| Breaking in on the Bay: SOC student-produced Chesapeake Bay documentary to air on Maryland Public Television, PBS, Wed., Apr. 25, at 10:30 p.m. BY MATT GETTY 
Photos courtesy of SOC
Students capturing footage of the bay. In the world of film and television it’s common knowledge that a chance lunchtime encounter can launch a career, but how often does that encounter kick-start more than 20 careers? Unlikely as it may seem, that’s exactly what happened when School of Communication (SOC) professor Brigid Maher sat down for lunch at the Center for Social Media’s “Making Your Documentary Matter” conference last year. “I found out I was sitting at a table with Steven Schupak [vice president of content enterprises] of Maryland Public Television [MPT],” Maher recalls. “So I just asked him what kind of opportunities there might be for students to screen work on MPT?” A year later, the answer to that question will prove better than Maher could have hoped when the work of two dozen SOC students airs on MPT and several other regional PBS stations tomorrow night. EcoViews: The Chesapeake Bay, a 30-minute environmental documentary coproduced by Maher’s Motion Graphics class and Sandy Cannon-Brown’s Environmental and Wildlife Production class for MPT, marks the start of both a promising partnership between the station and SOC and a promising start to a host of film and video careers. “This is a huge first step in the field,” says Jesse Bogue, a film and video MFA student who worked on a segment on the Mattaponi Indian Tribe’s effort to protect the bay’s Mattaponi River. “It’s something strong to put on my résumé, and it also gives me a professional sample to show when I’m looking for other jobs.” In addition to Maher’s curiosity, that first step owes a lot to SOC distinguished film producer in residence Chris Palmer and his Center for Environmental Filmmaking (CEF). When Schupak responded to Maher by saying his station was seeking environmental content for Chesapeake Bay Week, one name came to mind. “I thought, bing, Chris Palmer,” she recalls. 
Chris Palmer performing the program’s host segments.
Palmer’s 25 years of experience producing IMAX and television nature documentaries immediately won Schupak over. “Having Chris there definitely provided a level of professionalism that I knew I could count on,” he explains. “It provided that comfort level where we could move forward.” After a few meetings last spring, Schupak and Palmer hammered out a production plan. CEF professor Cannon-Brown and Maher would divide the project between two of their fall 2006 courses. Graduate and undergraduate students in Cannon-Brown’s class would pitch, script, and produce four six-minute documentaries on the Chesapeake, and Maher’s undergraduate class would craft opening and closing titles as well as four 15- to 30-second animated environmental PSAs to run between the pieces. When the new school year began the pressure to close the deal shifted from the faculty to the students.“Now, it’s a real-life thing,” says Palmer. “It’s no longer, ‘Oh let’s try this, and it’s OK if it doesn’t work.’ This is real. You’ve got to satisfy these clients, or you’re going to damage yourself professionally.” Each of Cannon-Brown’s students pitched an idea, which the class then voted on to arrive at the four best. Then they split into four groups, contacted all of their subjects, set up interviews, shot footage, and edited their segments while receiving feedback from classmates during weekly meetings. “They worked the same way they would work on any professional production,” says Cannon-Brown. “I pretty much ran the class as a production company.” Of course, the students got plenty of guidance along the way. In addition to discussing techniques with Cannon-Brown, they got outdoor shooting advice from SOC professor Larry Engel, an acclaimed nature film cinematographer. Later, they also visited a local professional media services studio to get editing and color-correction tips. 
Students shooting on location at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental center with executive director and interviewee Judy Wink.
But the most important lessons came on the water. MFA film and video student Joe Grimme, for instance, found out that getting the perfect shot for an environmental documentary means being ready for anything—even at 6:00 in the morning. Though his segment on how local rowers and the AU Crew team are cleaning up the Anacostia River required extensive planning, it’s best moments came from split- second decisions. “Something will happen and you’ll just have to react,” he explains. “Like the opening shot where the boats were cruising in just as the sun cracks over the horizon. You never know when you’re going to get the perfect shot, so you always have to be ready . . . On a project like this, where you know it’s going broadcast, you can really feel that pressure.” The project also gave the student’s a crucial lesson about professional deadlines—meeting them sometimes means working overtime. By the end of the fall semester, footage of Palmer bridging the segments as the show’s host still needed to be reshot. “It was freezing cold the day when we first shot it, and it just wasn’t any good,” says Palmer. “I had these black gloves on which just didn’t work, my teeth were chattering—it was just a mess.” Without the pressure to turn the final product in to MPT, that mess might have been good enough. Grades were in. The class was over. There were new assignments to focus on. But in this case, the job wasn’t done, and MFA students Grimme, Vickie Hayes, Mindy Hirsch, Rebecca Howland, and Irene Magafan took time out of their spring semester schedules for the reshoot and some final edits. “It’s really encouraging to see that level of professional commitment,” says Cannon-Brown. “It tells me that we’re instilling a work ethic that drives students to produce quality work.” And according to Schupak, that’s exactly what the students turned in. “I was impressed with what I saw,” he says. “They were able to tell the story of what’s going on on the bay in a more personal and up-close manner than a lot of professional filmmakers.” In addition to the segments on the Mattaponi Tribe and the Anacostia River, EcoViews includes pieces on an effort to boost the Chesapeake’s oyster population and a program that uses the bay to teach children about nature. The animations Maher’s students produced address day-to-day environmental issues, like when to fertilize your lawn, through such playful scenarios as an underwater oyster bar where cartoon crustaceans and fish bemoan pollution’s impact on their local hang-out. Though the project will culminate with tomorrow night’s broadcast, Schupak, who recently joined SOC as an adjunct professor, sees it as the beginning of a vital partnership. There are already firm plans to repeat the effort next fall so that a new batch of students can produce an MPT program for 2008’s Chesapeake Bay Week. Depending on how well things go, Schupak said he might even expand the time slot to a full hour in the future. “I think it’s a relationship that can grow over time,” he says—which means in the long run there’s no telling how many careers Maher’s chance lunchtime encounter might launch. |
