“Monumental Change,” a documentary about Temple University’s expansion connected to the destruction of a North Philadelphia cemetery in the mid-1950s, was recently honored for its scholarship when Brooke de Zutter and Jake Segelbaum were named recipients of the Livingstone Undergraduate Research Award.
“Winning a film festival is great and all, but it’s another thing to win an award that recognizes the craft that went into making the film—an award that recognizes the ‘sausage-making,’” said Dr. Kristine Weatherston, a Klein College assistant professor of instruction in the Department of Media Studies and Production. Weatherston worked as executive producer for the 29-minute documentary directed, produced and edited by de Zutter, KLN ‘19; Segelbaum, KLN ‘19; and fellow media studies and production students Emma Quinn, KLN ‘19; Rachael Petersen, KLN ‘18 and Josh West, KLN ‘18.
Earlier this month, the film Weatherston’s students created as part of her Genres of Media course earned first place in the long-form video or film documentary category at the 2018 Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts in Las Vegas.
The Livingstone Award represents a high achievement in research and scholarship at Temple University and is awarded by the Library. Applicants submit an essay describing their research process and librarians and judges in the sciences, social sciences and humanities select a $1,000 award winner in each of six categories: the humanities, social sciences, STEM disciplines, creative work and media production and sustainability and the environment. A $500 Livingstone Award is given in general education.
Weatherston encouraged the students to apply for the Livingstone Award because of the archival research involved in telling the story about Monument Cemetery, a Victorian-era burial ground that had fallen into disrepair amid Temple’s rapid growth by the mid-20th century. The film draws parallels to the university exhuming the remains of the 28,000 people and re-burying them in Montgomery County just to get the land to today’s efforts to build a football stadium in North Philadelphia.
“A lot of kids and faculty don’t know this story,” said de Zutter who will participate in Klein College’s study program in Los Angeles this summer.
She said the pre-production book for the documentary amounted to a heavy, two-inch-thick binder of research material, including newspaper articles and Temple archival footage.
“I don’t think we would have had the same result had we not done the research,” de Zutter said.
Weatherston said she was honored to be among her students celebrating the Livingstone Award.
“Without research there is no great media,” she said. “Real, pro-level documentary media needs research. They were really working in the documentary tradition.”