In between honing my skills in videography and digital postproduction, I update my blog with video vignettes, and teach video ethnography as part of my undergraduate courses.
Study Abroad in Jordan: An Arabic #LanguageStory
Voices/ Voces in the Field: AfroCuba
(2017). 6 mins. English and Spanish. This documentary video follows a team of U.S.-based student researchers who journeyed to Havana and Santiago de Cuba to learn from locals. Students speak in their own words, along with insights from the faculty/staff team that guided their learning. Postproduction completed on iPad and MacBook Pro.
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Why? ليش؟ [Lesh?](2014). 6 mins. Arabic with English subtitles. While on fieldwork in Amman, Jordan, I was inspired by the repeated use of Lesh? by Arabic learners as both a question and one-word commentary on social situations. When we tried hailing a taxi, and it passed us by without stopping, they would question Why? indicating their dissatisfaction, but also the awkwardness of the situation. The documentary includes footage of our journey with a charismatic taxi driver.
This video was an important first, because I involved participants in verifying the subtitled translations I created during postproduction while in Jordan. The video was screened in Amman, Jordan, and Middlebury, VT. All postproduction completed on iPad. |
Next Sound Project: "Maharage, maharage!" I can recall a moment walking the dirt roads of my Sinza neighborhood in Tanzania, when I thought to pull out my audio recorder and capture the singsong Swahili voice of the woman who circulated on foot every morning to sell maharage (fresh green beans). My next project will be to incorporate this audio into an experimental sound ethnography based on other recordings of public space made during my on-site research in urban East Africa.