Excerpt from WHIO
Veterans Voices, the Wright State University oral history project and radio series, is now a full-length documentary film and a series of shorter online videos.
The documentary and webisodes, “Veterans Voices: Lives and Stories,” feature Wright State student-veterans as well as veterans from the community and their families, exploring their time in the service and lives as civilians.
The project is a partnership between Wright State’s New Media Incubator and Veteran and Military Center and involves numerous students who appear on the screen and behind the camera. It is led by the co-directors of the New Media Incubator, Ashley Hall, assistant professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures, and Jen Ware, associate professor of communication, and Seth Gordon, director of the Veteran and Military Center.
“Veterans Voices: Lives and Stories” will premiere Nov. 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Neon in downtown Dayton. Tickets for the screening are free and are available on the Veterans Voices Facebook page.
The producers have been premiering a webisode every Friday for six weeks leading up to the screening. Every Friday at 4 p.m. a new webisode is streamed on the Veterans Voices YouTube channel and screened at the Wright State New Media Incubator, which hosts a discussion after the screening.
Each webisode is 10 to 15 minutes and is shared socially to reach a wide audience. Past webisodes can be viewed at bit.ly/vv-digital-premieres.
“We hope people will watch it, enjoy it, think about it and then want to see the full documentary at the Neon on the 21st,” Ware said.
The project launched with the digital premiere of “Letters Home” on Oct. 4. Other webisodes are “Veteran Spouse,” which focuses on veterans’ family life; “Integrity First,” which explores service by LGBTQ members of the armed services before, during and after Don’t Ask Don’t Tell; “Vetrepreneur,” about veterans who have launched start-ups; “We Hire Vets,” about businesses that commit to hiring veterans; and “I’m a Veteran,” a retrospective featuring reflections from project participants.
“Each of these segments isn’t an end to the story,” Ware said. “There are always more stories to be told, and there’s always more to say and some good ground for conversation.”
