IC News

When students in the Ithaca College class Nonfiction Production started in mid-January, they each had planned to get out and shoot an investigative documentary about another person. However, the coronavirus pandemic kept them isolated within the confines of their own homes, and to produce their documentary they now had to turn their investigative eye toward  their families and themselves. 

“What COVID-19 Taught Me” captures the stories of quarantined Ithaca College students and explores what they’ve learned during the pandemic. The 30-minute docu-series will be broadcast on Saturday, June 27, at 11 p.m. on the Syracuse PBS station WCNY. The goal of the docuseries is to emphasize the fact that although it seems we are far apart from one another, we are all facing similar challenges and getting through this chaos together. 

John Scott, associate professor of media arts at Ithaca College, often sends projects from his classes to PBS to see if there is interest in broadcasting them, but never has he received an answer so quickly. “In this instance it seemed like we were right on the pulse of what everyone is experiencing,” said Scott. “Each of the people in the class is experiencing in their own particular way something that informs a larger story about how the world is facing this and needing to reconfigure their priorities.” 

Scott talks about how this was an opportunity for the class to come together, but it wasn’t without its trials. “Collaborative projects are tricky as everybody wants to do their own project and finding something that will fit together as a sequence of projects is really hard to do under normal circumstances,” said Scott. “While we’ve lost the ability to use the great cameras and the sophisticated editing equipment, it seems as though we’ve gained the ability for us all to be in a similar situation where our project can really merge together and inform the other ones.” 

Lelia Geho ’22 focused on her father as an essential worker, but the project forced her to look inside herself, as well. “I think the thing that surprised me the most was how much of a challenge I had coming up with my own narrative,” said Geho. “It was really interesting to have to closely examine the way this whole situation was making me feel and the fears that I had with it.” 

In the docu-series Liam Wurtz ’22, talks about the value of thinking during the pandemic, and not always having to do something. “At the risk of sounding philosophical and dramatic, my fear of a lack of productivity is, at its core, a fear of nonexistence,” said Wurtz. “And I also recognize that not every moment of my waking life needs purpose because the existence has purpose in and of itself.”