Dr. Christine Eschenfelder with the School of Journalism and Strategic Media took students Christyn Allen and Brandon Casteel to Lens Collective 2019 at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississipp, in October.
Lens Collective is an in-depth multimedia workshop that focuses on cultural preservation through digital storytelling. Students document for a day and spend the next day editing and producing content. This year’s theme was covering the land of the Mississippi Delta. Schools including Penn State, Ohio University and Ball State also attended the workshop.
Brandon and his partner for the video story, Neely Mullen from the University of Mississippi, covered a story in Glendora, Mississippi, about a fifth-generation farmer in the Mississippi Delta working land that has been in his family since 1857.
Christyn and her partner, Alie Skowronski from Ohio University, went to Water Valley, Mississippi, to tell the story of a couple who runs a business centered on naturally raised produce, homemade bread and their own jars of pickles and preserves. And they have a lot of chickens.
Although it rained (poured) the entire day during the video shoots, Brandon said, “Coming to this conference was one of the best opportunities that I have ever received in my undergrad career. … For a boy coming from the Smoky Mountains, coming to the Delta was an experience on its own for me. Students in the upcoming years are going to be so fortunate to have this same opportunity that I received this past week.”
Brandon and Christyn’s stories can be viewed on YouTube and below:
And for a peek behind the scenes at Lens Collective, check out https://youtu.be/4-icK_yWjlk or click here for more information.
The Leading Edge 
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