'Our American Journey' wins SPJ award

By Michael Grace
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

"Our American Journey," the Norwich University-produced documentary series, captured a national award recently, and four NU graduates who helped produce the program were honored in ceremonies Oct. 28.

With the beauty of Martha's Vineyard as the backdrop, the documentary exploring the beauty and culture of the island won a national "Mark of Excellence" award from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) for feature photography.

"The Mark of Excellence awards are among the most prestigious that college journalism students can win," said David E. Carlson, SPJ Vice President for Campus Chapter Affairs. "Each of these winners were against hundreds of entries nationwide and each of these students should be very proud of a job well done."

The Martha's Vineyard documentary advanced to the national competition by winning "In Depth Reporting and Feature Photography" for the region including New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

The senior producers of Martha's Vineyard were all from the class of 1999 and included Matthew Moore, 23, a sales representative for Teloquent Communications in Brookline Village, Mass.; Ray Houghton, 24, a technical support specialist for Artel Software in Staten Island, NY.; John Ostrowski, 24, a technical support specialist for Avid Technologies, in Nashua, NH.; and Dominic Bonelli, an employee at Sony Studios in Los Angeles, Ca. They received the award on Oct. 28 at the SPJ National Convention in Columbus, Oh.

SPJ is the nation's largest and most broad-based journalism organization. As a non-profit organization, it is made up of 14,000 members dedicated to encouraging free practice of journalism, stimulating high standards of ethical behavior, and perpetuating a free press.

"It wasn't like winning a college emmy like we had in the past," Ostrowski said. "We won feature photography, but the SPJ wouldn't have paid attention to us if we didn't have a good story behind it."

"Martha's Vineyard" is a travelogue featuring different aspects of the island, including the island's whaling history, tourism, and the preservation of the island.

It also includes interviews of islanders who tell their experiences and love for the island.

A few of the islanders, such as Ray Ellis, who painted the White House Christmas card a few years ago, and Allison Shaw, a world-renowned photographer, are well known.

In order to make the documentary a success, the producers had to possess considerable dedication and devotion.

"Not only did we spend our summer vacation working on the story ideas and working on the scripts, we also sacrificed our Thanksgiving break and weekends," Ostrowski said, "While other students would have been home enjoying their families on their free time, we were spending hundreds of hours working in the TV studio making a documentary, and not a lot of students can say that they have the dedication and devotion to do that."

The producers and their crews made eight trips to the island over the summer and the fall compiling more than 30 tapes, which comprised 240 hours of original footage.

"The award is particularly important to us because of the fact that this documentary contains 100 percent original footage, and many of our other documentaries contain some archival footage that we didn't shoot," said Bill Estill, Associate Professor or Communication and Executive Producer of "Our American Journey."

"We give thanks to Mr. Houghton Sr., because the documentary couldn't have been made without the generosity of the Houghton's family's house on the Vineyard," Estill said.

"This award is great for the department," Houghton said. "I hope that the recognition will bring in more communications majors and more money to build and keep the program winning awards."

The producers felt that they had something special as soon as they started rolling the tape on the island. Everywhere they went there was a good picture, but the shot that they all think stands out most are the cliffs near the Gay Head Lighthouse.

"Ray and I agreed that the 'money shot' would be the Gay Head lighthouse, because sand on the cliffs, when the sun is going down, is just breathtaking," Ostrowski said. "There is no wonder why so many tourists as well as painters and photographers come here."

"After seeing Gay Head lighthouse at sunset I knew we had to win," Moore said. "The beams of the lighthouse extending out into the ocean was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and the best thing is that we had it on tape."

"I've gone to Martha's Vineyard every summer since I was born, and I think it's such a great place, and I wanted to share it with everyone else," Houghton said, "There are millions of pictures that could have been taken for postcards, but we wanted to make a documentary to capture all aspects and not just the beauty of the island."

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