30 Day Submission

Baker Creek from Quint Smith on Vimeo.

I ended up feeling pretty good about this story. I feel like there is a lot more there to the story about our food, and the popularity of heirloom gardening. For this project I only had time to build the one perspective. I envision a future version of this story with more characters and points of view. I would like to hear from the companies making the GMO seeds. I think their perspective would be valuable to balance things out a bit. I would like to hear from farmers who are stakeholders hopefully on both sides. Jere talks about small farmers being sued by the big seed-makers. It would be great to add that perspective.

From a visual perspective I was a bit hamstrung by the time of year I chose to tell this story. I shot a lot of b-roll that just didn't up being relevant to the story I ended up telling. I wanted the final story to be about GMO versus heirloom which gets to the heart of what the two guys are passionate about. It would have been nice to have purple tomatoes on the vine when he talks about them. I feel I thoroughly shot everything there was to see down at Baker Creek at the beginning of winter. I didn't end up in Jere's house except to film in the greenhouse out back. Now that I know where I ended up with the final version I don't think those shots would have been necessary.

I had a couple of issues with the interview footage. Although I still think it looks quite nice, I sat on the wrong side of the camera. It makes them look slightly off camera for some of it. The other issue was one I anticipated. I wanted to shoot this with multiple cameras but felt like I would only be able to reasonable monitor one plus the audio recorder while conducting an interview. I wanted a tight shot so I brought a Nikon with a 70-200 and set it somewhere like f5.6. I thought that would provide enough depth of field for that shot but it came out looking so much fuzzier than the primary shot. Part of that could be that my camera and lens just seems very sharp footage, but I would have benefitted from a camera operator for the tight angle. Multimedia really works well in teams. Things can get really complicated quickly when working alone.

I was pleased with how this turned out. In spite of the visual issues I pointed out above I think I ended up with a very watchable story.

30 day work in progress

For my 30 day project I'm working on a story about Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. The project has gone pretty well so far. The company has become huge and its owner has gone from a person with a small dream to sell seeds to a very successful businessman. One of the concerns I have with this story is avoiding making a PR piece for the company. There are several good story lines at play, and I don't want to get sucked into making something that is meaningless. I have decided to try to look at this from the perspective of the modernization required to keep up with booming business in a grassroots enterprise.

The place is pretty neat. He has built a village around the home he lives in on the farm. They have a restaurant, flour mill, apothecary, seed store, jail and several other structures making up the main drag. Down the hill from that is the warehouse where the bulk of the business is done. He has just installed a conveyor system to sort seeds for shipment down there. Workers in old fashioned clothing use tablets to see what inventory to place on the belt. 

I don't know why, but I keep finding myself drawn to the americana type stories. I like things that are quirky and contain ironies. I know there is a story here that will meet the requirements of the 30 day project, but there is also a bigger story. In that story Baker Creek is only a character amongst a few others. It's important to talk about what is happening with our food supply. I can envision a future story where Baker Creek, farmers, consumers, and the big corporations that supply seeds like Monsanto all have a voice. 

Here is a very rough cut of interview and b roll footage. It isn't very watchable yet, but this is where I will be pulling content for the finished version. I plan to stick with these interviews but return to Baker Creek to shoot a lot more b roll. 

  

CPOY

CPOY was a fantastic experience for me this year. I have never attended either CPOY or POYi, and getting to be on the promotional team was an honor. I missed out on some of what I might have gained as an audience member, but being able to produce content for the event more than made up for it. I found myself thinking that the opportunity to work with a great team while building some skills was a preferable experience to me than success in the competition itself would have been. Not that I had any. This was the first time I had entered anything in any sort of competition and all of my work was voted out in the first round.

I had some friends do well, and that was great to see. Kevin won a category with a series he shot back home in Philly, and I think the honor meant a lot to him. I was particularly excited to see MU do well in the multimedia categories. In the past I’ve thought that there was no reason Mizzou couldn’t compete in that area, and this year we did.

I was encouraged to see the sort of multimedia that did well in the competition. I feel like I’m definitely capable of producing work on par with anything I saw. I didn’t feel quite as confident about competing in the still photo categories. I know I could be a great staffer for someone, but I have some work to do before I will be making award worthy stills. The bigger lesson here is about what I’m driven to do. I want to create rich multimedia stories. I find it exciting to think about working on those sorts of projects. I don’t feel that as much for still photography. I do enjoy stills as a medium, but I could see myself devoting my life to working on multimedia projects. I mentioned this sentiment to the multimedia judges during lunch one day and they enthusiastically agreed. It was nice to see the same sort of excitement from young professionals at the top of their game.

I felt that the work we did on the promotional team was very effective. We didn’t produce all of the things we had hoped to during the week, but what we did accomplish was no easy task. Hany was organized, and everyone on the team was talented. One of my favorite things about making multimedia is seeing the team I’m working on click to produce more than any one of us would be capable of alone.

