MediaStorm Guide to Setting Up Shots

At MediaStorm, we ask one important question to test the veracity of our work: does it deceive the viewer? The most fundamental way to break trust with not just your audience, but also your subject, is to set up shots. [1] How to Set Up a Shot If you ask someone to repeat an action, you are setting up a shot. "Could you walk through the door again so I can film you from the other side?" "Will you put your shoes on again so I can get a tight shot?" "Can you pick up your coffee again? I missed it the first time?" If you attempt to direct the action or ask subjects something they normally wouldn’t do, you are setting up a shot. "Would you mind dancing?" "Can we take you to visit your dad?" "Will you turn off the lights so I can get some pictures that look more…

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Time Lapse: The Making of Darkness Visible Afghanistan

In 2011, along with Leandro Badalotti and Brian Storm, I produced Seamus Murphy’s A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan. It remains the largest, most complex project I’ve ever tackled. Seamus began work in Afghanistan in 1994. By 2010, he had made 14 trips to the country, producing more than 35,000 images and recording 25-plus hours of video interviews. Leandro and I spent the better part of 4 months organizing the vast amount of material. To document our editing progress, I wrote a Python script that generated a jpeg screen grab every five minutes. The result is a time lapse that begins on June 6 and ends November 8, 111 weekdays later. There are approximately 4,300 images in total: one frame for every five minutes of work. You’ll see the entire project take shape, from radio cuts to final output. And if you’d like to learn more about our editing methodology, please join Tim McLaughlin…

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MediaStorm Welcomes Fall Intern Julia Wall

MediaStorm is excited to welcome Julia Wall to our team as our Fall 2013 production intern. Julia Wall is a visual journalist from Wilmington, North Carolina. She recently graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with a bachelor’s degree in photojournalism. Julia has been exploring visual journalism and documentary storytelling for the past 3 years. During her time at UNC Chapel Hill she worked on award winning projects such as Living Galapagos and Port City Stories. She won second place in the 2013 Hearst Multimedia National Championship in San Francisco. In the summer of 2012 she was a photography intern at The Durham Herald-Sun, and she is currently a video intern at the Los Angeles Times. Her videos and photographs can be viewed at www.juliawallphoto.com.

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