Media Making Change
4013 N Gantenbein, Portland, OR 97227 (503) 975-4545
Since 2006, the Northwest Institute has annually hosted a Summer Documentary Program, an intensely fun and intensely productive two-month long academic and media-training program. We have hosted students from across the country and, during each program, students learn how to produce professional-quality radio and video documentaries.
Based on the success of these, we have expanded our services to include three programs: Summer Documentary Program; Radio Summer; and Teen Voices.
To meet the students in their own words, voices and sounds, please give a listen to a few Audio Postcards they produced during their first week of “camp.”
Students are handpicked for their smarts, passion and optimism. Because we want to provide direct and undivided attention, each program is limited to 12 participants. (For more details about the admissions process, please check out the application process.) Over the past three years, we have worked with students from across the country—from Brown, Princeton, University of Wisconsin, Macalester, Whitman, Reed, as well as dozens more top-notched colleges.
Many of our students had never picked up a camera or microphone before attending. Yet they left with professional-grade skills for producing media projects and a strong knowledge about how to affect real social change, as well as life-long friends. Although we have only been here for three years, we already have graduates working at Air America, Boston Globe, Teach for America, Free Press and with Peter Seeger!
We encourage prospective students to contact alumni to ask them about their experiences. You can find them on our Facebook account. Or, you can read the students’ blog from previous programs.
In most simple terms, students produce professional-grade, engaging media projects. Over the past few years, the theme has been “local solutions to global issues”—whether that means a community program to re-integrate prisoners into the work force or a city-sponsored program for community gardens. Yes, we teach production skills, but we also emphasis creativity and critical-thought skills that will carry our alumni through their entire careers and lives. We recognize that technology is changing and we want our graduates to be comfortable adapting to new media tools. The common thread is that students learn journalist tools so that they can articulate positive solutions.
During the 2009 Summer Documentary Program, Kira Fisher (Vassar), Rose Holdorf (Macalester), Jensen Powers (St Olaf) and Molly Bennett (Colby) put together a fun and informative video advocating using unused space for community gardens:
Also during the 2009 program, Christine Lai (Oberlin), Galen Bernard (Whitman), Kelin Hall (University of Chicago) and Kassandra Antoine (Holy Cross) produce a short film about a city-sponsored program to provide job skills to disabled teens:
During the 2008 program, four students—Russ Caditz-Peck (Whitman), Caitlin Clay (Brown), Catherin Woodiwiss (Colby) and Mark Saldana (Macalester)—looked at the challenges for reintegrating former inmates into the workforce:
For more videos produced by our students, please visit our YouTube page.
Recognizing that most food travels 1500 miles from production to plate, during the 2008 program, Tom Niemisto (St. Olaf, '08) and Catherine Woodiwiss (Colby, '09) produced a short radio program about backyard chicken coops as a means to encourage more local food production:
In the summer of 2008, Christine Lai (Oberlin ’10) and Molly Bennett (Colby ’10) visited the North Portland Tool Library, a hands-on community building effort:
©2006–2010 Northwest Institute for Social Change.