Monthly Archives: March 2019

College, Events, Film, Travel

Mountainfilm travel-study gearing up for another round

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In the week leading up to and including Memorial Day weekend, Winona State University’s film studies department will be hosting a travel-study in which students are given an opportunity to visit Telluride, Colorado, and experience the annual Mountainfilm Film Festival.

Not to be confused with the town’s other film festival, the aptly-named Telluride Film Festival, Mountainfilm is documentary-based, curating nonfiction stories that explore topics like the environment, culture, recreation, political and social justice issues and more.

This will be the second year in a row for the travel-study.

The students and professor of the 2018 travel-study to Telluride pose in the town [Photo supplied by J Paul Johnson]
English and film studies professor J Paul Johnson, who is co-leading the travel-study with former director of the Frozen River Film Festival Crystal Hegge, said he hopes students will learn from the festival and the course.

Johnson said a festival like Mountainfilm provides attendees with a chance to see a breadth of career opportunities.

“Novice-level understanding of film is typically predicated on people being aware of … somebody who’s hitting the headlines with big breakout blockbuster films …,” Johnson said. “What many people don’t understand … is that there are thousands and thousands of jobs in this industry at all levels …”

According to Johnson, Mountainfilm teaches people that film jobs burrow deeper than what is displayed on a teaser poster.

“There are people who are deeply invested in and working hard at the production of films,” Johnson said, listing grips, gaffers and sound technicians as examples, while also adding there are jobs in filmmaking that do not “necessarily involve being the director of ‘Avengers: Endgame’ or ‘Black Panther.’”

Another important concept students learn is even the best in the industry start at the bottom.

This concept was amplified during the 2018 travel-study to Mountainfilm when students had a chance-meeting with Barry Jenkins, director of the 2017 Academy Award winner for Best Picture “Moonlight.”

Johnson said Jenkins, like all students of film, started at the bottom and worked his way up.

“He remembered very well being at the start of his career,” Johnson said. “He remembered getting to go to a film festival for the first time, getting to meet a few directors, going up to a couple of others, tapping them on the shoulder, asking if he could have a minute of their time. He was superbly gracious with students and talking about that.”

Johnson said he believes those who attended the 2018 travel-study returned with a greater appreciation for filmmaking.

“I guarantee students came back awed … by that experience and really motivated by it,” Johnson said. “I think if you talk to any of them who went there last year, I’m pretty confident that that is what they’ll say.”

Film student Brynn Artley, a sophomore who took the travel-study in 2018, agreed with Johnson.

“I had a ton of fun, highly recommend the trip,” Artley said. “We saw a ton of different films in the span of three or four days. We wrote up reviews, we made blogs about it. It was just a lot of fun.”

While any student can register for the course, Johnson said film majors and minors are ultimately given precedence over others.

“We have a built-in selection system, in that it requires a 2.5 GPA,” Johnson said. “We do give priority to declared film studies majors and minors.”

Johnson added a vetting process would only take place if the course had more students than necessary.

Twelve are enrolled.

“We rank and evaluate applicants if we have more than 20,” Johnson said. “I would not at all be displeased if we had so many people wishing to go on this program that we had to make those kinds of decisions. That would be a good problem to have. But right now … I’m pretty comfortable with where we’re at.”

A caveat of the travel-study is the price.

Despite her taking the travel-study this year, Brittany Bluhm, a senior double majoring in English writing and film studies, discussed her past financial constraints and how they kept her from taking the course and attending the festival last year.

“I was hung up on rent and a lot of medical bills,” Bluhm said. “I was like, ‘There’s no way I can come up with $500 (the confirmation deposit) to stash toward the trip.’”

Senior Brittany Bluhm prepares for her first visit to Telluride by reading about the town

According to the brochure for 2020’s travel-study to Telluride, the cost fluctuates around $3,000, which includes tuition and student fees for the three credits linked to the program, as well as roundtrip airfare, transportation during the program, lodging, breakfasts and dinners, admission and event fees for all educational activities and the Study Abroad administrative fee.

The price is discounted, as well, as Bluhm said students taking the course will be volunteering with film screenings and other activities.

While she was unable to go last year, Bluhm said she understood the reasoning for the price.

