MANY VOICES, ONE VISION: COLLABORATIVE VIDEOGRAPHY
Ages 16-29
Fall 2023, Online
In this online digital storytelling workshop, student fellows will team up to create a collaborative documentary about their shared world. Using smartphones, fellows will each collect personally meaningful footage responding to an established common theme. They’ll contribute weekly, developing a complex view of their subject, then ultimately edit together material into a short film. Collaboration will be a central principle of the workshop, describing not simply the finished project, but the method to achieve it. Working with the instructors, themselves creative partners, fellows will devote their skills, aptitudes, and time to the success of a group enterprise, even as individual voices and visions are honored in a weave of stories and ideas. Together they’ll decide on the subject (choosing between friendship, work, and daydreams); review and log footage and audio to begin shaping the project; then participate in the final edit, assembling pieces into a coherent whole. The workshop will also include insights from instructors, co-owners of a production company, on how to make one’s way as an independent filmmaker. The joint film will be shared on the program website and at a public exhibition. Limited to 10 student fellows.
Blayre Pichon is a filmmaker and content producer, and co-owner of Waasi Films. In 2022, she produced her company’s first feature film, Senior, a recipient of a Johns Hopkins Saul Zaentz grant. As both a director of photography and post-production artist, she has shot commercials, music videos, and branded content.
Toroes Thomas, an award-winning filmmaker and co-founder of Waasi Films, draws on his life experiences for inspiration in his work. His short film The Beach received acclaim at various festivals, and his upcoming feature film Senior is backed by a grant from the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund.
Chuofan Yu is an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University studying molecular and cellular biology with a personal interest in visual arts.
