From MediaStudies

Lindsay Talbot is a Pitzer senior currently studying Media Studies/Writing. The overlap between the two fields has provided a means to reflect and theorize about the practice of media and her practice of media.

Lindsay spent the past 9 months interning at Current. While at current she worked in animation and music journalism. She helped edit the show The Current Fix Her favorite piece was about Sigur Ros, a band from Iceland, a beautiful concert piece shot at the MOMA in NY. The experience at Current helped her think about the democratization of the Internet and if the current media trends are pulling us or pushing us away or towards that.

While taking Media Praxis sophomore year, she began to work on a project with another Pitzer student in which we worked with Pomona Girl Scouts Spanish Trails. The girl scouts produced video, email, and photographs about their lives and shared these with girls in Quito, Ecuador who lived at Remar International (a home for families that need extra assistance because of abuse or violence). She had the opportunity to continue the cross-cultural exchange during her time in Pitzer's Ecuador program. The on-going experience has opened me to a field of media and practice that I was unaware of before the project began. This has shaped my ideas for a senior project.

Interests

• The Ethics of Images
  • Access Principles associated with the current Media ideology
• The structure and form in which we ABSORB MEDIA.

I have intentionally switched back and forth between first and third person to make myself aware of this media form...

Project Ideas

LINDSAY TALBOT SENIOR PROJECT PROPOSAL

Title sin voz, con voz

1. The subject of the documentary--I began a project with another Pitzer student in Spring 2007. She had started a cross-cultural testimonial exchange via the web. The exchange was between a group of young girls in Pomona, CA and Quito, Ecuador. The idea was to allow these girls from different countries to engage in a pen-pal like exchange. While in Media Praxis, I worked with the girls in Pomona and got to know them well. The next semester I traveled to Ecuador and met the girls I had only known through video exchange. While in Ecuador, John and I helped the girls shoot their own video to send back to the States. The goal for the semester was to get to know the girls in Quito, show them how to shoot their own videos and photographs, and to challenge to traditional documentary structure of a filmmaker shooting a subject. I hoped to change the dynamic and empower the girls to shoot themselves and their lives as they wanted. The girls were not only surprised by this but also very eager to capture their lives and each others lives. I mainly helped them shoot, but was not opposed to being in front of the camera. Towards the end of the semester I had some more :specific questions I hoped to ask them on camera, but first I let them interview me. I showed them my questions, but they made up their own to ask me. For every interview I let the girls place the camera where they wanted it to be and sat in front of the camera with them as I interviewed them. I did this to think about the way some documentary filmmakers are always pointing the camera at someone else.

2. What is the purpose of their project--The purpose of my project is to critique the dominant structure of image ethics and the access dynamics that exist within today’s world, challenge the way in which documentary's are made, and look at the difference when a documentary is made collaboratively with the "subjects."

• The purpose of my project is also to critique my own ethical practice by writing a paper that looks deeper into the issues and footage from Ecuador.
  • I want to write a 40-page paper (this semester) before I edit (Spring semester) so that I can edit with careful consideration of my media ethics.

3. How this is a documentary--This is a documentary about documentary. It is a creative treatment of the practice of documentary.

4. Their semester time line

Tentative Writing Revision Schedule:

September 30- Initial Draft to the 3 professors that are helping me

Oct 8- attend writing workshop “Critical Studies”

Oct 27- attend writing workshop “Critical Studies”

Oct 30- 1st Revised Edition->professors

Nov 25- 2nd Revised Edition->professors

Dec 10- Final Paper Due (goal 40pages)->professors

5. Ethical considerations

the ethical practice of my documentary and paper is the subject of both.