Whitney Shefte Multimedia

The city's sauce

2011-07-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

I produced this video on D.C.’s semi-famous Mumbo Sauce, also known as Mambo Sauce to some. Most of the home-grown folks I talked to have known about the sauce for years and grew up getting it from their favorite Asian carryout restaurant. But the transplants who have only moved to D.C. in recent years have never even heard of the stuff. Arsha Jones, who recently launched a business making a bottled version of Mumbo, makes the point that if she were moving in from a different place, she probably wouldn’t go to the seedy carryout joints either. And those are the places where the sauce is found. And the sauce is always different depending on where you go because most of the carryout restaurants make it themselves from a secret recipe. It’s a story about a funky sub-culture that thrives in this city but remains a secret to so many.

House for homeless GLBT youth

2011-06-20T05:11:00.000-07:00

The Wanda Alston House in northeast Washington is a transitional housing space for homeless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) youth. Eight to nine people between the ages of 16 and 24 live in the house at any given time and there is wait list of 10 to 25 more all the time. I produced this video story about the house, focusing on a transgender woman named Sarah Feliciano. Sarah moved to the house in March after staying at Ronald Reagan National Airport instead of sleeping on the streets or in a shelter. She was initially shunned from her mother’s home after revealing her desire to live as a woman, as Sarah, instead of as a man, named Guy. This story tries to take a look at the struggles these GLBT youth face, especially those who are transgender, and the solutions that this house helps provide for them.

Closure never comes for 9/11 survivor

2011-06-20T05:07:00.000-07:00

Though Kathy Dillaber survived attacks on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, her sister did not. Dillaber recalls seeing her sister at work that morning where they discussed the attacks on the Twin Towers they had just learned about on the news. Almost ten years after that day, Dillaber considers what the death of Osama bin Laden means for her while visiting her sister's memorial bench at the Pentagon Memorial. See the video here.

Race and the recession: How Americans are getting by

2011-03-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

African Americans in Prince George's County, Md., grapple with how to get by as they face increasing unemployment and foreclosure. See the video here.

Keeping hair during chemotherapy

2011-03-03T14:01:00.000-08:00

Breast cancer patient Katherine Klein brings a team of people to her oncologist's office, including her husband, to assist her in the cumbersome process of putting cold caps on her head during chemotherapy treatment. The caps are worn in an effort to prevent Klein's hair from falling out. See the video here.

The worry about losing welfare

2010-12-21T09:11:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-07T16:33:00.000-08:00

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

2010-10-05T08:21:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

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

2010-02-22T06:52:00.001-08:00

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.

Wasting Away: The Squandering of D.C.'s AIDS Dollars

2009-12-08T19:04:00.000-08:00

Wasting Away: Failing the sick in an ailing city
While the sick languished in alleyways and on park benches in the city with the nation's highest AIDS rate, D.C. government allowed widespread waste and mismanagement to overwhelm the city's AIDS services. A three-part documentary explores some of these groups and the lives impacted by a lack of care.

A House for healing
When Leshelle Hicks came to Joseph's House, a D.C. hospice for people with HIV/AIDS and other terminal illnesses, her health was failing. Today, she believes the program saved her life.

Last Chance High School

2009-12-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

At-risk teenagers who have struggled in traditional high school try to make it through tough academic
and physical rigiors of the strict military-style school
Freestate Challenge Academy at Aberdeen Proving Fround in Maryland.

Part 1:

Part 2:

A Great-Grandmother's Love

2009-12-08T18:53:00.001-08:00

Gail Ertel cares for her great-granddaughter, McKenzie Campbell, who is blind, autistic and medically fragile. Since McKenzie requires constant attention, Ertel is unable to work and must rely on outside funding to make ends meet.

Racing Against the Odds

2009-12-08T18:50:00.000-08:00

Matt Bowie, a T8 paraplegic who lost mobility in his legs due to a spinal cord injury in 1981, races his 1970 Camaro SS using adaptive hand controls at the 75-80 Dragway in Monrovia, Md., every weekend.

