Over the week, the faculty will lead participants in a combination of lectures, hands-on exercises, critiques, and group discussions. This year’s multimedia faculty includes Brian Storm of MediaStorm and Geri Migielicz of Story4. Additional sessions include Danny Gawlowski, The Seattle Times; Mark Edelson, The Palm Beach Post; Kenny Irby, The Poynter Institue; John Rumbach, The Herald; and Scott Sines, The Commercial Appeal.

This year the National Press Photographers Association and Associated Press Photo Managers are each offering two full-tuition scholarships. In addition, The Kalish workshop will be offering ten stipends toward registration. MediaStorm will also be offering attending participants a discount on online training products.

Deadlines for all scholarships and workshop registration is May 1, 2012.

Register now on The Kalish website.

Eligibility and application information for the NPPA full-tuition scholarships available here.

To apply for an APPM full-tuition scholarship, send an email to John Rumbach, president of APPM, jrumbach@dcherald.com. Tell us about yourself and explain why you want to attend The Kalish. Preference will be given to APPM members.

For additional information, email Kalish director Sue Morrow or visit The Kalish online.

The deadline for applications is January 31, 2012.

Interested applicants should contact Sr. Photo Editor Robert St. John via email at robert.stjohn@latimes.com with resumes, references and links to their work.

Join in the public discussion with Designer Takaaki Okada (ConditionONE), game designer Nick Fortugno (Diner Dash), new media strategist Brian Newman (sub-genre), filmmakers Amam Ali and Bassam Tariq (30 Mosques), and producer and strategist John Bruce (Forward Mapworks) as they shed light on their emergent work that utilizes a transmedia approach. Hear how projects are produced, campaigns initiated, and business models developed  through case studies and critical discussion.

The event will take place on Sunday, January 29th at 4:00 pm at UnionDocs. Visit their website for further information on the event.

Saturday, February 18, 2012 with an application deadline on February 2, 2012.
Saturday, March 3, 2012 with an application deadline on February 17, 2012.
Saturday, March 17, 2012 with an application deadline on March 4, 2012.

These one-day workshops provide an overview of multimedia storytelling approaches while engaging participants in discussion about the most appropriate ways to create a multimedia story. Through real world examples, Brian Storm will share tips and techniques to improve reporting and editing and discuss the most effective tools for specific jobs.

This workshop is designed for anyone interested in multimedia storytelling, no experience is necessary. We will be looking primarily at multimedia methodology and theory- this is not a workshop to learn how to use your new audio recorder- it’s a workshop where you will be asked to look deeper, into the when and why of different storytelling techniques and approaches.

For more information, please visit this page.

The Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri will host the Digital Storytelling Summit from March 4-6. In preparation to launch their own digital storytelling program, Mizzou has gathered an all-star lineup of industry leaders in advertising, feature film, documentary, and photojournalism to look at how they are transforming storytelling through the innovative use of emerging digital formats. This will be an exciting exploration of the changing landscape of traditional storytelling over an informative and inspirational three days.

The full line up of speakers includes: José Azel, Ira Baker, Charles N. Davis, Ben Kaplan, Peter Martin, Eric Ratinoff, Brian Storm, and Diana Stuart.

View more about the event. 

The duPont Awards, administered since 1968 by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, are considered to be the most prestigious broadcast journalism awards and the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes, which are also administered at the Journalism School. Selected by the duPont Jury for excellence in broadcast journalism, the award-winning news programs aired in the United States between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011. The honorees will be presented with silver duPont batons at a ceremony held at Columbia University in January 2012.

Congratulations to all of the winners, there’s some really amazing work in there. You can see the full list at the duPont site.

Broken Lines by Martine Fougeron, Richard Kendall, Frank de Ruiter, and Simon Schorno
Joe Soll never met his birth parents. Raised by upper-middle class New Yorkers, he spent half of his life tormented by the death of his mother. Watch it now.

Voice by Christian Als, Edith Champagne, and Janine Boreland
Ian Willey had his first experience rhyming in second grade. Now at 28, Willey is pursuing his dream of becoming a hip hop artist. The motivation behind his rap comes from an unexpected place — 90 fifth grade students at a school in Harlem. Watch it now.

We will be holding three MediaStorm Multimedia Workshops in 2012:

• March 24-30, 2012 – Application Deadline: January 23, 2012
• July 28-August 3, 2012  – Application Deadline: June 5, 2012
• November 10-16, 2012 – Application Deadline: September 12, 2012

Visit our site for additional information, and to apply for upcoming workshops.

Finch is a two time Newspaper Photographer of the Year in the Pictures of the Year contest – first in 2000 and again in 2003. He was runner-up in 2001. He was selected to exhibit his work in Perpignan, France at the Visa Pour L’Image festival and was a member of the World Press Masterclass in 2002. Photo District News named him one of 30 emerging photographers to watch. In 2007, Finch was part of a team of journalists at The Oregonian awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for his role as a multimedia producer. In 2008, Finch won the 2008 Online Journalism Award for Best Video presentation.

In 2009, Finch left daily photography to become the Visuals Editor at The Oregonian.

Finch has been a faculty member of the NPPA’s Flying Short Course, the Mountain Workshops, the NPPA Multimedia Immersion and lectured at variety of universities. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, Francesca and their two children Alcina and Seamus.

“The VJ Program challenges students to be globally aware, creative, collaborative and adaptive. Our responsibility is to teach the value of story telling, the grass root fundamentals of journalism and a broad range of media applications. Our program is unique, in that VJ students can draw on the knowledge of our various programs in film, professional photography and graphic design.

The Program Chair should ideally have a strong background in these areas, including traditional and emerging visual journalism skills. They should also have the vision for visual journalism globally, and knowledge of delivery options including print, web and emerging new media.”

To see a full job description, click here.

Candidates must have a Master’s degree in journalism or related field. Cross training in various media is a plus.

To apply for this position and to learn more, click here.

Since it opened in September 2008, RJI has:

-Hosted more than 85 conferences, symposia, workshops and seminars for media and technology professionals, academics and citizens

-Produced more than 30 pieces of applied research on journalism and advertising

-Supported the innovative research projects of 23 Reynolds Fellows

-Participated in the start-ups of almost one dozen innovative media-related companies

-Collaborated with dozens of leading media and technology companies to develop innovative  tablet, smartphone, web and print strategies

We’re looking for an energetic and smart leader who can help us make RJI the world center for discovering and putting into action innovations that will insure the rigorous journalism on which democracy depends. The successful candidate will be somebody who thrives on working at the intersection of the journalism and technology worlds.

You can learn more about the current work of RJI at its website: rjionline.org

The Chair will develop and teach new, innovative courses that will allow students to explore the intersections of journalism and technology and will work collaboratively to develop new content models and new forms of storytelling. The ideal candidate will have a strong interest in product development and emerging media and will pursue research initiatives at Newhouse, across campus and through industry partnerships and alliances. We value a candidate’s ability to design unique hands-on experiences that allow our students to experiment with new technology and interactive media, while honoring our commitment to quality, ethical journalism.

The Chair is expected to participate in and lead a global conversation exploring and building new models to produce and disseminate information. The chair will also serve as director of a proposed Center for Journalism Innovation and help seek external funding for new initiatives…

Find out more about the job here.

Anyone who wants to apply can go here, then click on “Search open positions” at the upper left and search for Job # 028438.

Contact information for Steve Davis:

Steve Davis

Chair, Department of Newspaper and Online Journalism

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications

Syracuse University

315-391-1538

Twitter: @twoprofs

sdavis@pobox.com

http://thinklikeaneditor.net

In a forgotten part of our country, coal feeds families when not much else does. There’s no easy way to take sides when the coal company that takes your land and destroys your streams also pays your electric bills and puts food on the table. That’s why speaking out for the first time was the hardest thing Lorelei Scarbro had ever done.

Lorelei, the main character of A Thousand Little Cuts, is a tenacious grandmother fighting to save one of the last untouched mountains in Appalachia.

Lorelei simply wanted to tend her garden, paint ceramic angels and spoil her grandchildren. She wanted to live out her days at home — the rolling mountains of West Virginia. Then bulldozers came, followed by blasting crews. Massey Energy was gearing up for a mountaintop removal operation on Coal River Mountain, the mountain Lorelei calls home. In 2007 Lorelei spoke out. “This isn’t coal mining,” she yelled at a permit hearing. “This is the rape of Appalachia!”

In A Thousand Little Cuts, Emmy-winning director Chad A. Stevens takes us on the journey with Lorelei as she fights Big Coal to protect her community from an encroaching 6,500-acre mountaintop removal mine and proposes a positive community solution: the first green-energy project in the region, a 220-turbine industrial wind farm.

After political lobbying and civil disobedience fail to create tangible change, Lorelei opens a community center in the heart of a struggling coal town. The center brings locals together, even those on opposite sides of the mountaintop removal debate. The cumulative effect of her efforts grows exponentially as she finds opportunities for solutions – unifying a fractured community and supporting an evolving local economy. It’s a story of change: a transforming culture, a dividing community, an awakening individual, and a family hanging in the balance.

