From Chip Howell’s final documentary project, “Southern Psychic”
People of all ages and backgrounds enroll in the Continuing Education program at the Center for Documentary Studies. Some choose to pursue a Certificate in Documentary Arts, which culminates in a substantial documentary project—photography, film and video, audio, multimedia, and writing works. Six students in the Fall 2013 Final Seminar in Documentary Studies, taught by filmmaker and longtime CDS instructor Randolph Benson, will present their final projects to the public and receive their Certificates in Documentary Arts during an event at the new Full Frame Theater; a reception will follow. The students and their projects are described below.
Certificate in Documentary Arts Project Presentations
Thursday, December 12, 7 p.m.
Full Frame Theater, Power Plant building
American Tobacco Campus
320 Blackwell St., Durham, North Carolina
Directions
Jim Adams | Gaining Balance | Audio
Jim Adams’ audio project was born out of his struggle to make sense of a deep personal loss. The piece was created from interviews with his brother, father, and his own audio journals.
Adams grew up in a small town in Indiana, and studied at the University of Indianapolis and Purdue University. He moved to North Carolina in 1986 and worked as an architectural illustrator before studying art and blacksmithing at the John C. Campbell Folk School and Penland School of Crafts. Since 1999 he has worked as a painter and sculptor.
Carol Edmonds | Meet the People | Video
Carol Edmonds traveled from Asheville to Morehead City interviewing folks who are trying to get the medical attention they need. Her documentary is about some of the 560,000 qualified North Carolinians who have been denied Medicaid benefits by the North Carolina General Assembly.
Edmonds grew up in rural Guilford County, North Carolina. After retiring from a career as a computer systems analyst, she got involved in photography and then videography when she began taking classes at CDS.
Chip Howell | Southern Psychic | Video
Whether they are prognosticators or con artists, psychics answer a powerful human need to know what’s ahead and beyond. In the U.S., there are estimated to be almost eighty thousand practitioners in the psychic-services industry, and some fifty-two million Americans have sought their services. Approximately 27 percent of psychics practice in the Southeast. Southern Psychic is about the psychic industry in our community and an up-close exposé of one psychic who believes her work improves people’s lives.
Chip Howell began working in video while still in high school, work he continued as an undergraduate at East Carolina University. He is currently an independent producer of short corporate videos for use on the Internet.
Theo Martins | One Day, Never Mind | Video
Martins’ documentary captures one day in the life of the rock band Nirvana, October 4, 1991, when they performed at Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in one of their last moments as a band unknown to the mainstream. At the time, Nirvana barely registered on the rock scene, but they had just released the now-legendary album Nevermind.
Theo Martins is a Brazilian photographer whose work has been published in several Brazilian news outlets, including Caros Amigos, Educação, Você S/A, and Opera Mundi. He worked as an audiovisual supervisor at MZ Group, a multinational corporation based in São Paulo, for five years. Martins’s photographs can be seen online at www.theomartinsphotography.com.
Martha Moore | The Honorable Ellie Kinnaird | Video
This biopic follows Ellie Kinnaird’s remarkable journey from life as a 1950s suburban housewife and mother to her role as a nationally known progressive political voice in the South. Empowered in the 1970s by the women’s liberation movement, she became a prominent attorney and a courageous advocate for the environment, education, social justice, and campaign finance reform, serving four terms as mayor of Carrboro and eight terms as a North Carolina State Senator. Moore’s documentary follows her in what would become her final, tumultuous year in public office.
After a two-decade career as a media producer in Nashville, Tennessee, family ties brought Martha Moore back to her native North Carolina to pursue professional development at CDS. Moore relishes harnessing the power of media to uplift, inspire, and cultivate progressive change.
Bill Wagner | After Grandma Died | Video
Until he was a teenager, Bill Wagner had a great relationship with his mother’s parents. What he didn’t know was that his mother and grandmother had a long history of discord. When his mother turned forty she stopped seeing her parents entirely, which meant that Wagner stopped seeing them as well. His film explores the reasons for the family rift, documenting the personal discoveries he made and the secrets he unearthed along the way.
Wagner grew up in upstate New York and has lived in North Carolina for most of the last twenty-three years. He earned a graduate degree in nurse anesthesia in 1995. Wagner’s passion for documentary work led him to study at CDS, where he has been a certificate student for nine years.