Haiti through a lens
People and places look different through the lens of a camera, particularly when the photographer is working as a journalist, recording how the enormity of an event has affected people and every little detail of their lives.
Senior Cody Penwell served as cameraman for an eight-person team from Shenandoah visiting earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince.
When Shenandoah University President Tracy Fitzsimmons assembled a team to travel to the epicenter of the Jan. 12 earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince, Haiti, she included 22-year-old Cody Penwell, a senior theatre major who has years of experience working as a cameraman and film editor for Shenandoah University Television (SUTV).
The eight-person team left Winchester on March 5 and returned in the early morning hours of March 12. In addition to Dr. Fitzsimmons and Penwell, the group included Assistant Professor of Physician Assistant Studies Anne Schempp, Director of the Physical Plant Gene Fisher, Winchester-based structural engineer Ned Cleland, psychiatrist Russ McKelway of Berryville, Va., and siblings Cindy and Jerry Saint-Fort, who are both Shenandoah students and who were reunited with their parents in Port-au-Prince.
The Shenandoah group spent its time assisting at what remains of College Catherine Flon, a kindergarten through high school institution in Port-au-Prince founded by the Saint-Fort’s father.
For the week, Cleland and Fisher surveyed what remains of buildings, Dr. McKelway met with hundreds of people who desperately need help with post-traumatic stress and depression, and Schempp offered medical aid. Fitzsimmons, who has lived, studied and worked in Haiti, met with officials, educators and others to gauge immediate and long-term needs. The objective was to assess how teams from Shenandoah might help rebuild the school over the years to come.
"It’s difficult to film people during the worst moments in their lives but, I wanted people to know I wasn’t filming for profit. Rather, I was filming in order to show people in the United States, who can help people in Haiti." - Cody Penwell | undergraduate theatre major, videographer and photographer
While everyone focused on his or her area of expertise, Penwell focused his cameras on it all.
“I chose my cameras carefully, and checked and rechecked my equipment a dozen times before we left,” he said. “I knew I needed to pack light, but I knew there was no room for equipment failure or missed shots. I had to get it right, because with photojournalism you can’t go back and recreate shots. If you miss it, you missed it.”
Penwell took a Sony hand-held camera and a mini flip-camera. He took a light-weight tri-pod, 20 blank tapes for the hand-held camera (each holds 50 to 60 minutes of video) “and lots and lots of batteries.” Over the week, he used 14 tapes and shot nine-hours of “B” roll on the flip-camera.
Once in Haiti, Penwell’s challenges quickly became apparent. “It’s difficult to film people during the worst moments in their lives,” he said, adding it’s almost impossible not to feel intrusive. “But, I wanted people to know I wasn’t filming for profit. Rather, I was filming in order to show people in the United States, who can help people in Haiti.”
Drawing on his training as an actor, he used the camera as a fourth wall. “If I looked through the viewfinder, I could be objective. If I put the camera down, it became very personal.”
Of course, it was personal for Penwell and every member of the team. The devastation is everywhere. People are living in tents and make-shift quarters, occupying every bit of space among the debris. They are hungry, tired, frightened and irritable.
A police officer accompanied the Shenandoah group 24/7.
"There was a unique smell," Penwell said, attributing it to so many people living so closely, the lack of sanitation and the fact some buildings in which victims are known to be buried have not yet been cleared. "It’s difficult to see people living amongst all that."
The Shenandoah group left campus in two vans with 1,000 pounds of supplies, food, medicine and clothes. They returned in one van, having given away the food, tents and even some of their own clothes.
Penwell went straight to work, editing his film. Before he graduates in May, he will produce four specific documentaries.
He filmed at a collapsed church, and Fitzsimmons hopes to find church organizations here that might help that particular church rebuild.
Penwell also filmed at Hospital Albert Schweitzer, and that footage will help Shenandoah’s health professions students and faculty prepare for future medical mission trips there.
He documented everything at College Catherine Flon, including the Saint-Fort children being reunited with their parents and the work done by members of the SU team, as rebuilding the school is important to Fitzsimmons.
"And, I’ll produce a significant documentary on the entire trip," he said. "My work let me see what every member of the team was doing, which was amazing and a little stressful. If I’m filming here, what am I missing over there?"
Penwell, who plans to move to Los Angeles and establish his career in the film industry, fully appreciates the unique opportunity he was given. "I imagine not many 22-year-olds are asked by the president of their university to film a documentary. But, Shenandoah is the kind of place where, if you’re willing to do the work, anything is possible."
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