My assignment was to travel from Coney Island to Times Square, document it and produce a 60-second clip of the journey.
I hadn’t been to Coney Island, so I was excited for the opportunity to see that part of the city. It’s a place that is both eerie and wholly intriguing. Now that it’s winter and the attractions are closed, it has a real post-apocalyptic ghost town feel. Vibrant colors and wide open natural light made it great for filming.
I chose to bike there, because I figured everyone else in my class would take the subway. It was a 30-mile ride to get there that took me down the west side bike path, across Canal Street, over the Manhattan Bridge, down Flatbush Ave to Prospect Park then all the way down Mcdonald Ave. until I made it to the Boardwalk. (Geography nerds, see map below).
Things are quickly wrapping up here at J-school. It’s pretty incredible to think that I’m already halfway done.
One of the bigger projects I produced this semester was for my Digital Media Newsroom course. My partner Alex and I produced a story package that involved text, video and audio slideshow components about the pest control industry in New York City and how it has been affected by the recession and the boom in bedbugs.
I recently filmed, edited and produced this recap of Eric Haze’s solo show in downtown Manhattan for Format Magazine.
Haze is an accomplished graffiti artist, entrepeneur, graphic designer and now a burgeoning fine artist.
He walked me through the exhibit and then we sat down for a little one-on-one interview.
It was certainly a challenge trying to make still paintings move in video, but I think everything came out pretty well. Check it out over at their site.
My buddy Fred Dreier reached out to me after hooking up with Competitor Magazine offering for us to film the ING New York City Marathon for them. It was a long day, but it was really incredible seeing 40,000 runners and what felt like all of New York cheering them on.
I handled the filming, mostly, and Fred put on his competitive running journalist hat, corralling the pros at the end of the race. As members of the “mixed media” we were placed in a tiny box after the finish line, where various sweaty, limping and dazed athletes wearing space blankets were shuttled over to us by public relations people. I can’t imagine ever wanting to be interviewed or even being able to put together intelligible, coherent thoughts after running 26.2 miles, but the finishers were more than accommodating to our pestering immediately after the race.
Here’s the highlight video of the pro race that we put together:
I think Fred has a future in broadcast.
It was quite a weekend of adventure and forgetful “lesson-learning” on my part. (more…)
One of the few things you can get my whole family to agree to watch on TV is dog agility competitions. The animals are trained to quickly pass through a series of obstacles at their owner’s command.
Apparently, people run their cats through obstacle courses as well.
Apparently, its a growing sport.
Apparently, I even missed Whoopi Goldberg running her cat through the course yesterday.
The only difference is these cats aren’t trained. This is one of those only-in-America, people-and-their-pets kind of things that you have to see to believe. (more…)
As you can see from the post below, my buddy Matthew Huisman and I covered/rode in the 2009 Broadway Bomb longboard race.
We got our story and video published at the Westside Independent. Check it out here. (more…)
On Saturday, my buddy Matt and I went out and covered the Broadway Bomb, an unsanctioned longboard race that ran from 116th Street and Broadway all the way down to 10th Street in lower Manhattan. Call it what you want: illegal, underground, grassroots, it was pretty incredible to see. In all, I think the skateboarders traveled 8 1/2 miles, alongside taxis, buses, police cruisers and throngs of tourists in Times Square. I followed along on my bike and Matt actually raced on his board with flip cam in hand. I threw together a little video of the event. (more…)
This is James. He’s my girlfriend’s little brother. Also, he’s the man. Seriously, this kid should be sponsored by Sharpie or something. He volunteered to let me shoot him in the playground outside my apartment for my Digital Media Newsroom class. It was my first time working with video since high school, I forgot how fun it is. Click the picture to watch.
NOTE: The video was shot in HD so start playing, hit pause, let it load all the way and then play the video. Otherwise it will be all jumpy.