Find out more about the project at the A Thousand Little Cuts website.

Browse through award-winning photographs in the print auction, buy a print and support the film at the A Thousand Little Cuts Online Print Auction.

Desirable applicants would be practiced in multimedia/documentary storytelling, enthusiastic about teaching in a dynamic setting with motivated and eager students; demonstrated experience with a variety of audio and visual media tools (Final Cut, SoundSlides, Photoshop…) and resourceful/creative in their teaching.

This is a cross-track/cross-discipline course teaching 20-30 students in the real-world practice of multimedia storytelling; maintain office hours; participate in course development; and advise students.

Strong applicants will have demonstrated expertise in the field of documentary/nonfiction storytelling; published work in your chosen field of expertise; and preferably experience in instruction or formalized education at the post-secondary/collegiate level.

For more information and to apply, send cover letter and resume or detailed bio to

dgalluzzo@salt.edu. No phone calls, email only. Currently accepting applications.

Margaret Cheatham is currently finishing her degree at UNC Chapel Hill, where she is studying Journalism + Mass communication and French.

She spent this past summer as a video intern at The Washington Post, where she completed numerous daily assignments and internal productions. During her time at UNC, Margaret Cheatham participated in award winning group projects in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Little Switzerland, N.C., as a photographer, videographer and multimedia producer.

She is drawn to stories that incorporate family, relationships, and the universal quest for connection. She has an insatiable curiosity piqued by dilapidated structures, the outdoors and expansive spaces.

Her work has been recognized by the Hearst Foundation, Best of Photography, Pictures of the Year International, the National Press Photographers Association, the Online News Association, and College Photographer of the Year.

Margaret’s work can be viewed at mcheathamw.com

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Andrew Hida is a master’s candidate in photography at Syracuse University and a past multimedia producer for the Syracuse News21 project: El Nuevo Normal.

Hida has worked as a freelance documentary photographer and multimedia producer in Seattle, Washington. His work has been funded through numerous awards, including the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, and 4Culture, and featured in publications including USA Today, and The Atlantic. His multimedia projects have been exhibited throughout Washington and New York, most recently at the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle. He graduated in 2005 from the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in conservation ecology and Spanish.

Hida loves scarves and enjoys whistling horribly out of tune. His work can be viewed at andrewhida.com

Outsiders often see Afghanistan as a problem in need of a solution: a conflict region that needs more troops or another election. But in seeing Afghanistan as a problem, the people of the country, and their desire for self-determination, are often overlooked.

From the Soviet invasion and the mujahideen resistance to the Taliban and the American occupation, A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan examines thirty years of Afghan history. It is the story of ordinary citizens whose lives play out in the shadow of superpowers. There are tales of violence to be sure, but there is also love and even romance.

Based on 14 trips to Afghanistan between 1994 and 2010, A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan is the work of renowned photojournalist Seamus Murphy. His work chronicles a people caught time and again in political turmoil, struggling to find their way.

Watch A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan

The workshop offers intensive training that covers all aspects of multimedia news production from basic storyboarding to hands-on instruction with hardware and software for production of multimedia stories. Fellows will work on structured training assignments to learn skills for multi-element stories and then apply new skills to a story for his or her publication.

Training includes:

• Video and audio recording and editing in Final Cut X

• Photojournalism basics including use of Photoshop

• Voice coaching for narration or stand-ups and reporter debriefs

• HTML basics

• Creating interactive charts, graphs and maps to visualize data

• Mobile reporting for breaking news

• Social media and community engagement

Mobile session will use smart phones (Android or Apple) but phones will not be provided. Please bring yours to the workshop.

WHO SHOULD APPLY: Professional print, TV/radio broadcast and web journalists who want to develop multimedia skills to support their publication’s web publishing effort.

December 11-16, 2011 Digital Storytelling workshop applications must be received by November 7, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

January 8-13, 2012 Digital Storytelling workshop applications must be received by November 28, 2011 at 11:59 p.m PST.

Both workshops will be held at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

COST: The fellowship covers all lodging, meals, and instruction costs. Cost of travel to the workshop must be paid by the applicant’s news organization.

Answers to the most commonly asked questions about the workshop and the application process can be found on our FAQ page http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/training/faq. If your question is not addressed on that page, contact Lanita Pace-Hinton, director of the Knight Digital Media Center at the UC Berkeley. She can be reached at pacel@berkeley.edu or (510) 643-7429.

*Organizational investment commitment required as a part of application

As part of the grand prize, the student winner will receive a $15,000 grant to fund the internship. In addition, the student will also get a grant of $1,000 to complete the proposed visual story that earned the prize. Finally, an additional $500 will be awarded to the sponsoring academic institution. The second place student winner will receive a scholarship to a Momenta Photo Workshop.

The first place student will be given the opportunity to develop his or her multimedia story-telling skills as a part of a team that has produced EMMY-winning visual journalism for media companies since its inception in 2005, and that regularly conducts training on multimedia storytelling and creating successful digital business models via workshops and lectures around the world. The internship is designed to help equip the winning student to contribute visual storytelling that helps promote the Alexia Foundation’s goal of stories that act as a voice against social injustice and as a catalyst for change to address the world’s most-pressing problems.

MediaStorm is a strategically focused digital media company that combines personnel with backgrounds in photography, broadcasting, design, journalism, and information technology. The company was founded by Brian Storm, the first director of multimedia at MSNBC, and later the vice president of News, Multimedia, and Assignment Services for Corbis, a digital media agency founded and owned by Bill Gates.

Momenta Workshops offer the opportunity to build documentary photography skills covering communities in the United States and internationally across the globe. The aim of Momenta is to create an international network of like-minded visual journalists who use their craft to tell human stories and address issues that contribute to positive social change. The Momenta organization was founded by Seth Butler and John Christopher Anderson and its workshops are led by Jamie Rose, a graduate of the Newhouse photography program.

To learn more about The Alexia Foundation 2012 Student Competition, click here.

Job openings are available for the following positions:

Media Producer

Media Production Coordinator

Senior Web Developer

Media Technology Developer

Digital Media at the Met is looking for fresh, innovative, and talented professionals who are ready to expand their horizons in the world of art, culture and digital media.

Learn more about the department here.

Our goal in this project was to take the viewer on a journey through the lives of Laotians personally affected by unexploded bombs, showing the physical and psychological turmoil they go through on a daily basis, creating a deep sense of care and responsibility in the viewer and ultimately a desire to take action. Through character driven narrative we were able to create an intimacy with those affected by the problem and then through that narrative we were able to tell the story of the work MAG does, giving it a sense of validity and urgency.

We used a two person team in the field, utilizing the skills of MediaStorm staff DP and Producer Rick Gershon and freelance DP Nathan Golon.  Rick Gershon also led the post production on the piece with the help of associate producer Lauren Rosenfeld.

Please take a few moments from your day to watch this compelling and powerful documentary.

We are half way there towards meeting our fundraising goal of $10,000, and we need your help to make the final push! Please donate here on Kickstarter, and help us spread the word!

A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan is a collaborative documentary film based on the work of photojournalist Seamus Murphy, who has spent over 15 years recording unexpected stories of struggle, survival and hope. Seamus’ mission is to promote an understanding of this mysterious, complex and fascinating culture.

In Seamus’ words:

Afghanistan’s recent history is a roller-coaster of foreign involvement and abandonment, resulting in a global crisis the world continues to struggles with today. The country was granted hero-status by the West when it resisted the Soviet invasion. But the vicious civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal, the rise of the Taliban and the al Qaeda attacks launched from its soil on 9/11 made it into a pariah state. Afghanistan has been invaded, used and mythologized, but rarely understood.

Help support Seamus and A Darkness Visible by donating on Kickstarter.

Thank you to all who have supported this project so far!

The annual grant, worth € 20.000 ($27,000), will be awarded to a photographer to complete an existing project on a human rights theme.

In reviewing the applications, the judges will look for the qualities that defined Tim’s career: work that operates on multiple platforms and in a variety of formats; that crosses boundaries between breaking news and longer-term investigation; and that demonstrates a consistent moral commitment to the lives and stories of the photographic subjects. The application process is open to all professional photographers who have participated in a World Press Photo competition between 2008 and 2011.

The selection committee will convene in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and will provide a statement to accompany the publication of the name of the recipient of the grant on November 7. The members of the selection committee are:

•  Christopher Anderson, photographer Magnum
•  James Brabazon, journalist and documentary filmmaker
•  Veronica Matushaj, director of photography Human Rights Watch
•  Michiel Munneke, managing director World Press Photo
•  Jamie Wellford, senior photo editor Newsweek

•  Secretary: Adriaan Monshouwer, founder Picture Inside

For more information and to apply, please click on the link below:

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/tim-hetherington-grant

MediaStorm Methodology Workshop

Workshop dates: January 30-February 3, 2012

The MediaStorm Methodology Workshop is designed for educators looking to create curricula based on our approach, for organizational leaders tasked with creating and leading multimedia departments, and for professionals looking to start their own media company or integrate MediaStorm concepts into their organizations.

