Stories of the Susquehanna is a long-term digital scholarship project that presents stories of our region focused on and around the Susquehanna River. As part of that project, Professor Alfred Siewers partnered with an elite group of students and with Digital Pedagogy and Scholarship staff members to create a short documentary film: Stories of the Susquehanna: Utopian Dreams.
The film highlights the legacies of the utopian Pantisocracy project (associated with Joseph Priestley and Samuel Coleridge) and French Azilum.
Students began in the summer of 2014 with the Pre-Planning phase, which included script writing, story boarding, and production development work. During Fall 2014, the students embarked on the production phase, which involved interviewing selected people and collecting b-roll footage. Interview subjects included the president of the Friends of Priestly House, a Susquehanna River tour guide and conservationist, a French Azilum docent, an expert on historical landholdings, a Joseph Priestly descendant, a French Azilum descendant, and a Joseph Priestly impersonator, among many others. In Spring 2015, students undertook the Post-Production phase, which involved editing the story into an almost 30-minute-long documentary film.
Brianna Derr, DP&S’s Video Specialist, worked closely with the students, remarking on how much the students have become engaged in the video production process: “It truly is the students who have taken ownership over this project with much enthusiasm. They are extremely protective over the process and hold each other accountable. It’s their baby.” Brianna describes the students’ remarkable dedication to the project: “It’s inspiring to see such authentic dedication and passion emanating from the students. Their response to this project is why I love what I do.”
The final film was aired on WVIA on April 17th, 2016 and played in a variety of local movie theaters.
Students are now working on post production of the Cooperstown documentary highlighting the writings and legacy of James Fenimore Cooper and his daughter Susan Fenimore Cooper. Could their views of nature been passed along the generations to provide people of this time to believe in something beyond economics and development? From the moment that James and Susan Fenimore Cooper decided to write about the beauty surrounding Otsego Lake and the Upper Susquehanna River, they destined the area into a future of striving for historical and natural preservation, and catalyzed a drive there for sustainable economics.
The third installment of the Stories of the Susquehanna Valley, Churches of Coal Country, tells the story of how the Slavic heritages of both Ss. Peter and Paul’s Ukrainian Catholic Church and St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Church in Mount Carmel, PA, have been retained since the immigration of coal miners to the anthracite region in the nineteenth century. The documentary examines the youth membership currently in both churches compared to that of the past in each church to determine the importance of ethnic and spiritual identity to the youth in Mount Carmel today.
Stayed tuned for their release dates!
Check out the Stories of the Susquehanna: Utopian Dreams Teaser Trailer below:
Utopian Dreams Documentary Film