Actually, hypotheticals aside, “Truth to Power” is my proudest moment from my time at Columbia.

My partner, Evan Wexler and I, were able to spend weeks with Danny Panzella (On the right in the picture) and Craig Fitzgerald (in yellow), two New Yorkers with a real passion for the truth. You see, while the rest of us spend our weekends relaxing, brunching and soaking up the sun, these guys spend every Saturday down at Ground Zero getting the word out about their beliefs regarding what really went down on 9/11 and how this kind of thing has been happening and will continue to happen in the United States. On top of that, you can find them at just about every rally, political event or social gathering of note in New York City ready to get the word out about the truth. In their words, they are the true Patriots. None of this Fox News-Glenn Beck-Tea Party stuff. These guys are the real deal. Call them conspiracy wackos or enlightened patriots, they really don’t care until everyone has heard their message.

So, without further ado, I present “Truth to Power.”

We produced this 22-min documentary as part of Duy Linh Tu’s Multimedia Storytelling class. It was, by far, the pinnacle of my time at Columbia. I think most of the people in the class would agree. After watching mine, I would highly suggest checking out the rest of the class’ videos here.

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.

[blip.tv ?posts_id=3182386&dest=-1]

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).

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=40.673348,-73.744354&spn=0.49578,0.836334&msid=117499681667323575030.00047e96487c8774b42ee&output=embed&w=500&h=412]

Needless to say, I worked up quite a sweat. As soon as I stopped moving and started filming, the magnificent winter sea breeze froze my damp clothing immediately. Looking through my footage back in the lab, I noticed the camera seemed to do a lot of shaking towards the end due to my incessant shivering.

Pleased with the shooting I had done, I hopped back on my bike. Not 10 minutes into the return trip, I heard the familiar, terrifying noise of a flat tire.

“POP. SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” it screamed at me.

I came to a halt, luckily right below the elevated Avenue U Station of the F train. I hauled my bike up to the platform. The turnstile was one of those full-length cages so I had to shove my bike in, swipe my card, then push it through.

Then, I had to swipe myself through.

“INSUFFICIENT FARE,” the angry green letters beamed back at me.

Here I was in the middle of Gravesend, Brooklyn with my precious bike on the other end of the turnstile.

I walked down to street level and hurried to the other end of the platform, refilled my Metrocard and went to rescue my bike. All the while, I stopped to shoot some hurried video.

Luckily, my bike was still there. Although it had been moved aside to let passengers through.

Now, if you ask me to name the two most awkward things to do on the New York City Subway system, I would list them in this order: 1) film strangers. 2) lug a bike onto the train.

I had to do both.

It wasn’t the most enjoyable experience, but I’m alive and I’m glad to have done it.

I’m a journalist, I like having a good story to tell.

For my video, keep reading after the jump or go straight to the Digital Media Newsroom site.

Here is the video:
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/8043244]
However, please check out the full product at the Digital Media Newsroom site where you can also browse the work that my other classmates produced.

Its been quite an interesting journey that has involved, among other things, donning full-body suits and filming an extermination in a bedbug-infested apartment.

I think it took me two weeks to finally stop being paranoid that I had brought bedbugs back with me. Every piece of lint in my bed gave me a heart attack. I can assure you, I am not infested.

Looking back on the experiences I’ve had this semester, there is a lot I would do differently. However, every time I messed up, I was so thankful that I was here at school instead of out in the field. The room for error that journalism school provides is something that allows my time here to pay for itself over and over. I know that if I make a mistake, and I most definitely will, its not my job on the line. Instead, its an opportunity to improve on my faults and makes me that much more capable in the end.

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 new piece, for The Bronx Ink, can be read here.

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:
[blip.tv ?posts_id=2833752&dest=-1]
I think Fred has a future in broadcast.

It was quite a weekend of adventure and forgetful “lesson-learning” on my part.

At Columbia, I’ve found that most of the really pivotal “learning” that I do always, without fail, happens the hard way.

Exhibit A: The beginning of Fred and my marathon coverage adventure began with an 8 a.m. wake-up on Saturday followed by a rain-and-sweat-soaked bike sprint with a video camera on my back to the Fifth Avenue Niketown where Lance Armstrong was in town to do a PR fun run with the public in Central Park. We were to film it, and, if possible, score a interview with Lance. We arrived just minutes before the start. I was still wiping the sleep from eyes and Fred’s night of Halloween celebrations left him in no better state. We quickly chained our bikes and set about weeding our way through the two hundred-strong group of runners, many of them adorned in Lance’s iconic Livestrong yellow. I put the camera bag down and quickly took to setting up as Lance and the group was about to take off momentarily.