MediaStorm Spring Internship

Internship dates: February-April, 2012

MediaStorm is looking for interns. If you’re motivated, highly-organized, and passionate about multimedia, we’d love to hear from you. Start dates are flexible. We’re looking for experience in multimedia production, design, motion graphics, and/or programming for web. Internships will be paid.

Events include exhibitions, workshops, lectures and more, some of which are free!

More information can be found here:                                                                                                                                    
World Photography Organisation Events in NYC

Learn the go-to-tricks and watch video examples from award-winning professionals as they demonstrate their storytelling process. Anyone who tells stories with pictures and sound will benefit from the workshop.

Presenters:

Darren Durlach — three time NPPA News Photographer of the Year, Senior multimedia producer at the Boston Globe.

The Secrets to Natural Sound Stories: The tricks to letting people tell their own stories without narration.

Adam Vance – Co-chair of the NPPA’s NewsVideo Workshop from 10News/WTSP.COM in Tampa.

To Light or Not To Light: Good lighting on a not so good budget.

Michelle Michael – NPPA Solo Video Journalist of the Year.

Solo Standups that Stand Out: You don’t have to sacrifice stand ups just because you’re working alone; standups are how your audience gets to know you.

Boyd Huppert – five time winner of NPPA Photojournalism Award for reporting and National Emmy winner for writing, from KARE-TV

What’s my line?: Five killer writing tools every visual storyteller should master.

Join us online or at The Poynter Institute for this one-day video workshop.

Register at http://www.newsu.org/video-workshop-with-pros.

This workshop is a cooperative effort between the NPPF, Poynter’s NewU and the NPPA.

The Editor/Videographer will be an expert with video and motion graphics software such as Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro Studio, and will spend 60-70 percent of their time working with the Video/Multimedia Producer to create compelling short-documentaries, animations, explainers, and promotional pieces that engage and inform viewers on pressing national issues. The other 30-40 percent will be spent shooting American Progress live events and managing the events archive.

The ideal candidate will have an eye for design, be able to craft explanatory animations and motion effects on sometimes abstract policy topics, and have an interest in helping establish American Progress as a leader in visual storytelling.

Read the full description: http://www.americanprogress.org/aboutus/jobs/editor_videographer.html

The event will occur on Wednesday, October 19th, at 6:30 PM at the Asia Society, 725 Park Ave at 70th St., New York City. Please join us.

The program will include a keynote address, guest speakers (TBA), audio-visual presentations by this year’s finalists, as well as tributes to Smith and past honorees. More details will follow in the official invitation email blast in September.

An RSVP is not necessary. Admission is free, and on a first come, first served basis. The doors will open at 6 PM. The event will be followed by a reception.

The W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography is presented annually to a photographer whose past work and proposed project, as judged by a panel of experts, follows the tradition of W. Eugene Smith’s concerned photography and dedicated compassion exhibited during his 45-year career as a photographic essayist. The Smith Grant was established in 1978 following the death of Gene Smith.

The W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation qualified under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, independently administers the grant program that provides photographers with the financial freedom to carry out or complete major photographic essays. For 2011, the amount of the grant will be $30,000. An additional $5,000 in fellowship money will be dispersed, at the discretion of the jury, to one or more finalists deemed worthy of special recognition.

For more information, please visit our newly redesigned Web site at:

www.smithfund.org

The W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund is sponsored by the generous support of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), the Open Society Foundations, Asia Society, Blurb, Inc., and Canon USA, with additional support from MediaStorm and Photo District News.

A Thousand More by Kristina Budelis, Piotr Malecki, and Jeff Rhode
A family is determined to give their disabled son a whole and vital life. In the midst of a great burden, one small child – with a seemingly endless supply of love – is the blessing that holds a family together.

Nine Digits by Dominik Baumann, Gabriela Bulisova, and Meredith Davenport
Nine Digits tells the story of Cesar, a young man fighting for U.S. citizenship.

Our next Advanced Multimedia Workshop will be held November 12-18, 2011, in Brooklyn, NY. Application deadline is September 16, 2011.

These workshops, held in New York City, are intensive, hands-on educational experiences in advanced multimedia storytelling.

Over the course of a week, participants work in three-person teams, reporting and editing in collaboration with a seasoned multimedia professional to produce a multimedia project for distribution across multiple platforms.

For additional information, and to apply for upcoming workshops, please visit our site.

This educational module invites you to learn about the decisions, both in the field, and within the editing suite that went into the making of A Thousand More. Join a conversation between Producer Eric Maierson, Director of Photography Rick Gershon, and MediaStorm Executive Producer Brian Storm, as they discuss the development of this story through a scene-by-scene break down of the piece.

The Making Of provides over an hour and a half of discussion and exposition on the thousands of decisions that went into the editing and shooting of A Thousand More.

Topics covered include:

• How the story was found
• What subject to focus on
• Working in teams
• Scene by scene explanation of editing decisions
• Developing the opening
• Working with music
• Shooting techniques
• Building a scene in video
• Shot choice
• Developing the narrative arc
• Continuity
• Screen direction
• Going back to the subjects

Whether you’re an established photographer looking to transition to multimedia storytelling or a student wanting to expand your storytelling skills, MediaStorm’s online training provides a practical overview that will further your multimedia storytelling skills.

Individual and multi-user access are available.

See the other modules offered in our Online Training.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience designing cutting-edge user interfaces and developing interactive design specs. Experience designing across multiple media (broadcast, print, online and mobile) is a strong plus.

Description
The Interactive Designer will:

• Design websites and interactive applications
• Create graphics for world-class multimedia pieces
• Create marketing products for web, broadcast and print
• Conceptualize and document requirements for user interfaces
• Work with Multimedia Producers and Project Managers to establish production timelines
• Participate in client meetings and design to their needs
• Work with developers to implement designs and interfaces

Qualifications
The applicant should have:

• A passion for design and a strong visual style
• Ability to collaborate with a diverse team
• Ability to self-manage and meet aggressive deadlines
• Ability to work virtually and to travel as necessary
• A strong appreciation for photography and multimedia storytelling
• At least two years of professional digital design experience, focus on interactive media a plus
• Ability to use typography, layout, color, images, motion and interactivity to create strong designs
• Knowledge and skill with digital design applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, etc.
• Ability to work in Flash and HTML/CSS/Javascript required

All applications must be submitted online.
For more information, please see the full job description.
If you have any questions, please email us.

In Seamus’ words:
Afghanistan’s recent history is a roller-coaster of foreign involvement and abandonment, resulting in a global crisis the world continues to struggles with today. The country was granted hero-status by the West when it resisted the Soviet invasion. But the vicious civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal, the rise of the Taliban and the al Qaeda attacks launched from its soil on 9/11 made it into a pariah state. Afghanistan has been invaded, used and mythologized, but rarely understood.

This project is the result of over 15 years traveling and photographing in Afghanistan, recording unexpected stories of struggle, survival and hope. My mission is to promote an understanding of this mysterious, complex and fascinating culture in order to help bring about a real and lasting peace.

You can help support Seamus and A Darkness Visible by donating on Kickstarter.

What should we be looking at? The extraordinary number of photographs taken on September 11 made it the most photographed event in history and may have signaled the birth of citizen journalism. However in our impulse to record, we have not formulated new strategies to gain a better understanding of today’s pressing issues of a globalized world.

As traditional print journalism was threatened, and the number of images published online has exploded into the billions (sixty billion on Facebook alone), we have been left with few common sources of news and analysis. There is no longer a “front page” to act as a societal filter through which, we can learn about important events and trends. Even the role that the physical café once played in our communities—the place we went to discuss and digest what’s going on around us — has become fragmented across a myriad of virtual spaces.

Where should we turn for our information? How can we function as a society with so few common reference points? How can we intelligently sort through all the images and information available to us? In terms of photography and visual information, what should we be looking at?

Ten years post-9/11, at a time when we are more overloaded with information than ever but cannot access it in a coherent manner, Aperture will create a visual café for collective social engagement with the question: What Matter’s Now? and turn it into an evolving exhibition space. During a two-week period Aperture will turn itself “inside out,” letting participants engage in the editorial process of weighing questions, ideas, and images, and proposing conceptual and curatorial solutions. Both invited guests and gallery visitors will be asked to participate. The exhibition What Matters Now? Proposals for a New Front Page will combine the crowd sourcing of images and ideas with the curatorial engagement of six experienced individuals, each hosting a table and a conversation within the space, where on corresponding walls each group will present its proposals for the contents of a ‘New Front Page’. Hosts include a variety of visual image specialists: Wafaa Bilal, Melissa Harris, Stephen Mayes, Joel Meyerowitz, Fred Ritchin (who conceptualized this project) and Deborah Willis.

