Video Story Idea

   A)By November 2015, the city of Austin wants to annex the land in the southwest corner of Highway 290 East and State Highway 130 as part of their Imagine Austin initiative to create a "major activity center" with businesses and residential areas. But the problem is that someone's already beaten them to that land and has ideas of their own- BFI Allied Waste Ser­vices (owned by Republic Services)wants to build a recycling plant and a transfer station for garbage trucks there.
    B)The structure of our story will be like a news package. We want to start off by introducing the problem to our audience (Austin residents using a voiceover. A slow pan of the plot of land in question will be combined with shots of an existing recycling plant, juxtaposed with a quiet view of the neighborhood that will be affected.We'll then let each side of the conflict get a chance to defend its ideas in interview format, and ask some of the residents close by what their opinion is. We'd also like to tie in the issue with the environmentally friendly aspect of Austin and posit whether the city will eventually allow the recycle plant as part of it's Keep Austin Green program. B-roll shots of people using their own grocery bags and bike lanes will be used towards the end of the video as the voiceover questions the eventual environmental impact.
    C)Our text component will explain the details and background history of the ownership of the land. We can also give statistics about how much potential waste could be diverted from landfills, etc., and perhaps even statistics on population growth in Austin to explain the need for more development and housing. We can also explain the process of deciding who has ultimate ownership of the land and include links to the appropriate websites.
    D) Some potential interviewees are :
       1.Pete Dwyer,a developer of Wildhorse Ranch which is one of the city's planned neighborhoods. He has a vested interest in the city annexing the land.
      2.Lee Kuhn, regional general manager for Republic Services. It's his job to positively represent the recycle plant and there'd be little reason for him not to share the company's desires with the community.     
      3.Robin Schneider, executive director of Texas Campaign for the Environment. Schneider is an outside source who is still waiting to see if whether having recycle plant or creating a city center would be more beneficial to Texans.