I picked up the camera, shuffled through the bag to get my battery. I Kept shuffling. I unzipped the side pockets, rifled through. Nothing.

No batteries.

Dejected, I walked across the street to Fred.

“There’s no batteries in the case,” I said.

You could almost hear him deflating. The early-morning bleariness confused him enough that he tried ponder ways around it, but it was clear that we weren’t going to film Lance without batteries for the camera.

Thankfully, Fred was in good spirits. The guy doesn’t get down over much. He’s had three bikes stolen and his apartment ransacked since moving to NYC, but I don’t think it’s possible to sway him.

In my defense, the equipment room’s standard procedure for checking out video cameras is to equip the student with a set of two batteries. In their defense, I most certainly should have double-checked for batteries myself.

Will I ever check out a camera with out making sure I have batteries again? Nope.

LESSON LEARNED.

Exhibit B: This episode of my forgetfulness was far less detrimental, but very similar in that it involved an early-morning bike sprint. This time, it was Sunday (race day), and I met Fred at Central Park near the 90th street entrance before we were to ride the Queensboro Bridge. As I rode up to him, I saw his shiny white press pass dangling from his neck. Which reminded me that I had forgotten mine at my apartment on 109th and Broadway. I was already running a bit late, but this was the NYC marathon. There was no just holding a camera and hoping that makes you official enough. I had to go back and get my credentials.

I gave Fred the camera, sprinted back home, got my pass and sped off to the Bridge. Luckily, since most of Madison Avenue was completely devoid of cars because of the race, I had the surreal opportunity of bombing down an empty New York City Avenue completely uninhibited.

I got there with plenty of time. We filmed the crowds, the women’s lead pack and the men’s lead pack as the came off the bridge into Manhattan at the sixteenth mile. They were incredible athletes. It was like they were running at a full sprint for 26.2 miles. The winner, Meb Keflezighi’s average miles splits were under five minutes.

So will I ever not give myself adequate time in the morning before I have to go cover an assignment again? And, will I ever leave the house without doing a thorough mental check to assure I have everything I need?

Probably, yes. Probably, over and over again. I just love sleep.

But I will get better at this.

LESSON (kind of) LEARNED.

While our main objective was to cover the more competitive side of the Marathon, the event itself was largely dominated by the lighter side of things. The crowds were absolutely nuts and the only thing crazier was the characters actually running the race. Fred edited together a piece about the freaks and geeks of the NYC marathon.

[blip.tv ?posts_id=2833764&dest=-1]
The whole atmosphere reminded me of my Iceman racing days. Professional athletes + thousands of crazy yahoos (mainly the Clydesdale crowd) = a really good time.

As for Perky Jerky, Yes, it’s real. People come up with the craziest things. Take a look here.

You can see our videos on the competitor.com Web site as well as some additional interviews we shot with marathon all-star Paula Radcliffe on her disappointing performance, Desiree Ficker on her choice to run the marathon and triathlete Peter Reid.

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.

So how do you get the cats to run through the course? You kind of have to trick them.

“Oh they’re not following orders, absolutely not,” said Jill Archibald, head of feline agility for the Cat Fancier’s Association. “Cats, They have a committee and they come to an agreement and basically the consensus is ‘OK you’ve got a cool toy and I want to play with it.’”

And the sport is serious. A CFA agility course consists of 10 obstacles which the cast must go under, over, around or through all while being timed. Archibald said there is about one competition a month.

Now why did I end up spending my Sunday watching feline agility demonstrations?

Weeks ago, my classmates and I were sent out to record a “process” with several interviews. The footage wasn’t spoken of for a couple weeks so I went ahead and deleted it. Bad call. Our instructor wanted us to edit it up for a later class so I had to shoot something new. I looked in the AP daybook for something and found the Cat Fancier’s Association and the American Kennel Club were putting on an exhibition called “Meet the Breeds” at the Jacob Jarvits Center in Midtown. It was funny being there, because only a month ago I had been at the same place to see my mother at an Amway expo.

Anyway, I figured I could find something story worthy with just about every dog and cat breed known to man in one giant room. I even saw Uno, the beagle who was crowned last year’s Champion at the Westminster Dog Show.

How’s that for a Sunday well spent?

I’m currently putting a clip together from the event. it will be focused on the exhilarating new event called “feline agility.” It’s thrilling. If you love cats.

Only if you love cats.