Review of “Aid Worker faces 20 years for Providing Water and Shelter to Immigrants”
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/07/let-them-have-water/
The mini documentary Aid Worker Faces 20 years for Providing Water and Shelter to Immigrants by Laura Sanders opens with shots of a church, the sign for the town of Ajo and a map of the town immediately showing us where we are in the first few seconds of film. We then see the white crosses with the word “desconocido”, unknown. An audio track tells us about the remains of 57 bodies found in the desert. Cut to a shot of jugs of water and then another map with the red dots showing that the remains have been found clustered in a desolate section of the desert south of Ajo. The basic outline of the story is clearly laid out like a lead for a hard news story.
The piece provides context to the words of the speakers by cutting to images and short shots that are matched to that specific word or topic defining important points in the interview.
From the passenger seat of the vehicle the videographer got a shot of a somewhat uneasy conversation between a law enforcement officer and César Ortigoza, president of Armadillos Search and Rescue demonstrating the relationship that the organizations have with law enforcement. There are also radio calls that show the organizations sending representatives to deal with the border patrol. Portraying this relationship provides background and a little foreshadowing for the story of Scott Warren’s arrest.
The music is slow, simple guitar notes, bluesy licks that pace the story nicely and create a somber sense of loss. The crescendo of the music is matched the growth of the border patrol industry that Scott Warren is speaking about.
Shots of the jugs that have “Beloved,” “Amado” and “agua pura” hand written in black marker are impactful, as well as the shots of the weathered shoes and clothing left in the desert. These quick clips tell a longer story in just a second or two. The Shot of the church at sunset/sunrise underscores the spiritual devotion and spiritual nature of the land in the local area. Close-ups of faces of the Aid workers creates a familiarity and it makes it difficult to dehumanize the search and rescue volunteers as criminals.
The piece does a good job portraying the moral motivations of the faith-based search and rescue organizations with shots of ceremonial gatherings to honor those that have died in the desert. The shots of the aid workers sweating and resting in the shade and the shots of the natural landscape and vegetation let us know how inhospitable the environment can be.
This mini documentary can stand alone as a short news summary but the last frame offers more information in a longer in-depth story. The in-depth piece covers many more aspects of the story such as misuse of tax dollars by the border patrol in constructing agent housing. I was surprised at how much of a deeper story was offered in the longer investigative piece. I think that the video could have added a few more “teaser” points to get readers to dig deeper into the larger story. The investigative piece is broken up into chapters but they are not very accessible. I feel that they could have made use of more graphics or more descriptive chapter headers that could tell the reader a bit more about what they will learn in each portion of the piece. This way one could read the whole thing through or you could scan and get summaries and follow points of interest that draw readers deeper into the piece.
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/04/no-more-deaths-scott-warren-migrants-border-arizona/
