Academy nominates filmmakers for movie about UAF
June 1, 2015
Meghan Murphy
907-474-5191
907-474-7541
6/1/2015
A film about a University of Alaska Fairbanks outreach program is a contender to receive a prestigious award at the 52nd Annual Regional Emmy Awards ceremony on June 6 in Seattle, Washington.
The Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences nominated the short film “GeoFORCE: A Journey to Understanding” for its High School Awards of Excellence. Winners will be announced at the ceremony.
The awards ceremony celebrates the most outstanding video productions from five Northwest states — Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska . NATAS is one of three sister organizations that give Emmy Awards to various sectors of television and broadband programming. It also offers special awards for high school students.
Two students — Leo Pfeifer and Raven Two Feathers — from the Ballard High School Digital Filmmaking Program in Seattle, Washington, created the film about the free outreach program, GeoFORCE Alaska. The UAF summer program aims to interest high school students from northern rural Alaska in science, mathematics and college through four annual geology field trips across the nation. The program resides in the College of Natural Science and Mathematics’ Geosciences Department.
The film documents the physical and personal journey of 20 students as they traveled through Washington and Oregon to explore volcanoes, coastlines and their capacity to learn at a college level.
Raven Two Feathers helped with preproduction and interviewing students. “My role was to find the story that GeoFORCE wanted to convey. I talked with students and faculty and integrated what they said into the story.”
Pfiefer was mostly behind the camera and then edited the film after going through hours of film and interviews. He said making the movie was an incredible experience.
“It was great going on the trip, doing the interviews and really being able to capture the program and the great work that they’re doing,” he said.
GeoFORCE Alaska director Sarah Fowell enlisted the high school students’ help through her brother, Matt Lawrence, director of Ballard High School’s Digital Filmmaking Program.
"We hoped that students would feel more comfortable being interviewed by peers rather than professionals or GeoFORCE staff," she said. "None of the interviews were scripted or rehearsed, because we wanted authentic, spontaneous impressions of the GeoFORCE experience."
Students from the Ballard High School Digital Filmmaking Program earned 11 nominations, more than any other school or organization in the five-state region. This makes the ninth year in a row that Ballard High School film students have been nominated by the academy.
June 6 winning entries will be posted on the website www.natasnw.org. Go to https://vimeo.com/129492268 to see the full video.
ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Matt Lawrence, director of the Digital Filmmaking Program, Ballard High School in Seattle, Washington, 206-252-1117, mplawrence@seattleschools.org
Diane Bevins, executive director for the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, 206-575-3444, diane@asi-seattle.net
Sarah Fowell, director of GeoFORCE Alaska, 907-474-7810, sjfowell@alaska.edu
To contact Leo Pfeifer and Raven Two Feathers, please email mmmurphy3@alaska.edu.
ON THE WEB: http://www.natasnw.org
TO SEE THE VIDEO: https://vimeo.com/129492268