“I think, because our film program is relatively new, I can understand why it’s maybe a little bit more expensive,” Bluhm said. “I anticipate the school will contribute more in the future as long as this trip keeps on going.”

According to Johnson, while more people would logically bring the price down, that would also mean jeopardizing the level of attention he is able to give in his instruction for the course.

“The price—the bottom line for the trip—would go down if we had 20 people instead of 12,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t be opposed to having 16 students or even 20 as the cap … but it would be a different experience for me, a more complex one, and I don’t know if my students would get the individual attention that I know they will get with 12.”

Johnson said the price of the travel-study is lower than other travel-studies offered by the school.

“Any travel-study is an expense,” Johnson said. “Our travel-study to Mountainfilm is about half the expense or less than any of the international studies … Normally to travel abroad, earn three credits, over a period of one to two weeks, it is going to set a student back probably about $6,000. The price for our students, including the tuition, air travel, lodging, festival expenses, etcetera, is about $2,600.”

Johnson said he and co-leader Hegge do everything they can to keep the expenses as minimal as possible.

“That’s why, for instance, I cook,” Johnson said. “Because it’s a lot cheaper than having people eat-out in what is kind of a Tony-resort town where prices for that kind of thing are expensive.”

Cost aside, Johnson said he was satisfied with last year’s study and said he hopes this year’s is a repeat.

“There’s not really anything that we aim to do differently this coming year than we did last year,” Johnson said. “We just hope to replicate what we’ve done. It is a really nice experience for students to be able to do this … We have a really good partnership with Mountainfilm, and it’s a great destination for people to be at.”

Community, Local, Winona

Mason Jar bar finishing final stages of reconstruction

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By: Zach Bailey and Madelyn Swenson

The downtown Winona building that housed the Mason Jar bar is back under construction after almost entirely burning down four years ago.

Greg Karow, building official for the City of Winona, has been following the reconstruction process of the building at the corner of Third and Walnut streets since the fire occurred.

The building sits on the corner of Third and Walnut streets. It was originally built in 1888. Since it was built there have been three renovations on the building.

“At first we looked at the building and it was designated as a hazardous building. The only thing left standing was the exterior walls, free standing without support,” Karow said. “The owner wanted to rehab it, and it’s a historical building on the registry; that process kept running into delays and that’s why it sat there.”

Karow and Bert Kimman, property manager of Walnut Apartments, agreed a main concern was stability of the walls.

The fire had destroyed all of the internal building, leaving only the original brick on the outer layer untouched.

“I had seen movement, so they had a company brace it all up,” Karow said. “It is a very unique building because it was old, the outside walls were structurally not able to carry any load. The construction technique was to build a superstructure inside the building, so nothing sets on the outside walls, they’re just tied to the inside. They built a building inside of the shell.”

Kimman described the process as building a new building inside of old walls.

“All the columns are steel columns,” Kimman said. “It’s basically a steel frame inside the brick.”

Construction on the main structure has been completed. Now, windows and doors are being put in place.

“We have a lot of work to do on the outside yet,” Kimman said. “By no means is it close to done.”

A worker nails in the trim in one of the 21 apartments in the building.

According to Karow, construction is nearing the two-thirds or three-quarters mark of completion, with most of the work left to do being plumbing, drywall and mechanicals.

Karow said city inspection staff has visited the property 12 to 15 times.

“There is inspection criteria for any building that we’re able to get in,” Karow said. “We look at things in milestones before things can get covered up. Because of the unique character of the building, we’ve been down there consulting quite a bit.”

Though the building is now under construction, the possible future of this building was different two years ago.

In June 2017, the Winona City Council announced plans to begin the demolition process of the building, after it sat vacant for more than two years.

According to Karow, interest to “salvage the building due to its historic nature” was what ultimately saved the building from demolition.

Building owner, Chase Hoffman had been pushing for renovating the building at the time, but was not finishing paperwork and meeting deadlines on time, Karow said.

“Even with the bracing up it was still a very temporary situation,” Karow said. “From my perspective, I needed to push [Hoffman] off dead center, either you are or aren’t, here’s a drop dead date, what are you gonna do?”

After the city “saved the building” from demolition, plans began to be made for what the building would house in the future.