No Greater Love

2009-12-08T18:49:00.002-08:00

Fish & Politics

2009-12-08T18:49:00.001-08:00

Virginians gather in Wakefield to eat shad, drink beer and mingle with gubernatorial candidates Bob McDonnell (R), Brian Moran (D) and Terry McAuliffe (D) at the annual Shad Planking.

Sacred Ground: The Building of the Pentagon Memorial

2009-12-08T18:47:00.000-08:00

Assessing Obama's First 100 Days

2009-12-08T18:46:00.002-08:00

At the Newseum, the public rates Obama's first months in office.

Resolving Conflict Without Courts

2009-12-08T18:46:00.001-08:00

The Community Conferencing Center, a non-profit organization in Baltimore, helps people settle disputes by talking to one another face-to-face.

Drumming for Dialogue is another video I produced for this story.

Presidential Prodigy

2009-12-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

Molly O'Hare, 10, a fourth-grader at St. James Catholic School in Falls Church, Va., can list all of the Presidents of the United States in order, backwards and by random number.

Failing the Chesapeake Bay

2009-12-08T18:44:00.001-08:00

In communities along the water's edge, where the bountiful estuary empties and the health disolves, residents say the region's culture is also eroding.

The Healing Fields

2009-12-08T18:41:00.000-08:00

Hundreds of uninsured and underinsured Americans flock to Wise County, Va., every year to seek treatment at a makeshift field hospital operated by the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps. For three days in this isolated corner of Appalachia, a small army of health-care professionals offers medical attention to patients who are not likely to see another doctor or dentist all year. The annual clinic saves lives and alleviates suffering, but in the face of a growing national health-care crisis, it may not be enough.

This project was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award in 2009.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/interactives/healingfields/

Voting on Faith and the Fight

2009-12-08T18:40:00.000-08:00

Members of Wave Church in Virginia Beach, evangelical Christians who could have a say in the outcome of the presidential election, discuss their views.

Careless Detention

2009-12-08T18:38:00.002-08:00

Many immigration detainees endure substandard medical care, but people with mental illness are relegated to the darkest and
most neglected corners of the system.

Rehabilitation Returned

2009-12-08T18:38:00.001-08:00

Audio Slideshow: One of Michael Vick's pit bulls assumes the unlikely role of a therapy dog to juvenile offenders and cancer patients.

Pope Benedict XVI's Historic Visit to New York

2009-12-08T18:37:00.001-08:00

Timelapse: The Show Before the Auto Show

2009-12-08T18:35:00.001-08:00

Workers set up over a period of a few days for the 2008 Washington Auto Show at the Washington Convention Center.

"I'm A Viking, That's the Thing to Be"

2009-12-08T18:33:00.001-08:00

People interested in Viking history and sailing take a voyage on the replica Viking longship called the Sae Hrafn, which means "sea raven," from Calvert Marina on Solomons Island, Md.

Special Olympics: Sailing for Gold (Video)

2007-11-18T13:32:00.000-08:00

I shot and edited this video this past Spring with Chinese student Jun "Shell" Zhu for a UNC project for the Special Olympics World Games. This video is about Todd Ornstein, a Special Olympics sailor, and his sister and Unified Partner in the Games, Stacey Perry, preparing for their upcoming competition in China.

Why We Compete - Adrenaline

2007-11-18T11:53:00.001-08:00

I traveled to West Virginia with Post photographer Preston Keres to cover BASE jumping at Bridge Day 2007 for our Why We Compete series. Around 400 people parachuted off the New River Gorge Bridge during the six-hour period the state legally allows the sport. I made panoramas and gathered ambient and interview audio and later edited and produced the project when we got back to D.C.

