The Fungus Among Us

Transcript

This video has many close up shots of individual mushrooms. It begins by fading into nature sounds. We can hear birds tweeting in the woods. A soft piano melody fades in. 

A close up shot of a white mushroom in the woods fades onto the screen. We transition to a sliding shot of a group of mushrooms in the woods on a tree trunk. 

We hear Eric Chasalow speak: "Oh, here, oh here's a mushroom. Oh, over here, actually, let's look here...oh no, it's gone, oh no! They're here!" 

Cut to a close up shot of a yellow mushroom in the grass and sunlight. Cut to a close up shot of a group of mushrooms on a tree branch in the woods. 

Chasalow: "Being able to clear your head, and just really be aware of the beauty in the world, is... such an important thing."

Cut to a close up shot of a mushroom in the woods with spiderwebs. Cut to a medium, moving shot up a cluster of brown mushrooms in the woods. Cut to a close up of a small brown mushroom and pinecone in the woods. Cut to a close up shot of a small white mushroom in the grass. 

Cut to a medium shot of a group of various mushrooms around a tree trunk in the woods. Cut to a close up shot of a gilled mushroom in the woods.Cut to a close up shot of a dewy mushroom surrounded by clover. 

Chasalow: "There are a lot of videos out there, and lots of photos online, that you can get a lot of information about, um, fungi...that's not enough information to go out there and start eating them, cooking them and eating them. So, let's be careful!" [We see Chasalow on screen finishing his statement, "...let's be careful!"]

Chasalow is picking puffball mushrooms from the ground and inspecting them in his hands. 

Chasalow: "I'm Eric Chasalow. I'm a member of the faculty here and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences..."

On screen text reads: "Eric Chasalow - Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences - Irving Fine Professor of Music"

Chasalow speaks on screen: "...and we're, on the campus of Brandeis University, and we're looking for mushrooms!" 

Chasalow inspects a group of mushrooms coming up from the grass. Cut to a close up shot of a big bright yellow mushroom. 

Chasalow: "I'm definitely not an expert, and I'm not pretending to be an expert mycologist. I was just so interested in trying to discover about these." 

Cut to a close up shot of a gilled mushroom in the grass. We see Chasalow bending down to inspect a Ganoderma mushroom protruding from a tree trunk. 

Chasalow: "Well let's take a walk around campus and see what we can find."

Cut to a medium moving shot of a group of mushrooms growing in the grass. Wide shot of Eric Chasalow and friend walk on campus in search of mushrooms. 

Chasalow: "We can go up in the Fellow's Garden and see if that Ganoderma's up there."

Cut to a close up shot of a Ganoderma mushroom.

Chasalow: "Look, look how large this one is."

Cut to a shot of Chasalow touching the Ganoderma mushroom growing from a tree trunk. Chasalow holds the Ganoderma mushroom in his hand. 

Chasalow: "It's a Ganoderma, prized in Asia." 

We see Chasalow inspecting the mushroom by the tree trunk. Cut to a close up shot of the Ganoderma mushroom. 

Chasalow: "It's not a culinary mushroom, it's not something you would cook with..."

Chasalow speaks on screen before we cut to another close up shot of the Ganoderma mushroom. 

Chasalow speaks on screen: "There are just mushrooms everywhere this year, and once you tune into that, you key into it, you start to notice, everywhere, that there... there are fungi."

Shot of two mushrooms growing in moss. Close up shot of a group of white mushrooms. Close up shot of mushrooms in the forest. 

Chasalow: "This is probably, also, a Russula."

We see Chasalow picking up a mushroom and showing it to the camera. 

Chasalow: "They're in the genus Russula...there are green ones, and purple ones, and, ahh... red - some really deep red, light buff colored brown...variants of the same species too."

On screen we see varied close up shots of mushrooms believed to be in the Russula family. 

Chasalow: "That's probably another, another uh, Russula, that's just coming up through the moss."

Cut to Chasalow on screen inspecting a new mushroom.

Chasalow: "Wow, Look at this!" 

Cut to a medium shot of a yellow mushroom while quickly cutting to a close up of the same yellow mushroom. We see a new gilled, yellowish mushroom on screen. 

We hear Chasalow: "That's an amazing thing. I can identify the features, the characteristic features, and then, you do a spore print, where you take the cap and you put it down on a piece of paper, and you put a cup or a bowl over it, leave it, for a while, and it'll drop spores, and you look at the color of the spores, and that's... really a characteristic." 

Cut to a group of (possibly Honey) mushrooms. Close up shot of a small brown gilled mushroom in the grass. Close up shot of a yellow mushroom in the grass. 

Chasalow speaking on screen: "It can help you identify it."

Chasalow handles a large yellow mushroom. 

Chasalow: "... and I don't know if that's an Amanita, which, you know, many Amanitas are poisonous ... what do we have over here?"

Shot of Chasalow walking in the woods inspecting more fungi. 

Chasalow: "I think these are Honey's."

Two close up shots of a group of mushrooms, suspected to be Honey mushrooms. 

Chasalow: "In fact, I'm gonna grab a bunch of these...right here."

Cut to Chasalow plucking the mushrooms from the earth. Close up shot of Chasalow wiping away the dirt from the mushrooms. 

Chasalow: "Yeah, I, I think there are probably Honey Mushrooms - but, I will take the time, to figure out, what they are ... if I can't find out to a certainty, I'm not gonna eat it. 

Close up shot of the mushrooms he has just picked. 

Chasalow: "I pick what I know, and what I can eat, and I know, I know a little bit more about other things ... and so much I don't."

Medium shot of Chasalow inspecting other mushrooms. Three close up shots of possible Honey Mushrooms. We see Chasalow and his friend walking to continue exploring on campus. 

Chasalow: "We're gonna go find a Hen of the Woods."

Cut to a shot of Chasalow inspecting a possible Hen of the Woods mushroom growing from a tree stump.

Chasalow: "There's some luck involved, you know."

Chasalow speaks on screen: "You have to be at the right place, at the right time, under the right conditions." 

Cut to a wide moving shot of a possible Hen of the Woods mushroom. Cut to a medium shot of a possible Hen of the Woods mushroom. Cut to a close up shot of a possible Hen of the Woods mushroom. 

Chasalow: "I mean I've never seen this up here - doesn't mean they haven't been here..."

Chasalow speaks on screen: "The thing about Fungi, is, they're everywhere..."

Cut to a close up shot of a small mushroom growing in the moss. 

Chasalow continues to speak: " ... and you find that, you just didn't notice them. Being aware of the world is the lesson there, and that's a good lesson." 

A short montage of close up shots of a variety of mushrooms brings the video to a close. There is a fade into on screen text reading "Brandeis.edu" and the video fades out along with the music bringing the video to an end.