During June we collected thumb drives and footage from the Mother’s Day Pow-wow
at the University of Oregon, and we are excited to start editing it. But first in order to
even create selects on our new Mac, or for teaching editing, we are having to learn the
latest edition of both Editing Programs of Adobe Premiere Pro for PC Users and Final
Cut Pro for us Mac users- that my co-mentor, Award-winning Editor Bob Laird
helped develop for Macromedia and Apple in San Francisco, all for our Doc Camp.
Speaking of the Doc Camp, we have pivoted it from Allen Hall to the Longhouse for
the Native Students, thanks to the Longhouse Steward Katie Staton, who put us first
in line for Summer Scheduling.
We also have other film mentors, such as Professor Mitchell Block and other visiting
filmmakers like Loren Sears, Craig McKern, Roger Haney and Marty Hutcherson,
(who worked on Smoke Signals as a Sound Engineer) supporting the students by
sharing their skill-sets and offering one-on-one help to make their videos Film
Festival worthy- and in order to generate more pride in their work- and reach more
people with their stories.
We are also interviewing Elder Ed Edmo for Jordon Herrington’s project about how
the Klamath Tribe’s Cultural Traditions of Songs and Community Potlucks inspired
the formation of the U of O Longhouse and it’s Pow-wow Traditions, as taught to us
through beloved Elder Gordon Bettles (Klamath) who was its first Longhouse
Steward in the early 70’s, and which are still practiced to this day.
We also went on to support our students to move out of the dorms the last day of
Finals Week, and at their request, shot their Native Graduation this week. We have
all been taking a few weeks off after the flurry of activity at the end of the school
year, and before we begin the intensive Doc Camp in July.