Jonathan Pickett (17) recently debuted his New York Times op-ed documentary featuring a new ice-immersion protocol used for victims of heat stroke during one of the hottest summers on record
Pickett, who graduated from PLNU in 2017 with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism and a media communication minor, found that the combination prepared him well for a career in documentary filmmaking — a path he didn’t expect.
“I didn’t plan it this way,” he said, “but in retrospect, it was a good combination of things that make up for a lot of what you’d want to be learning for a documentary career.”
Pickett, director of short films such as Chicken Stories (a New Yorker Documentary) and Deep in My Heart is a Song (HollyShorts Film Festival Winner), brings a pressing story to life in A New Inferno.
The New York Times op-ed A New Inferno follows the Phoenix Fire Department as they pilot a new ice immersion protocol designed to combat heat-related illnesses in the hottest city in America — a city that keeps breaking its own heat record. The film premiered at the prestigious SXSW Film & TV Festival in Austin, and also screened at the Tribeca Film Festival.
While working on another film in Arizona in 2023, Pickett experienced for the first time just how hot it could get.
“Coming from San Diego, the weather is pretty nice all the time,” he said. “Filming that project was my first direct experience with heat in the summertime in Arizona. During the shoot, I got to know people in the camera department who all live and work in Phoenix, and they were sharing what it had been like, being outdoors on set in the summertime — it’s near impossible. But still, people do it.”
The combination of record heat in Arizona in 2023, and a massive spike in heat-related deaths, had Pickett thinking about the realities of urban heat and how it affects communities. After reading an NPR article about the Phoenix Fire Department’s new ice-immersion protocol, Pickett realized he had an “in” to his story.
“It was a crazy thing to learn about because it is a barbaric-sounding thing, right?” he said. “They get to the scene, and if a person’s temperature is at 104 degrees or over, and they either are unconscious or they have a slightly altered level of consciousness, they qualify for ice immersion. They strip this person down, [put them into] what is essentially a body bag, and then dump 60 to 70 pounds of ice in the body bag with them and they zip it up. They’re in this ice cocoon on the way to the hospital. What a wild illustration of where we’re at in regards to the climate crisis.”
This protocol is eight times more effective at saving someone’s life if they’re suffering from a heat-related illness than what the department was previously doing. Pickett knew it would be both an arresting event to film and a compelling illustration of how rising heat is affecting communities.
“As the audience, you’re not learning about it through talking head interviews or archival photos,” he explained. “You’re experiencing it; you are immersed in what it’s like to be in Phoenix in the heat of the summer, on these fire trucks racing to the scene, and on the scene as they’re responding and trying to save people’s lives in real time.”
The fact that the film was co-directed and produced with Nita-Blum Reddick made the collaboration with the fire department possible.
“If little old me walked into the fire department saying ‘Hey, can I film with you?’… they wouldn’t say yes to that,” Pickett laughed. “Nita, in addition to being a filmmaker, is also a professor at ASU who teaches documentary at ASU. She’s also on the board of the production association, and she’s a film liaison with the state film office. Legitimately, we couldn’t have done it without each other. It was a really, really lucky and wonderful collaboration.”
Filming was a technical challenge — in order to follow firefighters on the hottest days of the year, Pickett needed to be outside filming on those same days, with temperatures soaring up to 118 degrees.
“We filmed during the hottest days of the year in the hottest city in America, as we are all living through the hottest period of time in modern human history. It’s a surreal thing to realize in retrospect. The film is this historical document of where we’re at, and it’s a way that we can locate ourselves in relation to the ongoing climate crisis.”
The demands of filming included riding in the fire trucks, riding on top, following in a second car, holding cameras and boom mics, and making sure to stay adequately hydrated throughout 12 and sometimes 16-hour days.
“Ryan is the camera guy and Dan was our sound guy,” Pickett said. “They were holding boom poles and cameras during intense weather, and so we had to make sure to swap them out so we could give them a break. Ryan and I would sometimes take turns doing the camera operating, and then also we had to think about details such as what camera could we use. Some cameras are more notorious for overheating and so we chose our tools based on what would be the most reliable and what would give us the most battery life.”
As audiences view A New Inferno for the first time, Pickett hopes it starts conversations about the realities of climate change and how growing urban heat will shape communities, particularly when intersected with homelessness and drug abuse.
“Climate change and urban heat are impossible to untangle from things like substance use disorder,” Pickett said. “Homelessness, drug abuse, and the heat is the nightmare trifecta because if someone is living outside, there’s a limited amount of places that they could go to cool down. There are cooling centers, and Phoenix has been trying to expand the amount of cooling centers they have and expand their hours so that people have more opportunity. But also, those cooling centers are at capacity. Sometimes they have to turn people away, and so the city’s resources services are still not enough for people to find refuge from the heat.”
“I hope [audiences get] a broader understanding of how those issues intersect in places like Phoenix,” Pickett said. “While ice immersion is a remarkable feat of human ingenuity, it’s a stopgap solution. It’s a bandaid on a bullet wound.”
Pickett also hopes that the dedication, care, and determination of the first responders come through in the film, showcasing how hard the men and women work to care for some of the most vulnerable in our communities.
“We hope the film is also a love letter to first responders … I watched with my own eyes as they saved people’s lives in real time.”
“We hope the film is also a love letter to first responders because the very first day, before we started filming, we went on several runs with them — getting to know them, asking questions, scouting… and we watched them work for a full 12 hours. Over the course of one day, I watched with my own eyes as they saved people’s lives in real time.
“I watched people who were overdosing get brought back from the dead. It completely reframed my perspective on first responders. I think I didn’t recognize the full scope of what goes into the work and how challenging it can be, and how a lot of them comes from this place of just deep care and compassion for people, especially people who marginalize and who maybe society often doesn’t think about or casts aside. They do that work because they care about human beings. I hope that viewers can be grateful for the first responders in their lives and thank them for the work they’re doing.”
As a collaborative work between directors, producers, and cameraman, it stands to reason that the music would be a collaboration close to home as well.
“My good friend Jack Gillette, who I met when I was in school, he was a music composition major,” Pickett said. “He did the music for my senior film at Point Loma, and then since graduating, we’ve worked together on probably a dozen projects where he’s made original music. It’s kind of cool to have someone from college still with you. I still consider him a core creative collaborator. So I’m really proud of his work on the film and stoked to have other PLNU people still in my creative circle and professional life.”
