On-Call: Hydroplane VO
Last weekend I served as an on-call photographer and was called in during a heavy rain storm. One of the jobs I did during that call was to shoot an accident caused by hydroplaning, which later lead the 11PM newscast as a VO. That video is below.
Covering 2 big stories this week
The news in Syracuse this week has been overwhelmed by two very big, late-breaking stories. First, on Monday, a fatal crash along Route 31. Then, Thursday, a shooting at an AT&T store in Rome. These two stories have consumed much of my time during the last four days, and so I wanted to save links to them here for posterity.
Into this posting I’ve embedded a 9WSYR.com Video Report that I arranged and edited using video content shot by a NewsChannel 9 team sent to cover of the shooting. It tells the story of the moments immediately following the shots through statements by two witnesses. It is a web-only video that scored hundreds of views within hours of being posted.
Due in large part to these two big stories, I’m also proud to say we’ve seen amazing amounts of traffic on 9WSYR.com recently.
Kaity the Cartoon Blogger
This post and the 11 others preceding it are embeds of the final News21 stories from my 2009 summer fellowship. These videos are being both hosted on Vimeo and on the project’s website.
I also want to make sure I share credit on these 11 videos with my partner, Andrew Burton, whose work ethic and multimedia skills helped make our team the most prolific and – in my opinion- successful.
In Lincoln City, Oregon, the coolest kid in school isn’t the quarterback or a cheerleader. It’s an artist. Students and teachers alike from Taft High School routinely visit Kaity Curry’s Web site to see if they made it into her “doodle diary.” Her cartoons capture moments in her life that she wants to remember. She posts her favorites to her blog: Frankensteinbeck. She explains: “I like Frankenstein, Steinbeck… oh and the musician, Beck.”
________________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Last Text Message
We asked high school students at Taft High School what their last text message was while taking their portraits. We edited their responses into a video montage.
_______________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
One Text Ahead of the Cops | Sioux County, IA
For generations, most every teenager in Sioux County, Iowa, has cruised Highway 75 on Sunday nights. They gather to hook up, show off, and hang out. The cops can still remember cruising as kids themselves, but now they’re enforcers, cracking down at the urging of shop owners angry with the litter and crowds. The cruisers have adapted. When they’re shooed along, they use text messages to reorganize and regroup at new locations on the fly.
_______________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Yesterday’s Mayor, Today’s Neighbor
Eighteen new computers are in the hands of Wally Bryan’s friends in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Actually, these friends are neighbors, too. Five years ago, Wally used to be their mayor. But he gave it up to help them – and to live where they live. He’s grown his charity out of an apartment and into two homes, with two more to come.
________________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Games of War
The earliest video games by the Atari Company laid down a rule: No player could ever harm a “human” character. Things have changed. Halo and Call of Duty simulate war and killing, and they sell millions of copies a month. The U.S. Army has adopted many video game-style technologies to train soldiers in battlefield procedures and rules of engagement. Soldiers at Fort Campbell in Hopkinsville, Ky., told us that while these simulators look like games they’ve played, it’s very different for them now.
________________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Change the World | Lincoln City, OR
Asking our national question in Lincoln City, OR on Memorial Day brought us answers from all over the state. Beachgoers who could stay their desire for surf and swim long enough to answer our question about changing the world shared with us a wide range of dreams for the future. Medical improvements, environmental dreams, and even a money machine were proposed that day on the Pacific shore.
________________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Change the World | Hopkinsville, KY
Asking our national question in Hopkinsville, Kentucky during the annual soap box derby. Yet fast cars and ice-cream cones weren’t the only excitement to fill the day.
________________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Gen Lap | Hopkinsville, KY
Her assignment was to define shapes and lines. She was already late for school, and her assignment was nearly past due. Jalea Grubbs ran next door to the Challenge House charity run by a man she knows by the southern affection: Mr. Wally. He let her and her mother Latoya into the Challenge House to use his personal computer, and was gratified to see them leave for school armed with smiles and an armful of printouts.
________________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Kiera
As a young child, Kiera Haun suffered physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse in her biological parents’ house. For more than five years, she was moved among seven foster homes; she finally landed with the Hauns two years ago.
The family quickly ran into trouble when Kiera began attracting the attention of men much older than her on the Internet. Her new parents took action, limiting her online life to teach her how to be responsible. Today, Kiera says she will do anything to stay in their house, and she says she understands why they had to take drastic action.
_______________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Gen Lap | Lincoln City, OR
Mthr Tlks 2 Sn Abt Txting
Two people, mother and son, share with us three different views on text messaging. One likes it; one doesn’t, and then changes their mind. Watch this Gen Lap installment and try to figure out, who is lapping whom?
________________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Change the World | Sioux Center, Iowa
At the 500-person-strong Sandbulte Family reunion, we asked people, “How would you change the world with technology, in one way?”
________________
This is a video from youngandthewireless.com, a newhouse.syr.edu and news21.com project.
Disaster Drill
I haven’t done any freelance work since my audio editing for LegalWiz, so today was a welcome experience: 8 hours of video work and archiving for Syracuse Police and Syracuse University on the occasion of the annual disaster drill. Staging a scenario much like the Virginia Tech incident, Syracuse Police partnered with the Newhouse School’s Newspaper department to arrange an on-campus shooter and hostage scenario played out with actors, empty weapons, and even a helicopter rescue. Check out this minute-long clip of my footage following “Team 1,” the first team into the building after the start of the scenario. I am very sure I choose the best minute of the video.