Kimman and Hoffman plan to make the first level a commercial space, with 21 apartments throughout the rest of the building. No plans have been made as to what will open in the commercial space.

Kimman said it will not be another bar or restaurant because they did not put in the vents needed for that kind of business. He said the space will most likely be some kind of retail.

The apartments will range in pricing from $400 to $950 a month. Kimman has a few tenants lined up for the leasing year starting June 2019.

Though the building is in the final stages of the renovation process, this is not the first time the building has been under construction during the building’s time in Winona.

Since being built in 1888 the building has had three editions. Originally the building was only about half the size it is currently.

As construction nears the end, Karow shared his thoughts on the process the building has gone through during construction.

“It’s been a very difficult path and has taken a long time to get this thing going,” Karow said. “Now that it’s moving forward we see light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a very unique building, this is a considerable step up. We’re not done, but we’re getting there.”

Film, Journalism, News, Safety, Security, technology, Uncategorized

Deep Fakes

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Until recently, photographs, video, and audio were considered a trusted form of communication and storytelling.

Then, photo editing technology and software was developed and photos were no longer considered to be fully trusted.

Some photographs have been altered so well it’s almost impossible to tell.

But videos can’t be faked, right? Wrong.

New technology is proving that to be false.

Deep fake technology has been developed to superimpose someone’s face onto another’s.

According to the computer science department chair at Winona State University, Mingrui Zhang, the idea behind the technology has been around for more than ten years.

It’s mostly been used for entertainment purposes such as the popular children’s movie Toy Story.

“It uses generative adversarial network (GAN) which is based on neural network algorithms,” Zhang said. “It is like any unsupervised neural network it learns from the subjects.”

According to a research paper by Robert Chesney, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, and Danielle Citron, a professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, “Harmful lies are nothing new. But the ability to distort reality has taken an exponential leap forward with ‘deep fake’ technology. This capability makes it possible to create audio and video of real people saying and doing things they never said or did.”

This technology could pose as a threat to privacy and security, according to Zhang.

“It may bring up legal and ethical concerns,” Zhang said. “Those are also what computing education society is facing. The social implication of technology,”

Much like on the social media app, Snapchat, there is a feature that maps out a user’s face and can put photos of friends faces or other filters onto a user’s face.

Snapchat is similar to deep fake technology. Flaws can be detected rather quickly and the users can tell it isn’t someone else.

With deep fake technology, it is more complex but the results are better.

“For example, you want actor B to behave like actor A,” Zhang said. “You take video of actor A, the software will analyze the video and construct the skeleton of A, and A’s motion. In filming, wrapping the skeleton of A with the skin of actor B will make the audience think that B is in action. That’s how AVATAR was made, but the process is too expensive for average person. But with help of a machine learning algorithm like GAN, faking is possible for everyone.”

An issue where deep fake technology arose was in the porn industry. Users of the technology were placing celebrities faces onto others in porn videos.

This is an issue of consent and the well-being of those celebrities. They did not give permission to have their faces in those videos.

“Deep fakes make them available to average person. It started for entertainment, could be used to fake someone’s action who has never committed,” Zhang said.

Chesney and Citron wrote more on the effects of deep fakes.

“Deep fakes have characteristics that ensure their spread beyond corporate or academic circles. For better or worse, deep-fake technology will diffuse and democratize rapidly,” wrote Chesney and Citron. “. . . technologies—even dangerous ones—tend to diffuse over time.”

With that in mind, the porn industry may not be the only industry that is affected as it is hard to contain this type of technology.

Chesney and Citron also wrote about how deep fake technology could affect journalism.

“Media entities may grow less willing to take risks in that environment, or at least less willing to do so in timely fashion,” wrote Chesney and Citron. “Without a quick and reliable way to authenticate video and audio, the press may find it difficult to fulfill its ethical and moral obligation to spread truth.”

Video posted on YouTube by: Bloomberg

Campus, College, Life, Safety, Security, Winona State University

Sexual assaults on campus down or up?

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By: Nicole Girgen and Madelyn Swenson

Editor’s note: The content of this article may be triggering if you have been or are sensitive to sexual assaults.  

