The videos below were made during my 2014–2015 Fulbright Fellowship in Macedonia. Baggage allowances, travel plans and budget required any equipment I took to be compact, portable and relatively inexpensive.

I shot and recorded the raw materials using an Apple iPad Mini, Zoom H5 Handy recorder and SuperHeadz Digital Harinezumi 2+++ camera. They were edited on a MacBook Pro with iMovie.

In My Dreams

My students in Macedonia wrote the poems you hear in this video as part of the Dream Flag Project. We recorded them whenever we could find a few minutes and a somewhat quiet corner, and shot the video on a break between classes.

When I began editing the audio, I found a recording of the Dream Flag Song, which I had forgotten about. The song became the heart of the video, giving it its shape and tone. After finding the song, I recorded the guitar to tie the poems and song together and lead the listener through the track.

Nani Nani

This video features a collaboratively written lullaby. After studying Langston Hughes’ use of repetition and word choice in his poem, “Lullaby," we extended our research to lullabies from Macedonia and America, tracking words and phrases we heard over and over. Our favorites included: stars, moon, sun, night, day and earth. The lyrics of the lullaby were inspired by students' questions to these celestial bodies. 

The melody was also collaboratively written. Students were asked to draw  a dot in a place of their choice on five lines, i.e., a music staff, on the board. I mined the dots for musical phrases, which make up parts of the final tune.

The term nani, which the students describe as a sweet word for sleep, is common in lullabies throughout the Balkans. It is a word mothers use as they wrap their babies in night and sweetly sing them sleep-song lullabies.

Theme from English B

In his poem, "Theme for English B," Langston Hughes writes, “I guess I’m what I feel and see and hear.” The poem goes on to express  that sharing concrete details from our lives, like what we see, hear, and feel, can help us realize that no matter our differences, we are all a part of each other and we all have hopes and dreams. 

The concept of this video was to capture the meaning and tone of Hughes' poem by capturing what the students "feel and see and hear" at school. Together, we developed and executed a shot list, which I edited over students reading Hughes' words.