Summertime is workshop time and one of my favorite workshops is at the Maine Media Workshops where I teach a Multimedia Master Class.(I also teach a beginning class in multimedia/video at the SantaFe Photo Workshops
This summer I had the usual assortment of talented students but I wanted to feature two stories.It’s an intense class: students find, report, interview and edit a complete story ALONE! in 4 days. The first was by Samantha Levin who had not shot much video but had such a clear idea of her story that she bolted out of class on the second day and disappeared. (The bed-and-breakfast owner became concerned when she didn’t return home one evening and called the school.) When she came back she had gathered a wonderfully recorded series of interviews about memory. Then she added these atmospheric video images in a lovely edit.
Lesson learned for me? Have a clear idea of your story!
The second story is by Mariana Paschoal, a young Brazilian woman who works for the Editora Abril media group. Her first story fell through, then her story about a local brewery was a bust when the owner and brewmaster didn’t show up. With the clock ticking, she stumbled on this wonderful story about Ted Guerry, a Ghost Walker.
Lesson learned? When you’re stuck, keep looking because an even better story might be behind the next corner.
There were a lot of other great stories in the class too. Hopefully Maine Media will post them someday. When they do. I’ll post a link to them here.
[update: students have been posting their videos on their own sites so I’ll link to them here>]Student John Hirsh posted his lovely story on a farmer,“Faithful Venture”, which makes extensive use of stills.
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Another great student, Fernanda Monte Claro, was a relative newcomer to handling the camera but the Brazilian manager hit it out of the park with “Between” her cool video about two women existing in two different worlds.
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