Storytelling – Page 7 – Latest News from MediaStorm

For Minga: The Impact of One Girl’s Story & How You Can Help

Post author:Cortney Cleveland
Post published:July 30, 2013

Last year we premiered Surviving the Peace: Angola, a short film that gives a personal representation of the amazing work MAG (Mines Advisory Group) does to remove landmines, bombs and other weapons from post-conflict countries. More than six months after the film’s release, its youngest participant continues to make a huge impact. Minga, only eight years old at the time of filming, recounts the day she found the landmine that blew off her arm and left her blind. The production team and viewers alike have been moved by her bravery and tenacity. We received this note from Lauren of Brooklyn, New York just last week: ...This morning I was still thinking about Surviving the Peace: Angola, and most specifically, Minga. The film and her story touched my heart so deeply and I can’t reconcile *not* doing something. I watched her sweet hand reaching for her Grandmother and noted how she stood so…

Brian Storm on Why You’ll Never Master Multimedia

Post author:Cortney Cleveland
Post published:July 24, 2013

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…

Thoughts on Going Further

Post author:Eric Maierson
Post published:July 9, 2013

At MediaStorm we strive to depict the truth of every single person we document. I sometimes refer to this process as going with the grain of the wood. That is, telling the stories that are embedded in the raw material. We aim to shape what is documented, not what we would like to see. That is our highest aspiration, to reveal the specific. In pursuing this ideal for close to a decade now, we have employed a number of techniques that permeate our work [1]. You are no doubt familiar with some of them: Stories that begin with an individual’s plight and end with a larger call to social justice. A steady pace defined by frequent cutting on musical beats. Video portraits that blend photography and motion. We use these conventions because they work and when used effectively they are powerful. I believe in them. I helped, in part, to create what…

I Hate ‘Multimedia’

Post author:Eric Maierson
Post published:June 25, 2013

Nothing in this profession irks me so much as the word “multimedia.” Not only is it linguistically confusing–“media” is itself already plural–in terms of describing our work, the label does us all a disservice. Multimedia is the combining of several forms of media. OK, so the combining of photography and video is multimedia. But what about the combination of text and photography in a book? Or a website for that matter? The point is, “multimedia” can mean anything. It just depends on whom you ask. With all due respect, I believe “multimedia” is the word we’ve come to use when describing photographers who make documentaries. It’s a word that belongs to journalists, not the audience we want to reach. This is not a new conversation at MediaStorm. It’s an issue we’ve wrestled with in innumerable conversations and one Brian Storm and I have had almost from day one of my tenure. But…

This is what editing feels like.

Post author:Eric Maierson
Post published:June 3, 2013

You are alone in a dark room. Across the floor are the scattered pieces of three or four or five floor lamps. You don’t know how many. There are screws and bulbs and fixtures mixed together. You try not to panic as you feel your way across the floor in search of these pieces. It does not matter how many times you’ve done this exercise before. Each time you do it, it feels like the first. People tell you, you’ve done it before, you can do it again. But they don’t know what it feels like to be in the dark room searching blindly. Your work is meticulous. You must evaluate not only each piece, trying to discern its nature, but also how it relates to all of the other pieces. Most of the time, you feel as if your work is wrong. It’s a persistent feeling, that the path you’ve chosen,…