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Paul Kendall called it "guerrilla" filmmaking.
A construction-site retaining wall had given way, and a vast load of mud had
slid toward the Haw River. Kendall hadn't planned for the scene in that day's
video-shooting schedule -- it was something that couldn't be planned for. But
when you're producing a segment for a television documentary about the Haw's
water quality and what affects it, it's something you can't pass up.
Even if it means crawling through the mud to get the perfect camera angle.
"You'd be willing to do anything for a good shot," Kendall said.
He was part of a team of faculty and students from the School of Journalism and
Mass Communication, UNC-TV and local videomakers who combined to produce the
half-hour documentary profiling the Haw.
The documentary will air April 16 at 9:30 p.m. on UNC-TV's science and
technology series I.Q. Students from Tom Linden's Spring 2000 "Science
Documentary Television" course (JOMC 191) produced more than half of the
program.
While UNC-TV provided a professional videographer, the Carolina students did
most everything else, including writing scripts, conducting interviews and
setting up shoots.
"It was an amazing collaborative effort which involved more than 35
individuals. And in the end we came up with a compelling story about how one
precious river system faces extreme degradation," said Linden, Glaxo Wellcome
Distinguished Professor of Medical Journalism and director of the Medical
Journalism Program at Carolina.
The documentary's evolution began when Blair Pollock, Solid Waste Programs
Manager with the Town of Chapel Hill, and Jim Sander, an Orange County
filmmaker, approached Jim Bramlett, executive producer of the I.Q.
series, with their idea to profile the state's river systems.
At the time Linden was looking for story ideas for his science documentary
television course for the spring 2000 semester. Linden and Bramlett decided the
Haw River documentary would provide an excellent learning experience for the
students and a good topic for Bramlett.
I.Q.: The Haw River was born.
"The Haw River is an example of the typical pressures any river system in North
Carolina is facing," Bramlett said. "There are concerns about water quality,
constant demands on the water for drinking by towns along its length, constant
threats of pollution from construction and municipal waste, and constant
demands on the river as a recreational resource.
"How we manage these concerns statewide will determine to what extent we can
prevent a crisis in water resources across the state."
Linden had heard of North Carolina's headline-grabbing rivers, such as the
Neuse, but he found the Haw's geography particularly appealing -- while it
begins near Reidsville in Rockingham County, it runs through Orange County
neighbors Alamance and Chatham and goes on to nearby Jordan Lake where the Haw
meets New Hope Creek.
"There was the Haw right in my back yard," Linden said.
On the river
Throughout last year's spring semester, Linden's students crisscrossed the Haw
from Reidsville, where an older city sewage system at the time was failing to
meet state clean water standards, to Jordan Lake.
Students interviewed the mayors of Reidsville and Cary, a town which gets most
of its water from the Haw River Basin.
"The Haw is a river that once supported abundant plant and animal life, and
from our perspective it's dying from misuse and abuse," said Linden. "We hope
our documentary highlights the threatened status of the Haw so that North
Carolina residents can save this once beautiful treasure."
Kendall had inner-tubed in the Haw before becoming an expert on the river as a
documentary-film producer. If he had it to do over again, he said, this time
he'd find out beforehand which stretches of water posed a health hazard.
Kendall and the other students who worked on the film didn't wait to become
experts on the Haw until they traveled along the river's banks.
Much of that knowledge came before the first frame of film was shot, when the
students researched the Haw so that once they were in the field they would know
how best to tell the river's story.
"I like to tell students that they should pretty much know the answers to the
questions before they get to the interview," Linden said.
One person who lent his expertise to the film -- both on and off camera -- was
Donald E. Francisco, a professor in the Carolina School of Public Health's
Environmental Science and Engineering Department.
Francisco gave Linden's class a primer on the Haw before filming began, and his
knowledge earned him one 20-second segment of on-air time at the water's edge.
The students' professionalism impressed him.
"They were out there doing what they were supposed to be doing," he said. "It
was their show."
Learning both sides
While Francisco educated the students about public health issues
surrounding the Haw, he learned something about the nature of their business,
too.
Before, like most television viewers, he'd simply seen the end result of what
went on behind the scenes. The importance of camera angles and microphone
placements and other tricks of the trade belonged to a world he hadn't known.
