by Louise
Solomita
Peter Downies documentary class, an advanced workshop course for
journalism students, was a little fuller than usual March 3.
Students presented their documentary projects on two Montreal charities,
Project Chance and The Yellow Door, to an audience of teachers, classmates,
and representatives from the organizations.
Im so proud of this class and what you guys
have accomplished, Downie told his students, while passing out bags
of popcorn in preparation for the screening.
Downie gave his class, which includes both graduate and undergraduate
journalism students, six weeks to produce documentaries on charities about
which they initially knew very little. Downie himself admits that his
mandate was impossible.
At the beginning of the term, he divided the class up, and
set both groups to work on the profiles. Many of the students did not
know each other or how to operate the video equipment.
Youve got to be nuts to take this course,
Downie recalled telling his students on the first day of class. After
watching the two 30-minute documentaries his students managed to produce,
however, Downie said proudly, It turns out theyre all nuts.
The documentary on Project Chance, a low-cost housing unit with daycare
service for single mothers who are also full-time students, looked closely
at the lives of three women, who discussed their choices, challenges and
goals. The women spoke about daily life at Project Chance, and provided
various perspectives on being a student and a single mother.
Suan Cross, director of Project Chance, appreciated this personalized
approach. The thing I liked about the documentary was that it really
focused on the single mothers, she said. It was more about
the women than about second chances. Cross was particularly pleased
that the documentary never became a simple promotional video for the organization.
The documentary about the Yellow Door, an organization that
offers community service in the downtown area through several volunteer
programs, focused on its services for the elderly, which include friendly
visits. The students interviews with both the volunteers and the
senior citizens demonstrated the rewards for both parties of taking part
in such an organization.
Flo Tracy, program director at the Yellow Door, thought the documentary
was excellent. She particularly liked the fact that that the
final product was in both French and English.
Downies students were proud of having done all the
researching, interviewing, filming and hours upon hours of editing. Tom
Peacock, who worked on the Yellow Door documentary, said he is happy with
the final product, especially given the technical challenges that he and
his fellow students faced during the course. Everyone was a beginner,
he said, and there were problems every step of the way.
Michèle Mischler, who worked on the Project Chance documentary,
said the most rewarding part of the process was presenting the final product
to the single mothers featured in the interviews.
The biggest accomplishment, for me, was that they
felt they were properly represented, she said.
The students will spend the remainder of the term working
on individual documentaries on a topic of their choice.
Downie hopes that Concordia Broadcast Journalism will eventually
become known as a centre for documentary-making.
This was the first year he assigned Montreal charities to
his students as a documentary subject, and given the positive outcome
and the various other charities out there to explore, he will continue
the project next year.
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