The Southern Documentary Project
TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATION OF STORYTELLERS
Producer’s Micah Ginn and Matthew Graves along with Hunter Palmer were at the Athletic offices yesterday and this morning filming footage for the upcoming “Skipper Green” commercial for Green Week. Local actor Johnny McPhail stars as the hard nosed conservationist coach. You can watch the finished commercial this Sunday at the Ole Miss Baseball game.
We had the chance to interview Tom Brokaw tonight for our upcoming documentary about the Presidential Debate. Mr. Brokaw was visiting Oxford to take part in a panel discussion at the Overby Center and was able to stop by and give us a great interview that will be a helpful addition to this ongoing project.
Here’s a short overview of today’s Earth Day activities in the Grove. We’ll cut together a slightly longer package with interviews in a few days but I thought it would be fun to highlight a few of the cool things that went on today in celebration of this global event.
Andy Harper and Matthew Graves were in the Grove this morning getting footage of the festivities planned for local school kids to celebrate Earth Day. This is another in a series of events for Green Week at the University. Check back later for more updates including a post from this afternoon’s World Day Celebration.
I don’t know much about this film. It is a part of our archive here at the Media and Documentary Projects Center, and was produced by our staff 38 years ago. The title on the film canister says “1971 Recruiting Film”. It might be missing a narration track, as there is no voice-over at all. It is a bit disjointed, but nonetheless a nice slice-of-life look at the Ole Miss campus in the early 70’s.
This film transfer is part of our ongoing efforts to preserve the film history of the University. I’ll try to keep posting some of these films as I get them transferred and preserved. If you have any questions about this film, give us a call at 662-915-3475.
Andy Harper and Matthew Graves were in the Johnson’s Commons Ballroom today filming Toyota General Manager Kevin Butt. The keynote address was sponsored by the Center for Manufacturing Excellence in conjunction with Green Week.
Check out the first in a series of events we’re taping for Green Week. In this video, Landscape Architect Bob Mercier demonstrates the new BioSwale he designed on campus next to Crosby Hall.
This week the University of Mississippi is going green with various events and programs scheduled to encourage everyone to be more energy efficient. We’ll be covering several of the events so check back for more updates. For a full list of Green Week activities click here.
This past week MDP producer Joe York traveled to eastern North Carolina where he shot a short documentary about the Skylight Inn in Ayden, NC. Pictured to the left, the Skylight Inn was named the “BBQ Capitol of the World” in 1979 by National Geographic Magazine. The Jones family, who have been cooking eastern North Carolina-style barbecue since before there was an eastern North Carolina-style barbecue (they’ve been at it since 1830), took the title of BBQ Capitol seriously. So seriously, in fact, that they had a replica of the US Capitol’s dome erected atop their otherwise bare bones barbecue joint.
York’s forthcoming documentary covers this interesting eccentricity of the Skylight Inn and many, many more. The film will debut at the 2009 Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in New York City on June 13th and marks the fourth such film made for the event. Others have chronicled mutton barbecue in Kentucky, evangelical barbecue in Alabama, and so-called barbecued Hot Guts in east Texas.
Check back next month for the finished film.
Here are some pics from last night’s Chucky Mullins Courage Award Ceremony where Defensive End Marcus Tillman came home with prestigious award. This was the 20th anniversary of the event which began as a way to honor Ole Miss defensive back Chucky Mullins. Our own Micah Ginn produced the event creating video tributes to Mullins and highlight reels for the night’s finalists. It was a large effort but the night was a great success. Noah Bunn, Hunter Palmer, Andy Harper, and Matthew Graves were on hand to help the night run smoothly. For more information on Chucky check out the website for Micah’s documentary film “Undefeated – The Chucky Mullins Story”.
Producer Matthew Graves had cameras rolling today for the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies. Senator Roger Wicker was on hand for the event and offered his support to the program.
MPD Producer Joe York and Graduate Assistant Ben Gillstrap tackled the Oxford Conference for the Book last weekend. Together with MPD Graduate Assistant Ferriday Mansel, these intrepid videographers recorded the entire proceedings of the conference from the opening salvo at the Departments of Archives & Special Collections to the closing panel at the Nutt Auditorium. If you’re one of the lucky VistaIIIMedia customers with access to Channel 99, keep your eyes peeled in the coming weeks for video from the Conference. If you’re not so lucky, we suggest you keep an eye on OMTVlive.com.
Our thanks to all the staff, volunteers, and Physical Plant personnel who helped us successfully capture this wonderful slate of panels and readings.
This past Saturday, MPD producer Joe York had the good fortune to interview Radley Balko (above) of Reason.com, for MPD’s forthcoming documentary on the Mississippi Innocence Project.
Balko’s journalism has offered valuable insight into the Brooks & Brewer cases which the documentary seeks to chronicle. His interview will be a major piece of the film and its completion marks a major success for this ongoing project.
Thanks to Mr. Balko as well as Rob McDuff and Sybil Byrd who provided their law office in Jackson as the site of the interview.
If MPD producers Joe York and Micah Ginn were British chimney sweeps, they might very well have uttered the phrase “Ello, Guvnah!” this past Friday when they traveled to Jackson to interview Governor Haley Barbour for MPD’s upcoming Debate 08 Documentary.
Good thing for MPD and everyone involved their mommas taught them better than that.
Seriously, we really did interview Governor Barbour and our sincere thanks go out to him and his staff for facilitating what will certainly be a key interview in the upcoming documentary.
