Neighborhood Centers and MediaStorm Present “H-Town Stories”

Neighborhood Centers Inc., is a not for profit organization that brings resources, education and connection to over 400,000 people throughout Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast region every year. Dozens of different social sectors fall under its scope. Neighborhood Centers asked MediaStorm to create a film that addressed the question: why does our work matter? H-Town Stories offers an answer. Rather than tell the history of how Neighborhood Centers came to exist and explain all that this massive organization does, we took the approach of telling personal stories about the people they serve everyday. Intimate, cinematic narratives bring the heart and soul of the organization to life. Houstonians can view an edited version of the film on Saturday, August 24th, 2013 at 5:00 pm on KHOU 11 News. The full-length feature will premiere on MediaStorm.com on September 19th, 2013.

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Brian Storm on Why You’ll Never Master Multimedia

Senior Producer Eric Maierson’s post “I Hate ‘Multimedia’” stirred up a discussion on what success in our industry looks like and what is required to get us there. We used your comments and questions to ask our Executive Producer and Founder Brian Storm (with thoughts from Director of Photography Rick Gershon) how visual storytellers can flourish in a constantly evolving industry. Do you hate ‘multimedia’ too? Hate is a strong word, but I would argue that word has become meaningless. It’s sort of like saying “awesome.” What does awesome mean anymore? Everything is awesome. Multimedia has been associated with my professional title for twenty years of my life. So, of course, the word means something to me. What I’ve seen happen is that it means something different to everyone you talk to. Eric made a bunch of good points about it being too small in scope. It’s about our industry, the way…

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MediaStorm Launches Online Training Educational Program

MediaStorm is pleased to announce a new Educational Program that offers discounted Online Training licenses to students at participating universities. MediaStorm Online Training Educational Program The MediaStorm Online Training Educational Program offers a simple way for educational institutions to use our acclaimed training in their classrooms. In just three easy steps we'll have your classroom learning from our award-winning production staff. How It Works Our Educational Program makes it easy for educators to integrate our training into their curriculum, while offering a significant discount to students. The training modules can be incorporated into the program syllabus just like a textbook and can be accessed by students at any time during the semester. Notable institutions like the University of Missouri and Syracuse University have already made the MediaStorm Online Training experience a regular part of their curriculum. For tomorrow's multimedia journalists and visual storytellers, there's no better way to learn. Sign Up Today…

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The Ways: Sharing Contemporary Native Culture Through Story

Finn Ryan, a producer, educator and March 2011 MediaStorm Storytelling Workshop participant is a big believer in the importance of storytelling in education. His 2010 project, Climate Wisconsin, which uses multimedia and interactives to explore local climate change impacts, received significant attention when it was published, including a regional Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement for Informational/Instructional Programming. His most recent project, The Ways, produced with Wisconsin Media Lab, features storytelling as a means to share contemporary Native culture and language from around the central Great Lakes. I contacted Finn to hear about his experience creating The Ways and to take a closer look at contemporary ways to use storytelling in education. Below is a lightly edited version of our conversation. An Interview with Finn Ryan You recently launched The Ways, an online storytelling publication about language and culture of Native communities in the central Great Lakes region. Why did you start the…

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Words of Wisdom: Chad A. Stevens on learning important multimedia skills

We're kicking off a new series on the blog, talking with educators and journalism students about the value of Journalism school and the multimedia skills students need to start their careers. There has been a lot of discussion lately on whether it's worth it to go to Journalism school, and whether students are learning the multimedia skills they need to be successful in a pretty rough market. As the school year gets back underway, we're getting more and more questions from students wondering what skills they need to acquire to land jobs. Obviously, there are no simple answers to these questions, but we hope to offer up some words of wisdom for students and others interested in the profession, especially during this time of transition. We're going to kick it off with Chad A. Stevens- a former MediaStorm Producer, who is now an Assistant Professor at UNC Chapel Hill. Where are you…

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