver our series we need to raise some money to fund post-production, and so we're here pitching you now. 

With a small push, your contribution will help us get the story of Toronto's ravines and waterways out to the audience it deserves. Whether you live in the GTA or some other metropolitan area, Toronto's experience is an important case study in urban ecology, citizen access to green space, and the future of sustainable cities.

What We Need & What You Get

Bell Local, Bell Media's community network, launched us with a tiny source of seed money and some valuable production services. The ambitious scope of the project means that we need more resources in the following four areas:

• Editing, Mixing, Post-production finishing
• Maps, Graphics and Animation
• Archival Research and Rights
• Music Rights

The Impact

The production phase has been going very well, though not quickly. Relying on volunteers and goodwill makes for very slow progress. Going forward, with your generous support, we'd like to pick up our pace and carry our strong start to a very high standard of finish. 

With a powerfully assembled and artfully crafted series we stand a much better chance at:

• A deep and meaningful online, interactive component that will endure well beyond the broadcast life of the series.
• A second network TV license in Canada, which will extend the reach of our work beyond Bell's FibeTV VOD service and reach more GTA residents and Canadians.
• A broadcast license outside Canada.
• Lasting extensions of the series and digital resources that can be employed by stakeholders in the local context and urban designers in a broader sense.

We're Poised to Succeed

With a body of beautiful photography and potent interviews growing in our hard drives, money is our only obstacle to finishing out this ambitious project to a thoroughly professional standard. Beyond the financial realm, we feel we can deliver our series and exceed expectations because:

• We have been building a community of supporters, fans and interested stakeholders that are sympathetic to our goals and also willing to promote and support us in non-financial ways.
  
• Host, Shawn Micallef brings an audience with him, as he has a rather large following as a regular columnist for the Toronto Star, author of several books and a founder of Spacing magazine.
• We are poised to release this material at a moment when the City of Toronto and other agencies are about to begin new campaigns that will put the ravines and urban waterways in the public eye, generating lots of complimentary media coverage and putting our subject more front of mind with our desired audiences.

Other Ways You Can Help

We know it isn't possible for everyone who cares to contribute cash to this project, and we already have a number of volunteers engaged in this production. We are always looking for more friends and supporters too.

• Tweet us. +1 us. Facebook us. Pin us. Tumblrize us. Please help us get the word out. Don't forget, Indiegogo has sharing tools too. The more noise this campaign makes, the better we'll do at reaching or exceeding our goals in the near and long term.
• Do you have skills in any of the four areas we're striving to finance? We may have ways for you to contribute, and we will do our best to help you make those contributions meaningful to your own goals as well.