Published in the Contra Costa Times
By Casey Capachi
Two documentaries by Miramonte High students placed second in C-SPAN’s annual “StudentCam” competition. Middle and High school student-contestants were required to create a documentary on a current political issue incorporating C-SPAN footage in 10 minutes.
The competition was sponsored by C-SPAN classroom, www.cspanclassroom.org), a non-profit organization whose main objective is to make C-SPAN resources available in the classroom. “C-SPAN programming gives our viewers all sides of the issue over time. We keep our opinions out of it. We wanted students to do the same. The winning documentaries showed more than one view point. It is too easy for us all as human beings to form opinions on any subject and hold onto them. Sometimes we find that the more we learn, that opinion starts to change a bit,” said Joanne Wheeler, vice president of education relations at C-SPAN.
Miramonte senior Ford Williams and juniors Scott DeMunck and Tyler Pavey won second place and $750 for their documentary “The Stem Cell Dilemma.” Their video will air on Wednesday, April 19 at 6:50 a.m. on C-SPAN. Pavey will be on the network’s “Washington Journal” program at 8:30 a.m. ET that day for a LIVE phone interview. The group worked, according to DeMunck, every lunch period on the piece and other times for the approximate nine week second quarter. “We not only used every second we had in class, we used every second of those allotted 10 minutes. In fact our documentary was exactly 10 minutes We spent a lot of hours outside of class interviewing experts ranging from a priest to a head of a stem cell task force for the National Institute of Health which each took a couple of hours,” said Pavey.
Williams, who, like the other 2 boys is interested in pursuing a career in filmmaking or news, feels their documentary stood apart from the other contestants’ for it’s ability to teach for years. “Stem cell research is a very political and controversial issue and we wanted to show both sides. It’s going to be political for many years to come. Our documentary is a timeless piece,” said Williams.
Another second place award went to Miramonte senior Alison Dahlstrom for her documentary “A Nation Divided: The Supreme Court & Abortion.” Her video will air on Saturday, April 22 at 6:50 am ET on C-SPAN . She will have a live phone interview that day at 8:30 a.m. ET on C-SPAN’s morning program, “Washington Journal.”
Wheeler picked both pieces for their sophistication. “The stem cell documentary was a very thoughtful presentation of a very timely issue. They interviewed a variety people and the video was professionally packaged. Alison’s documentary was nice in that it showed so many perspectives on the Abortion including [current federal judge] Samuel Alito’s hearing,” said Wheeler.
All StudentCam contest winners are listed at http://www.studentcam.org.