Class films community in action

Over a 24-hour period beginning midnight Tuesday until midnight Wednesday, more than 40 School of Media Arts & Design students, faculty and alumni filmed "One Day, One Community."

Professor John Woody's SMAD 402 Advanced Post-Production class followed individuals and organizations that made a difference at JMU and in the Rockingham County community.

"We wanted to show that everyone has something in common and how dependent we are on one another, even if we don't realize it at first," said senior TJ Imbrigiotta, SMAD major and student producer.

Every SMAD 402 student field producer was in charge of a story and accompanied by crew members and volunteers. A planned agenda was set for each person being filmed throughout the day according to senior Melody Mathews, a SMAD 402 student.

Shooting locations included the JMU campus, an Elkton Little League game, downtown Harrisonburg, Mercy House, a police ride with the Harrisonburg Police Department and other parts of Rockingham County.

There were 14 main story focuses with additional footage that would fill in gaps within the footage, according to Imbrigiotta. Each story captured the lives and activities of various people in the community.

"Some of the stories we filmed included a dairy farmer, JMU faculty and students, the Mayor of Harrisonburg, [JMU President Linwood] Rose and the two TV stations, WVPT (PBS) and WHSV (ABC)," said senior Kona Gallagher, SMAD major and executive coordinator.

John Hodges, technology manager of SMAD, said production ran very smoothly. He said that Telecom donated cell phones so the entire crew could keep in touch during production.

The students will spend the next two weeks editing their footage and putting together a 30-minute video.

During the 24-hour shoot, an estimated 30 hours of footage was shot all together, according to Woody. The filming and editing process required use of most of the SMAD equipment.

"Twelve different cameras and 12 video editing systems will be used for this project," Woody said.

The SMAD 402 students were given the option at the beginning of the semester to work on a big project, Mathews said. "We were all for filming this video as a group project," Mathews said. "This gave us a feel for the 'real world' working with deadlines, making contacts, the planning process and decision making."

With knowledge from previous SMAD classes and various workshops throughout the semester, the students were able to put it all together to complete their final project.

"This project has been in the hands of the students," Mathews said. "Professor Woody gave us the freedom to do what we wanted while also making the final executive decisions."

According to Mathews, everyone involved in the production hopes the community will take something out of the video by realizing how united the community is.

"JMU students, as a whole, know very little about the community in which we live. Our aim is to foster an understanding of what and who makes this community work," he said.

Hodges, who filmed Rose, said, "We want to give people a taste of what his day is like."

Gallagher said, "We want to pop the 'JMU bubble' in which many of the students live, as well as show community residents that JMU students care about our community."

The students hope to package the "One Day, One Community" video as a DVD and sell it in the bookstore to benefit the SMAD scholarship fund, according to Gallagher.

In 2000, a similar project titled "One Day, One University" was done; however, it only focused on JMU's campus, according to Hodges.

The final video will be shown at Grafton-Stovall Theatre Friday, May 2 at 4 p.m. with free admission. For more information contact Josh Early at x8-3675 or at earleyjd.