“What students are doing now — asking the subjects themselves to take part in creating a documentary — is their contribution to how the genre has been evolving since its inception in the early 1920s,” explains filmmaker Yahaya Alpha Suberu, a lecturer at NYU Accra. Instead of having films take the stance of a passive observer, “documentaries are now engaging the subjects, they are filming their own voices, and the collaborative process has changed between subject and documenter,” says Suberu.
In “Documenting the African City,” a course that has been offered at NYU Accra since its establishment 15 years ago, students learn how to tell stories using the language of film. The class is open to all students, regardless of their discipline — a background in film is not required — and helps students discover more about the city during the process of shooting short pieces, recording sound, and editing their work. “The topics of their documentaries,” said Suberu, “are as varied as NYU’s diversity. Music, religion, race, politics, transportation, education, gender, sexuality, streetism, commerce, health, dance, tradition, the list goes on and on.”
“Usually by mid-semester students have all the basic skills for pre-production, production, and post-production to finish five-minute individual or group projects. By the end of the semester they would have honed their skills and produced a longer documentary which is about ten minutes in duration.” The longer documentaries are screened outdoors in Accra to an audience from NYU Accra and the surrounding community.
My students have adapted in their learning process as much as I have in my pedagogy. They have had to quickly learn to shoot and record sound using their smartphones, and they also learned to engage their subjects by making them a part of the documentary process. Yahaya Alpha Suberu
However, this spring presented a set of unique challenges, as NYU Accra, like the rest of NYU’s campuses and academic centers, was forced to suspend in-person operations due to the COVID-19 virus, and the cohort found themselves in a range of unexpected locations. “Some were in quarantine in their home countries, some at a place that was a ‘stopover’ or a place that was not home,” said Suberu. In response, the entire structure of the course had to be reshaped and the course’s focal point on Accra also had to adapt given that most of the cohort was no longer in Africa.
How exactly did Suberu adapt his instruction for a course that is typically very hands on, particularly in the locational aspect of the documentaries and the use of NYU Accra’s on-site film equipment and editing suite? And how did he support the continuity of a course that requires a high level of focused creativity in the midst of the chaos and stress?
As he adapted how classes were conducted, spent time identifying short-format films that addressed the needs of the syllabus, and worked with students to expand their story themes beyond the city limits of Accra, Suberu found himself spending more time identifying resources and engaging with students online than in-person. “Even though class is over, I’m still doing research and communicating by email — when you end class, you are still on the screen, spending more time there than one usually would in more familiar circumstances. And along with the move from campus to computer, there has been a shift in how we think about time in terms of teaching and student engagement.”
“My students have adapted in their learning process as much as I have in my pedagogy. They have had to quickly learn to shoot and record sound using their smartphones, and they also learned to engage their subjects by making them a part of the documentary process. For instance, one student wanted to interview an individual in Accra, so the subject filmed herself and sent the footage to the student. Another documented the journey of a friend from NYU New York who travelled back home to China, and self-recorded the experience of being in quarantine.”
Interestingly, the class produced films that have taken a timely look at different angles of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Suberu. “One student’s dad works in virology and he was able to tie his dad’s work into a story that was driven by his interest in biological warfare. Along similar lines, another student investigated how her mom is taking care of herself as a front-line medical worker.”
The final projects from the course will be screened online on May 15th to a public audience. Open to 300 participants via Zoom, Suberu says “it will be quite fascinating to see how many viewers tune in from all over the world.”