Click here to view the embedded video.

Do you want to do something about this problem? Send a letter to the Namibian Health Minister to demand an end to forced sterilization of HIV positive women.

Here are the two other films we did for the campaign:

Vlad is suffering from incurable brain cancer. Despite his chronic pain, doctors in Ukraine are only allowed to prescribe 50 mg of pain medicine. In another country, doctors would typically prescribe more than 2,000 mg for a patient like Vlad.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In many countries, governments forcibly detain people as a form of “treatment” for medical conditions such as drug addiction, mental disability, or tuberculosis. This is a story about Venta, a former drug abuser in Cambodia.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yesterday, I found a small item in the Wall Street Journal about how modern movies reference Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone.

And there was the name of the movie!

“Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” a 1962 short directed by Robert Enrico based on an Ambrose Bierce short story.

I found the film online and watched it today. It’s as incredible now as the first time I saw it, and I still remember the shock I had at the ending.

Maybe this is where I learned that the job of the storyteller is to show the people the world in a different and surprising way.

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(And the Journal snapshot suggests that M. Night Shyamalan’s Sixth Sense was based on the film and another site also suggested that this film was the only episode of the Twilight Zone that was not written and produced by Rod Serling.

Matt really nailed it so I asked him how he found the characters for his story:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Matt Slaby spent the entire first day looking for the right characters……..photo by Matt Slaby/LUCEO.

Matt Slaby: “There wasn’t any action happening in the time that I was there so I knew I needed to find someone with a story that was interesting enough for a Seinfeld episode, that is, an interesting narrative that could work without too much corresponding action.”

“I started on the first day by interviewing anyone who would let me talk with them, beginning with an addiction counselor. He helped find subjects who would speak to me. I went from one person to the next. With some I spent 10 minutes chatting, with others I talked with them for 2-3 hours. I chatted seriously with about 15 people.”

“I met Lenny (one of the two subjects of the final piece) near the end of this process. I found that he was a character who was straight-forward, not evasive and had the ability to be self-reflective. Lenny is a recovering heroin addict who was at a place in his recovery that made his story compelling.” (BTW, Matt is working on a long term project about heroin addicts.)

Lenny Costa had a story with a narrative arc. .......photo by Matt Slaby/LUCEO.

Matt continued, “I spent a long time chatting with Lenny before I recorded anything. I wanted Lenny to know that I wasn’t going to push him around and key-hole him as an addict.  I was just going to listen to him as a human being. By doing this before the tape was rolling I could also share parts of myself that showed that I was willing to be vulnerable too.”

Jack Downing spoke about the issues in a personal and compelling way that had universal appeal........photo by Matt Slaby/LUCEO.

When I asked Matt where he learned to interview so well, he told me he had spent 6 years working on an ambulance, a job  that helped him learn how to quickly read people.  ” In that setting, you learn how to communicate with people in a way that allows them to feel comfortable sharing critical information with you under less-than-ideal circumstances.  Good, active listening skills help you be effective at painting a picture for caregivers further down the line.  It’s a skill that certainly translates to journalism.”

That certainly puts it in perspective.

You can see the final story on the AARP Bulletin website. 

It was produced for AARP by Michael Wichita and Miranda Harple
Camera and Sound by Matt Slaby | LUCEO
Edited by Bob Sacha
Music by Tyler Strickland

Click here to view the embedded video.

from Kurt Vonnegut turns Cinderella into an Equation, by Robert Krulwich.

Like so many things in storytelling, I like to look to real life as my guide. For instance, I hate when I’m at a party and the person I’m talking with is looking over my shoulder, to their left, everywhere but at me. Makes me think they’re not interested in what I’m saying.

I recently went to a preview of a documentary about a famous NY restaurant owner. My partner, a food writer, and I went over to talk with him at the press party. That man never took his eyes off of us, even though I knew there were more important people at the party. I came away feeling he was genuine (and I wanted to learn his trick of how to look over someone’s shoulder without them seeing you do it?)

Ultimately, it’s a creative decision. What do you want your story to say to the viewer?

In this piece from Apple employees, (which reminds me of this perhaps even more powerful piece done by Errol Morris in the same style) the subjects look right at the viewer.

How would if feel if they were looking away?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Five years later the Open Society Institute wanted to look at three areas to see if things had changed. I spent a week with three characters to try to answer that question.

This is the last part of that short film, looking at online journalism.

You can see all three stories at the Open Society Foundations website, U.S. Programs. I directed and recorded the story on a Canon 5d, Scott Anger recorded the sound, Chad Stevens edited and Pamela Chen of the Soros Foundation was the executive producer.

Maya Sugarman proved my mantra by taking a slip of paper with a name and address, asking the right questions and producing a powerful and surprising story that no one expected.

Maya told me:

“The slip of paper read:

Charline is a nature photographer who has overcome a disability to achieve her dreams. She lives with her mother, Pam, and they are very close.

At the end of an interview with Pam, I asked her to think about anything she didn’t mention about her, her daughter, or their relationship while I recorded room tone. After 30 seconds, she told me there was something she hadn’t told me, at which point she said “my last drink was August 20,1980″ (the last actuality of the piece). Thus beginning a very long and intimate conversation.”

Maya spent four long days figuring out the narrative, shooting, interviewing and editing this story as a one-woman band. she showed it story last night.

When her story, In Their Blood faded from the big screen, my friend and fellow multimedia coach Eric Maierson turned to me and whispered “Talk about the elephant in the room.”

John Poole of NPR was Maya’s multimedia coach. Yup, a radio guy coaching (very well) at a photographic workshop. Awesome!

Acceptance ©2010 by Hannele Lahti from teaching multimedia on Vimeo.

A birthday brings Teisha Jones face to face with an important date in her family’s past.

Camera, Sound and editing by Hannele Lahti in a week in August 2010 as part of Bob Sacha’s Multimedia Master Class at the Maine Media Workshops.