Artists' Statement
We chose to
focus our Concerned Citizen project on a man named Samuel Bradshaw, who is the
Project Director of Vineyard at BYU, which is a Y Serve program that is
concerned with translation, transcription and documentation of LDS church
records. Samuel, who has been in this position for years, is enthusiastic about
his work and that of his organization, content in the help that he and his
group are providing for the church. His choice to dedicate his time to this
cause is no doubt a great help to the cause of furthering the work of the
church and extending its outreach.
We were impressed with the work he is
doing because it is so prevalent in our general interaction with digital
information, specifically in this case to church websites and resources, and
yet it isn’t a task people would normally consider. Tagging words to images and
providing hymns in other languages, among other things, are of course things
that someone has to do, but people generally forget that integral step in the
process. With the vast amount of information to be documented and dealt with by
Samuel and those who do what he does, cataloging it all online is a heavy
undertaking which we believed should have its turn being appreciated.
Samuel’s general attitude, we thought,
was wonderful in expressing his understanding of this program’s meaning and
importance. While according to Goldbard’s Human Rights and Culture we,
as the filmmakers, we should have been the ones to engage with people’s feelings
about their work. As it so happened, Samuel was more than willing to engage
with us. Going into the office we honestly were unsure of the direction this
documentary was going to take. Listening to Samuel tell us very happily what
their goal was as an organization helped us gain a better appreciation of his
work.
We modeled the documentary style on
other typical examples of LDS informational videos, as it seemed appropriate
for this content and for Samuel’s willingness, and that of his co-workers, to
articulate the processes they worked by. As it is something of a repetitive
process done digitally it helped a lot to have things dictated in order to
recognize the value of their work. They were very appreciative of our interest
as well, and asked that we share our finished video with them; we wanted it to
be suitable for their own intentions, and wished to do them justice.
In a culture so focused on expansion
and record-keeping, the work done by the volunteers at Vineyard is without a
doubt integral in the progress of providing ways for people to access church
related documents and texts instantly through websites, apps, and other media;
a humble undertaking with tremendous results.
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