As the exhibition opens, each of the hosts will have a designated space, but the walls will be empty. Progressively throughout the first two weeks of the “exhibition,” the walls will be filled in whatever manner each table decides. As the exhibition emerges, its contents will be posted online, daily, via a dedicated blog, as well as via Facebook and Twitter, at aperture.org/whatmattersnow and#whatmattersnow; allowing remote participants to respond and to create a seventh wall dedicated to ideas from the public. This website will go live prior to the opening of the exhibition.

Computers, printers, phones and iPads will be used by hosts and audience members for the duration of the exhibition. Materials may be printed, projected, hung and even destroyed as the exhibition progresses. Hosts might decide that what we should all be looking at is a particular Renaissance painting, or the work of particular photojournalists, or a thousand mini print-outs of images sourced online—or nothing at all. Contributions will be solicited from people around the world who are not able to visit in person. By sending files to dedicated email addresses set up for each table, as well as a general account, remote participants will be able to add their suggestions of imagery, multimedia projects and websites as part of the exhibition in-process.

Printed work in this exhibition will be made onsite, made possible by the generous support of Canon,using Canon image PROGRAF iPF6350 large format printers.

Exhibition in progress:
September 7–September 17, 2011
Monday-Saturday, 10:00 am-6:00 pm

Opening Reception:
Saturday, September 17, 4:00–7:00 pm

Exhibition on view:
September 17-September 24

Conversation Series:
Monday, September 12, 6:00 pm – Melissa Harris and Deborah Willis
Tuesday, September 13, 6:00 pm – Wafaa Bilal and Fred Ritchin
Wednesday, September 14, 6:00 pm– Stephen Mayes and Joel Meyerowitz

Aperture Gallery Hours: Monday–Saturday, 10:00 am–6:00 pm
Aperture Gallery Address: 547 West 27th Street, 4th floor, New York, N.Y. 10001;
(212) 505-5555, www.aperture.org

The Hosts:

Wafaa Bilal is an Iraqi-born artist and an Assistant Arts Professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He specializes in online performative and interactive works. His current project, the 3rdi, features a camera surgically implanted on the back of his head transmitting images to the web.

Melissa Harris is the Editor-in-Chief of Aperture magazine and also editor/curator of select special projects for the Aperture Foundation. She is also a Contributing Editor to Interview Magazine, and occasionally guest-curates, and writes for numerous arts publications.

Stephen Mayes has worked with photography, art and journalism for 25 years. He is currently Managing Director of VII Photo, representing some of the world’s leading photojournalists, and continues to maintain his assignment as co-Secretary to the World Press Photo competition. Stephen regularly writes and broadcasts on the ethics and realities of photographic practice.

Joel Meyerowitz is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in over 350 international exhibitions. He is a two-time Guggenheim fellow, a recipient of both NEA and NEH awards, as well as a recipient of the Deutscher Fotobuchpreis. He has published over fifteen books, including Cape Light (1978), Legacy:The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks (Aperture, October 2009) and Aftermath: The World Trade Center Archive (2006). He lives in New York and is represented by Edwynn Houk Gallery.

Creator of What Matters Now? Fred Ritchin is the author of After Photography (W. W. Norton, 2009) and In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography (Aperture 1990/2010). He is professor of Photography & Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, as well as director of PixelPress, creating web sites, books and exhibitions investigating new documentary and promoting human rights. For the New York Times Ritchin created a multimedia version of the daily newspaper in 1994-95, and was nominated by them for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service in 1997 for “Bosnia: Uncertain Paths to Peace,” by Gilles Peress. He has curated numerous shows and writes the blog afterphotography.org.

Deborah Willis is a photographer, writer and curator. Willis is the Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and has an affiliated appointment as a University Professor with the College of Arts and Sciences in Africana Studies. She has been named 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and Fletcher Fellow, 2000 MacArthur Fellow, and is the recipient of the 1996 Anonymous Was A Woman Foundation Award; the 2010 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Biography/Autobiography.

Description
The Operations & Social Media Manager will:

• Manage the blog, oversee website content and other written communications
• Organize and maintain digital archives
• Coordinate and process job and intern applications
• Enter contests and film festivals
• Participate and contribute to strategic planning meetings
• Coordinate outreach and publicity
• Other miscellaneous office tasks (answering phones, ordering supplies, etc)

Qualifications
A successful applicant will have:

• Strong writing and editing skills
• Ability to manage and organize human and digital resources
• Ability to multi-task and pay attention to detail

Application deadline for this position is Monday, August 22, 2011.
All applications must be submitted online.
For more information, please see the full job description.
If you have any questions, please email us.

Join Brian Storm, Founder and Executive Producer of MediaStorm, at upcoming events in Perpignan, France and London, UK to see how some of the top photojournalists have redefined their storytelling capabilities to include audio and video reporting and an eye toward publication in multiple media.

The events we will be presenting at include:

PERPIGNAN, FRANCE

Thursday, September 1, 2011: Multimedia Storytelling @ MediaStorm
Palais des Congrès – Salle JC Rolland
3-5pm

Friday, September 2, 2011: Multimedia Projects by MediaStorm
Caserne Gallieni
11am – 3pm

Both of the events in Perpignan are open to anyone who is a registered attendee at Visa Pour l’Image.

LONDON, UK

Wednesday, September 7, 2011: Masterclass: Brian Storm on Multimedia Storytelling
7-8:30pm
Frontline Club
13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ

Register online

Thursday, September 8, 2011: Multimedia Storytelling One Day Workshop
10am-6pm
Frontline Club
13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ

This full day workshop provides an overview of multimedia storytelling approaches while engaging participants in discussion about the most appropriate ways to create a multimedia story.

Register online.

The candidate must be an excellent researcher with great writing and communication skills who has the ability to work independently. The internship requires great organizational skills, a positive attitude, and the ability to multi-task and work in a team environment. Position includes online research and telephone outreach. Internship responsibilities may also include writing blog posts. Efficiency, punctuality and a willingness to learn are critical. Knowledge of Final Cut Pro and/or Photoshop are a bonus. Intern must be proficient with Macs and Microsoft Word.

This is a great opportunity for someone interested in journalism, social advocacy, filmmaking, photography, and multimedia. You will be exposed to the process of developing and producing documentary film and photography projects with a great team of creative people. The position is for three days a week for a minimum of three months, with a small stipend available. We can also help attain college credit if needed.

We are based in Montclair, NJ, and you must be able to work in our office. We’re located a block away from a NJ Transit station (35 minutes by train from New York Penn Station).

To apply, please send a cover letter, resume, letter of recommendation and relevant clips and/or tear sheet via e-mail to elissa@talkingeyesmedia.org. Please put RESEARCH INTERNSHIP in the subject line. Please, no calls.

Production Internship
Talking Eyes Media is an award winning non-profit organization that produces documentary films, multi-media, books, and exhibitions on pressing social issues. We are currently seeking a Production Intern to assist us in all aspects of production. This is a great opportunity for someone interested in journalism, social advocacy, filmmaking, photography and multimedia. You will be exposed to the process of developing and producing documentary film projects with a great team of creative people. Duties of the intern will include (but not be limited to):

- Capturing and Logging footage

- Transcribing

- Stringing out sequences in Final Cut Pro

- Researching music and archival footage

The internship requires excellent communication and organizational skills, a positive attitude, collaborative spirit, and the ability to multi-task. Efficiency, punctuality and a willingness to learn are critical. Intern must be proficient with Macs, and have experience with Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, and Word.

We’re looking for a three-day per week commitment for a minimum of three months, with a daily stipend available. We can also help attain college credit if needed. We are based in Montclair, NJ, and you must be able to work in our office. We’re located a block away from a NJ Transit station (35 minutes by train from New York Penn Station).

To apply, please send cover letter, resume, and relevant clips via e-mail to elissa@talkingeyesmedia.org. Please put PRODUCTION INTERNSHIP in the subject line. Please, no calls.

Some of his clients include the Discovery Channel, History Channel, A&E, The Travel Channel, AOL.com and MSNBC. His images of various news and political events have run in newspapers and news magazines around the world and he is a featured photographer with Reportage by Getty Images.

Click Image for Gear Details

Can you give us a general overview of your kit and the gear you’re using?

As you can see I have a ton of gear. You certainly don’t have to have all this gear to do it, but I use every single piece of it. A lot of this gear is honestly used to make the Canon 5D Mark II function like a professional video camera. It’s a still camera. It’s not built to be a video camera. To shoot rock solid video and be able to hand hold it without it looking like Blair Witch Project you need certain things. This is a kit that I built up over years and years of failing. Each one of these pieces was bought after I wasn’t able to do something that I wanted to do. Shooting, failing, and fixing it. That’s really what it’s about. Going out and shooting, not getting the results I want, deciding why I didn’t get those results, and then trying to fix that.