Virtual Cockpit

2007-11-18T11:44:00.000-08:00

This is an interactive audio panorama that shows the cockpit of a 757 airplane and gives explanations about what different devices do via audio clips from pilot Capt. Sidney L. Clark, Jr. It is for a Kidspost series about different jobs children are interested in pursuing when they grow up.

From Flat to Fabulous: How to Prepare and Style a Spatchcocked Turkey

2007-11-18T11:28:00.000-08:00

I made photos, gathered audio and edited this how-to audio gallery for post.com's 2007 Holiday Guide.

Fall Dining Guide - Photo Gallery and Panorama with Audio

2007-06-07T06:38:00.000-07:00

For the Fall Dining Guide, I went to two restaurants that were getting high ratings - MiniBar and Cityzen. The reviewer, locally famous Tom Sietsema, then recorded audio to match each piece.

Georgia Avenue Redevelopment - Panos with Audio

2007-06-07T06:11:00.001-07:00

Though I was very pressed for time on this project and wish I could have spent more, it is probably one of the most interesting things I've done for washingtonpost.com. The story is about Georgia Avenue, a neighborhood in NW D.C. that is going through extreme gentrification. People gave many contrasting perspectives about the changes happening there and it gave me a much deeper understanding of how development can have such an expansive impact on a community. I took panos, photos and gathered audio for this project. Because we were visiting people during their business hours, much of the audio comes bundled with a lot of a natural sound that is not normally ideal for an interview situation. But, I think it is fitting considering everything that is going on there, offering a greater sense of place. To see the entire project, click the link above. An example of one of the panos is linked below.

Congressional Cemetery - Panos & Still Images

2007-06-07T06:01:00.001-07:00

This project is about the Congressional Cemetery in D.C. This is a place where people like J. Edgar Hoover and John Phillip Sousa are buried, but the cemetery has become somewhat of an unkempt dog park. I took all of the panoramas and photographs. Click the image above to see the entire project. A sample of one of the panos is linked below.

The Clarendon Conundrum - Panos/Video

2007-06-07T05:37:00.001-07:00

I worked on the panoramas and the video interviews for this project, which is about development in the Arlington, VA neighborhood of Clarendon. To see the entire project via an interactive map, click the image above. Links to specific aspects of the project are available below.

Chinatown 360 PANORAMA

2007-06-07T05:11:00.000-07:00

Click the image to view the pano. You must have Quicktime.

Wedding Multimedia Producer

2007-06-06T06:29:00.000-07:00

I worked as a multimedia producer for Catherine Hall Studios on this project. I took Catherine's photographs and audio from a wedding she covered in Costa Rica to edit and produce this piece. Since it is flash-based, there is no direct link to the piece. Thus, you must go to Catherine's site, click Multimedia and then click View Image Narration Examples.

Eddie Adams Workshop - Multimedia Producer

2007-06-06T06:21:00.000-07:00

In October 2006, through my internship at the time at Washingtonpost.com, I was asked to go to the Eddie Adams Workshop as a faculty multimedia producer. There, I produced a story by a student photographer at the workshop, Catherine Hall. One of the other faculty members, Evan Parker, went along with Catherine on her shoots to gather audio for the story. And it was my job to make editing choices and put it all together. Once you arrive to the linked Eddie Adams Workshop Multimeda site from 2006, scroll to the bottom of the list of stories and click Brown2 to watch Recon Ranger.

Atacama Stories Multimedia - www.atacamastories.org

2007-06-06T05:36:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2006, I traveled to the Atacama Desert of Chile, considered the driest in the world, to document the lives of people who live there. I worked on two stories while there. One, "A Desert Dweller" is about a hippie who lives alone with no electricity nor plumbing with no neighbors for miles. The other story, "Protecting the Frontier", is actually about the hippie's nearest neighbors, a group of police officers who protect Chile's border with Bolivia. Since this site is Flash-based, there are no direct links to specific stories. Instead, you must navigate through the site. To find A Desert Dweller, click the link for portraits.

