Reuters wanted us to make the piece in a place in New York which was recognizable internationally; somewhere like Times Square or the New York stock exchange. So we made Times Square our location, read about the history, and then went out to talk to people there in an effort to find a story we could focus on.
Originally the concept was that we would see Times Square through the eyes of some of the regulars - a hot dog vendor who had been there for decades, a cop, the Naked Cowboy, an immigrant pedi-cab driver etc. But once we started interviewing & filming all these people (& then transcribing the interviews), we realized we weren't able to spend enough time to do any one of them in depth. And that it would be complex to weave their stories into our Times Square location visually.
When we met the Naked Cowboy and he invited us to his home in New Jersey and we then happened upon his girlfriend, who was able to talk about another side to him, we realized it would make more sense to just concentrate on him, as an icon of Times Square, and have him as the prism through which our viewers would see the place.
---What was it like working with a multimedia producer versus a photo editor? Was the collaboration vastly different/similar?
On the MediaStorm course, I worked with editor Jassim Ahmad, Reuters' Head of Visual Projects in London, and MediaStorm producer Bob Sacha. Both were awesome to work with - full of ideas and very encouraging and collaborative. Bob was teaching us as well as being our producer. He put in as much time as we needed & stayed working with us at night till we all couldn't stay awake, which is probably not a typical working relationship!
Jassim and Bob helped shoot and gather audio, and I helped transcribe and edit - there was a lot of overlap. That's perhaps the difference with multimedia projects - it's a complete collaboration or it doesn't work. I needed to keep going back to them to ask what the story was becoming & what was missing, so I could go look for those pieces out in the field.
In my daily wire service work, deadlines are such that there is not much time for feedback. We go out & take the photos, and at bigger events where we have editors, the editors edit without our comments. Maybe they'll tell us we did a nice job or ask for what they think is a missing shot. But less collaboration than with multimedia.
That said, when you're working with a good photo editor/multimedia producer, the feeling is the same - you know the end result will be greater than what you are personally contributing, which is a cool feeling...
---What were some of the most important things the workshop taught you?
I think MediaStorm is creating some of the best multimedia out there, so just picking up their way of doing things was valuable in itself. There's no correct formula with mixing audio, stills & video for the web, so it's good to have people who really know what they're doing give you a formula to start with. The course gave me a lot of confidence - I have a lot to learn, but at least I feel like I'm going in the right direction.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT