Learning to tell stories that matter

On a residential street outside the entrance to Ravenswood Ranch, a group of students stand laden with video cameras and monitors. Their instructor, Stanford lecturer E’jaaz Mason, is clipping a microphone on the ranch owner, Mario, saying “If you’re gonna give us a history lesson, I’ve gotta capture this!”

The ranch is small, tucked between a residential neighborhood and the Baylands Nature Preserve. Before the houses arrived, the land was orchards and cattle. The remaining open space around the ranch has been snapped up by wealthy buyers hoping to develop it. But the land is not great for development. “If you dig down about six feet, you hit bay water,” says Mario.

The group follows Mario as he gives a tour of the ranch. The students meet horses and chickens, and piglets dart about underfoot. As they walk, E’jaaz coaches the students. “Don’t just do medium angles. You’re looking for wide angles, close-ups,” he says. “What are the minute details people might not notice? Can you tell the story of the ranch? It’s not just the animals. It’s the environment, the power lines.”

Students in EARTHSYS 285 : Community-Engaged Multimedia Environmental Communication learn in the field. The course blends practical filmmaking skills with on-the-ground exploration of environmental issues in nearby communities, challenging students to translate what they discover and learn into visual stories that resonate with a broader audience. In the process, they gain a stronger sense of connection to the area and the issues shaping it. They are all contributing to a 7–12-minute collaborative film about environmental issues in San Mateo County, including the impact of the nearby Palo Alto airport, cleanup of superfund sites, and flooding along San Francisquito Creek.

E’jaaz often finds community collaborators for his course through a kind of intentional serendipity, attending community events to meet people and learn about issues that could benefit from storytelling support. Through the Haas Center, he connected with leaders at the nonprofit Climate Resilient Communities to collaborate on a story about climate change community teams in San Bruno. He has also built relationships as part of this year’s Community Engaged Teaching Fellowship cohort, a program for faculty run by the Haas Center.

The filmmaker believes his role is to give the community a voice. “We bring the storytelling and technical skills, but the community partners are the story,” he said.

For E’jaaz, community storytelling has grown out of his lived experience. He was a teenager when Hurricane Katrina struck his hometown of New Orleans in 2005. He witnessed firsthand the destruction of neighborhoods and displacement of families.

After college, E’jaaz returned to New Orleans to teach digital media in public schools, and later founded a nonprofit, Lede New Orleans, focused on helping young people tell stories about their own communities. His childhood friend, director Edward Buckles Jr., invited him to collaborate on the documentary Katrina Babies, which explores the lasting trauma experienced by the young people who lived through the disaster.

E’jaaz’s work in New Orleans, including his contributions to Katrina Babies, led to an invitation to join the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford. When a teaching position opened in the Earth Systems program, he jumped at the chance to bring community-engaged filmmaking to campus.

EARTHSYS 285 is one of Stanford’s Cardinal Courses, which connect classroom learning with real-world challenges through partnerships with community organizations. Though the projects vary, the courses share a focus on hands-on learning, collaboration, and engagement with social and environmental issues.

At Ravenswood Ranch, the students contend with planes overhead, squawking chickens that compete with their subject, mud, fences—all while practicing techniques that make for compelling viewing. It takes patience and a willingness to learn by doing.

“Let’s do a walk-and-talk,” says E’jaaz. “Get on this side of Mario, and try walking backward while you keep him in the frame.”

The students misunderstand, advancing toward poor Mario while he walks backward through the mud. By the end of the visit, though, they have figured it out, walking alongside their subject and keeping the camera steady as he talks.

As the sun sinks lower in the sky, the group stands in a pasture that butts up on the Bay, watching a horse peacefully crop grass. Mario reflects that the ranch’s days may be numbered. E’jaaz nods, saying, “In ten years when they come back for their reunion, it’s going to look completely different.”

He adds, “I’ve got access to all these resources and an army of students if you ever need a camera.”