The Night Shift documentary wins first prize in the Great Lakes Environmental Film Festival
"The Night Shift," a documentary created by Lou D'Aria, an environmental video instructor at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, and his students has won first prize in the Great Lakes Environmental Film Festival. The video won first place in the college division and was presented to Mary Hansen, David Cooper, Sarah Coefield and Marla Kalmbach last Thursday, April 22 at Delta College in University Center, Michigan. This 27-minute documentary was broadcast on WKAR-TV last year and made by students in the environmental video class in the School of Journalism that is taught by D'Aria.
The video looks at research carried out by Coefield, an MSU environmental journalism graduate student, and her colleagues who examined the impact of chemicals on great horned owls in Midland, Michigan. It also looks at the rehabilitation of owls and other birds at the Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine by James Sikarskie, an associate professor, and the rediscovery of a rare owl in India by Pamela Rasmussen, a curator at the MSU Museum.
This is the third year in a row that an entry from D'Aria and his Knight Center students has won first prize in the Great Lakes Environmental Film Festival competition. The students shared a $500 prize for their video this year.
This video also won first prize in the in-depth television category at the Society of Professional Journalists' Region 4 competition in Cleveland, Ohio on April 10. The video has been forwarded to the national competition of the Society of Professional Journalists. The national winners will be announced at the SPJ national conference in Las Vegas, Nevada the weekend of October 3 - 5, 2010.
