Recently Warren Belasco, Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, was on campus for the Viking Range Lecture sponsored by the Southern Foodways Alliance. The Media and Documentary Projects Center was there to record the lecture and our Southern Studies graduate assistant Xaris Martinez edited the lecture for broadcast. Nicely done Xaris!
In addition to our own documentary work and working with student filmmakers, the Media and Documentary Projects Center helps produce and record campus events. October has been an especially busy month (and we haven’t even gotten to the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium yet!).
Above: Matthew Graves tests out the system in advance of the M-Club Hall of Fame Ceremony and Andy Harper shoots the SFA Viking Range lecture featuring Warren Belasco. Below: Micah Ginn sets up the switcher for the Alumni Hall of Fame, and Karen Tuttle helps shoot the Overby Center event honoring member of the 1959 National Championship football team.
This week marks the 60th anniversary of the world premiere of Intruder in the Dust and the Media and Documentary Projects Center was well represented in the effort to commemorate the milestone. The event, a fundraiser for the Oxford Film Festival, was held at the recently restored Lyric Theater in the same room where the film first screened in 1949. MDP producer Joe York had a premiere of his own as his documentary, When We Were Extras was shown prior to the screening of Intruder in the Dust. Joe interviewed quite a few of the locals who took part in the original production. Look for his film here on the blog in the coming weeks. MPD producer Micah Ginn served as the master of ceremonies for the event. Micah kept the crowd, shall we say, entertained…….
After the movies screened Joe York interviewed Claude Jarman, Jr. Enjoy this excerpt from that interview (please forgive the shaky iPhone).
The Media and Documentary Projects Center presents The Debate Starts Here: The Presidential Debate Comes to Ole Miss. A look into one of the pivotal moments in Ole Miss history when the eyes of the nation and entire world looked to the University of Mississippi as we hosted the first Presidential debate of 2008. With interviews from University officials, Oxford residents, national journalists, and politicians, we cover the exciting events leading up to the debate and explore the tremendous effort involved behind the scenes to bring a Presidential debate to life. The Debate Starts Here will premiere Friday, September 25th at 4pm at the Overby Center Auditorium, marking the one year anniversary of this historic debate.
Last Saturday, Joe York’s documentary “CUD” screened in Athens, Georgia, at the Potlikker Film Festival hosted by the Southern Foodways Alliance. The film profiles Will Harris, a cattleman from Bluffton, Gerogia, who raises grass-fed beef cattle at White Oak Pastures, the expansive farm that has been in his family for over 160 years. This film marks a continuation of the partnership between the Media & Documentary Projects Center, the Southern Foodways Alliance, & Whole Foods Market, who provided funding for the production of the film.
To the left is the DVD artwork produced by Joe York and Matthew Graves of MDP. We would like to thank Ole Miss graduate and current Whole Foods associate Kate Medley for the use of her beautiful images in the production of the DVD artwork. Kate did excellent work as a graduate student in Southern Studies here at Ole Miss and she hasn’t skipped a beat in her new role at Whole Foods. Check out some of her great work here.
We would also like to thank Will Harris for his cooperation and graciousness in the making of this film. If you’d like to learn more about Mr. Harris and White Oak Pastures visit whiteoakpastures.com or check out the documentary below.
John T. Edge was in booth yesterday recording an interview with American Public Media’s The Splendid Table. The conversation was about the influence of food writer and Craig Claiborne. Thanks to the modern miracle of ISDN lines we are able to connect live with any studio in the world.
The Media and Documentary Projects Center was well represented last night by two films showing at the Oxford Film Festival summer series. The first was a documentary by Mary Warner and Joe York that resulted from Mary’s Southern Studies MA Thesis on Thacker Mountain Radio. Mary Produced Thacker for several years and we were lucky enough to work with her that whole time. Mary has graduated and moved on to Atlanta where we wish her well.
The Second film was a screening of Joe York’s moving documentary, Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House. Both of these films represent the collaborative nature of our department and are great examples of the type of films I expect to be producing for years to come. — Andy
In case you didn’t see it, here’s a (bad) picture from tonight’s broadcast of our own Joe York’s “Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House” on Mississippi’s Public Broadcasting Station (PBS). The showing was a great success and nice venue to show off all of Joe’s hard work. To watch the film in it’s entirety, click here or check you local listings for future broadcasts. Congratulations Joe.
The Southern Studies Documentary Fieldwork class we taught with David Wharton has wrapped up. Our students worked hard this semester and have produced some really good documentaries. Click on the images below to watch them and let us know what you think.
Recently we cleaned and transferred an old 16mm “Castle Films” news reel featuring the game-story of our heart-stopping 1959 football game with LSU. During the transfer process I realized that one of the frames of film actually caught the moment in which Billy Cannon had his famous snapshot taken. As you can see, that’s a lot of light in that fraction of a second when the bulb explodes. What a moment for both schools. It was the lone defeat for the Ole Miss Rebels that year, and on top of that, it was one of only three touchdowns allowed ALL SEASON by the grid-iron Rebs. The 1959 Ole Miss Rebels were one of the best teams ever fielded anywhere, as was evidenced later in that same season when they were rematched with Cannon and his Bayou Bengals in the 1960 Sugar Bowl. The Rebels came out on top that day, taking a 21 to 0 victory and holding the Heisman-winning Cannon to just 8 yards rushing.