"It never occurred to me that there were things to learn. I'm a narrow-minded
scientist," Francisco said.
It's that cross-fertilization of science and journalism that makes teaching
"Science Documentary Television" a joy, Linden said. The scientists make sure
that the subject is covered; the journalists make sure the subject is
compelling.
"They really help each other," said Linden, who holds a medical degree and
boasts a journalism background that includes a reporting stint with the Los
Angeles Times.
Kendall's JOMC undergraduate degree focused on graphic design, and he
now works as a web designer for Carolina's Highway Safety Research Center. He'd
had no television documentary experience before taking Linden's class, but he
produced a 12-minute segment of the show that looks at the Haw's water quality
and aquatic life.
As a graphic designer, he'd been used to packaging other people's content. As a
segment producer, he saw all the research that goes into creating that
content.
"You learn to be pretty resourceful," he said.
And conducting that research, in turn, gets at the heart of what being a
journalist is all about -- you must know a subject to report on it.
"You learn a lot -- you have to," Kendall said.
Kendall liked what he learned about making science documentaries -- so much
that he might pursue it as a career. He's always been interested in video
production and has studied filmmaking, though becoming the next Steven
Speilberg holds no appeal.
"I don't see the need to create more fiction -- we've got plenty of fiction,"
he said.
A quality product
Kendall's career hopes may pan out, based on the success of at least one
of Linden's students. Corey Ford, a segment writer for the I.Q. show, is
now an assistant producer for the PBS program Frontline.
His success is just one sign of the quality of any project that emerges
from a Linden class. Students in his "Medical Reporting for the Electronic
Media" course (JOMC 196) have won two Midsouth Regional Emmys in the student
production category from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
in the last two years.
The award-winning shows aired on UNC-TV's North Carolina Now news show,
and the partnership with the station has been a boon to Linden and his
students.
"The UNC-TV connection is great," said Linden. "It's incredibly exciting for
the students to know that what they are producing will reach a statewide TV
audience.
"If they live in the mountains of North Carolina or on the coast, their friends
and family can see their work."
Bramlett, I.Q.'s executive director from UNC-TV, said the feeling is
mutual.
"We are constantly in need of fresh subject ideas, and people who can do the
hard work of research, writing and shaping those ideas into an interesting
program," he said. "Tom's classes attract students who are honing those skills
and the combination benefits them as well as UNC-TV.
"The University as a whole is a great resource for interesting topics, and this
is a way to inform the public about the many ways University research and
knowledge benefit the state."
Kendall was glad to get down in the mud to have a part in that.
"If you can educate people just a little, you can make their lives a little
better than before," he said.
Tune in April 16
The Haw River documentary will air April 16 at 9:30 p.m. on UNC-TV's science
and technology series I.Q.
Carolina students (some former) and faculty involved in the production
were:
Student producers Lisa Collard, Paul Kendall and Will Spicer from the School
of Journalism and Mass Communication and Regan Bagnell from the School of
Public Health.
Segment writers Corey Ford from the School of Journalism and Mass
Communication and Millie Becker from the School of Public Health.
On-air experts Donald E. Francisco and Dan Okun (Kenan professor emeritus) of
the School of Public Health's Department of Environmental Science and
Engineering; David Moreau, chair of the Department of City and Regional
Planning; and Gerald L. Featherstone, lab research specialist in the Dental
Research Center.
Web site supplements show
Students in the Spring 2000 "Multimedia Design and Production" class (JOMC 189)
have created a companion web site to go with UNC-TV's documentary on the Haw
River.
The class instructor, Julian W. Scheer Term Professor Richard Beckman, had his
students take on the project after being approached by his colleague Tom
Linden, whose students helped produce the documentary. Beckman's students
regularly produce web sites for clients such as Linden's class.
The site -- which will be posted later this spring -- looks at the
environmental issues surrounding the Haw, and its creators hope that the site
will be an on-going resource for North Carolina's public school students.
Dan Lucas, a JOMC undergraduate student who specializes in web design, said the
project showed him the full gamut of what it takes to be a journalist, from
researching a topic to displaying the results.
"It just brought everything together that I've learned in this school," he
said.
Other students in the class were Andrew Gray, Dallas Smith, J'nie Woosley and
Lindsay Kincaid.
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