Columbia Documentary Stars Obama Supporters
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Linzi Sheldon was surfing the social networking site Facebook last October when she was struck by numerous pictures of college-age students campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
“All these kids seemed very excited,” Ms. Sheldon, who hadn’t paid much attention to the campaign before seeing the pictures, said.
Ms. Sheldon, a 23-year-old student in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, discussed the pictures and the campaign with two other students.
After concluding there was “something different happening” with the campaign, the three began filming a documentary in November to chronicle some of the presidential hopeful’s grassroots campaigners in New York City — the home turf of his chief rival, Senator Clinton.
They expect to finish the documentary in March and present it as a joint master’s project. The students insisted their project isn’t “pro-Obama” but is instead an objective look at his grassroots supporters.
Unlike past presidential campaign documentaries such as “The War Room,” which focuses on President Clinton’s chief strategists during the 1992 campaign, and “Journeys with George,” an “all-access pass” to President Bush’s 2000 campaign, the students’ documentary follows Mr. Obama’s supporters.
“We’re not trying to make ‘The War Room,'” Ms. Sheldon, a native of British Columbia, Canada, said. “It’s about the people on the ground. It’s not about Barack Obama’s inner circle. It’s about how it shapes from the bottom up.”
A Baltimore native who also is working on the documentary, Lylah Holmes, said, “It’s a conscious effort to talk to the people who are putting in the ground work to try to get this man elected … and the sacrifices they make.”
There’s the unemployed man who told the students he spent at least $500 of his savings to travel to New Hampshire this month to campaign for Mr. Obama because he believes the country needs a “change,” a constant theme, along with promises of bipartisanship, of Mr. Obama’s run.
There’s also the 70-year-old self-described “political warrior” who views a victory by Mr. Obama, who would be the first black president, as the ultimate way of paying back those who fought in the modern civil rights movement.
And the college students who drag themselves out of bed in the early hours for Obama causes because they feel they’re part of history in the making.
The Columbia students, who also include Gregory Simmons, 26, of Atlanta, have filmed supporters’ elated reactions as they sat in a bar watching results roll in from this month’s Iowa caucuses, which Mr. Obama won.
They also interviewed campaigners who traveled to Iowa.
“When these volunteers talk about their experiences in Iowa, where it was 20 below zero, 15 below zero, they start crying,” Mr. Simmons said. “They think of themselves as warriors.”
While rotating the roles of handling sound, filming, and interviewing, the three also have shadowed supporters as they posted “Obama for President” signs outdoors, handed out pamphlets about the candidate, and, early on, collected signatures.
They drove roughly five and a half hours to New Hampshire where they captured supporters’ somber faces as Mr. Obama placed second behind Mrs. Clinton in that state’s primary.
For the trio, the greatest challenges are juggling the documentary with classes and respective job searches.
There’s also the lack of sleep and resources. They’re funding the project themselves, they said.
As the February 5 coast-to-coast mega-primary, which includes New York, nears, they’re preparing to follow supporters wherever they go whether it’s to vote or canvass.
The documentary’s working title is “Fired Up, Ready to Go!” a pronouncement the students often hear Mr. Obama’s supporters make.