Once there, click the title of the story, A Desert Dweller. Be sure to turn your volume up, as both of these stories have crucial audio components.To find Protecting the Frontier, back on the navigation bar, click community.Then click Protecting the Frontier to watch the story.

King Cowboy Church - www.carolinaphotojournalism.org/piedmont

2007-06-06T05:24:00.000-07:00

For the final project in the last Photojournalism course a photo major must take at UNC, Documentary Photojournalism, we had to make a story with photos and audio about a topic related to the Piedmont of North Carolina. This story is about the King Cowboy Church in King, NC. It is made in Flash, so there is no direct link to the specific story. After entering the site, click the fourth thumbnail from the left to start mine.

Chasing Crusoe Multimedia - www.rcrusoe.org

2007-06-06T05:01:00.000-07:00

Chasing Crusoe is an interactive documentary multimedia storytelling website that I worked on in the Spring of 2006. A group of us traveled to Robinson Crusoe Island, which is situated about 400 miles west of the Chilean mainland in the Pacific Ocean, to gather documentary stories about life there. The premise of the site was to compare the true story of this place with the classic novel it is named after, "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel DeFoe. I took all of the photos for the story "Changing Times" and some in "Island Life." Since this site is Flash-based, links to each specific story are not avilable. Therefore, after arriving to the site, click the Isla Más a Tierra link in the upper right-hand side of the navigation bar.

Then click the link Changing Times. Be sure to have your volume turned up, as these stories have crucial audio components.

Back on the same Isla Más a Tierra page, click on Island Life to watch that story. All three of the photographers working on the project, including myself, contributed to this story.

SINGLES

2007-06-05T10:01:00.001-07:00

A young boy walks to school in the morning on Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile. Until this recent school year, the island had no high school. Most children would be sent to Santiago or Valparaiso on the mainland to finish school. Some are taking advantage of having a new high school on the island but other families still choose to send their children away in hopes that their education will be better.

Clowns, who had been fundraising for the Ronald McDonald House at Lickity Split, an ice cream shop in Chapel Hill, take a break to eat ice cream. Lickity Split offered to donate a portion of its sales that day to the Ronald McDonald House, which will use the money to serve as a haven for families whose loved ones are away from home and seeking medical treatment.

Krinsa Rojas, 4, listens to her dentist, Mónica Quevedo, explain how she is about to fill a cavity in the girl's teeth. Quevedo is the only dentist on Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile and only one of two professional women there. Though not originally from the island, Quevedo moved there with her husband, who runs a hotel and scuba diving business out of the family's home. La Posta, which is the name of the health center on the island, provides free health care to everyone there through funding from the Chilean government.

Wedding guests dance at the reception of a wedding in Falls Church, Virginia on September 2, 2006.

Children play in the downtown square of San Pedro de Atacama in the Atacama Desert of Chile in June 2006. The Atacama is considered the driest desert in the world, as there are parts where rainfall has never been recorded. However, more than a million people live within in the 600-mile expanse of desert.

A boat heads toward Robinson Crusoe Island, formerly known as Isla Mas a Tierra, in the South Pacific Ocean. Robinson Crusoe Island is the largest of the three islands in the Juan Fernandez archipelago.

A cook at the only pre-school on Robinson Crusoe Island in the Juan Fernandez Archipelago of Chile gazes out of the school's door to yell after someone she knows. Most of the women on the island spend a lot of time cooking, cleaning and working other domestic jobs while the men are usually fishermen.

Stacy King, center, a member of the International Socialists Organization (ISO), chants in protest of the war in Iraq while marching across the National Mall in Washington D.C. on Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007. ISO's aim is to stand for social justice issues and to work toward a future socialist society.

Michael English, a Washington D.C. resident, pulls off a t-shirt bearing an upside-down American flag at the end of the United for Peace and Justice anti-war protest at the National Mall on Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007. This shirt was made by artist Delia Jurek, who set up a display at the protest to sell some of her work while she also participated in the rally.

