FIRST PERSON: VIDEO DIARIES OF IDENTITY AND PLACE
Ages 16-29
Fall 2018, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Cherry Hill
This videography and storytelling workshop will focus on individual, personal stories. Student fellows will start with place, the specific settings in their lives that have meaning: a school, a playground, a kitchen, a rooftop, even a family car. They’ll explore the connection between environment and inner life, considering how physical spaces can not only hold memories, but determine experience and define identity. They’ll also consider how an individual can transcend, defy, or transform that definition. Working together and with the instructors they’ll select one location, whether from their past or present, and shape a single “diary entry,” a personal story for video. Using photographs and other personal archival materials, as well as cellphone footage shot between meetings and video footage shot during the workshop, they’ll assemble individual short films. Audio will include interviews, voice over monologue, and the sounds of the world around them. They’ll learn the basics of videography, including shot composition, audio recording, and editing; and they’ll refine critical thinking and storytelling skills. Each fellow will create a short (2-3 minute) film to be shared at a public screening and on the program website. Fellows are not required to own smartphones to participate. Limited to 12 student fellows.
First Person: Video Diaries of Identity and Place is a co-production of Baltimore Youth Film Arts and Root Branch Productions.
Vonnya Pettigrew is CEO of Root Branch Productions & Film Academy. A writer and filmmaker, she has produced content for a wide range of clients, including the Discovery Channel, Disney, and Starz.
Danielle Carter, a Baltimore native, is a recent Morgan State University graduate. She studied Multi-Platform Production and hopes to become a producer. She is eager to share all that she has learned with up-and-coming filmmakers.
Brittany Crissman is a senior at Towson University, where she's pursuing a degree in Communications with a Mass Communication Studies minor. She is the community service chair of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), Towson chapter, and will be a social justice facilitator in fall of 2018.
