June 2017

The 2017 Documentary Video Institute brought 24 students from around the country for an immersive, week-long training in video documentary. Led by six instructors, we worked in groups of four to produce short documentaries centered on the Hayti neighborhood, a historically African-American community near downtown Durham. 

In a packed six-day schedule, in the classroom and in the neighborhood, we learned technical skills, such as lighting, sound, and shooting; practical considerations, like interviewing technique and story structure; and video editing and post-production techniques. On Saturday, July 1, we showed our films at a public screening at the Full Frame Theater at the American Tobacco Campus. You can watch them all by visiting the documentary institute's website.

The video I created with my partner, Alec Himwich, is below. We centered our story around Aya Shabu, a dancer and activist from the Hayti community. Shabu is a pillar of the Hayti artistic community and is a local historian, leading theatrical tours of the town's history.