Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
I’ve started to establish a new standard for editing images and video and I’m calling it the “jaw dropping” moment form of editing.
If my jaw drops open when I see it, I tag it and keep it. Or if I exclaim, out loud in the office, “holy X&!#!” I usually mark and keep that frame or section. (Lucky for me my colleagues put up with my id.)
I did a lot of jaw dropping and exclaiming when I was producing and editing my most recent MediaStorm piece for the International League of Conservation Photographers. The photography is amazing and the video by James Balog and his Extreme Ice Survey made my jaw drop and caused an expletive. Balog and his team have turned what’s going on with climate change into stunning motion.
As usual, I learned some new things. One of them is that great photography and video stops you in your tracks, and when it’s connected with important issues, it has the power to engage and hopefully motivate people. This project also reminded me that everything in our world is connected.
The video is a “run away” but I’m sure the folks at ILCP will fix that soon.
Friday, October 17th, 2008
The Council on Foreign Relations is a think tank that’s interested in presenting the facts in a straightforward way on many of the most crucial issues of our time in what they call “Crisis Guides.” I produced their Climate Change Crisis Guide which just launched.
Sunday, August 31st, 2008
It’s been awhile since I’ve worked at a newspaper (OK, 25 years) but for the last ten days I’ve been installed at the interactive media department at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, working on a multimedia documentary about the Democratic National Convention.
Our project, “At last, At last, a dream fulfilled,” launched 36 hours after Barack Obama gave his speech to 84,000 at Invesco Stadium (and 40,000,000 more who watched on TV). It’s drawn mostly from the work of photographers and videographers at the paper, plus my colleagues Tim McLaughlin, Robert Browman and Brian Storm at MediaStorm. We all juggled many tasks. I did most of the staff training, lit the interviews and had the pleasure to conduct one of them, edited audio, video and pictures and made the first cut of the piece.
Newspapers have changed. Now staff reporters post to blogs and they all Twittered during the convention as well as writing several stories for the paper and web each day. Most photographers shoot stills and video and staff editors who used to process images now edit video. The Rocky has made a huge push into multimedia (and I hear they’re quite late in this effort) with the web being the primary focus of the morning news meeting.
It was an amazing experience, fueled by strong coffee, little sleep and incredible hospitality.
(Poynter.org, the Journalism Institute, has a nice story by Steve Meyers about this project under their “Best Practices: Learn from Exemplary Journalism” section.
Monday, August 4th, 2008
My lastest MediaStorm project just launched, Clearing the Air, China’s Environmental Challenge. I produced the opening video by using some amazing China photos plus this project gave me the chance to sit down and interview Orville Schell on camera for 2 hours. Wow, that was a treat.
For me, this was an interesting return to the subject of China, where I spent many weeks photographing two stories for National Geographic Magazine in the past decade. The changes are staggering and the interview was really illuminating.
Check out the Room with a View section also, which shows the quality of Beijing’s air every day viewed from the same spot.
Sunday, July 13th, 2008
A week ago, Mary Panzer, the photo curator, critic and author of the ICP Infinity Award winning book “Things As They Are” came to MediaStorm to write a story for the Wall Street Journal headlined ” Photojournalism for the Web Generation.” She mentioned my first two MediaStorm pieces: Reuters “Bearing Witness, Five Years of the Iraq War” and “One Man Brand,” the first MediaStorm workshops story I produced that was created by Lucy Nicholson and Jassim Ahmad from Reuters.
As I mentioned to a friend: “Sometimes you’re in the forest and aware of the trees but it takes someone special to describe what those trees actually look like.” Please share my revelation.
Sunday, June 29th, 2008
We do a lot of very serious stories at work so it was fun to find something lighter during the first MediaStorm workshop in NYC.
The assignment was “Times Square.” The biggest thing I learned is that working with pros like Reuters Senior Photographer Lucy Nicholson and Reuters Head of Visual Projects Jassim Ahmad just elevated the entire piece. We produced this from idea to finish in three days. I produced, Lucy shot and videotaped and recorded the interviews, Jassim edited and I produced and “guided.” And we all pitched in with additional recording, photos and editing ideas.
And if you still have the stomach for it, you can peek backstage at the Workshop in this piece by boy wonder and MediaStorm’s first intern Tim McLaughlin.
Sunday, May 18th, 2008
My work as multimedia producer and editor on Bearing Witness was awarded the top prize in the Multimedia- Photo/Video at the new New York Photo Awards. It’s a huge thrill for me as Bearing Witness was my first MediaStorm project.
Monday, March 17th, 2008
Hard to believe that five years ago we started a war with Iraq. Now, just before the anniversary I’ve finished my first piece for MediaStorm: Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War. It’s a co-production with Reuters, using stills, video and interviews of their journalists. None of the major characters in this story are Americans. All are seasoned journalists, many are locals and most understand Iraq and its people in a completely different fashion.
Click on the picture below to watch the 30 second trailer I cut:
Visit the full project> Reuters Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War.
Saturday, December 8th, 2007
I was out of the country for my great friend Ed Kashi’s birthday so instead I made him a little film using only my Canon Powershot S3 point-n-shoot camera.
Monday, November 19th, 2007
Spent the last two weeks in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico teaching a pair of workshops for National Geographic Expeditions. I was blessed with two amazing groups of students, as well as two great co-teachers: Raul Touzon and Sarah Meghan Lee. The first week I filled in for National Geographic staff photographer Nick Nichols and the second week, I taught my scheduled and advertised workshop.
Both groups of students worked extremely hard and we were all thrilled with the work produced both weeks. Here’s the final slide show from the second week, the one where I was the advertised “prize-pig”, err, I mean the “lead teacher”. I also recorded the ambient sounds at the beginning and end of the show and mixed the soundtrack.