Lessons From New Orleans
 Students in Storytelling class get invloved. From left to right: John Liston, Hanson Hosein, Kirk Mastin |
When Hanson Hosein, director of the Digital Media Program in the School of Communication, planned to film a documentary in New Orleans, he knew he wanted students on board to help with research and filming. When he mentioned the project in his Storytelling class, John Liston and Kirk Mastin jumped at the chance to participate. Classmate Adriana Gil Miner was already on board.
The completed documentary, Independent America: Rising from Ruins, won Best Feature at the New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival in April and was chosen as an official selection for the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF).
Gil Miner handled research and publicity for the documentary in Seattle while Liston and Mastin, both former photojournalists, hit the road with Hosein for a two-week trip to the Big Easy.
“Getting there was a big part of the trip,” says Liston. “We took only back roads. We did [film] shorts the whole way—little travel stuff—to develop our storytelling skills. We’d plan, shoot, and edit a story in a day for a video blog.”
In New Orleans, Hosein interviewed business owners, activists, and other locals, with Mastin and Liston handling filming, audio, and logistics. The experience taught them about filmmaking—and the resilience of New Orleanians. “The people of New Orleans are so adjusted to the devastation that they just continue on despite not getting the support they need,” marvels Mastin.
Watching Hosein in action, Liston and Mastin realized that documentary filmmakers need to be resilient as well. Interviews fall through. Ideas don’t always work out. “The best parts of the documentary were unplanned,” notes Mastin. “Something amazing and unexpected can happen right in front of you. You can shoot it, but you can’t control it.” Which means, of course, that you must be always be prepared. “There’s no time off,” says Liston. “You’re always working.”
Back in Seattle, Gil Miner was in daily contact with the crew, helping with logistics, including scheduling interviews. “Hanson would do an interview and I’d fact check and do research to help formulate questions for the next interview,” recalls Gil Miner. “All that happened in tandem. It was pretty exciting. The real highlight was when we were able to secure Ed Blakely, director of the New Orleans Office of Recovery, known as the ‘czar of recovery.’”
Since filming the documentary, all three students have graduated from the Digital Media Program. This summer, Gil Miner will be teaching “Monetization and Measurement Models for Media Companies,” a Digital Media course. Liston and Mastin are eager to take on their own film projects.
“The trip with Hanson gave us a lot of the tools needed to do a film,” says Liston. “But mostly it gave us the passion. I took away a passion for doing this myself.”
