DURHAM, NC (June 17, 2008) – The 48 stories produced by participants in NPPA's Multimedia Immersion workshop during Convergence '08 in Louisville, KY, in May are now live on a new Web site launched today.
"Through a lot of hard work by the organizers, the coaches, sponsors, and the students, 48 stories were produced about the Louisville area," NPPA's Multimedia Committee chairman and Multimedia Immersion workshop co-director Seth Gitner of The Roanoke Times said.
"For four days and almost 15 hours a day students learned through hands-on instruction from some of the best multimedia storytellers in the industry. The goal was to give students skills that will enable them to push forward in the changing world of multimedia photojournalism.
At the NPPA Multimedia Immersion workshop each participating student had the choice of doing an audio slide show or a video, and they were coached by the staff of instructors and professional multimedia producers. Each participant used Canon XHA1 video cameras, Sennheiser Microphones, and Apple MacBook Pro computers and the software Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro and Soundslides to produced their story.
Participant Joe Mahoney said, "Amid picking up a good deal of technical information about Final Cut, Canon cameras, and other gear, being able to to talk to Zach Wise of LasVegasSun.com and Regina McCombs from the Star-Tribune greatly changed and improved how I approach storytelling with audio and video." Mahoney is ths assistant director of photography and video for The Rocky Mountain News in Denver.
"We had 25 coaches from throughout the photojournalism industry volunteering their time to 48 students learning the ins and outs of multimedia photojournalism," Gitner said.
"Our students included Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers Renée C. Beyer and Paul Kitagaki, Jr. of the Sacramento Bee; along with Mahoney, Judy DeHaas and Janet Reeves, members of the multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning team from the Rocky Mountain News."
Coach and instructor Bob Sacha, a photographer who shoots for National Geographic and a multimedia producer for MediaStorm.org, said, "One great thing about being a coach was being surrounded with all this amazing talent, from students and from other coaches. I might have learned more at this workshop than at any other workshop I ever attended, either as a student or as a coach. It was awesome!"
Several of the participants were college photojournalism professors, including Jackie Bell from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
"I now feel much more prepared to introduce video into my classes and into the Missourian," Bell said. "I've introduced it already on a minor level, but this has given me the confidence to be more proactive. And I'm excited to keep working on it myself."
Gitner offered a special thanks to the NPPA Multimedia Immersion workshop's sponsors, "without whom the Multimedia Immersion Workshop could not have happened," he said.
NPPA's Multimedia Immersion workshop was sponsored by Apple's Aperture Software; B&H Photo and Video; Cradlepoint Technology; Canon Professional Video; Libec; MediaStorm; Olympus Audio Recorders; OnOneSoftware; Sennheiser; ThinkTank Photo; Vuvox and Visual Portfolio Pro.
See the workshop's 48 finished multimedia stories online here.
