Environmental documentary, "The Night Shift" debuts
05/01/09
This month, the world premier of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism's latest documentary, "The Night Shift" took place on Wed., May 6 at Studio D of the DMAT lab in the Comm. Arts and Sciences building, MSU campus.
The new thirty-minute documentary is on the owl. The video features research carried out by Sarah Coefield, a zoology and environmental journalism graduate student, as well as others who have examined the impact of chemicals on Great Horned Owls in Midland, Mich. It explores the rehabilitation of owls and other birds at the MSU School of Veterinarian Medicine by Dr. James Sikarskie, associate professor, and the rediscovery of a rare owl in India by Dr. Pamela Rasmussen, a zoology assistant professor and assistant adjunct curator at the MSU Museum.
"The Night Shift" will be broadcast on WKAR-TV and other PBS stations later this spring, and again in October. The video is the third environmental documentary produced by Lou D'Aria and his students for JRN 476 (Environmental Video Storytelling).
The first video, "Dying to be Heard" was broadcast on PBS throughout Mich. in 2007-08 and has won a Michigan Emmy, and was named one of the top three student-produced documentaries in the nation in 2008. The second documentary, "Meltdown" examined climate change and its affect on the Arctic, and was named best student-produced documentary at the Great Lakes Environmental Film Festival in Jan. 2009.