According to Winona State University’s Annual Safety Report, cases of sexual assault reported on campus are down from six in 2016 to three in 2017. Chris Cichosz, Winona State’s director of security, Lori Mikl WSU’s Title IX coordinator, students apart of the Gender Based Violence (GBV) organization and the annual campus climate survey say it doesn’t mean the assaults are down.

Mikl said just because reports are down on campus does not mean that sexual assaults are not happening as often. Cichosz and GBV students agreed.

“I don’t think the prevalence of sexual assault is down at all,” Mikl said. “I just think that students are right now a little more leery of coming forward.”

Mikl said the decrease in reports could be because of a few factors.

Mikl said one factor is how reporting assault is portrayed in the news media. She said there is backlash for victim/survivors who are coming forward.

GBV students, Molly Sarbacker, Jacob Hansen, Tom Cameron and Emma Severson said they agree with this statement.

Increasing reporting: a video message

Mikl and GBV students also said some circumstances may contribute. Including: fear of coming forward, outing the aggressor and the stigma behind sexual assaults.

Molly Sarbacker, junior student a part of GBV, has been through the process of reporting through the university.

When Sarbacker went to the Title IX office, she had GBV coordinator Heather Gerdes go with her, a service that the organization provides to anyone.

Sarbacker said the process was traumatizing.

“I think that it’s a traumatizing experience to go through reporting and to share your story over and over and over again,” Sarbacker said.

According to Mikl, all decision makers and those on the panels that hear the case are trained in how to do so.

The reporting process itself is different for everyone.

A victim/survivor can report to security, a resident assistant (RA), a trusted friend, the police or others.

According to both Cichosz and Mikl, the way most victim/survivors report is through an RA or security.

Cichosz said there is always room for improvement in the process and he is open to feedback from victim/survivors who have gone through security.

“There is always room for improvement,” Cichosz said. “I think letting victims know what their options are, I think we can always do better at getting that information out there.”

Jacob Hansen, a sophomore student a part of GBV, said there is a universal “red zone” where most assaults occur.

The red zone starts in September and goes through Thanksgiving. There is an increase in reports, for many reasons.

How to help intervene: a video message

Hansen said some of the reasons are the first football game, homecoming, welcome week and the warm weather leading to more parties.

The U.S. Department of Education may be making changes to the Title IX rules for campuses.

These would include more rights for those who are accused of committing a sexual assault.

Tom Cameron, a sophomore student a part of GBV, said he has high hopes for the future.

“We can’t really say any specifics so far just because this information is still in the works and we are still figuring out how we can go about this,” Cameron said. “But the future is looking good. We can say that for sure. We’re definitely brainstorming everything we can and all the options for right now.”

Community, Food, Local, News

Lake City restaurant to open doors in Winona

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Traveling from one river city to another, Lake City’s Nosh Restaurant will move to downtown Winona in three months.

Nosh first opened its doors in June 2004 in Wabasha, Minnesota. Greg Jaworski, owner of Nosh Restaurant, moved to their current Lake City, Minnesota location in April 2007.

With almost a dozen years experience in Lake City, the Jaworski family initially looked at the lot formerly occupied by Godfather’s Pizza in Winona, but finalized their plans to open their restaurant on the corner of Walnut and Second streets.

Construction continues on the soon-to-be Nosh location on the corner of Second and Walnut streets in Winona.

“We were approached by people from the city of Winona who had private investors behind them,” Jaworski said. “We loved the community in Lake City, but winters were too long, and when we were contacted we ended up deciding to make the move.”

Pat Mutter, executive director of Visit Winona, was one of the people involved in the process of bringing Nosh to Winona.

“I am part of a group that has been working on trying to talk to people about what kind of restaurant they want in town or what is missing and what’s needed,” Mutter said. “Nosh came about from checking with certain chefs and passing word along that we’re trying to get restaurants in town. It was great that it turned out that (Jaworski) was interested, and we were very happy to go along that path.”

Though Jaworski was initially approached to bring Nosh Restaurant to Winona, Mutter said Visit Winona does not always approach companies to relocate to Winona. Mutter continued by saying the mission of Visit Winona is to market and promote Winona as a destination.

“When we talk about great things in Winona, one thing we hear about is having more restaurants. We have a very good selection of casual restaurants in town, but we’re working with corporate businesses who are looking for places to bring their clients and more places you could actually sit down and have a different experience,” Mutter said.

