Ideas for Project - Possible Styles

I've been thinking a lot about this since I heard a basic story about it a few weeks ago.  It would be telling the story of housekeepers and the housekeeping staff at UNH.  I had a conversation with one of my bosses a few weeks ago, and the subject of UNH housekeeping came up: how there's been controversy with Unico (sp??) the private company that pays most (and maybe all of the housekeeping staff).  There are a lot of different directions I could take this idea in, but I'm worried it might be too ambitious and a lot to take on.  That one would mostly be visuals from interviews and pictures of housekeepers doing their jobs at UNH.

My second idea is interviewing my grandmother about a conservation project she spearheaded in the 70's or 80's.  Again, I recently found out about this, and there's not much I know about it at the moment. I believe it was to conserve a mountain range in the Whitefield/Lancaster area of NH, but I don't know if the area was being threatened by a project that would have destroyed the habitat, etc.  My grandmother has a very strong connection to the land, but I had never heard about this particular time in her life, so I think it would be fascinating to learn more.  Interview footage could be used, as well as family pictures (which she has a lot of) and pictures of the area that she fought to conserve.

My third idea is to do a story about the composting program at UNH.  It's a really cool program that I learned a lot about last semester, by which food is pulped and then composted at the UNH run Kingman Farm.  I was able to go out and see the site where all the food is composted as part of a class last semester, and also talked to a professor about the problems the composting program is having, since the compost is not certified organic.  Apparently, NH guidelines prohibit the use of the compost as it is on the school crops, or crops that are to be sold, so the program now has a buildup of compost that it can't get rid of.  I could interview professors in the nutrition and agriculture programs, as well as officials who make guidelines about compost, and take pictures and video of the area.


This short documentary is much longer than a multimedia project that I would do, but the style is very similar to what I hope to achieve.  http://projects.latimes.com/homeboys/