Indonesia footage earns an A, wins Web awards

JEREMY D. BONFIGLIO
Tribune Staff Writer

Stories. Zachary Shields couldn't stop thinking about the stories. Two months after an earthquake and tsunami devastated southeast Asia in December 2004, six of his friends traveled to Indonesia as part of the University Volunteers International relief effort.

Shields was supposed to be with them, but school commitments kept him from making the trip.

Those responsibilities, however, couldn't shield him from the stories his friends shared upon their return.

Villages gone. Lives lost. That fire. And those two girls.

"The whole dynamic of (my friends) helping these people was inspiring," Shields says. "I wanted to find a way I could share those stories of these forgotten places."

That's when Shields, a 2002 graduate of Culver Military Academy, approached Chris Podell, a South Bend native and fellow new media and arts major at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, with a proposal.

Both seniors were preparing for their Capstone project, a requirement for all students graduating from the School of Informatics. So, why not create a Web site documenting the effects of the devastation?

"I was hesitant at first," Podell says. "It sounded like a really depressing project to work on, but we really wanted to do something that mattered. So when Zach came up with the idea, we ran with it."

The result is Not Seen, Not Heard, (www.notseennotheard.com), a Web site that uses photos and video clip footage to share stories of the ongoing relief effort in Indonesia. This online documentary has not only given a voice to those still in need in the country's remote islands, but also has helped raise money for Island Aid (www.island-aid.org), a nongovernmental relief organization.

"Using video on the Web is still fairly new," Podell says. "We knew we had to have short segments that were compressed enough for people to view to have any impact."

They also knew it meant Shields would be going to Indonesia after all.

His five-week visit, beginning in July 2005, took him to three different island groups, where he interviewed disaster victims and shot footage of how their lives had been affected.

Even the stories he had heard from his University Volunteer friends didn't prepare him for what he saw.

"These islands were the closest to the earthquake," Shields says. "A lot of these mountain villages were completely destroyed. It's something you just didn't hear about on the news."

One journey led Shields to the hilltop village of Sifalago Susua. It was a place University Volunteers wanted him to see.

"I think they wanted to put a face on what was happening," Shields says.

Erniwati and Soteria Lai live there.

The two cousins had been burned in a kerosene fire a month before the quake and tsunami. Although they survived the blaze, the devastation in their country ended any hope for corrective surgery and other treatments.

"When I met Erniwati, I knew our Capstone project would become more than what Chris and I originally envisioned," Shields says.

After Shields returned to Indianapolis in late August, he and Podell began to piece the project together. With Shields' footage and Podell's Web design and technical savvy, the site took shape.

"I think going to Indonesia got us the A," Shields says.

The project, however, has gone well beyond the classroom.

So far, Not Seen, Not Heard has won two Horizon Interactive Awards for Best Video/ Short Film and for use of Flash. Earlier this month, the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences presented the duo with the People's Voice Award at the 10th annual Webby Awards, the so-called Oscars of the Internet.

"It wasn't something we expected," Podell says, "but the awards are an added bonus because of what it means for the project's offshoot."

And that's getting skin grafts for the Lai cousins.

The duo already has enlisted Shriners Hospital in Hawaii to pay for the treatment and rehab if Shields and Podell can get the two girls and their guardian to the island for about a year.

"We've already raised about $2,000," Podell says, "but it's going to take about $50,000 to get it done."

In the meantime, Shields is working for Cantaloupe, an Indianapolis marketing company, while Podell is back in South Bend pondering graduate school in Georgia.

Still, the recent graduates plan to continue their fund-raising efforts.

"You start working on a project that grows so fast that it becomes something else," Podell says. "I hope it continues to push forward, because I would love to do more projects like this."

Erniwati Lai shows the scars she suffered during a kerosene fire near her hilltop village of Sifalago Susua. An online documentary by Zachary Shields and Chris Podell is helping to raise funds for Lai and her cousin, who couldn't get treatment following the devastating December 26, 2004, earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia.