Daily Iowan

Issue date: 4/19/07 Section: 80 Hours

Media Credit: Katrina Hawthorne and Dylan Salisbury/The Daily Iowan [Click to enlarge]

Click here to listen to the related segment from our '80 Hours On Air' Podcast.

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A kitchenette fills the corner of a gray carpeted room, a mini-fridge hums quietly, the smell of coffee wafts through the air. This scene, vaguely reminiscent of grandma's kitchen, becomes incongruous when you notice the coiled extension cords and lighting equipment hanging from wall-mounted pegboard, the tripods and video cameras. This is the Senior Center television studio.

One year after launching a website streaming its television broadcasts, members of the Senior Center and UI students have surpassed their expectations for the project. The site has generated more than 5,000 viewings, and the group behind the broadcasts has no intention of slowing down. The members are even looking for more volunteers to help complete their current queue of projects.

Senior Center TV Online has taken to the road, interviewed experts and neighbors, and created films both informative and entertaining. These projects have all involved one uniting theme: bridging the age gap. The partnership among students and seniors has created a Senior Center broadcast that is recognized as one of the most dynamic in the nation today.

But the seniors may see limitations placed on their broadcasts. By the end of April, it is expected that the Iowa Senate will pass Senate File 554, which would move the oversight of telecommunications franchising from the city to state level. The measure, backed by Qwest Communications, aims to increase the availability of service "bundles" to customers, but it is likely to also shut down local public-access stations such as PATV in Iowa City. For the past 17 years, the seniors have been using PATV, in addition to other local access-channels, to broadcast their documentaries and features.

Josh Goding, the executive director of PATV, said that though he isn't sure exactly what the outcome of the bill will be, he does not think the future for public access looks promising. "The bill is just a mess," he said. "We could, almost immediately, lose funding and support for this organization."

While senior television quickly became a creative outlet, the original purpose of broadcasting on PATV was to reach those seniors who were no longer able to come to the center. The thought of losing this much-needed link with friends has many of the seniors who work on Senior Center TV upset with the proposed change in the law.

"It's local programming I think that would suffer more than anything else," said Barbara Hackman, 81. "We have certain programs that must be put on. For instance, these are city programs and public access programs but also things for the public, for the welfare of the people."

A member of Senior Citizen TV since its inception, Hackman works on film projects with help from students in the UI cinema and intermedia departments. A lifelong voyager, her film-portfolio topics include observations of the wind, bug day at Kent Park, and coverage of an antiwar demonstration on the Pedestrian Mall.

She is interested in producing programs for viewers of all ages, but, she said, the equipment and the online world can be trying. "You know what they say, after all," she said. "It's only a machine. But it can be a frustrating machine."

Claire Shaw, 84, is another active program producer at Senior Center TV. Her video interviews are intimate conversations between the guest on screen, and her voice, soft but firm behind the camera. Mock public-interest alerts such as "The Cuddly Con," which warns of squirrel attacks around town, show Shaw's sense of humor. She referred to interactions at the station as "kind of a 'schmearing' of age."

Jonathan Rattner, a graduate student in the cinema/comparative literature department, works one-on-one with the seniors. Rattner, a transplant to Iowa from the East Coast, got involved with the station after making his own films, largely influenced by family home videos and interpersonal communication. He agreed the station is distinct in how the crew works across generations.

"It's about pushing boundaries," he said. "It's about challenging stereotypes of senior citizens."

The Senior Center, 28 S. Linn St., is set in the middle of university activity. Shaw said she and other seniors love the intermingling of the retiree community and students.

Jon Winet, the head of the intermedia department and director of the experimental wing of the UI Virtual Writing University, feels the Senior Center is a "tremendous creative resource and research opportunity."

A long history of involvement exists between intermedia students and the Senior Center. Curriculum for the intermedia course Artists in Community includes semester-long internships with nonprofit agencies in Iowa City and Coralville. In addition to stuffing envelopes and answering phones, the intermedia students must act as artists within their host organizations. Students are often introduced to Senior Center TV as part of these community and media research projects.

In April 2006, after almost two decades broadcasting shows on public-access television, Winet spurred Senior Center TV's addition of a web broadcast to its continuing cable programming. The result was Senior Center TV Online and its website, http://icsctv.uiowa.edu/.

Winet said he has faith in the health of Senior Center TV Online projects despite the threat of public-access stations' demise. The development of the center's website provides an independent venue for broadcast - even though some of the homebound seniors don't have Internet access.

Intermedia academics focus their research on the convergence of media - in this case, television, computers, and Internet allow for a symbiotic relationship with the center. Changing media makes programs of different lengths available to a broader audience. Winet said that now, instead of only being broadcast to an audience in Johnson County, the seniors' messages have a global reach. Long-distance family and friends, or perhaps curious Internet surfers, can view the videos when and where it is convenient.