A lot of this also comes from going somewhere international and not having an adapter or not being able to find one, or working in Mexico and breaking my monitor cable for my monitor and going to ten different electronic shops to find one. Now I travel with 4. And at the time I travelled with 3, and I broke 2 of them. It’s a matter of experience and getting everything to where I’m comfortable. I know I have everything. I probably travel with more than I need. I prefer to have 2 to 3 of everything so that I’m prepared.

How would you describe your shooting style?

I have a run-and-gun style but it depends on the shoot. If I’m doing a pure documentary shoot I try to get my camera rig as small and low-profile as possible. If it’s more of an advertising shoot, then I’ll use a more built out rig. A big part of run-and-gun documentary work is having a kit that is easy to carry and easy to work with. I know from this table it doesn’t look like this is that, but it actually is. Everything on here is tailored to a smaller set up.

Let’s get specific on gear, what do you use?

I have two carbon fiber tripods (Miller DV20, Sachtler FSB-8T), both of them do very different things, both are super useful. The reason I carry two tripods is for two camera interviews and the slider takes two tripods. My rig allows me to keep my camera steady while also keeping it low profile. I have two basic Redrock setups, one is a shoulder rig that’s a little bigger with weights and everything, and the other is smaller hand-held rig. I have a monitor which is key. If I’m doing a bigger shoot, like an ad shoot where it’s easier to work and I have more time, then I’ll bring a full light kit. On international gigs I usually don’t bring a full light kit, I try to just use available light.

Really to me this is about multiples of everything: I have 6 adapters, 6 batteries, 2 chargers, 5 cards, 2 circular ND filters, a 6 stop filter, and a few UV filters, 5 XLR cables, 2 Shotgun mics, 2 Sennheiser Wireless Kits, I have a couple of different small hot shoe mountable shotgun mics, 3 or 4 HDMI cables for my monitor, multiple tripod mount plates because they disappear, I always bring a couple leathermans, I bring two or three headlamps which is totally insane and OCD, but I do it anyway. I have to travel with two mic holding shock mounts because they break easily. I travel with tons of batteries because international batteries suck. One time I was stuck in China and I ran out of batteries and I got some cheap batteries from a market and literally, they would go out in 30 minutes. Velcro, gaff tape – always bring gaff tape. All that on top of my camera kit: I have two camera bodies, 5 lenses and an extender, and I usually travel with another still body like my Leica.

How do you pack all of that?

When I’m packing I bring a smaller carry-on that has my essential gear, so that’s my camera and my lenses, my cards, and some batteries. So if the rest of my gear was stolen or lost, I could still get the job done, I could still work. That’s leftover from my old journalist days, you always have your camera with you on the plane. It’s kind of getting hard with all this gear. I really do need a lot of the stuff that I check but I could still get the job done. I also carry a 17″ MacBook Pro, 2 2TB G-Drives. I carry at least 5 or 6 firewire 800, 400, and 400 to 800 cords, 3 CF card readers, 2 SD card readers. That goes in the carry-on as well.

Rick Gershon filming in Laos (2011)

How are you managing data in the field?

I keep my cards on me and at the end of the day I go home and download it and then I back it up. So I usually do 2 hard drives, sometimes 3, it just depends on the situation. 2 Drives: download to the first one, backup to the second one. I download often and backup immediately.

Work-flow wise, when you’ve got all that data and you come back state-side, what are you doing with it?

The first thing I do no matter how jet lagged I am is bring in the drives and have them downloaded to more stable and secure drives. And then back those up again, so that they’re in 4 places. So even if I get in at 6:00 in the morning after flying for two days I’ll come straight here and drop off my hard drives because I never want anything to happen to them. On some gigs clients will want me to ship a hard drive back to them. So then I have three drives at all times and download to one, backup to the others, and then ship one back. Whenever I travel I put the hard drives in different peoples bags just so they’re never in the same place in case a bag gets stolen, lost, or water gets in it.

We talked about electricity and batteries, when you’re planning on powering all of this gear for a shoot what’s going through your mind in terms of power requirements in the field and electricity differences?

It’s really batteries, that’s why I carry six batteries. I don’t usually go through that many in a day. Honestly I should probably get more. I’d be more comfortable if I had two or three more. I have just enough to get through a 10 hour day right now. I always carry my chargers if I ever have a chance to stop with a place that has electricity I plug them in. You just never know when you’re going to have the chance to charge. Always, always, always keep your batteries charged. That’s the key.

Let’s talk about this with audio. It seems like audio can really bring down a visually gorgeous piece. How do you make sure the audio isn’t lacking?

It’s certainly a huge challenge for these cameras. I personally do not like to record sound separately. There’s a couple reasons. It takes a lot of time to sync up in post and it’s also just another piece of gear that I have to think about turning on and off. And honestly, the less on and off record buttons I have to press the better.

I like to use the juicedLink, I’ve tried a lot of different audio adapters and that one is the best. It’s super low noise. It takes a little bit to get dialed in correctly though. You don’t want to buy it out of the box and go shoot with it, you want to practice. I’ve failed with it a lot, you’ve got to fail with your gear. You’ve got to know it really well, you have to be able to put this stuff together in the dark.

I also really like the new Rode VideoMic Pro. It’s an awesome broadcast quality small shotgun mic. I really love using that for ambient stuff when I’m not doing an interview or I don’t have essential narrative audio going on. I’m a photographer first so audio is definitely second to me, but learning how to get good audio, especially with these 5D cameras, really puts you ahead of the game. The 5D is not a real hard camera to get a beautiful image out of. A lot of people can take it out get something beautiful out of it. But to really operate it like a pro camera and get great audio takes some practice.

How can people step up their game?

I can tell you there are a few things that separate an amateur kit from a pro kit. Things that will really up your game.

1) A really good tripod and head (Miller DV20, Sachtler FSB-8T). People buy cheap amateur tripods and their video is shaky, and it doesn’t look good. All they can do is the set off locked shots. Shots that are too shaky and aren’t on the tripod can look super amateur but also stuff that’s too locked down can look amateur too. To step up your game one thing that can really help is a really good tripod and fluid pan/tilt head, a good video head.

2) Working with ND Filters. That’s a big step when it comes to using this 5D. These cameras do not look good in broad daylight. They don’t look good stopped down. I use a variable ND filter that allows me to have that flexibility and being able to shoot shallow in bring sun really ups your game on a video level.

3) Working off a monitor. The screens on the backs of those cameras suck. It’s really hard to focus off of and it doesn’t give you a lot of freedom for putting the camera in different positions. I bought a nice external monitor and it’s really changed my game. It’s allowed me to get the camera in different positions its allowed me to get critical focus every single time and that’s huge.

4) Having a good stabilization rig. Handholding that camera without a rig, you know you transfer all of your body movements and shake into that camera, and it shows big time. Having a good stabilization rig that you’re comfortable with but that also allows you to shoot well will up your game. People can err on the other side, having too big of a rig, having too much cumbersome equipment that doesn’t allow them to be fluid and doesn’t allow them to work well.

What it boils down to though is that story is king. All this equipment is for the point of allowing me to tell a story in the best way possible. And if I ever have gear that gets in the way of that, then I need to get rid of it. If I ever have gear that keeps me from getting to the heart of my story and connecting with my subjects, than it’s not worth it. I’ll sell it.

What people need to learn is that they need to build up the kit that works for them, that’s the most comfortable for them in the field. If you’re not comfortable shooting with something in the field, you’re not going to make great images and you’re not going to tell a great story.

Closing Thoughts?

My advice is to find out what works best for you. Ask a lot of people. Definitely don’t look at what I have and go buy it. Ask 4 or 5 other people who are doing work you admire and find out what they all use. Tailor your kit to your needs and then practice, practice, practice.

Lost and Found was produced by Rick Gershon

Caitlyn is a recent graduate of UNC Chapel Hill where she studied visual communication, Spanish and Business Administration. She was most recently a videographer and lead video editor for Coal: A Love Story, an interactive film produced as part of News21. She is currently in post-production on her honors thesis project called Immortal, a non-traditional documentary about our obsession with not dying. During her time at UNC, Caitlyn worked on award-winning team projects in Mexico, India, Bangladesh and Argentina as a photographer, videographer and video editor. Her work has been recognized by the Hearst Foundation, College Photographer of the Year, National Press Photographer’s Association and North Carolina Press Photographer’s Association. She is especially excited about the intersection of art, journalism, cinema and technology in storytelling.

Tucker is a visual storyteller working in multiple mediums to tell visceral, intimate stories for online audiences.

He recently completed an internship with the multimedia department at NPR, where he was nominated as Senior Photo/Video Editor for Internship Edition, a thirty minute web video that features interns’ documentary stories. Prior to that, he shot and produced over thirty videos for The Washington Post during a spring internship.

