{"id":20256,"date":"2013-04-01T08:49:12","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T12:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=20256"},"modified":"2022-09-29T12:50:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T16:50:22","slug":"the-reel-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2013\/04\/01\/the-reel-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reel World"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Wright State film student Brad Wickham.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was just a few short years ago that Wright State University film student Brad Wickham was a high schooler falling in love with the work of movie directors Ingmar Bergman and Fritz Lang. It didn\u2019t take long for Wickham\u2019s interest in filmmaking to rock his world.<\/p>\n

Today, Wickham is piecing together documentary footage he shot in Rwanda. The East African nation is still reeling from a 1994 genocidal mass slaughter\u2014triggered by ethnic tensions\u2014that left as many as an estimated 1 million people dead.<\/p>\n

Wickham\u2019s documentary will be used to raise public awareness about Rwanda\u2019s recovery effort and spur financial support for it. It comes at a time when Wright State is exploring the possibility of developing relationships and partnerships with Rwanda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see a lot of potential in terms of helping our students with internships, international service learning,\u201d said Kimberly Barrett, Ph.D., vice president for multicultural affairs and community engagement. \u201cAlthough we emphasize the greater Dayton area, we definitely see the world as our community as well. This is one of those unique opportunities for us to be involved in a very worthwhile and much-needed area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last winter, Wickham was introduced by a family friend to Laurent Muvunyi, a native Rwandan living in Dayton whose brother founded the Association Rwandaise pour le D\u00e9veloppement Rural (ARDR), a non-governmental relief organization created to help Rwandans become self-sufficient. Wickham was asked whether he would be interested in going to Rwanda along with local photographers Ken and Kara Hamilton and using his filmmaking skills to document the effort. The trip was the brainchild of ARDR Allies, a U.S. group supporting ARDR\u2019s efforts. http:\/\/ardrallies.com\/ardr-allies\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Wickham said he was a little fearful and apprehensive at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they seemed passionate about what they were doing, and it sounded like a good opportunity to use my skills to make a difference and also gain some real-world experience and learn by doing,\u201d he said. \u201cI was very excited about the various landscapes of Rwanda that I knew I obviously can\u2019t get in Ohio. From a photographic or film standpoint, I was very excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muvunyi had been attending college in the Congo during the genocide in Rwanda. When he returned to his native country afterward, houses were filled with dead bodies, children were hospitalized with gunshot wounds and orphans were everywhere. He recalled trying to climb an avocado tree to pick the fruit and stumbling across a human head and a dismembered leg with a shoe still on the foot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation was really bad,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like I have to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Muvunyi, Wickham, Hamilton and Hamilton\u2019s daughter spent two weeks in Rwanda last summer interviewing, photographing and filming genocide survivors, health-care workers, teachers, government officials and those involved in\u2014and being helped by\u2014the relief and self-sufficiency effort.<\/p>\n

Wickham and Hamilton laid out a detailed, day-by-day itinerary and \u201cstory-boarded\u201d two weeks\u2019 worth of shoots.<\/p>\n

The crew interviewed genocide survivors and toured three different genocide memorials, which included displays of bones, skulls and clothing worn by victims. They also filmed recovery efforts, including the agriculture, cattle and water management programs.<\/p>\n

Wickham recalled once taking a break to drink some Cokes and relax by this beautiful lake. The crew later learned that the lake had become a watery graveyard during the genocide, after interviewing a survivor whose sons had been drowned there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a really shocking contrast,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wickham said filming the documentary was fast-paced and arduous. Interviews were conducted from early morning and into the evening hours. He had to lug two cameras, a tripod and a backpack. And all the gear had to continually be loaded and unloaded into and out of a pickup truck.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a whole lot of time to prep everything, get everything set up, so you had to get things right with the first try. It was definitely a challenge,\u201d he said. \u201cWe would go and interview someone who might be in a house without electricity. From a lighting standpoint, that\u2019s very difficult. We had to do a lot of stuff outside as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

After returning to Wright State, Wickham, a sophomore, began the editing process. He estimates he has 10 to 12 hours of footage. Much of it needs to be translated into English. Then the best of the footage must be pieced together in an organized way.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of it is a bit of a blur, and you go back and realize there is some great footage here,\u201d Wickham said.<\/p>\n

Wickham\u2019s path to filmmaking began when he was a student at Bellbrook High School.<\/p>\n

He and his friends were captivated by films, watching up to two every day. Wickham soaked up Bergman and Jean-Luc Godard, a French-Swiss film director\/screenwriter often identified with the 1960s French film movement La Nouvelle Vague<\/em>, or \u201cNew Wave.\u201d Wickham was especially impressed with Lang\u2019s 1931 film M<\/em>, a German drama-thriller starring Peter Lorre.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would call that the most important film for me. It feels very modern,\u201d he said. \u201cI would call it a perfect film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wickham enrolled at Wright State and its motion pictures program because of its strong reputation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been great,\u201d he said. \u201cI really can\u2019t speak highly enough of the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wickham may pursue a career in cinematography in which as part of the filmmaking process he would be the one to select the type of camera lenses, film stock and lighting. He has studied the documentary work of Werner Herzog, a German director whose films often feature heroes with impossible dreams; and Ron Fricke, known for his global non-narrative documentaries that capture people in their everyday environments.<\/p>\n

Wickham said his experience in Rwanda opened his eyes about other cultures and gave him a much more international view.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn America we feel like the way we do things is the way other people should do things,\u201d he said. \u201cSo many times over there I was thinking, \u2018That\u2019s not how we would do it in America.\u2019 But for them it works out just fine; it works really well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was just a few short years ago that Wright State University film student Brad Wickham was a high schooler falling in love with the work of movie directors Ingmar Bergman and Fritz Lang. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":20258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,4859,725,747,715,719],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-fine-and-performing-arts","category-home-news-sidebar","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-special-categories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20256"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130633,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20256\/revisions\/130633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}