Grace Clark captured footage of the UA women's wheelchair basketball team during a practice session to prepare for an upcoming competition.
Grace Clark
For her news feature, Grace Clark interviewed UA students and community members about their involvement in the current presidential election.
Yes, it’s an election year, but why should this be the only time the masses, and youth in particular, get overly involved in the political process?
That is one of the primary questions Grace C. Clark considered while putting together her senior thesis, a compilation of politically-directed news features.
“I am very interested in the aspect of production, so I decided to produce a television show of my own design, but in the format of a news magazine,” said Clark, a University of Arizona graduating senior who is earning degrees in film and television production and political science.
Clark will be presenting her half-hour project, “REVERB: An Experimental Take on Political News,” at the UA on April 28 at 4 p.m. The event is free and open to the public and will include a question and answer session.
Clark, who is also a student in the UA’s Honors College, describes the three-part project as a news magazine fashioned after KUAT’s "Arizona Illustrated." She served as the producer and enlisted the support of other University students to conduct interviews, video tape and edit the footage down to short news segments.
“I feel there are political issues in everything in our lives,” said Clark, also a a production crewmember for KUAT. “It’s not just the presidential election and it’s not just about voting. There are politics everywhere. So, if younger generations acknowledge that, it’s possibly that they’ll become more interested in politics, not only during the political cycle.”
The segments are:
Adaptive Athletics
The segment spotlights the UA’s Wheelchair Sports program and investigates reasons why the program is not part of Arizona Athletics. Clark worked with fellow media arts student, Juliette Mavroleon, to produce the segment. About the project, Clark said she and Mavroleon wanted to demonstrate that “our program is strong.”
sTalking Politics
Clark says this segment is a parody of TMZ, an entertainment news media outlet. She worked on the piece with media arts students Stephanie Ochoa, Kristin Andersen and Kristina Gonzales. Together, the students followed Tucson councilman Rodney Glassman to a town hall meeting on education and also out on a visit to Costco.” The purpose,” Clark said, “is to present politicians in a way that the younger audience will find amusing and familiar.”
Deciding to Enlist
Clark worked with media arts student Cesar Huitron to look at military enlistment. The students interviewed four would-be recruits and covered issues such as the various branches of the military, available careers, benefits and contractual obligations recruits are expected to meet. Clark plans to send her project to MTV.
“I wanted to reform the political news convention. It’s a pilot experiment, but I want to try and figure out ways to include younger perspectives,” Clark said.
“My ultimate goal is to become an associate producer on a television program related to youth and politics,” she said. “I want people to see what I’ve done, but imagine what else I could do if I had more resources.”
Jill Bean
School of Media Arts
520-626-1405