Tucker’s work has been displayed in the Newseum Museum and has been recognized by College Photographer of the Year, FotoWeek DC and the National Press Photographers Foundation.

He is a contributing editor for The Digital Naturalist, a blog dedicated to promoting and improving digital storytelling for NGO’s and advocacy groups.

Last fall, Tucker studied photography at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. He is currently an undergraduate photojournalism student at the Corcoran College of Art & Design.

The stories in, “Coal: A Love Story” give you a new appreciation for the complexities surrounding the coal and energy industry. The piece represents an innovative form of journalism where the audience is given all sides of the story and allowed to explore the issues they care about through interactive graphics and source data.

See for yourself at: http://poweringanation.org/

I think the most important trend is probably an overall sense of disruption where there is no certainty that any approach that has been successful in the past will continue to be viable or support serious journalistic enterprises in the future. That’s perhaps the largest trend, dramatic disruption of the traditional business model. And then related to that is the convergence of media where, in the hands of an individual are tools that are as powerful as what major corporations had to invest significant amounts of dollars in. The barriers to entry are so low today that it’s completely transformed and raised questions about what is journalism and who does it.

When you were with Rocky Mountain News in Colorado you collaborated with MediaStorm on a piece about the Democratic National Convention coming to Denver. Can you talk about how that project worked?

It’s almost hard to believe it’s not even three years ago since we worked together with MediaStorm. In some ways the Democratic National Convention in Denver arguably was the high point of journalism at the Rocky Mountain News because we had branched out into multimedia and online journalism. What was great about that particular experience was that by working as a team it wasn’t just MediaStorm producing a documentary, it was a collaboration. We learned a lot from working with MediaStorm and were able to elevate the skill level and the sophistication of our staff because we combined it with training. So really positive experience for the Rocky Mountain News, and I think it made it possible for us to produce the documentary we did on the closing of the Rocky which was called Final Edition and which ultimately won a regional Emmy for documentaries. And I don’t think that would have been possible without working with MediaStorm first and refining our multimedia storytelling skills.

What were the takeaways from working with MediaStorm?

I think how to think about structure. There was a real awareness of structure and there was a real commitment to audio that I think was really important. And also just frankly the quality of the people on the team. The MediaStorm team was really great. It’s always fun to work with really highly skilled people that you haven’t worked with before. Because it’s inevitable that in the collaboration you’re going to learn a lot from each other and I think that happened.

I think MediaStorm came up with a good way to tell the story, which was through the journalists covering the story. In many ways it’s always good for journalists to be interviewed because it reminds them of what it’s like to be on the other side of the microphone. They were doing two camera interviews and the lighting was really interesting. So you learn what it took to do that level of interviews.

At Civil Beat you have a very community oriented approach to how you engage your audience. You use a combination of social media tools directly in your site and you have staffers that keep up regular blogs and twitter feeds. How is audience engagement going evolve in the future?

We see our journalism starting from a question. The idea is that by asking questions we’re going to make the world a better place, we’re going to make our community a better place, that questioning leads to change. We’re hoping to identify a community that wants to ask questions. When we do that, they’re engaged in a dialogue with us where they’re really asking us to do their work for them. There is a loop there, there is a form of dialogue there that ultimately leads to a self-awareness in the community and a possibility of change.

The other thing that I noticed when I was going through your site is that you do a nice job of doing a truth check on everything. It seems like most sites only do that when something is questionable. There are a lot of examples on your site where you state that things have been said truthfully and you don’t see that too often on other sites.

We try not to make that a “gotcha” feature. We try to make it a feature that is more based on the question, “Could that really be true?” So we definitely do not want them all to be ‘false’. We want it to be that anytime someone says a defining or important statement we help people determine if they can believe it. The other thing we do is post them in progress. We can get hung up on waiting until we find the answer, and instead of doing that we post the statement and whatever we can find out about it to begin with. Then you see how people interact with it and what questions they ask. We think people learn more by those kinds of features than they do by traditional news stories where there is a conventional narrative structure. In this way you might get a quasi-civics lesson without really knowing you’re getting one, because you’re explaining how a court system works for example. We have some in the works right now, “Is it really true that Hawaii is the most diverse place on earth?” Well that’s a myth that’s propagated here so is that really true? We’ll start that conversation. It’s really been a good feature for us and it’s been a very defining feature in the community.

Today a significant number of people count twitter as their number one source of news. With such fast and tightly packaged stories filling the airwaves how do we tell a story that deserves more than 140 characters? Or deliver a video package that takes more than 3 minutes to do it justice?

I think Twitter is not the way to do that. Twitter is a great tool for being like a nerve ending. Twitter’s strength is in immediacy, and speed. So use that tool for that. I don’t think it’s the most powerful tool to drive eyeballs and interest, it’s a different type of tool. I think that Facebook is actually a much better way to distribute longer form pieces because it depends more on the endorsement of trusted friends and there’s an ability to see, in one place, the collective comments on a piece.

When we bemoan what’s happening with long form journalism, the reality is in some ways it’s so much better today because a single individual can produce something and share it. I think about the idea of getting a film shown in the past versus getting something shown today, it is completely different. There is a place for that nerve ending of Twitter and there’s a place for the long form.

Now how it gets supported financially that’s a whole other story. But there’s a question about how Twitter’s going to get supported financially too. The danger with short form is that it’s commoditized. You have to ask yourself what special advantage do you have in producing short form? It’s very hard to establish an advantage in that space I think.

How do you know when you’ve been successful?

One level of success no matter what other people think is did you treat your subjects respectfully and with integrity and honesty? If you didn’t, you’re not successful in my eyes.

One of the ways you know you’ve been successful is these people tell you that they learned something, that they see the world different, they appreciate what you’ve shared with them. But people could be very upset by something, and angry about it, and you still could have been very successful. So you don’t only want to judge success based on praise or positive response. Success may be that you’ve just told one hell of a story and people are really really unhappy about that story being made public.

You want to be really careful about focusing on success or failure and much more focused on the work itself and your own experience doing it. Try to learn from what you did and have some sense of independence and ask yourself what did you learn from the experience? And to me, that’s one level of success. Did you learn? Did you grow by telling the story?

So there are really many different kinds of success. People should be careful of judging success from external factors.

Undesired, By Walter Astrada for the Alexia Foundation, was nominated in the New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Documentaries Category.

In India, all women must confront the cultural pressure to bear a son. The consequences of this preference is a disregard for the lives of women and girls. From birth until death they face a constant threat of violence. See the project here.

Crisis Guide: Pakistan, produced for Council on Foreign Relations, was also nominated in the New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Documentaries Category.

Pakistan’s stability is of great consequence to regional and international security. Crisis Guide: Pakistan examines the roots of its challenges, what it means for the region and the world, and explores some plausible futures for the country. See the project here.

Airsick by Toronto Star Photographer Lucas Oleniuk, was nominated in the New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Arts, Lifestyle & Culture Category.

Created with 20,000 photographs and a haunting soundtrack, Airsick plays out like an unsettling dream. Photographer Lucas Oleniuk examines our addiction to fossil fuel – and its consequences. See the project here.

Congratulations to all of the other Nominees.

Winners will be announced on Monday, September 26 in New York City. Visit emmyonline.org for full information.

Bruce is a multimedia storyteller who likes to work with cool people on awesome projects. Life is too short to do anything else. He has shot in nearly 60 countries, with Sudan and Liberia added to the mix most recently. Bruce was on staff at The Orange County Register in Southern California for 11 years and has freelanced for a variety of international publications and non-profit organizations. Bruce’s work has been published in such prestigious publications as TIME Magazine and National Geographic and has earned numerous awards and two fellowships—The Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship at the University of Michigan and the Knight Fellowship at Ohio University.

When he’s not on the field, Bruce spends a lot of time helping others learn to tell stories that matter. Currently, he’s an associate professor at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, where he teaches an array of video, audio, photography and multimedia courses. Teaching has been a rewarding and enlightening journey, and he is proud of his students, many of whom—while still students—have won top honors from NPPA, POY, World Press and BOP. He also had the good fortune of mentoring back-to-back College Photographer of the Year winners, Matt Eich and Travis Dove. Last year, Bruce was honored with a 2010 Meredith Teaching Recognition Award from Syracuse University and the National Press Photographers Association’s Robin F. Garland Educator Award. But Bruce is most proud of his two young sons, Jack and Cole, and loves adventuring through life with his visual journalist/professor wife, Claudia.

FCP X, it was good while it lasted.

After working in FCP X for a week, I left on a Friday buoyed by the speed and efficiency at which the program runs. I had blazed through a weeks worth of work in just three days.

But on Monday morning, my work was gone.

I spent an hour on the phone with Apple. They asked me to run some tests. Several times I opened the project, made some changes, and closed it. Each time I reopened the file, it behaved differently.

Think Memento.

Sometimes the program “remembered” the changes correctly. Other times it reverted to a previously saved version. Other times it combined two previously saved versions to create a third!

