Thursday, April 03, 2014

'Hollow,' interactive documentary about a West Virginia county, wins a Peabody Award

An interactive documentary about a southern West Virginia county trying to revive itself has won a Peabody Award, given for outstanding efforts in electronic media.

"Hollow" introduces McDowell County, right, as one of the one-third of U.S. counties where more people are leaving than staying, but it is an extreme example: its population of 20,000 is about a fifth what it was 60 years ago. ('Hollow' map)
The producer is 26-year-old Elaine McMillon, left, who grew up in adjoining Logan County. She combined personal documentary video portraits of 30 people who have , user-generated content, photography, soundscapes, interactive data and grassroots mapping on an HTML5 website.

“The more attention the project gets, the more pressure is put on the residents to do what they say they wanted to do in the documentary,” she told Zack Harold of the Charleston Daily Mail, where she interned. “I got a message yesterday from a McDowell County resident, saying ‘Thanks for waking us up.’”

"The film recently won third place in World Press Photo’s annual interactive documentary contest, and was named a finalist for the 2014 South by Southwest Interactive People’s Choice Award," Harold notes. "Last year, the documentary was accepted as part of the New York Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival and the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam’s 'Doc Lab'." (Read more)

Other Peabody Award winners of rural interest include NBC's "In Plain Sight: Poverty In America;" "Hanford's Dirty Secrets" by KING-TV of Seattle, exposing waste, deception and mismanagement at a nuclear reservation in southwest Washington; and "A Chef’s Life," a "stereotype-cracking nonfiction serial" about a farm-to-fork restaurant in North Carolina's Low Country. For the press release, click here.
- See more at: http://www.charlestondailymail.com/article/20140402/DM01/140409825#sthash.q8CsntGw.dpu

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