Mutter said even though they are working on bringing more businesses to town, this does not mean they no longer care about current Winona businesses.

“We want to support restaurants in town, we just want to make and give value to customers to have as many choices and variety as possible,” Mutter said. “We don’t usually go out, but when we travel the question is always there, what kind of restaurants do they have? People are always looking for something local, and more variety is better for residents and people who come to town. The more choices we have, the more hope we have of them staying in town to eat.”

Mutter said one of the main reasons they approached Nosh was due to their current brand.

“Nosh has a great reputation, and it will be great to have them here as a destination restaurant,” Mutter said. “They are a known and popular product. They will bring loyal customers with them.”

With construction underway, Jaworski said they plan to open their Winona location in June, while keeping the Lake City location open until a few weeks before the Winona location opens.

In between closing the Wabasha location and opening the Lake City location, Jaworski said there was about a week when neither location was open. Jaworski said this time the transition might take a bit longer.

“We expect to be in Lake City until May, then shut down and take two or three weeks to prepare for Winona and do it correctly from day one,” Jaworski said. “The trip from Lake City to Winona is much longer than Wabasha to Lake City, so it will take us longer to move everything to this location than it did for the last move.”

With construction a few months from completion, Jaworski said not much will be changed, but certain aspects will be improved.

“It would be foolish to try to tweak what has been successful, changing wasn’t the aim of bringing Nosh here,” Jaworski said. “Continuity of our existing reputation will just shift to Winona. There will be slight tweaks, a larger grill, and focusing more on what’s trending, woodfire, smoke, fresh breads. There will be improvements, but I don’t like the word ‘changes.’”

An improvement to the bar area is one other aspect Jaworski is planning.

“We will be trying to take a more modern approach to the bar program,” Jaworski said. “We will be redesigning the bar, and hope to focus more on that and trends. Status quo is the goal.”

Along with slight changes to the restaurant itself, Jaworski described how the change in location will affect the environment of the business.

“It’s kind of interesting, Lake City is right on top of the Mississippi and the sailboat arena, all with a stunning view of the midwest,” Jaworski said. “The new location is more focused inward in Winona, there’s not a whole lot to look at, which will make what’s on the plate or in the glass more important. It will be challenging to be focused solely on what we’re providing as opposed to the benefit of the view.”

Tom Wynn, the business manager of Nosh, spoke about another one of the challenges Nosh might face when transitioning to Winona.

“I think one thing that’s going to be a challenge is workforce,” Wynn said. “Although we have a much broader pool here in Winona than Lake City, it’s still a challenge to find qualified servers and workers.”

It will not all be challenges, as Wynn also talked about aspects he is excited for during the move.

“There’s so much going on in downtown Winona, I think our timing is going to be excellent to take advantage of the new apartment buildings, Fastenal coming down, and I think we’re going to give Winona something that they’ve needed for years and years,” Wynn said.

Though the company will face challenges, Jaworski said he is excited for the new location.

“There’s more people to appeal to in Winona, there is a niche that isn’t quite being hit on,” Jaworski said. “We’re not fine dining, not trying to compete with Signatures, but we have a nicer feel than some of the existing restaurants, with an emphasis on locally-sourced food.”

College, Life, Veterans, Veterans Affairs, Winona State University

From Active Duty to Active Student

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Army Veteran Discusses Life as a College Student

In order to better understand what life is like for a veteran in a college setting, Army veteran and Winona State student Sara Manning discussed how she feels in an environment where she is surrounded by younger, and often non-military-affiliated, peers.

Manning offered her take to help other students understand the difficulty veterans face in putting themselves through college.

Off in the distance from where Manning sat during an interview, a car backfired. Her eyes darted to its place of origin and she disappeared into thought. She was overseas again.

“Muscle memory,” Manning said, pressing her fingers to her neck to check her pulse.

According to Britani Woodworth from Winona State’s Veterans Affairs office, around 200 members of the armed forces enroll at the school following deployment. For many of them, this is a bookend to life-changing circumstances, and sometimes their readjustment to private citizenship is more difficult than they originally imagined.

