New Friends

That's me with Ricardo, Ben and Suree, the video production team from Chicago who spent three days with me interviewing people WILL AM-FM-TV has engaged in the community with our youth empowerment projects in Champaign-Urbana and Hoopeston, Illinois.

It was a great experience working with these gentle and skilled professionals and hearing what people had to say about the work we have been doing in the community for many years.

The videotaping is part of a public awareness campaign within public broadcasting that WILL is participating in known as My Source . My Source features personal testimonies from our listeners, viewers, and members of the community with whom we've worked talking about how we have touched their lives. WILL's next round of My Source spots features people talking about how we have been a catalyst for change in the rural and urban communities in which we've worked on initiatives with and for youth.



The crew shot about seven hours of videotape that will be edited down to one 60-second television spot that will air locally on WILL and also nationally. WILL gets to keep all of the footage to re-edit into local spots. I am looking forward to producing these local spots as well as seeing the national spot.



Suree used a DVCPro high definition camera to shoot the interviews and b-roll. She, Ben and Ricardo are all friends who work together as freelancers. I got to be part of the crew acting as a production assistant. It was a lot of fun as I got to relive the days when I used to produce TV news programs for children and documentaries about rural life.
















Suree's latest broadcast production, Standing Silent Nation , aired on "Point of View" on public television in July, 2007. It's about the White Plum family who grew industrial hemp on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and their struggle for sovereignty after their fields were raided by federal agents. I haven't seen it yet myself. Suree gave me a DVD of the film and I look forward to watching it. She also connected with one of the teachers we interviewed who may use parts of the film in her classroom.

The videotaping this past week took place both out in the community and inside the studios of WILL where student participants in our Youth Media Workshop record and edit their radio, TV and internet productions. WILL staff accommodated very nicely our take-over of the hallways, studio and lobby space for the videotaping and interviews.

There was a good spirit surrounding all of us these past three days. I am reminded now of St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians: "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness..."

I am in spirit.