Food is family. Food is a gift. Food is grief. Food is pain. Food is art. Food is a celebration.

How does food help us with grief? How does it celebrate happiness? How does it pass on our own history? Does it shape who we are? Is creating a meal a human act?

For my capstone, I want to explore the history and complexities behind the food we eat and the food that we hold dear to our hearts – and why.

I want to look at the dynamics of food from a variety of unique and equally important perspectives in the local community, and my own family – including community members from Third Street Alliance, participants in a treatment center for eating disorders, local chefs and restaurant owners, and farmers.

Through a series of these individual vignettes, I will carry the story along with my own personal connection to food: my Nonni. While unraveling the stories of others, I will center my film with my own personal story of old and new, life and death, and how the recipes we make guide us and accompany us through our happiest moments and our most devastating moments. This fall, my mom prepares to finally let go of her mother’s ashes and scatter them in Casco Bay with her father’s ashes. Beforehand, I want to explore my mom’s relationship with her mother, my Nonni, and their relationship of food together – as well as the process of grief and losing a parent. I want to film us exploring her old handwritten recipes, incorporate found footage and images – and ultimately tackling recipes that neither of us have tried, while gaining a deeper understanding of what food meant to Nonni and what it now means to our family.

I plan to weave in these ‘storytelling’ sessions and cooking with my mother with these outside vignettes, as well as interviews with my older brother and my 96 year old great aunt (my Nonni’s sister), shaping them all into a cohesive storytelling of life and death, and the influence of food throughout all stages of life.

I currently have some (very limited) footage of my mom in Italy for the first time, and a couple interviews with her. I plan (italicized for tentativeness) to film interviews with my great aunt, my brother (who is a cook), and a member of a local counseling center for eating disorders before returning to school. I also may interview a chef and farmer while in New Hampshire, but might run out of time and shoot in PA. Meanwhile, I am digging up any found footage of my Nonni and mom, still images, handwritten recipes, and anything else integral to the story.

Please let me know if you think this idea is scatterbrained or if it needs to be cleaned up for clarity, and if anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks all.

Life is the episodic story of an African/American family growing up in the Bronx. This story will follow a mother and her three sons. As they all get older and learn from their experiences and mistakes. My drive an intention for this project comes out of a want to speak to younger generations (not just males). I want to create a way for people of all ages to understand intersecting ways of life from multiple people’s perspectives. This will be an inter-generational story, allowing for each one of the characters to talk about different issues that people tend to look down on individuals for and don’t want to talk about in a mainstream society. The societal issues I am combating include but are not limited to:

• “Non-traditional” Family structure, inter-family issues
• Poverty and the exploitation of young people
• Immigration (Process to citizenship)
• Police/Mass Incarceration à the way we treat people afterwards L
• Drugs and their effect on the community
• The Street life for people of different ages, how its not for anyone
• Fighting the self, family and friends
• Gun violence
• Relationship issues à this will come later or through a friend of the kids
• Conformity – handled in every episode
• A perceived lack of a code of honor amongst the younger kids
• The unseen difference between School vs Education
• Death and how people become numb to it if it’s frequent

The main reason why I have included all these subject into the mix is because they all affected my life, and the lives of my friends/ family growing up and whenever I go home and talk to my youngins / catch up on the state of the world; I know they still affect the lives of people today as much (and in many cases more). I want this mini-series to expose the stories and guiding life experiences that people like me walk around with and use them as teachable moments.

Ultimately, I would like to start this in a way that give an insight into how the hood mentalities can keep some people in the hood (physically or mentally) and at the same time put them ahead if they take what they learn in “the concrete jungle” and apply it to guide their lives in certain ways.

I’m almost done organizing the first episode and it’ll be up soon. In the meantime I’d love some feedback about potential ways to take it and how to frame the story world.

For my capstone project, I plan to investigate the issue of food insecurity in Easton through a short documentary film (I’m thinking 15-30 minutes).  My focus for this project will be on the initiatives to alleviate hunger in the area—meaning that I will have a more solution-based than problem-based product.  I’m choosing to focus on the solutions firstly because I’ve seen documentaries on hunger in the US that are primarily problem-based and I don’t want to remake what’s already been done.  My second motivation for this project stems from my involvement in the Landis program “Meals at Third Street” for the past 4 semesters in which a group of Lafayette students go down to the Third Street Alliance, a transition shelter for women and children that doesn’t provide food, and cook a meal once a week.  Through this experience, I have seen specific instances of how children and adults experience hunger and the affects that having a healthy meal can have.  I’m also involved in the Lafayette Hunger Coalition where I’ve learned about several other programs in the Lehigh Valley area that focus on increasing access to food.  I think that this project is timely in light of the creation of the Easton Public Market to increase food access and have recently spoken to an event coordinator at the Nurture Nature Center to learn more about the issue.  My documentary will involve interviews with program coordinators and those who have received aid through the programs.  I believe that this film will bring awareness and support for these problems in Easton while simultaneously offering ideas and inspiration for other areas (specifically my home town) where hunger initiatives are largely absent.