The consultant on the phone sent my file to the engineers. He said they would analyze it and send me the prognosis in 48 hours. It’s over a week later, and I still haven’t heard back.

I’ve returned to FCP 7, but I can share my insights from a week of working with FCP X.

The Good

• It’s speedy. I definitely noticed the difference in response time when I returned to FCP 7
• Using keywords is a fast and easy way to organize your footage

The Bad

• Synching more than two cameras using synching doesn’t work (I tried to synch three cameras with no luck. I also combined two cameras into a compound clip, and attempted to synch the third camera to this clip. Still, no luck)
• FCP X crashes when editing multiple formats
• Skimming is annoying when you don’t need it, and I didn’t find it very helpful when scanning for sound bites. You can, of course, just turn it off, but it would be great if you could actually use it to scan for bites.

And the Ugly

• Being able to save your work is 101.

I believe it’s too early to predict the future, but after my experience I do not recommend using the program right now.

In summary: as much as we all really wanted to love FCP X, it’s not usable for us in its current iteration. We’ve all reverted back to FCP 7 for now. We’re hoping that updates will make the program work for us in the not-too-distant future, but we’re also starting to look at other possible solutions should we need to make a switch. Right now, it’s really too early to make a decision.

We’d love to hear thoughts and impressions from all of you – are you making the switch, or sticking with FCP 7, or switching to an entirely new system? Let us know in the comments.

Could you tell me a little bit about your background with photography and multimedia production?

So I was a J student, basically. The only photo class that I had taken was an art photo class when I was an undergrad. Then I had this Multimedia project with Rich Beckman where I held a Digital SLR for the first time. That’s when I really grabbed that camera and made it mine, made her mine. I was shooting digital, it had just came out. It was the D30. I was just shooting and shooting, and editing and editing, and working with a ton of talented people. That was the best week of the class ever. A full week of getting constant feedback. That’s my photographic background basically. I just grabbed a camera for a whole week and just shot-shot-shot. I never left it.

You produced a very moving piece titled, “Life After Foreclosure.” Could you walk us through your thought process while you were making that piece? What were your goals going and and what did you do to reach those goals?

I’m going to tell you how long it took me first. It was part of my thesis. I had a whole year basically to work on my thesis from my pre-production to shooting and everything. So I had this plan in mind, I was going to do this simple story thesis topic. Then the recession happened in 2007 and the whole market crashed. I watched TV, I would read the newspapers, I would read the magazines, and I wouldn’t see anyone… anyone. They were all just numbers. There were no people. I wanted to put a face on the crisis.

I think I have 700 emails that were sent in conversations trying to get people anywhere in the US. Constant phone calls, going to churches, going to foundations, going to whatever. Nothing would happen. Imagine every week how shitty you can feel when you try over and over to get somewhere. After almost six months I said, “Okay, if I don’t get anything by this Monday I’m done.” So Thursday afternoon I get this phone call from a friend telling me that there was this person that lives in Charlotte that was willing to talk and I was like, “Wow. Phone number? Name? Done. Thank you so much.” Hung up. Grabbed the phone. Lit up a cigarette and said, “Here it goes.” Called Cynthia, “Hi this is Nacho…” Same speech I always begin with. And she starts telling me her whole story. It was perfectly perfect. She was telling me the whole story and everything I needed. After 5 minutes she keeps telling me and she starts crying and I’m like, “Shit, okay Cynthia. I’m really interested in your story. I’d love to meet you in person, if I can record an interview it would be great.” And she was like, “I would love to share this with you.”

Next morning I put everything in the car, drive all the way to Charlotte, three and a half hours, get there, opens the door… I’m in. I sit in, shoot the interview, we talk a little bit, shoot the interview. I go to a hotel and start transcribing my ideas, thinking about structure, all on the fly.

You have this preconceived idea, I had 3 and a half hours to think about it, but then when you get there… it’s their story not yours. The next morning I go back to Cynthia and knock on the door. 8am. She opens the door wearing her pajamas. And that’s it. That’s when you know you’re in. When the person you’re interviewing opens their door to you without caring that you’re going to be shooting with a camera and their hair is messed up, you know you’re in. Now I’m the only one that can fuck this up. So it’s all on me, and that’s the most beautiful feeling when you’re shooting a story. Because you know everything is there, you just need to do your job and do it well so you can actually portray what that person is sharing with you.

I can still remember she opened the door, pajamas, “come in.” That’s it! That’s how I shaped that story.

How do you combine still photography and video to create a compelling narrative?

I’m going to quote MediaStorm here. You know how to do it. You know video is good for motion and you know stills are good for moments. And you know at the same time that you’re just one person. And if you want to do a real good job you have to focus on one or the other.

It’s a constant battle. I know what I need is going to happen there and I’m always going to be carrying my camera, super light, I’ll be ready at 2.8. I don’t care about situation, I’ll just change the ISO. Go in and you can always have a small recorder on hand if you want to record something small.

You choose your battles. I’m going to go all-in with the video camera, I’m going to be a very ninja-tactical person with my photo camera and I’m going to pull it out whenever I need. You start balancing it. One of the best things that I could have done is put a camera strap on my video camera so I can have video camera on my right shoulder, still camera on my left shoulder, so whenever something happens I can shoot.

You attended our 2009 Advanced Multimedia Workshop and helped produce the piece “Hold Out.” What were the biggest takeaway points from that workshop for you?

It’s just teamwork, that’s it. Teamwork. You know you can do it all. I know I’m not a great photographer, I’m not a great videographer, I’m not a great designer or anything. But I can put a story together well. And I know I could have done that story, but not at that angle at all. I had a kick-ass photographer, I had a kick-ass reporter. We had the people, which is the most important thing. It doesn’t matter how expensive your gear is, it’s just about the team.

What motivates you to teach journalism and multimedia classes?

It’s something you love, you know? You want to share it. You want people to experience that. I want my students to experience the sensation I had when Cynthia opened that door wearing her pajamas. I want them to know that. I want them to open their eyes to the rest of the world. So teaching is just that. It’s like stepping point for them to open their eyes.

For students that are just getting into multimedia work, what is a consistent bad habit that is important to get past?

Technically: Use a frickin tripod for shooting. Also on the technical side, use a microphone.

Don’t get stuck on the technical either. Don’t forget, it’s not your story, it’s their story, and you’re just helping them tell that story. You can plan your shoots which will help you on the field if you’re not very comfortable, you can plan your questions which will help you a ton during the interview, but just don’t be like a horse race. You need to be looking around you. It’s not just about the technical, it’s not just about the questions, it’s about what’s the best way to tell this story.

What about bad habits on the storytelling side?

Your audience is going to be sitting in front of the computer having their meal, and your story is their meal. You need to sharpen those knives. Out of that big fat greasy piece of meat you need to make fillet. And that’s what you’re going to feed your audience, you’re going to feed them fillet. Take out all the stuff that is not necessary to tell that story in just a couple of minutes.

What issues do you see in the professional community?

We just get too structured. We keep pushing the same thing over and over. And that’s great because we know it works. But you need to be a tourist in your own town. We’re loosing that surprise or amaze factor. Lazy, that’s the worst problem. I don’t care regardless of age, if you get lazy, you’re done.

Do you think the solution is inspiration? Is energy the issue?

I don’t know if it’s an energy issue or not. I don’t know what the problem is, it’s just… you get stuck. You’re doing the same thing over and over again. And the minute you let something turn into a routine it’s something you do not enjoy.

I will buy little pieces of gear. I bought a suction cup, just for one little piece, “Roping the Wind.” In the jeep scene I put a suction cup on the tripod head. Those are little things that are going to make your story advance a little bit. You’ll feel like a kid again. And that’s key. I’m a big gadget fan, so for me it’s little things like a new wide angle lens, or this microphone, or this suction cup. That keeps me motivated when I shoot a new story.

Anything else?

Whenever you find that little thing, that little thing you love you just go balls to the wall for it. And that’s what multimedia is, you’re just telling their story, you’re touching peoples hearts. Whenever you’re showing someone a story you did and you see emotion in their face, that’s it. If you see a smile, if you see a tear, if you see someone sad, that’s it. That story fulfilled something.

Nacho’s Website: http://nachocorbella.com/

“Budgets for newsrooms are shrinking and one of the greatest victims is the community photo story,” NPPA executive director Mindy Hutchison said.

“Photographers often don’t have the time or the funding that they used to have to work on compelling stories in their community. So NPPA is bringing back the community photo story project through the NPPA Short Grants, with five awards of $3,000 each. The grant is designed for funding projects small enough in scale that the bulk of the work can be accomplished in two weeks or less.”

NPPA’s Short Grants Program was made possible by funding received from the Authors Coalition of America (ACA), the organization which distributes royalties for overseas copying of works that cannot be identified by title or copyright owner. These funds must be used solely to support education and advocacy efforts benefitting photographers, Hutchison said.

