Collaborative Documentary

This course was the first Social Impact Studio to bring together Emerson College students with Learning Partners from Uncornered. While the previous semester of the Collaborative Documentary studio, which took place in Spring 2022, had worked with parents from the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute’s Survivors Network, this semester we engaged with an organization whose work involves mentoring the people who have contributed to, or are on a path toward contributing to community harm. Uncornered calls these individuals “Core Influence Catalysts.” Each week, three Catalysts joined us in class, along with mentors from the organization. 

Over the course of the semester, the Emerson students and learning partners from Uncornered worked closely together, building relationships and beginning the work of producing a documentary about the organization and its frontline intervention work. Highlights from their interviews 

, and the work continues in Fall 2023’s Collaborative Documentary studio. 

The Collaborative Documentary Studio invites students to co-create a non-fiction story about the impacts of violence on communities of color in Boston, in collaboration with formerly incarcerated men connected to the organization Boston Uncornered. Members of Boston Uncornered will join the class each week and work alongside Emerson students to tell powerful, authentic, and purposeful stories that can impact policy and decision-making.

Theodore "Regge" Life

Senior Distinguished Director in Residence, Visual & Media Arts

Elias Perea

Core Influencer Lead, Uncornered

Learning Partner

Titus Christian

Uncornered

Jabari Martin

Rayquan Mason

Rahsaan Peters

 Violence Recovery Advocate, Brigham & Women's Hospital

Will Dunn

Director of Strategic Initiatives, Uncornered

Spring 2023 - Documentary

Emerson students and learning partners sharing a meal at Boston Uncornered

A group of people gathered around a table

A posed group photo at Boston Uncornered's offices

About 15 people grouped in front of a step-and-repeat banner with TNGV logos

Katelyn Grace Reddy

Visual & Media Arts '24

Eliana Rosenthal

Sara Bourjjai

Caitlin Farrell

Brandon lobbi

Emerson Student

Zhuoli Zhang

Son Nguyen

Visual & Media Arts '23

Marie Li

Visual & Media Arts

Leaf Cassidy

Student, Emerson College

Sophia Fasano

In spring 2022, the very first semester of the Transforming Narratives of Gun Violence initiative, we offered a Social Impact Studio in Collaborative Documentary. The studio participants included two mothers whose sons had been murdered, a woman on staff at Louis D. Brown Peace Institute (LDBPI), and a woman who worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital Gun Violence Prevention Center, working alongside Emerson students and faculty over the course of the semester.

On the classroom level, the space was designed for 

 – that is, allowing unstructured dialogue to “shape” questions from within the group, as opposed to only engaging with existing questions prepared by the professors. For the first six weeks of the 15-week class, the group focused exclusively on building trust and exploring mechanisms of storytelling. They listened to one another’s stories and those of others through shared engagement with outside speakers and sources, learned about one another’s strengths and hopes, and developed a shared sense of mission. 

The listening process worked against expectations of forward momentum in the classroom, especially for the students. Students were anxious at first because production was slow to begin, and the focus on listening seemed separate to the stated goal of learning how to make a documentary film. 

But as the semester continued, it became clear that without the structured listening process built into the course, the mothers in the studio would not have felt comfortable speaking on camera, the students would not have felt comfortable in their role as collaborators and allies 

As we moved into production, everyone had a role, but the mothers took the lead on identifying and setting up interviews with other survivors within their network. They shaped what would eventually become a powerful 20 minute documentary, 

, about the experience of loss and the journey toward healing in community with others, despite systemic barriers. 

While gun violence impacts many people in the Boston region, it has a disproportionate impact on communities of color, where families can be broken and lives and livelihoods destroyed. This course, part of the Engagement Lab’s initiative on Transforming Narratives of Gun Violence, was held in partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Gun Violence Prevention Center and the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute to create alternative narratives using media of the impact of gun violence on communities of color in Boston. Students learned the fundamentals of collaborative design and applied their knowledge of production skills to create a documentary with, not just about, those most impacted by the problem. 