There were also a few things that I think we could have done better. The blog isn’t really laid out well to handle the amount of content we were pushing to it. Posts that were still new were being pushed off of the front page pretty quickly. It also could use a way to navigate by content type. If someone wants to find all of the videos there should be a way to go straight to them. We also had a bit of a bottleneck at the editing phase. This may be as simple as going across the street to the lab to edit like I did this year. It would be nice if we had at least one dedicated machine for editing with enough power to do multicam. If there are teams in the future pushing out the amount of content we were this year it might be worth addressing this issue. Even an older Mac Pro loaded up with ram could be the answer.

The experience as a whole was quite rewarding. Working for CPOY was outside of the scope of my normal coursework, but the rewards of being involved to the degree that I was made it something I would do again without even having to think about it. Some of the experiences I’ve had as a journalism student here that have yielded the most growth have been things that aren’t graded. I will be a better professional in this field as a result of having the opportunity to work on this team. I hope future students pick up where we left off and move forward to do even better things.

Character Profile

I did my character profile on Harrisburg High School cheerleader Trey Cook.




This story could have gone better. I found myself, once again, struggling to find the narrative. I ended up making it a simple piece about being a male cheerleader in a small town. I suppose that's what I set out to do in the first place. I just found myself lacking direction at some point in the middle of it all. During the edit I had some time to reflect on what worked and what didn't. My audio is pretty good with the exception of the second clip. It required some work in audition due to the known overmodulation caused by the wireless mics we used. That was from the very beginning of the interview when I was still getting all of my levels worked out. Visually, I wish I had edited the audio sooner, then returned with a list of shots to get. Unfortunately, by the time I realized what I was missing it was too late. These are good lessons for the thirty day project. I will be reviewing my material immediately and taking notes to be sure that one is a strong story.

24 Hour Story

Neil Elbert, left, and Jacob Lehr inspect corn from last year’s crop by tasting it Thursday, September 19 in Washington, Mo. They are hopeful this year’s corn will replenish supplies after Last year’s yielded less than expected due to to drought.

Sorted corn cobs fill the second floor of the Missouri Meerschaum Company’s factory building Thursday, September 19 in Washington, Mo. The cobs are stored in their sorted piles until they are needed downstairs where they will be sculpted into one of the company’s unique products.

William Spindler sands down the outside of a pipe bowl Friday, September 13, in Washington, Mo. Factory workers use specialized equipment and methods to meet the factory’s demand to ship 3500 pipes per day.

William Spindler bores out the center of corn cobs with a drill press Thursday, September 19 in Washington, Mo. The Missouri Meerschaum Company’s employees have been shaping cobs into pipes in this building since the 1880s.

Finished pipes are arranged on a display for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair on Friday, September 13, in Washington, Mo. The pipe display was recently closed to the public due to theft.

From left, Orvil Schwartz, William Spindler, Robert Carey, Michael Just, Shawn Mitchell and Craig Haddox relax outside a door at the factory that faces the Missouri River on Thursday, September 19 in Washington, Mo. Factory employees often spend their entire working career with the company.

Pageant Layout

Bird by Bird

It's interesting to think about the disciplines that can be improved by using the strategies an author would use to write. Lamott stresses the importance of creating a routine that encourages creativity. A time when we get used to tapping into that side of our brains. This sort of routine can also add structure in fields like photography, writing, art, music, etc... that may not have it inherently and may attract practitioners who don't come by it naturally. 

Her small picture frame and bird by bird strategy would be very helpful in my own work. It's so easy to become discouraged by taking on the big picture. Setting up reminders to allow us to look at a smaller part of it can help us along when we feel stuck and overwhelmed. 

Stories

I"ll start with two multimedia pieces out of Spain. One is about a man who makes suits for bullfighters, and the other is about a man who has been in a coma for over 20 years.



Justo Algaba:Sastre de toreros/Torero tailor. (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) from Miguel Fernández Flores on Vimeo.

I thought this was a nice piece combining new and old footage. It's interesting subject matter and highly visual. I don't really understand why we don't see him working. Maybe someone trying on a suit. The story has so much more visual potential than I see here.

And here is Coma.



COMA from Adriano Morán on Vimeo.

Another fascinating subject. I don't know that I'm down with the speed changes in this one. I like the straightforward cuts in the first video. I also want to get more of a sense of place. Something wider that establishes the scene.

I've been watching a lot of multimedia stories this week and they often feel a little long. Both of these could have had a tighter edit. Something like three minutes instead of five. They need to have more visual variety and more complex story-lines to justify them being five minutes.

I'll also include this portrait series by Gabriele Galimberti. This is a project called Toy Stories where he photographed children around the world with their favorite possessions. I like this one because it's beautiful, relatable an telling. Things that are the same and things that are different between work well for this series. Link below.

Toy Stories