David Goins, drum major of Cakalak Thunder, leads his protest group in an anti-war song at the National Mall on Saturday, Jan. 27. Cakalak Thunder, which came from Greensboro, N.C., traveled to Washington D.C. to participate in the protest against the war in Iraq sponsored by United for Peace and Justice.

North Carolina linebacker Larry Edwards (32) pops the ball loose from Utah quarterback Brian Johnson (3) in the fourth quarter Saturday, Oct. 1, for one of the Utes’ five turnovers. The Tar Heels defeated the Utes with a final score of 31 to 17. The victory put the Tar Heels back to .500 at 2-2 in the season.

North Carolina junior Ivory Latta (12), guard, smiles at the crowd of mostly Duke fans before the matchup with the Blue Devils on Sunday, Jan. 29. Though the roaring Cameron Crazies, Duke's student peanut gallery, did their best to boo Latta and her teammates, the Tar Heels came out of the game victorious with a final score of 74-70. The two teams were the only Division 1 men's or women's basketball teams left undefeated until this game, which secured the Tar Heels the no. 1 spot in the nation.

Duke's Shelden Williams (23), forward, reaches to block North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough's (50) basket in the match-up between the two rivals at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham on March 7, 2006. Much to the help of Hansbrough, who was recently named as the 2006 Atlantic Coast Conference Freshman of the Year, the Tar Heels were victorious over the Blue Devils with a final score of 83-76. Hansbrough's career-high of 27-points was a key component to North Carolina's win.

North Carolina Coach Roy Williams yells at a referee after one of his players is fouled during the game against Boston College in Chapel Hill on January 25. The Tar Heels lost to the Eagles with a final score of 81-74.

Barbara Rodbell, a Holocaust survivor, tells stories on April 11, 2005 at UNC-CH, of her time in hiding in the Holland underground and how she used fake identification to outwit the Nazis.
After Rodbell finished telling her stories, she challenged students to question what the Holocaust means. She stressed that people must remember the event to avoid future attacks on people of different races and cultural backgrounds.

Tommy Wilcox's aide, Keshawna, talks with him about how one of his roommates was rude to him at the dinner table. She tells him that some people are "just that way and you have to ignore them." Wilcox is a 43-year-old man living with Autism at an assisted living community in Pittsboro, N.C. The timer that Wilcox wears around his neck is set before each task he must complete or place he must be. If Wilcox arrives on time after the timer goes off, he is rewarded with points that add up to money. At the end of the week, Wilcox often uses the money he has made to go to the movies.

Bairon Lopez, 11, kisses his mother's, Ariadne Chamorro, forehead before leaving to go back to school after his lunch break. The family lives on Robinson Crusoe Island in the Juan Fernandez archipelago of Chile. Lunch time is always family time for Chamorro, her husband and their children, who otherwise stay busy. Ariadne sells handcrafts she makes out of fish scales and goes to night school in hopes of getting her high school diploma. Most children on the island go to the mainland of Chile when it is time to begin high school. Ariadne and her husband, Luis Lopez, plan to send Bairon to a school in Valparaiso as they did with their older daughter.

Bastian Espindola, 4, poors water in a cup and throws it on the ground over and over for fun. Bastian lives in the small, ghost-like town of Toconao, in the Atcama Desert of Chile. Water is scarce there in the desert and some of the water that is available is contaminated with arsenic.

A young boy lies in the dirt after falling off of a sheep at the American Legion in King, N.C. on Feb. 26, 2006. The Legion, along with King Cowboy Church, hosts bull riding competitions on Saturday nights. During breaks from the buill riding, children are given the chance to ride sheep in a similar style.

Carlos Torres, a 50-year-old man living alone in the Atacama Desert of Chile near the Bolivian border, gathers water out of a small pond near his house. Torres will use the water to to drink, and cook and clean with, as no plumbing reaches the high altitude where he lives.