“I would say it changed me for the worst,” Manning, 33, said, speaking about her deployment in Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. “I’m still in transition. I’m not the person I once was. My interpersonal skills have narrowed and I don’t really trust groups of people.”

Manning’s deployment lasted 16 months, which saw her working as military police, traveling to U.S.-occupied countries and detaining soldiers deemed no longer fit to serve.

“I’ve always been comfortable with discipline,” Manning said.

Manning (second from the right) and her unit overseas [Photo supplied by Sara Manning]
Whether it is removing soldiers from active duty or doing school work, discipline is credited as one of her inspirations to go to college.

On if she is comfortable being in an environment where she is more world-weary than the young populace of a college campus, Manning said, “Deployment changed my mentality, and I think that affected my integration into the college community. My personal bubble is pretty small and it takes me awhile to trust people.”

According to Woodworth, who is also a student along with being a staff member in the Veterans Affairs office, it is common for veterans to have trouble integrating into a college community following deployment.

“There’s a hard adjustment for people in the military coming back from a deployment, (and) back into civilian life,” Woodworth said. “The normalcy of everything is really hard for some people.”

Manning also discussed how being a veteran influences her role as a college student.

“It is very… I don’t know if surreal describes it,” Manning said. “I definitely do not identify with anybody there, even the professors. So it’s very intimidating in a way that I just don’t know how to function …”

Along with the aforementioned difficulties, Manning referenced her son as an added obstacle in terms of her role as as a student.

“I also have a child,” Manning continued, “so that makes it even harder to (engage) people younger than me, because they assume that because I’m in a class with them, I’m able to freely able to use my time … and that’s just not something I can do.”

Similar to her earlier comments, Manning again discussed discipline and how it appears to be more instrumental to her than her classmates.

“The biggest challenge is having other people understand discipline,” Manning said. “Other students seem nonchalant with what they’re doing, and it’s kind of on a back-burner, whereas I’ve been trained that if (something) is going to get done and done right, it’s going to take a lot of time, a lot of effort and less procrastination.”

Manning elaborated her thoughts on procrastination and how it negatively impacts work that needs to be done.

“The more you procrastinate, the less chance you have to get it done,” Manning said. “Which should be obvious, but not to a lot of people I’ve seen so far at universities.”

Woodworth, too, discussed the difference in discipline she notices between veterans and non-military-affiliated students.

“When I got back from my basic and AIT (Advanced Individual Training) training … and started into school, I noticed … people are on their phones, distracted,” Woodworth said. “ (They) would (also) start packing up their stuff before the teacher was done talking. Like you can’t wait for them to finish their words?”

Perhaps because of her level of discipline, Manning remarked she sometimes feels out of place in an educational setting.

“There’s times where I definitely feel out of place,” Manning said. “I resonate more with the teachers than I do with the students, so that might tell you something.”

Woodworth said many veterans find difficulty in finding a sense of purpose in civilian—and by extension, college—life.

“When you’re in a deployment setting for several months, you always have a purpose,” Woodworth said. “You always have strict things to do and then when you get back into civilian life, it’s more laid back, especially going to college.”

Woodworth suggested feelings of alienation may be created by the individual and not their environment.

“I feel like maybe we alienate ourselves and we tend to feel like we’re more different than we actually are,” Woodworth said. “Coming from a deployment aspect, there probably is some that exists, because you see things you know other people aren’t going to see unless they’re over there … But when it comes down to it, we’re not that different.”

Despite being 33, Manning said she doesn’t always feel different than her mostly younger peers, but she does notice she comes from a different generation.

“I don’t feel any older than … a lot of students, but there are some aspects where I feel older,” Manning said. “A lot of these students feel things need to be handed to them, whereas when I grew up things needed to be earned.”

Manning drew from her upbringing as the root of her discipline and how it continues to reflect the way she conducts her work.

“‘Earn your keep’ was a big phrase or saying when I grew up, “ Manning said. “A lot of attitudes from my age to these new kids have changed significantly, and there might be an influence with the whole military career, because that’s an added disciplinary area that a lot of these kids won’t ever have.”

Though there is a gap between a veteran like Manning and those who are not in the military, Manning said she is okay being different in that regard.

“I’m always trying to adapt and overcome,” Manning said.