Tag: Media and Documentary Projects Center

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Going Whole Hog in North Carolina

skylightbbq_web 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.

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Pulling Ourselves Up by Our Gillstraps?

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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.

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Guilty Until Proven Innocent

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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.

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Ello, Guvnah!

 

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 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.

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Sounds of the South

 

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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.

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Rise and Shine

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.

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Intensive English

IEP Korean Session Green ScreenMatthew 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.

IEP Korean Language Session

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Coffee anyone?

 

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.

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And They're Off…

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.

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Outstanding in his Field…Recordings

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

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5…4…3…2…1….Thacker Mountain Radio Documentary Picks Up Steam

marywarnerblogThis 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.

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Students take a "shine" to documentary work

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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.

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Knock! Knock! Who's there? Wisconsin Public Radio!

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If it seems like only last week that local author Jack Pendarvis paid a visit to the Media & Documentary Projects Center, it’s becasue it was! We used our trusty Zephyr ISDN line to connect Jack with the good people at Wisocnsin Public Broadcasting who produce the nationally syndicated radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge. Jack will be featured on an upcoming episode of the show reading his article “The 50 Greatest Things That Just Popped Into My Head” which was originally published in The Believer.

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Mutton but a Thing

The UM Media & Documentary Projects Center is proud to announce that Joe York’s short film “Mutton: The Movie” will headline the opening night gala at the 2009 New York Food Film Festival.

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If you can’t make it to the Big Apple for the big night (June 13) you can see “Mutton: The Movie” right here, right now….

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RIP – Bluesman Willie King

williekingliberateHighway 61 Radio was sad to learn this morning that Mississippi bluesman Willie King passed away this past weekend. Over the years Willie has been a great friend of the show and we have featured him on the program many times. He will be greatly missed.

A few years back Highway 61 producer Joe York and Preston Lauterbach produced a short film about Willie called “The Real Baptizing”. We hope it brings back good memories for you as it does for us and we ask that you keep Willie, his family, and friends in your thoughts and prayers.

For more information visit highway61radio.com


The Real Baptizing from Highway61 on Vimeo.

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Keeping the Reunion on Track

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This weekend, producer Micah Ginn directed the video content for the Ole Miss Black Alumni & Family Reunion held at the Inn at Ole Miss. The evening was a great success honoring several distinguished alumni. Pictured is Ginn at  the computer and grad student Noah Bunn operating the video switcher. Check back this week for more info about this memorable weekend.

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Howorth/Schultze

Earlier this week, Lucy Schultze of the Oxford Eagle interviewed Oxford Mayor Richard Howorth at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism & Politics. The Media & Documentary Projects Center’s newest team member, Noah Bunn, was there to record the mayor’s thoughts on his past eight years in office.

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Fixing it in Post

The Documentary class is starting to heat up. The class has been divided up into five groups of three and we have begun training in interview and editing techniques. Production begins when we return from spring break. Check back for updates.

Producer Joe York instructs the documentary class on the art of editing.
Producer Joe York instructs the documentary class on the art of editing.
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Attack of the Clay!

 

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Here’s a still from an upcoming short claymation film that we’re working on with former Ole Miss student Hunter Palmer. Hunter has been working tirelessly on the tedious art of claymation; recording one frame at a time and adjusting the movements of the characters on each frame to create fluid motion. Needless to say, we’re impressed with his work and we think you will be to. Check back next week to view Hunter’s final film.

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Hooray! for Drake and Terry

blue-ribbon-180x300Remember the James Meredith documentary by two students from Madison Middle School that we blogged about last week? Well, it went over like gangbusters at the National History Day competition this past week, winning everything in sight! Here’s an email we received from Drake and Terry’s teacher Tom Watts at Madison Middle School:

Andy and Joe, Drake Terry and Jerry Lee Ainsworth won the over all “Best in Show” (for all five categories) at the State level National History Day at the University of Southern Mississippi. Also, they won the Group Documentary at Senior Division; received a special award for the best Oral History Project; and won the History Quiz Bowl for the second year in a row, beating a team from Crystal Springs, 19 – 3. I know you are as proud of them as We are. But they could not have done it without ya’lls tremendous help!!! We will be going in to the University of Maryland for the National History Day to represent Mississippi. No Mississippi project has won in any of the catagories in the 28 year history of National History Day. We are hoping to be the first. Again, God Bless ya’ll and thank you from the bottom of our hearts!!! Tom Watts, Madison Middle School, Madison, MS
If you missed the now award winning documentary by Drake and Terry when we posted it last week, here it is again:

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"Are You Ready?" Campaign in the Tad Pad

Momentum continues to grow with the Media and Documentary Projects Center Ole Miss “Are You Ready?” campaign. And while the Rebels couldn’t hold off the Crimson Tide’s hot shooting, the crowd enthusiastically welcomed David Huertas on the big screen.

David Huertas "Are You Ready?" in the Tad Pad
David Huertas "Are You Ready?" in the Tad Pad
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We're in Business.

 

Here’s the final version of the promotional video we made for the School of Business Administration. Their video along with the promo we made for the Graduate School will be played this weekend at the Ole Miss Women’s Basketball game.

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QEP Me!…One Last Time

 

Here is the final version of the University of Mississippi’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) spot we produced.  Directed, shot, edited, and scored by Matthew Graves. Produced by Andy Harper and Matthew Graves. Check out the QEP website here.

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"Are You Ready?" campaign spot: Gametime…

This ad is comprised of two very different elements. I took our camera out back during August practices and captured some sights and sounds of season preparation, then a month later I was in the tunnel under Vaught Hemingway Stadium as the team made their way onto the field amidst the screams and cheers of loyal fans. The reality that championships are won during the off-season was the inspiration for this ad. We generally never get to glimpse the hard work and sacrifice that goes into top-level performance on game day, but you can’t have the moment in the winner’s circle without spending the grueling hours earning it. The 2008 Rebel football squad earned it.

Produced by Micah Ginn

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Batey Debatey Film


This short film takes a look back at the weeks leading up to the historic presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain at the University of Mississippi in September of 2008. Produced by Media and Documentary Project Center graduate production assistant Rebecca Batey and Joe York

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"Are You Ready?" David Huertas Spot

Recently Matthew Graves and I spent some time in the Tad Smith Coliseum,working with Robbie Coker of the basketball coaching staff and players David Huertas and Terrico White, to produce a couple of spots in the “Are You Ready?” campaign. Check back in a few days for the high-flying Terrico White spot. We had a lot of fun working with these talented student-athletes, and we thank them and Robbie Coker for helping us keep the “Are You Ready?” campaign going.

-Micah Ginn

Producers: Matthew Graves, Micah Ginn, and Dr. Andy Harper.

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Makin' Do


Produced by the Department of History and the Media and Documentary Projects Center at the University of Mississippi. This Oral History based film was produced by history graduate students and documents the experiences of women in Northeast Mississippi who “Made Do” over the course of the 20th Century.