Eric Gordon

Professor, Visual & Media Arts

Director

Shaulita Francis

Communications and Marketing Manager, Louis D. Brown Peace Institute

LeeAnn Taylor

Carla Sheffield

Anna Porter

Massachusetts General Hospital Gun Violence Prevention Center

Administrative Coordinator

Spring 2022 - Documentary

Quiet Rooms

Quiet Rooms is a 20-minute documentary about the impacts and root causes of gun violence and was co-created by Emerson students and community members impacted by gun violence.

A still from the film "Quiet Rooms" showing a mother holding the photo of her late son

Before the Bullets

A conversation with medical professionals from MGH and other local medical centers about their experiences and hopes for the future of gun violence prevention.

Two medical professionals interviewed in a hospital wearing scrubs and face masks

A seated individual in a hoodie in front of a green screen, with a camera person in the foreground

Studio participants gathered around interviewee and posing for the camera

Two masked individuals, one of which is adjusting a filming light

Studio participants posing in front of a banner which reads "TNGV"

An individual in a blue shirt standing in front of a green screen, with filming lights directed at them.

Studio participants brainstorming ideas with post-it notes

Rachele Gardner

Associate Director

Olive Goldberg

John Yang

Interdisciplinary Studies '24

Angelina Gu

Visual & Media Arts '22

Cole Tatham

Sabrina Carr

Business of Creative Enterprises '24

WORKING OUTSIDE OF THE “EMERSON BUBBLE”

I initially joined this class because I was excited to see what was possible for Emerson to do beyond its campus. Emerson students tend to seclude themselves within the “Emerson bubble,” and it is important for an institution to continue to find ways to contribute to the surrounding Bostonian communities rather than only contributing to the city’s gentrification. While this class, and the work of the Engagement Lab as a whole, is only one small step toward Emerson creating better relationships with the people around us, it is a good first step. That said, one thing that was expressed in these first few classes was the importance of the Emerson students not being voyeuristic, and to understand the power that comes with bringing a camera into a community.

The class environment was energetic and open, which was necessary to build the foundation for the two communities to come together within this class, and to help identify what kind of story the documentary would tell. There was also an emphasis on allowing the story to be guided by the people who lived these experiences, rather than having the class decide on a narrative. In the early part of the semester, we had continuous conversations with the Learning Partners from Uncornered around what the community needs, and those conversations kept revolving around one thing in particular — real love as the answer to curbing community violence. 

Over a number of class visits to Dorchester, it became clear that this documentary should tell a story that centers community, transformation, and love rather than a story that shows only a single perspective of the interviewees. Each time we visited the neighborhood, we were reminded that we were creating a story about a full, vibrant, complex community. We were able to interview fathers, judges, city workers, and more — many of whom were involved in community violence when they were young. Instead of retelling a story about gun violence centered in hopelessness, by listening to these men’s perspectives and transformational experiences, we were able to collaborate with them to tell a new narrative that is based in hope.

During the post-production phase of the film, we found ways to weave our different interviewees’ stories together. There were bumps in the road to get toward the editing process, but the continued collaboration between students and Learning Partners really helped guide how this story should be told, making sure that we do not replicate harmful behaviors and tendencies of other documentaries focused on gun violence [like the 1991 PBS Frontline documentary “A Kid Kills,” to which the class’s film serves as both a response and a critique]. We constantly returned to the central theme of love that we’d identified early in the process, which guided us even down to the final editing process. By remembering that love was at the core of this project, the students were able to understand where the story was supposed to end. 

A draft of the documentary “Incorrigible” was first screened at the fall 2023 Peace in Process event on December 12, 2023. The film is now in post-production, and will be available to view online later this spring. 

The Collaborative Documentary Studio invites students to co-create a non-fiction story about the impacts of violence on Boston communities. Community members will join the class each week and work alongside Emerson students to tell powerful, authentic, and purposeful stories that can impact policy and decision-making. Class times: Tuesdays from 4pm-7:45pm.

Elexxus Ryan Perea

Brother Chris Womack

God's Soldiers, Inc

Fall 2023 - Documentary

Incorrigible

A documentary which demonstrates the transformative impacts of real love in Boston's communities through the stories of Will Dunn and Brother Chris Womack