A storyteller's story

Archive for the ‘video’ Category

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68Blocks: Life, Death, Hope

In audio, multimedia, print, video on January 27, 2012 at 9:53 pm

68 Blocks

I was part of a team of Boston Globe reporters, photographers, videographers, and data visualization specialists, who spent 2012 focused on the Bowdoin-Geneva section of Dorchester, a neighborhood often identified with the violence that erupts with disconcerting regularity and not with the people who live there. The Globe rented an apartment in the neighborhood, where reporter Meghan E. Irons and myself, lived from May to September. The result was 68 Blocks: Life, Death, Hope, a beautiful, interactive tableau chronicling life during one of the neighborhood’s most turbulent seasons, the summer.

Role: Reporter, writer, researcher, videographer

Awards: Journalistic innovation first-place win from the National Headliner Awards; Unity Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association; Honorable Mention multimedia, 2013 competition for Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism; NABJ Salute to Excellence Finalist; 2013 Dart Award Finalist.

Postscript: I have returned to Bowdoin-Geneva several times since the series published, witnessing the rebirth of a blighted lot, a mother’s worst fear realized, and a young man who defeated the odds.

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Gifted

In video on March 26, 2011 at 2:45 am

Gifted tells Sky Choi’s story. The 12-year-old college student is enrolled at Florida International University, where he takes Calculus II, Intermediate Chinese Conversation, Physics with Calculus I, Physics Problem Solving, Physics seminar and Physics laboratory.

Role: videographer and video editor

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Greening the Grid

In multimedia, video on August 24, 2010 at 9:15 am

  
Greening the Grid was a project done in conjunction with the U.S. State Department examining alternative energy uses and energy-saving projects nationally and internationally. The website documents sustainable energy practices in the United States and the Czech Republic as a way to show how the need for sources of renewable energy is critical as urban centers grow on both continents.

 Role: videographer, video editor

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Gifted

In video on August 24, 2010 at 9:13 am

Sky Choi is a 12-year-old college student. Yes, 12.

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Reclaiming Land: Amidst the Railroad Ties

In video on August 24, 2010 at 8:28 am

Congestion and construction are the fiber of city life, but a large herb farm grows amid Miami-Dade County’s concrete jungle. GROW, or Green Railway Organic Workshop, is a 2.5 acre farm growing between industrial warehouses near Miami International Airport.

Started in 2007 on an abandoned railway track, GROW is now home to more than 9,000 herb plants. It cost more than $100,00 to start. The grassroots organization hopes to reclaim up to 100 acres of vacant railway within the next several years.

GROW’s mission, however, is more about people than the planet. The farm, which is in the process of applying to be a nonprofit organization, has a strong educational component. Students of all ages and skill-level learn about agriculture by preparing the land, planting, watering and harvesting the more than 15 varieties of herbs grown at the farm.

Those herbs are then packed and distributed to grocery stores and restaurants through Rock Garden Warehouse, a wholesale distributor next door to the garden and owned by GROW Founder Charlie Coiner.

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Out of work

In video on August 23, 2010 at 9:40 pm

Angie Salicetti was an urban planner who became a Mary Kay associate thanks to The Great Recession. Unwilling to give up on her dream job, Salicetti decided to sell cosmetics until the market opens back up.

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Miami’s oldest church

In video on August 23, 2010 at 9:24 pm

Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church is the oldest house of worship in Miami-Dade County. The church, located in Miami’s West Grove neighborhood, turned 114 years-old in 2009. The video aired on UMTV’s Newsvision.

Role: videographer, video editor

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Living: Builders of Hope

In multimedia, video on August 22, 2010 at 9:08 am

Builders of Hope, a non-profit organization in Raleigh, NC, relocates and recycles homes slated for demolition, offering working-class families the chance to live in affordable houses in safe neighborhoods.

While preserving as much of the home’s original wooden structure as possible, the organization upgrades salvaged homes and utilizes green techniques. All houses are sold at prices high enough to recapture the building costs but well below their new appraised values.

This video was produced by Shell Zun Zhu and Akilah Johnson for the multimedia project Greening the Grid.

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Checkmate

In video on August 22, 2010 at 8:52 am

The award-winning Raider Rooks Chess Team at Edison Park Elementary School in Miami struggled to make it to tournaments due to budget cuts.

At the school, chess is a tool used to boost self-esteem, improve academics and behavior as well as expose students to the world outside of their impoverished neighborhood.

The elementary school sits wedged between an Interstate 95 barrier wall and a public housing project in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood.

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Unsung Heroes

In audio, multimedia, print, video on August 21, 2010 at 3:51 pm

Unsung Heroes was a five-day series completed for the Sun Sentinel that profiles five Broward County School District employees who help keep schools running while playing big roles in students’ daily lives. 

The secretary, security specialist, custodian, cafeteria manager and bus driver featured are among 14,000 non-instructional employees who play unheralded roles for Broward Schools, the nation’s sixth largest school district.

Role: project manager, content producer, audio editor, videographer, video editor, writer