(more…)
Cruise Night
In Sioux Center, Iowa for News21 I have recently stumbled upon the most “news-worthy” story of the Fellowship so far: “Cruise Night.” The Sunday-night hangout is a local tradition that has become a controversy, and it wonderfully fits our project: it is multi-generational, it is uniquely local, and it involves texting technology.
Perhaps this will be our home run on a news story that fits all of theyoungandthewireless’ criteria. I am excited to really start editing it together. Today we spoke to Chief Adkins who explained the methods of policing used to control Cruise Night, and their desired effects. We also had him answer, directly, the most interesting complaints and rumors from the youth we met last Sunday night. His answers were interesting.
Simulator Stories Sneak Peak
Andrew and I are almost finished with a week of editing and logging here in Syracuse and even while we get geared up for our trip to Iowa, we wanted to share this with you: A sneak peak of the work we’ve done with our tours of simulators on Fort Campbell. We’re working on a larger comparison between these military training devices and the video games that people play at home.
The final story we are planning will include four chapters, one for each simulator that we visited.
- The Engagement Skills Trainer (featured in this sneak peak)
- The Blackhawk Helicopter Simulator
- The Vehicular Convoy Combat Trainer
- The Call for Fire (Artillery) Simulator
Becoming the News
While we were out at the Hopkinsville Soap Box Derby, here is what happened: (WARNING, THIS VIDEO MAY BE UNSUITABLE FOR SENSITIVE VIEWERS)
I couldn’t tell the story any better than Andrew did, here is a copy of his tweets:
#theyoungandthewire @pstenser got taken out by a soapbox derby car, unresponsive and seizured for a few moments. at ER, getting cat scanabout 4 hours ago from txt (more…)
Scouting the Soap Box Derby
I’ve been experimenting with photography and combining different cameras. Here is a quick test combining a Canon EOS 1D Mk II N with a HD Flipcam.
The images were gathered while scouting for locations at the preliminary trials of the Hopkinsville Soap Box Derby to use for asking the News21 national question.
Fort Campbell Simulator
Here is a short video package about the first of my 4 planned tours of Army combat simulators that I will be receiving over the next two weeks as part of the News21 Fellowship. Consider it a sneak peak at a much larger story comparing many of the military’s training technologies to entertainment technology like video games.
Generation Lap Sneak Peak
Jace Schwartz and Susan Smith talk about the generation lap they experience as mother and son. In this special sneak peak of their conversation they are talking about text messaging.
Our week in Syracuse is almost over, and if you’ve been following our twitter feeds, you’ll already know that it has been very successful. Of the 5 videos and 1 multimedia gallery we have planned to produce from our trip to Lincoln City, we have brought 4 to the 99% complete mark. Now we wait just for our final branding and graphical design so that our projects will fit the final theme of the site when we publish.
On Monday morning we leave for Hopkinsville, KY. We will be doing many of the same things we did in Lincoln City while we are there, but with a new twist. Hopkinsville is a military community and we intend to find stories about youth and technology in that setting.
Much more to come. Keep checking our blogs and our homepage.
National Question Sneak Peak, Lincoln City
Check out a sneak peak of how Lincoln City answered our national question: How would you rebuild the world with technology?
Making Lemonade
They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I think today’s video speaks well to that old saying, as well as to the collective character of our team.
After 2 appointments canceled on us, we pulled together an interview with Kaity Curry, and it was one of the most interesting so far. Above is what we edited together using only a handful of her images and having reviewed only a portion of the interview with her.
Kaity is a cartoon blogger who tells stories about her life. She says she calls her blog Frankensteinbeck because she enjoyes Frankenstein, the name Frank, Steinbeck, and the musician Beck. More on Kaity is sure to come.
As for how we will plan to follow up on this interview, here is a quote from Kaity’s blog about today’s interview, but for her whole post, click here:
“The Tech-Youth interview will continue tomorrow at lunch in Mr. Howe’s J-Lab… where a camera will probably be set up to observe me drawing in my natural habitat. Oh, how I love journalism. I hope that one day, in the not-too-distant future I’ll be inspired to embark on such a noble journey. This summer, perhaps? I’ll have my D60, my dad’s HD Camcorder, and my super-fine writin’ skills. It could happen. My theme: Otis and Oregon Sub(merged) Culture. Yeah. That’s just off the top of my head, too.”
On the Air with Roger Robertson
Andrew and I were on live radio this morning with Roger Robertson at KBCH talking about how technology is changing teenage lives in Lincoln City. Rather than type more, check out our 1:40 summary video, or if you have the time, listen to the whole broadcast.
Our two minute summary:
Or listen to the full radio broadcast below
Medical Justice
We’ve all heard of doctor-patient confidentiality. The legal and ethical rule by which the doctor cant divulge the private information of you, the patient. In Central New York, one local writer and a number of local doctors are starting to grapple with the question of whether that confidentiality goes both ways. What rights do you have to speak publicly about your doctors, and if you do, what should you choose to talk about?
Produced for CONNECT. See the full episode here.
