What happens when winter begins to disappear?
Journalist Porter Fox discusses The Last Winter, his journey across some of the world's coldest regions to investigate the rapidly changing cryosphere and what the loss of snow, glaciers, sea ice and permafrost could mean for the planet.
Moving between personal experience, adventure and climate science, Fox reveals that the disappearance of winter isn't simply about losing a season—it has consequences for ecosystems, water supplies, sea levels, communities and the interconnected systems that regulate the Earth's climate.
I interviewed Porter Fox remotely during the COVID-19 shutdown, when traveling to film authors—or even bringing them into our studio—wasn't an option.
The practical solution was a webcam interview. Creatively, I didn't want the finished piece to feel like one.
Fox was describing enormous landscapes, expeditions, environmental change and events unfolding around the world. I wanted the visual storytelling to have the same sense of movement and scale.
Working from the remote interview, I built the piece editorially around Fox's words, combining footage he provided with carefully selected stock material and relevant news clips. Rather than using those images simply as B-roll, I treated them as part of the narrative—allowing the visuals to expand outward from Fox's computer screen into the environments and events he was describing.
The result turned the limitations of a pandemic-era remote interview into something more kinetic and immersive. We couldn't send a crew into the field with Porter, but through research, editing and visual storytelling, I could still bring some of the world he had experienced back into the film.