Click below on the image to see full resolution.
May brings the great news that Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House will make it’s Mississippi debut
and that two of the film’s stars, Oxford’s own John Currence and John T. Edge have joined Willie Mae Seaton as James Beard Foundation Award winners. Currence received a Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: South and our partner John T. was named to the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America. We are happy to see Joe York’s documentary, which has already aired on public television in several states, be the featured program on MPB for the month of May. Congratulations to Joe, John T., and to John Currence. Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House will air statewide on MPB May 28 at 9 pm. Until then, enjoy the trailer!
Always a moving event, this year’s Chucky Mullins Courage Award Banquet marked 20 years since the inception of the award. Chucky Mullins will forever impact this University, and all of us at the Media and Documentary Projects Center are honored to work on the event. This year, we produced video elements that played throughout the night, featuring remembrances from friends of Chucky’s, as well as former winners of the award and members of the current coaching staff at Ole Miss. Thanks to Chuck Smith, executive producer of “Undefeated: The Chucky Mullins Story” who allowed us to use excerpts from the documentary throughout the program. We also put together highlights of the three outstanding nominees for this year’s award, as well as a highlight reel of former winners of the award. Student Noah Bunn was our lighting choreographer, and he brought a beautiful color scheme to the evening, transforming the Indoor Practice Facility into a showcase-type setting. Good job, Noah, and thanks! We have to also thank Hunter Palmer for pulling grip duty all day and Matthew Graves for coordinating the live show and manning the camera! Also, thanks to our leader Andy Harper, who worked on his birthday to help us get set up for the night. All in all, it was a great team effort and a great night!
Micah Ginn
This last Friday, Matthew Graves showed his film “Feeding the Soul at Jones Valley Urban Farm” for a panel discussion on sustainable agriculture for Green Week. Liz Stagg, one of the panelist who’s spearheading the new Oxford Community Garden said that the film was one of the major inspirations for creating the garden in Oxford and has helped secure a lot of its funding. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the film that highlights the folks at Jones Valley Urban Farm right in the middle of Birmingham, Alabama. Check out their website to learn more about this incredible group.
We had the chance to interview Tom Brokaw tonight for our upcoming documentary about the Presidential Debate. Mr. Brokaw was visiting Oxford to take part in a panel discussion at the Overby Center and was able to stop by and give us a great interview that will be a helpful addition to this ongoing project.
This past week MDP producer Joe York traveled to eastern North Carolina where he shot a short documentary about the Skylight Inn in Ayden, NC. Pictured to the left, the Skylight Inn was named the “BBQ Capitol of the World” in 1979 by National Geographic Magazine. The Jones family, who have been cooking eastern North Carolina-style barbecue since before there was an eastern North Carolina-style barbecue (they’ve been at it since 1830), took the title of BBQ Capitol seriously. So seriously, in fact, that they had a replica of the US Capitol’s dome erected atop their otherwise bare bones barbecue joint.
York’s forthcoming documentary covers this interesting eccentricity of the Skylight Inn and many, many more. The film will debut at the 2009 Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in New York City on June 13th and marks the fourth such film made for the event. Others have chronicled mutton barbecue in Kentucky, evangelical barbecue in Alabama, and so-called barbecued Hot Guts in east Texas.
Check back next month for the finished film.
Today, producers Joe York and Matthew Graves traveled to Columbus to interview District Attorney Forrest Allgood for Joe’s upcoming documentary on the Mississippi Innocence Project. Pictured is Allgood going over some court documents with York. Check back for more information and updates on this ongoing project.
In this blurry picture you can see U.S. Senator Thad Cochran sitting down for an interview in our studio. Senator Cochran was here to give a short P.S.A. about the Center for Natural Products Research on campus. In addition, we were able to ask him a few questions about the Presidential Debate that happened last September. We’re working on a documentary about the event and Senator Cochran’s interview will be a nice addition to the project. Check back for more news and info about the upcoming Debate Documentary.
This semester Joe York and Andy Harper are helping teach SST 554, Documentary Fieldwork, with Dr. David Wharton. The class has been divided into five groups and each group will produce a ten minute short documentary focusing on the intersection between local food and culture. In this short video student George Ray discusses the project he and students Ben Guest and Katrina Hayes will be producing.
Remember the James Meredith documentary by two students from Madison Middle School that we blogged about last week? Well, it went over like gangbusters at the National History Day competition this past week, winning everything in sight! Here’s an email we received from Drake and Terry’s teacher Tom Watts at Madison Middle School:
Andy Harper and Joe York are working with David Wharton’s Documentary Fieldwork class this semester. This Southern Studies class gives undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to learn oral history techniques and the basics of documentary film making. Each of the five groups of three students will produce a short film and we will post all of them here later in the semester.
