by Yasir Khaleq & Viet Vu, Staff Writers
Baron Broadcast News (BBN) students Leah Phillips (‘16) and Justin Nguyen (‘16) placed second with their video tackling autism in C-SPAN’s Classroom StudentCam Documentary Contest.
Phillips, one of the producers of BBN, and Nguyen, a senior member of BBN, combined forces to create their video “Autism is a journey, not a sentence,” for the C-SPAN competition. This video looked to spread awareness for autism and the hardships people face everyday in dealing with autism after seeing the effects of autism for themselves.
“Over the summer, I did a video internship with a company, The Brain Treatment Center, where I filmed the life of a family with a son suffering from autism. The topic intrigued me because I saw how the family struggled,” said Phillips.
The film served as a learning process for both of them, as they got to really see and understand the effects of autism.
“Throughout the process of making the documentary, I found myself engulfed in a whole new world that is autism. Every person we interviewed was a first hand experience at what was happening today with autism,” said Nguyen.
Phillips felt a same way.
“I thought that this video would be an opportunity for me to bring to light problems that these families encounter everyday and to possibly bring help to these families,” said Phillips.
The video placed second among thousands of submissions and this certainly wasn’t luck, as the two filmmakers spent many days and long hours working to create their content.
“We started planning for this video in October and didn’t finish until late January. It was a lot of work and a long process, but I loved every minute of it,” said Phillips. ” I feel very proud of our accomplishment. I love that I was able to share this experience with Justin.”
Not only does this video serve as a learning tool for autism, anyone aspiring to send powerful messages through their own films can certainly learn a thing or two from viewing the video.
“To any of those that want to make films or want to enter into competitions, I really encourage them to go out and give it a shot because opportunities hardly ever present themselves,” said Nguyen. “It’s up to us to go out and find them.”
