Ned Castle // Ethnographer. Producer. Director. Videographer. Interviewer. Lighting. Sound. Editor. Archival Research.
Approach // Collaborative Ethnography. Verite. POV.
Parallel drives for victory and acceptance underscore the intersecting journeys of three U.S. triathletes training to compete in the Special Olympics World Games. Trent Hampton, Melanie Holmes, and Chris Wines grapple with the bias[es] and misconceptions hurled at them daily, which only enhances their will to succeed at the Games. Buoyed by support from their families and coaches, the trio jets off to the United Arab Emirates in search of glory, community, and the prospect of reshaping harmful ideologies about disability communities at home and beyond.
Sure to be a crowd pleaser, All You Hear is Noise endears audiences while rejecting the tropes and shortcuts that typically characterize portrayals of intellectual disability in the media. The hurdles faced by these three athletes—both on and off the field—urge the audience to confront the limitations imposed on them by low expectations and the status quo.
Rooted: Cultivating Community in the Vermont Grange is a feature documentary that looks at the historical origins, meteoric rise, and current role of the Grange in Vermont today - specifically focusing on two active community Granges: Middle Branch Grange in East Bethel and Riverside Grange in West Topsham.
Produced with / Historic New England, Vermont Folklife Center
Co-Directer / Charlotte Barrett
Funder / Historic New England, Orton Family Foundation
Spend the day immersed in a 360 degree VR documentary with dairy farmer Caleb Smith as he runs his small family farm in Danby, Vermont. As a one man operation, Caleb must milk his registered Jersey cows twice a day, tend to the herd’s daily needs, and maintain the farm’s aging infrastructure—all with his own two hands.
Produced with / Vermont Folklife Center
Format / 360 Degree VR
Life is the School was produced through a collaborative partnership between the students and teachers of the North Branch School and the Vermont Folklife Center.
Produced with / Vermont Folklife Center Media
Client / North Branch School
Each year an ice shanty town springs up on the frozen floodplain of the West River in Brattleboro, VT, known locally as the “The Meadows.” Head out onto the ice and into the shanties in this 360 VR documentary that features local fisherman as guides to the ins and outs of ice fishing techniques and local shanty town culture.
Produced with / Vermont Folklife Center
Format / 360 Degree VR
Coding is a documentary short that explores an innovative, student-driven, curriculum track at Montpelier High School that teaches students basic to advanced coding techniques. The film was produced as a part of the Vermont Folklife Center’s School Transformation Ethnography / Storytelling project which seeks to document and better understand the changes currently underway in Vermont public schools.
Produced with / Vermont Folklife Center
Funder / Bay and Paul Foundations
In This Together is a documentary short featuring a social studies classroom where students engage in projects about Brattleboro, Vermont history—including the production of a podcast that airs weekly on the local radio. The film was produced as a part of the Vermont Folklife Center’s School Transformation Ethnography / Storytelling project which seeks to document and better understand the changes currently underway in Vermont public schools.
Produced with / Vermont Folklife Center
Funder / Bay and Paul Foundations
Stories of Hope is a feature documentary that charts the journey of the Harwood travel study program—bringing a group of Vermont high school students to the mille collines (thousand hills) of Rwanda for a month each winter.
Produced with / Pennington Productions, Harwood Union HS
Funded by / Vermont Folklife Center, Bay & Paul Foundations
