The worry about losing welfare

My latest video is about an unemployed D.C. woman with five children who has been on and off welfare for seven years. The D.C. Council took up a proposal today to decide whether to put a five year limit on the cash payments welfare recipients can receive. For now, they decided to modify the proposal to only punish people who don't participate in job training and placement services. See the video here.

The Pot buzz

With DC's newly passed medical marijuana law and California's recent attempt to legalize medical marijuana, I decided to make a couple of videos on the issues. The first video, "The California dream, smoked in D.C.?" is about medical marijuana.

And the second, "Pot politics" is as about Proposition 19

The Cost of War: Traumatic Brain Injury

For the past couple of months I have been working on a big multimedia project on traumatic brain injury and how it can change soldiers' personalities and impact their lives forever. I made six videos and we also had stellar photographs by Marvin Joseph, amazing motion graphics by Alberto Cuadra and Kat Downs put it all together into a really stellar interactive. Christian Davenport wrote the story, which an extremely well-written and moving piece. See the project here. 

Top Secret America

I worked with a huge team of other journalists on our two-year investigation of the government's huge and national security and intelligence system. Specifically, I was one of the folks who worked on the intro video and I also made the video on a security-clearance job fair. See here!

Trouble with horse breeding industry in Maryland

Horse breeder struggles, blames slots

In advance of the Preakness last Saturday, I worked on a story about the declining horse breeding industry in Maryland. Breeders like the one I focused on, Bill Boniface of Bonita Farm, blame their troubles on the fact that surrounding states have slots at their racetracks while Maryland still does not. The video is here and you can also check out Ian Shapira's story here. 

Finding solace in the Virginia countryside

Choosing the Holy Path

I visited Holy Cross Abbey for a day to shoot a video, called Choosing the Holy Path, about what life is like there for the monks. This small group of men spends their day praying and working on their fruitcake operation, which is the source of their livelihood in addition to the guesthouse donations they receive. At the guesthouse, individuals can visit for a few days of near-silence, experiencing the services the monks hold in the chapel and enjoying the beauty of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains. 

Vacations can make for the best projects

India in Motion

In January 2009, friend and colleague Kat Downs and I traveled to India to visit a college friend and to pack as much adventure into eleven days as we could manage. We visited over seven cities including Mumbai and Delhi and took in vibrant sights and sounds along the way. I shot with the Canon 5Dmkii for the first time on this trip, gathering hours of scene footage and collecting ambient sound. When we returned to the US, I worked on editing the video together little by little when I had extra time, eventually putting together India in Motion with the help of Kat's fabulous design. In addition to what I gathered in the field, I put together lots of loops from Soundtrack Pro to create a soundtrack that I felt matched the mood of the visuals. The project is intended to immersive and interactive with short scene videos that demonstrate how colorful, intense and vibrant this country really is.

Moving through Metro

See the video

I was assigned to spend an entire day on the metro, documenting the ebb and flow of passengers' commutes. I did several interviews and originally edited the piece incorporating those interviews. But as I neared the end of the edit, I realized the piece was becoming extremely boring. The comments people made about Metro were not novel sound bytes or expert opinions. People basically said the expected: most are somewhat concerned about their safety but they ride metro anyway because it's their best means of transportation. So instead of sharing thoughts that we all have already heard, I decided to try a more artsy approach. I grabbed some audio clips from Soundtrack Pro and edited the piece to the music. I sped some clips up and slowed some down and tried to create a more emotional scene piece. Here it is.