Marnie Crawford Samuelson is a documentary photographer and audio and multimedia producer. She’s worked primarily as a still photographer – mostly for magazines. In the last few years, she has been shooting and directing short documentary videos – and that got her to audio. Which she likes, A LOT. She is eager to collaborate and looking forward to working sometimes on the visual side, other times on audio. She is especially interested in short, lean productions and in stories for non-profits. She is based in Boston and Cape Cod. In the winter, she is in San Francisco. Marnie’s website is www.bostonpicturegroup.com.
Marnie participated in the January 2013 MediaStorm Methodology Workshop. She had the following to say about her experience:
Methodology Workshop doesn’t seem like the right title for this workshop. Maybe something more like, MediaStorm – the Big View. Brian lays out the arc of MediaStorm: the start up, growth, and their considerably large ambitions. If you are thinking of starting a media company, there’s plenty to learn from MediaStorm’s trajectory.
The greatest part of this workshop is that there is no central project driving the week. That means there is time for everything else. That includes looking at MediaStorm stories, listening to Brian break them down, decision by decision. Seeing rough cuts of stories in progress and listening to the MediaStorm team critiquing themselves. Both were very useful.
Brian hammered home some of the basics of the MediaStorm experience. For example:1. It’s not enough to take a picture. You need to give your subjects a voice. 2. The only path is quality. 3. You can’t do this alone. Collaboration is the heart of the game. 4. Every shooting decision in the field is intentional. Every edit decision is intentional. The list goes on.
I am taking home other lessons, that perhaps were not so explicitly laid out, lessons which are extremely valuable. One example would be shooting in sequences. Not just shooting the conventional four cinematic shots (wide, medium, close up and extreme close up) from each camera position. But shooting for continuity, shooting to guide the viewer’s eye from shot to shot and through the scene.
I think there is still a lot of room for this workshop to grow and customize itself to the particular concerns of the group of participants. One version for people wanting to start a relatively large and sophisticated company, a different version for people who are shooters and want to get better at storytelling and see themselves working in a more modest framework, and so forth.
As a hands on shooter and producer, I would have liked more time talking with Rick Gershon about shooting, more time with Eric Maierson in the edit suite talking about story structure and workflow (both were terrific).
All in all, the week at MediaStorm offers more than enough to think about and learn from in the months ahead. I feel very fortunate for this experience.
Thanks Brian and MediaStorm.