Applications will be accepted through an online entry system. The entry period will begin on August 1, 2011.

“One of NPPA’s primary goals is to support established photographers and encourage their growth,” Hutchison said. “The ACA funding has allowed us to continue our commitment to the advancement of visual journalists.”

For information about the NPPA Short Grants, visit www.nppa.org/short_grants.

A BA degree in Photojournalism, Multimedia Journalism or other disciplines that emphasize visual storytelling and multimedia production and/or editing is required. Strong candidates with equivalent experience or education will be considered. A minimum of two years’ experience producing or editing visual content for print or online news is essential.

Apply online.

Well it’s amazing how much difference a day makes. 

Yesterday I had prepared a blog post about my qualified, yet upbeat first impression of FCP X. 

Of that blog post, here’s what I’ll include;

“I’ve been working in FCP X since it launched, and I’ve tried to approach it for what it is. A new piece of software that will have significant limitations, like all version 1 software. 

In doing this, I’ve come to see the potential of the program. It’s a young buck, but as it matures, I think we’re going to be surprised at how robust it is. 

Using metadata to organize and find assets is amazing. It’s fast and efficient. I’ve been able to organize content quicker than I was able to in FCP 7.  

Having access to my Aperture library’s organization within FCP X is a huge time saver. 

Live previews of audio effects are great. Many of them can be controlled manually in the Inspector just as they were in Soundtrack Pro. 

The Audition tool is amazing for trying out music and image edits. 

Many of the editing quick keys are organized in a much more logical way. I’ve had to relearn nearly everything, but they’re generally pretty intuitive. 

Other things that are big improvements include resolution independence, background rendering, and tapeless workflow.”

All of this is still true. But this morning FCP X scared the living daylights out of me. 

Two of four producers in the office lost work when FCP X didn’t save properly. And for those of you haven’t opened the program, you should know that FCPX no longer has a manual save function; it’s all supposed to be done without so much as an Apple-S. 

I can think of nothing more terrifying than feeling unsure of my ability to save work. This fact has spooked me to the core.

As if that wasn’t enough, I’ve managed to crash the program several times by removing a keyword from a clip. One piece of metadata brought down the entire program. 

And don’t plan on using native H.264 files. They make the entire program entirely too unstable.  

Now, I understand that this is new software and that it will get better with time. But the inability of this program to offer a stable environment for the most basic functions, like saving, has me thinking. 

It took years for FCP 7 to become the type of program that even Walter Murch could edit on. Despite the advances in FCP X, Apple has asked us to again remain patient as they go down the path of building increased stability and functionality into their software, all while providing little to no information about the timeline they have for updates.   

While storytelling is software agnostic, time and money are not. 

The prospect of waiting years for FCP X to mature is a depressing thought, and one that might not be financially viable for many institutions. I hope I’m wrong that it will take this long, but the point is, we just don’t know.
  
If you have the means, I’d list FCP X as a wait and learn. 

Lucy shooting One Man Brand

You attended our Advanced Multimedia Workshop in 2008 and produced “One Man Brand.” How has that workshop influenced your work since?
I think MediaStorm creates some of the best multimedia out there, so just picking up their way of doing things was valuable. There’s no one correct way to mix audio, stills and video for the web, so it was good to have people who really knew what they were doing give me a formula to start with. The course gave me a lot of confidence, and set a standard for me to emulate. I learn more every time I produce a multimedia project. 

Your piece “Homegirl cafe” was a 2011 Webby Awards honoree. How did you find the story?
I initially shot a photo essay on Homegirl Cafe at the request of our magazine desk. While I was there, I met Stephanie, and became interested in telling her story. I made some trips back on my own time to talk to her, and win her trust, and then shot the video interview and boxing footage. The piece was also nominated for multimedia at the Reuters internal annual journalist awards, which I hope will enable me to produce more projects.

What were the key things you were keeping in mind while you were producing the piece?
Telling a concise story from a long, sometimes rambling interview. Telling Stephanie’s story with compassion, and honestly portraying the fragile place in her life that she’s at – she could continue going straight, or fall back into the life she led before.

When you’re producing your multimedia stories, do you typically work as a one-man-band or in a team? Do you do all of your own shooting and editing?

I shot and edited on my own:
– Homegirl Cafe
– Beijing Olympics 2008. I shot video interviews and behind-the-scenes still photo sequences (you’re not allowed to shoot video footage at the Olympics if you’re not a rights holder), and put these together with Reuters photos from all the photographers at the Olympics.
– Superbowl XLII

Collaborations:
– I contributed a video and photo story about evictions to Reuters’ Times of Crisis multimedia package, along with other Reuters photographers. The project was produced by Ayperi Ecer, VP, Pictures & Jassim Ahmad, Global Head of Multimedia & Interactive Innovation at Reuters, and Bob Sacha & Brian Storm at MediaStorm. Jassim, Bob and I made “One Man Brand” together at the MediaStorm workshop.
Times of Crisis was nominated for an Emmy, and won Pictures of the Year International Documentary Project of the Year and NPPA multimedia package 1st place.
– I shot video and stills about an Afghanistan women’s shelter for a multimedia package put together by online editor Jill Kitchener
– I shot and edited Route to Recovery as part of a larger Reuters multimedia story (http://www.reuters.com/routetorecovery)
– I shot video for a Reuters Insider TV piece, produced by Laura Beatty for business visitors to LA

Any tips or tricks you’ve found that help you when you’re working on deadline?
Most of the multimedia I’ve produced hasn’t been for a specific deadline. The lesson I need to learn once and for all is how much easier it is to get good, clean sound in the field, so I don’t have to spend a lot of time fixing it when I’m editing. 

I’m usually pretty frustrated with myself when I listen to my interviews, and think of all the questions I should have been prompted to ask! I’m improving though, as I feel more comfortable with the process and the equipment.

Do you have plans for another multimedia piece?
I really love producing multimedia, and hope I can do a lot more of it. I learn so much every time I have the chance to work on another piece, and I’m constantly on the lookout for stories that have multimedia potential. 

I’ve set myself a personal goal to produce at least one a year (in between my busy day-to-day work!), and I’ve managed to do this every year since 2008. I feel lucky that my boss, Gary Hershorn, Reuters News Pictures Editor-North America, has been very supportive of this, and understands the value of more in-depth productions.

I try to start with photo essays and always take my audio recorder to interview people and record snatches of ambient sound. Often I’ll write text stories from these interviews for the Reuters Photographers Blog, and sometimes for the wire. Reuters has its own television and text departments, and those guys often accompany me on stories. So sometimes the multimedia is an online package of separate components produced by Corinne Perkins and the online desk, rather than a whole piece I produce myself.

You can find Lucy at:
http://www.lucynicholson.com
http://blog.lucynicholson.com
http://www.twitter.com/lucy_nicholson

Related Links:
http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2011/03/21/school-on-wheels/
http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2011/05/18/surf-therapy/
http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2011/06/06/my-day-in-a-california-prison/
http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2011/06/22/ping-pong-therapy/
http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2009/08/18/on-the-afghan-election-trail/

Apple giveth and Apple taketh away. And with the release of Final Cut Pro X, Apple did a lot of both.

Among the missing (at least for the moment):

• the ability to import FCP 7 projects.
• the ability to export only a portion of your project
• multicam support
• the auto-save vault

And on and on. 

To be fair, Apple recently promised to reintroduce absent functionality in future versions. It’s still painful to work with an incomplete toolset, particularly given that the toolset was doing pretty darn well just last week. Yes, FCP X is a 1.0 release but Apple is not new to this market. They’ve been shaping how we edit over the past 12 years of Final Cut Pro’s development.

What Apple has given us is a reinterpretation of the editing metaphor. Organization is now based on metadata, not bins. The Timeline allows for clip connections so that chunks of your project move together, dynamically, as a way to avoid inadvertent collisions. Only one sequence is allowed per project. There are ways around that, but, to be sure, it’s a whole new game. And at the moment, Final Cut X is still too awkward and clunky to play big-time ball. 1

In the end, I hope that FCP X will make editing easier. But that’s certainly not the case right now. And that’s the crux of my complaint. FCP X (pronounced “ten”) leapfrogged over the previous version, which was No. 7. Missing in action are FCP 8 and 9. That’s significant. 

Instead of a transition–a continuation of the Final Cut Pro story, if you will–Apple redefined the narrative without preparing editors. As blogger and editor Adam Lisagor noted, it’s like Apple is a TV network that suddenly decided you’d be better off without the main characters you’ve been following closely for more than a decade. No warning, no nothing. One day they just decided, Those old folks, don’t worry about where they went, you just pay attention to these the new, hip youngsters and everything will be fine. 2

Apple does what Apple does. And most of the time, despite early protests like this one, we come to appreciate the rightness of their decisions. From the iPod to OSX, examples abound. A year from now, let’s hope we can say the same about Final Cut Pro X, but right now I can’t recommend using the program.