By Cynthia Parkhill
With cameras salvaged from the rubble of their schools and only limited access to the Internet, 27 film students are documenting Haiti”s culture in the recent earthquake”s aftermath. You can view some of the students” reports and listen to a conversation between filmmaker/instructor Annie Nocenti and PBS correspondent Jeffrey Brown at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/01/conversation-students-from-haitis-only-film-school-capture-the-scene.html.
The Cin? Institute students lost homes, friends and family but, in spite of their personal tragedies, they continue to make and upload films to http://vimeo.com/user1630305. Their footage provides a first-hand look at the crisis and relief efforts.
I don”t know what personal crisis each student had to confront ? any panic, mourning or despair. I listened with suspense to one report revealing that the Cin? Institute was still trying to locate one of its students. But I want to honor the students” resolve and perseverance in spite of personal tragedy.
Just as initial disaster relief occurred among Haitian survivors until outside help could arrive, the journalism students” proximity gives them a unique perspective. They are documenting the first draft of history, as it happens, on site.
I”ve never had to live through anything even remotely as challenging as what the Haitian survivors now face, but I am reminded, on a smaller scale, of my first winter here, in 1998. Nearly every day for more than a month was devoted to documenting the flood. The Clear Lake shoreline swelled until it nearly reached Main Street in Lakeport.
Every day brought word of new challenges: road closures, downed power lines, evacuation notices served. Newspaper staff photography was supplemented by photos that were submitted by local residents.
More recently, during last week”s rains I witnessed county residents offering us footage and photography that documented the flooding in their neighborhoods.
The biggest change within these 12 years was the advent of digital photography. Twelve years ago, we would just as readily have accepted first-hand photography when it was offered to us, but the pictures would more likely have been shot on 35-millimeter film. Today, our readers” photo submissions are as close as our e-mail inbox. Some photos are even submitted via picture messages transmitted from readers” cell phones.
Internet technology makes the world very small, or at least, immediately accessible. The Cin? Institue students” video footage is being disseminated to the world.
The majority of us will not have to face what the Haitians are going through as they struggle to locate missing relatives or rebuild their lives from the rubble in Port-au-Prince. But all of us can speak to our experiences through the forums available to us ? whether by shooting video or photography, calling a radio show or writing a letter to the newspaper.
To learn more about the Cin? Institute, visit www.cineinstitute.com.
Cynthia Parkhill is the focus pages editor for the record-Bee and editor of the Clear Lake Observer?American. She can be contacted at ObserverAmerican@gmail.com or 263-5636 ext. 39.