Work continues in the Kinard Audio Studios on the pilot series for a new radio program called “S
ounds of the South”. All semester, MPD intern Nelson Griffin has worked with producer Joe York to create ten 3-4 minutes radio spots based on entries from the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture Music Edition.
Aside from providing production experience and internship credit for Nelson, the spots he’s creating will be the basis of what we hope will be MPD & UM;s widening presence on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.
Check back later in the semester for examples of Nelson’s completed radio spots on such varied southern musical icons as Jelly Roll Morton, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Southern Culture on the Skids, and many, many more.
You have to get up pretty early to get the best of Southern Studies Students Matt Hopper and Jen Lawrence. Above is a rough cut of their short documentary about erstwhile Oxford politico Shine Morgan. Matt & Jen are producing the documentary for Dr. Justin Nystrom’s SST 402 class. MPD producer Joe York has worked with Dr. Nystrom and his students all semester helping them produce short documentaries for MPD’s ongoing Oxonians Oral History Project.
Here’s a still from the video we shot last night in the Ford Center of Handel’s Messiah, performed by the University of Mississippi Concert Singers with Orchestra. Pictured is guest conductor Dr. Dennis Shrock.
Matthew Graves is in the studio today with students from the University of Mississippi Intensive English Program. He is producing a series of web videos for prospective students in their native languages. Stay tuned for the finished series.
Today, producers Joe York and Matthew Graves traveled to Columbus to interview District Attorney Forrest Allgood for Joe’s upcoming documentary on the Mississippi Innocence Project. Pictured is Allgood going over some court documents with York. Check back for more information and updates on this ongoing project.
Producer Micah Ginn is in the studio today filming student interviews for an upcoming virtual campus tour for Enrollment Services. Pictured is Ole Miss student Gloria Howell. Check back for more updates on this new project.
Here are a few pics from today’s shoot with recent Ole Miss grad and Rhodes Scholar recipient Shad White. Shad is participating in a video we’re producing for the Ole Miss Momentum Campaign as well as a new “Are You Ready?” spot featuring the Honors College. Be sure to check out our other “Are You Ready?” spots here and let us know if you think of other people or programs on campus that should be highlighted.
In this blurry picture you can see U.S. Senator Thad Cochran sitting down for an interview in our studio. Senator Cochran was here to give a short P.S.A. about the Center for Natural Products Research on campus. In addition, we were able to ask him a few questions about the Presidential Debate that happened last September. We’re working on a documentary about the event and Senator Cochran’s interview will be a nice addition to the project. Check back for more news and info about the upcoming Debate Documentary.
Here’s the final cut of the short film that Matthew Graves produced last weekend for the student film workshop. As a side note, if you were able to catch “Slumdog Millionare” you might recognize the low-rent version of their credit sequence used at the end. Jai Ho!
This morning, Micah Ginn and Matthew Graves went on location to the Oxford High School gymnasium to shoot footage for an upcoming basketball training video. This afternoon will be spent in the newly renovated studio to finish the shoot.
This past weekend, the University of Mississippi hosted some 1,500 student orientation leaders for the Southern Regional Orientation Workshop (SROW). Micah Ginn and Andy Harper were there to record their Song, Skit, and Dance competition at the Tad Pad. It was a lively bunch and they showed tremendous spirit and sportsmanship (first time we’d seen other SEC schools doing the gator chomp in support of Florida!).
The Media and Documentary Projects Center is proud to present “Coffee Mate”, a short film by former Ole Miss student Hunter Palmer. “Coffee Mate” tells the story of Redman. Born from a freak coffee accident, Redman must find his way in a strange new world where danger lurks behind every corner. The film was produced here at our Kinard Hall offices and represents hours and hours of work on the part of Hunter as he prepares to apply to film schools in the fall. Best of luck to him and we hope you enjoy his film.
This semester Joe York and Andy Harper are helping teach SST 554, Documentary Fieldwork, with Dr. David Wharton. The class has been divided into five groups and each group will produce a ten minute short documentary focusing on the intersection between local food and culture. In this short video student George Ray discusses the project he and students Ben Guest and Katrina Hayes will be producing.
Dr. David Evans, professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Memphis, delivered the keynote address at the recent Blues Today Symposium here at the University of Mississippi. Highway 61 Radio producers Joe York and Eric Feldman were there to record the proceedings. Check back for more from the Blues Symposium later this week and be sure to visit highway61radio.com
This evening Media & Documentary Projects Center graduate assistant Mary Warner is down in the delta filming interviews for her documentary film about Thacker Mountain Radio. Over the past three months, Mary has worked with producer Joe York to shoot over a dozen interviews for the film, which will serve as partial fulfillment of her thesis requirement for a MA in Southern Studies.
Just last week, Mary, Joe, and MDPC’s own Matthew Graves filmed Thacker Mountain Radio in beautiful high definition video, covering the show from top to bottom with four cameras filming simultaneously.
Check back later this semester to see the final cut.
This semester students in Dr. Justin Nystrom’s Southern Studies 402 class are doing short documentary projects in support of the Media & Documentary Projects Center’s “Oxonians Oral History Initiative”. Jen Lawrence & Matt Hopper, pictured here, are both in the class and are working together 0n a short documentary about the late Oxonian appliance store owner and politico extraordinaire, Shine Morgan. Just today Jen and Matt were in Studio B interviewing Linda Morgan for their project.
But Jen and Matt are just two of many students in the class and their project is just one of several in production. Check back throughout the semester for more from these up and coming oral historians.