|
Nov. 22, 2006
WILL-TV Airs Douglass Drum Corps Documentary
By Youth Media Workshop Students from Urbana High
Six young African-American male filmmakers from Urbana High
School have explained their project on radio talk shows on
four different stations. They’ve premiered their documentary
to an appreciative audience at Boardman’s Art Theatre. Now
they’re ready for prime time.
Their documentary, And the Beat Goes On: The Spirit in
the Legacy of the Douglass Center Drum Corps, will air
on WILL-TV at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 5. The students,
participants in WILL’s Youth Media Workshop, created the
video about the history of the Douglass Center Drum Corps
and about efforts to revive the corps.
The documentary tells the story of the drum corps during its
heyday in the late 1960s, including recollections of former
drum corps leaders Jesse Ratliffe and Bud Johnson, along
with former drum corps member Terry Townsend and drill team
member Linda Turnbull. The program looks at recent efforts
by Ratliffe and 17-year-old Lee Duncan to revive the drum
corps, which in 1968 won first place in the national Elks
Club competition in New York City.
Brian Mitchell, one of the student producers, said the
students hope the video will help efforts to revive the drum
corps. “It’s about small town living. It’s about the history
of drumming itself, the egos and pride of the drummers, the
personalities of the drummers and the future of drumming,”
Mitchell said.
Other Urbana High students who worked on the project were
Nick Green, Jay Walker, Coreyawn Donald, Kwan Cobbs and Mike
Jones.
The Youth Media Workshop is a collaboration of WILL AM-FM-TV
and William M. Patterson, associate director of the
University of Illinois African American Studies and Research
Program. The after-school program teaches African-American
youth how to make radio and television documentaries that
link the hip-hop generation to the civil rights and black
power generations.
###
Contact:
Kimberlie Kranich
WILL AM-FM-TV
(217) 333-1070
Back to Press Room
|