I could really use some feedback on how to structure this documentary. I don’t have a central character and am trying to find a way to connect the various programs. I’ve got footage from the Easton Hunger Coalition Meeting which tries to get programs to collaborate but I’m not sure if that would work as an opener, a conclusion, etc. Let me know what you think!

For my capstone, the game plan is to complete a feature length screenplay. The basic premise behind my current idea which I’ve had swirling in my mind for a couple years now centers around a futuristic society that allows for the customization of children — anything from intellect to looks to eventual fate — and it all depends on how much money you have to spend on the child. The more money, the more attractive and intelligent the child will be and the better “fate” they will have. The story explores the life of Madison, a child who lives with parents that she doesn’t realize are adoptive. Her biological father is the son of the man who created the Buying Fate company. On his 21st birthday, Madison’s father had bypassed all security codes and drunkenly created Madison for an incredible amount of money. Unable to remember what he programmed her fate to be and unable to find it on any records, he gave her up for adoption. The film begins as Madison turns 16 and must discover what her fate is and what family she really belongs to.

For now, do you guys have any comments on this idea? Any shows or movies that I should watch?

[TL;DR at the bottom]

Through my brief tenure at Lafayette College, there has been a lot of attention towards the case of Greek Life at the school. Between the adoption of the IAGGL (a committee created to establish the benefits and drawbacks to Greek Life organizations), the suspension of the Zeta Psi fraternity, and the granted colony status of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, it is clear that the topic of greek life is of large interest to the current student, alumni, and administrative body. In my experience as a student of this school, there has been a consensus from students and many alumni, that the administration of the school has looked negatively on Greek Letter organizations. However, with the recent adoption of the new Greek application process, the school is attempting to change that general attitude.

The question that many have asked (including myself), is how does a school with nineteen fraternities dwindle down to, at one point, three fraternities in a span of 30-40 years. Many claim this to be the result of a trend from the administration’s views on greek life that are believed to be negative. However, in my research so far, there was an extensive essay written by the late Albert W. Gendebien in 1998 about the history of Greek Life at Lafayette College. The essay analyzes the inception of these institutions all the way to their decline through the late 90’s. He analyzes several pieces of evidence from housing data to administrative policies on fraternity standards. The evidence finds that the decline in Greek organizations at Lafayette is not as black and white as a   “negative opinion” on greek life from the administration.

The essay, in sum, argues that up until the late 20th century, lazzes-faire attitudes towards these societies proved positive in a symbiotic relationship with the college. However, around the time of the mid-late 20th century, for reasons listed in the essay, these societies strayed from their intended purpose and required for intensive involvement from the school through guidelines and instruction. He calls for a revival in the value of the societies mission statements. His concluding statement asks the question, “Can the Greek System as it existed before the 1960’s –self reliant in an atmosphere of institutional hands-off– flourish under the glow of all this benevolent paternalism?”.

In my documentary, I hope to answer many different questions that surround the current topic of Greek Life at Lafayette. Questions like the current opinions of Greek Life at Laf from students, alumni, and administration, the direction people believe the institution to be going in, and answer Gendebien’s final question in his essay. I hope to obtain these answers through display of interviews from alumni, students, and faculty/administration in my project. I also aim to delve deeper in research pertaining to the greek history of Lafayette College, that I believe can be found in the college archives. In these archives, I hope to uncover further details as to how fraternities and sororities behaved on campus in the past. I am in the works of contacting different alumni affiliated with current and formerly recognized greek letter organizations. Having had conversations about greek life with alumni I am convinced that this is a topic of interest to them, and I believe there are alumni that would wish to voice there opinion through this platform.

I truly desire to approach this project with a neutral approach. I am not a member of any fraternity on campus, however, a vast majority of my friends are involved in Greek Life. Some of you may know that some of my closest friends were those in the Zeta Psi fraternity that was suspended. Although this may seem like a conflict of interest, I do not wish to focus on the suspension any more than the other aspects of this case.

My Concerns:

• How difficult will it be to get interviews with different administrative heads?
• Who do you guys think I should interview specifically besides the obvious ones.
• If the only opportunity to interview some people is over the summer, how should I approach document it without a decent camera? Best camera I have at my ready disposal is my iPhone 6+.
• What other prep should I do before going into the school year?
• Do you guys think this a doable project for the capstone? Does it seem like too big or small a project?

TL;DR:
I want to shoot a documentary on the history, public opinion, and direction of Greek Life at Lafayette College. I want to interview students, alumni, and faculty/administration. Research so far has been of greek related articles from The Lafayette Newspaper, as well as an essay on this topic written in 1998 by a former Lafayette archivist Albert W. Gendebien. I plan to conduct further research through the College Archives in hopes to uncover more details as to how Greek Letter organizations conducted themselves. Not officially in a fraternity myself, however all of my friends are, so I hope to approach this topic neutrally.