Many NPR listeners heard Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson’s February 19 story about the time she spent with U.S. Marines from India Company and the resulting death of Marine Alejandro Yazzie, of Rock Point, Arizona.
U.S. Marine and Afghan army commanders confer after their men begin taking fire while on patrol earlier this week. Image by: Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson/NPR
Nelson’s behind-the-scenes story shares the challenges and intimacy when covering intense stories in close quarters with the subjects:
“I was in a room with maybe 20 or 25 Marines. It was freezing. I mean, it was basically a petrol station that had been – the glass had been blown out from the various IEDs that they had detonated. I was in this room, and you have to picture it’s just a concrete floor, rat feces everywhere, and all of us were so cold.”
Reporting on the reaction to her story, Nelson exchanged shared:
“And so what struck me about him, unlike the others, he was a little quieter, he was a little shyer, but very sincere, very nice, and just – I could tell when he would just mention that he wanted to talk to his wife, his eyes would just light up in a way that I knew he was very much in love with her. And I know he was trying to call her on Valentine’s Day on my phone and couldn’t reach her and he had planned to call her that night again. But he definitely was thinking about her and their unborn child.”
Montange, in her closing, said,
“Soraya’s story, with sound of the firefight in which Lance Corporal Yazzie was killed, upset his family, but his wife Colandra(ph) also told NPR she was glad he was interviewed before he died, because now she knows his last thoughts were of her.”
In the storytelling seminar, I shared some examples of short length and medium length documentary film making. If we had more time, and one more credit hour, we would have continued to discussing long form documentaries such as “The Way We Get By“.
Filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, with Warren Cook, Dan Ferrigan, and Zack Martin have created a hauntingly intimate look at three people and the thousands of lives they touch.
“The Way We Get By” will likely surprise you. It may draw you in and get you closer to the main characters more than you are ready for. This is a very personal and intimate story about three senor citizens in Maine who staff a troop welcome center at Bangor Airport in Maine. Critic Dan Zak of the Washington Post (spoiler alert) writes
“The Way We Get By” is not so much a slice of life as the whole pie, the highs and lows of twilight living, all found and filmed in a terminal at an airport in Maine. What a country.
From it’s opening, the director and interviewer create a slow, careful, and respectful treatment of the cast as we follow their lives. The film provides a portrait of America that is perhaps one of the best in the last decade…..or longer. The film does not tell us anything, but leaves it for us to discover ourselves… a point emphasized in our storytelling seminar. Director Gaudet explains his vision on the movie’s web site:
Throughout The Way We Get By, each character tells their own story, without the aid of narration, through on-camera interviews and moments of verite. Unlimited access to our characters provides an in-depth look into their lives. Keeping the camera static whenever possible allows each of them to quickly forget they are being filmed, removing any barriers between them and the viewer. The result of this shooting style is a well-crafted, layered story with a polished, cinematic look that enables the viewer to feel they are experiencing these personal moments alongside the characters. The pacing of the film appropriately matches the subject matter, allowing each storyline to breathe, while capturing life in a small town.
When we started, we were a little naive about the process. We really didn’t know how to make a documentary — we knew how to make news stories. So there was a large learning curve throughout that process.
and on the same site, Gaudet shares:
We also really wanted our subjects to be comfortable, so we didn’t bring in a bunch of lights and have boom mikes hanging above their heads. We miked them up, brought no lights, got the cameras set up and then tried to make them forget we were there. And I think that comes across, because the film is very intimate. It wouldn’t be if we had been in our subjects’ faces, but we backed up and let their lives play out.
His paragraph above clearly articulates the art of the contemporary documentary. Her quote shows respect for both kinds of story telling, the short news video and the longer documentary form. Some disclosures are in order: Gaudet and Pullapilly are now married since October, and one of the cast members, Joan, is Gaudet’s mother. These personal relationships help open doors to both trust and intimacy. But it is the art and skill of these filmmakers, however, that makes it possible for us to witness these very personal stories told with cameras just a few feet away
The real work of academia is done by research assistants: those hardworking, underpaid, never thanked, graduate students; hoping to make a name for themselves, pay a few bills, and somehow keep it all balanced until they graduate.