Rattner, along with Samara Wright, a 2006 UI alumna, works closely with the seniors. He teaches filming, lighting, film writing, and editing through weekly group workshops and individual sessions. Rattner refers to the crew, students, and seniors as a creative family.

Online programs range from interviews with local experts on architecture and prairie burns to art films of shadows and instructions on how to expertly cook an egg. A series of interviews between intermedia students and seniors titled "The Linn Street Collective" features snippets of lives. Stories include lost friendships and buckles on overshoes, black-and-white photographs, and a cousin's wedding.

Wright and Shaw made a mini-documentary about Shaw's grandson's band, a four-piece he started with his high-school buddies, which they call Harvey.

Shaw said making the film eliminated a distance felt between she and her grandson. Since shooting the film, the titles "grandmother" and "grandson" no longer define their relationship. Relating to one another as filmmaker and subject helped the two of them understand each other better.

Vanessa Vobis, a UI graduate student in art and art history, worked with senior John Birkbeck on a film titled "Interview Weivretni." Vobis and Birkbeck tour Mythos, a shop in downtown Iowa City filled with global treasures, including wooden African masks, Tibetan tapestries, and statues of Hindu deities. On film, Birkbeck interviews Mythos' owner, Steve Johnson, about the artifacts.

"It was really an open-minded endeavor from the beginning," Vobis said. "It was just such a delight to work with [Birkbeck] because he had so much information and so many little, detailed stories."

Without the routine stress of full-time jobs or caring for a family with young children, the seniors have the freedom to do what they may have always wanted. "They seem to have lived three lives already and are willing to live another," Rattner said.

The center offers more than film production and editing. Seniors can take classes in anything from music to painting, sculpture, exercise, writing, or rock collecting. More than 95 percent of the center's programs are free to seniors.

Shaw raised seven children, was a massage therapist, a hospice worker, and a travel enthusiast. She moved to Iowa City late in her life. Shaw said she didn't understand anything about video production when she walked into the studio, so she just "dove in and started doing it."

At first, the filming and editing was a struggle. "There is some frustration when I can't manage it, when I can't learn it as quickly as I want to," she said. But today, using a digital camera is second nature.

Shaw is also concerned about the potential loss of local public-access stations. "It's a simple matter of what do you want to watch on television and how many choices do you want, and is it important for you to have local programming?"

But despite the possible changes, ICSC TV is pushing ahead with its activities. In March, seven crew members drove to Chicago for the joint conference of the National Council on Aging and the American Society on Aging. They filmed interviews with people at the conference from across the nation.

Shaw said people were blown away by the progressive activities the Iowa City seniors were involved in. She chuckled about other centers' "new" events, such as various art and music programs. "Yep, we do that," she said. "We've been doing that for a long time."

Both the seniors and the students agree that working together is beneficial. "It allows them to see the aging process as not just coffee drinking and card playing," Shaw said. "The students are so open to letting us learn from them. They've pushed us forward. Maybe we've pushed them, too."

Rattner said that in the beginning, he was warned to be wary of getting too close to the seniors, too emotionally attached. "I threw that out the door," he said. "What's unexpected is that these people are my family. It's kind of cheesy." And then he laughed.

"Every day I go there, it reminds me not to worry so much," he said. The seniors, because they've experienced more, know what is important.

"What matters is like, a good hug. And what matters is a good cup of coffee when you feel like it. And what matters is talking to people and learning about them, which is what we're doing at the station," Rattner said.

The seniors have no fear; they're always up for new projects and ideas. Shaw said with conviction, "If it stops being fun, we won't be doing it."

E-mail DI reporter Kate Casper at:
kate-casper@uiowa.edu

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Contact Johnson County's state representatives and state senators if you are concerned about local control of media, choices in programming, and how these may be affected by SR 554, the bill that may end local public-access cable.

Senators
Joe Bolkcom (D)
Iowa City
joe.bolkcom@legis.state.ia.us
319-337-6280

Bob Dvorsky (D)
Coralville
robert.dvorsky@legis.state.ia.us
319-351-0988

State Representatives
Dave Jacoby (D)
Coralville
David.Jacoby@legis.state.ia.us
319-358-8538

Mary Mascher (D)
Iowa City
Mary.Mascher@legis.state.ia.us
319-351-2826

Vicki Lensing (D)
Iowa City
Vicki.Lensing@legis.state.ia.us
319-338-6148

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To learn more about the Iowa City Senior Center and its activities, see the organization's website

To watch any of the short films recently made by the seniors, including "The Cuddly Con," "Interview Weivretni," and "Harvey", click here

E-mail Johnson County's state legislators, Senators Joe Bolkcom and Bob Dvorsky, and Representatives Dave Jacoby, Mary Mascher, and Vicki Lensing, to offer your opinions on S.F. 554 by visiting this site

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