Our university doesn’t have a formal research assistant program for our scholars, so last year I put together an internship in leadership development. To date, I have been blessed with some very talented and gifted interns who have made my work and life immeasurably easier.
The original posting reads like this:
Health care administrators and managers are often key individuals in leadership development roles. Leadership development courses and talks are often offered via human resources classes, retreats, conference presentations, and other formal and informal channels.
This internship combines both research and practical application of leadership development. It is especially designed for those students who want to include leadership development in their career path, but not necessarily as a college-based faculty member. Students will research and develop their own skills in creative thinking, virtual team leadership, change leadership, and storytelling as a leadership tool.
I should explain that our Master’s program has just over 200 active students and my personal advisee list is just over 40 of those students. Out of our best students, I am fortunate to hand select 3 or 4 each year who work with me in this Administrative Internship.
The first intern in this concept project is still working with me, developing a focused segment of our Change Leadership Seminar on the role of journaling and coaching employee change.
Another of these gifted scholars took on the creation of a presentation to a state wide quality conference on the natural conflicts which exist between the ideas of quality and quality improvement. I’ll present the results of her work again in April.
Interns are not reqired to fetch coffee - but it is always greatly appreciated. Photo Copyright 2008 by Jim Frazier
Working with me now, on the creation of an introductory lecture to our leadership skills, is another of my Interns who is also a dual degree Podiatry student and a military officer. This scholar also took on the difficult challenge of working with me in the classroom during the Storytelling in Health Care Leadership Seminar held in the last few weeks.
And while the ongoing projects continue, new work begins in March with a new Intern as she completes her MPH practicum with Walden University. She will be instrumental in the organization, review and selection of additional reading resources for “We Are What We Eat: The nutrition, policy and public health of America’s diet“. This new addition to the team will be working remotely from New Mexico, and will be helping to develop an iTunes U version of our course as a pilot.
I also confess (with pride) there are moments when I review their collective CV’s and marvel at what each has accomplished to date. I am fortunate that they chose to share their strengths — and my mentorship — as they round out their graduate study.
As I prepare for the second weekend of our Storytelling in Health Care Leadership seminar, I’ve been going through some old work and reels. Lots of material is recorded, some in older formats than others: Hi 8, DVC-PRO, DV. I came across some video from a shoot in 1998. Before we see the video, I need to set up the story.
In 1997, shortly after the death of Princess Diana, I began producing a web documentary project called “Behind the Viewfinder – A Year in the Life of Photojournalism”. It was a regular diary of 10 photojournalists, telling their stories and their work. Some people have called it blogging before we knew what blogging was. The site, just as it was created, is still live at www.digitalstoryteller.com/YITL
I was also shooting video interviews for a video documentary of the work. So here is the set up for the video below:
Photojournalist Mark Lent was shooting a project about Jerry Pope, a world record holding water skier. Jerry is paraplegic and skied 100 kilometers without stopping. So Mark, the photojournalist, was facing backwards in the tow boat pulling Jerry. The photo would illustrate a story about Jerry.
I was in a chase boat, and we cruised along side and behind Jerry, videotaping Mark, taking photos of Jerry. The boat motor sound was loud, so Mark was wearing a wireless microphone, which transmitted everything he said to the video camera and to my earphones. Mark ultimately wrote about the day in his post for Behind the Viewfinder on September 5, 1998.
If we fast forward 11 and a half years later. Saturday afternoon, I was reviewing old tapes for possible examples to share with students in the next seminar session. In my search, I came across an un-logged tape and popped it in the video deck to preview it. What I found was the video from that day.
You can clearly hear Mark’s voice, and his shutter, as he takes the photos including the photo included here. The video below is compressed to a .mp4 to make it a quick load for you. You’ll want Quicktime.
F.R. "Fritz" Nordengren is Assistant Professor at Des Moines University where he supervises health care administration graduate student capstone projects.
He is a President of the Iowa Food Systems Council recommending policy, research and program options for an Iowa food system which supports healthier Iowans, communities, economies and the environment.
Nordengren is an award winning producer, a graduate health care educator, and a small farmer & rancher
Small Farm Life