Multimedia post mortems

Behind the scenes of Roanoke.com’s "Running on empty"

Below is a brief account on what the production schedule consisted of for the “Running on Empty” multimedia package and how this story came together.

As a newcomer to Roanoke several months ago, I was particularly interested in learning about local running clubs. Within minutes, the Hellgate race kept appearing within my search results. Who does this kind of thing? What does it take mentally to run 67 miles in the woods at night? Without even realizing it, my personal inquiry took a backseat as I became transfixed with the race details and knew that I had to tell their story. After looking through the race results, I noticed that only one woman, Rebekah Trittipoe, had finished the race three of the past four years. Why didn’t she finish last year? Was she going to try again this year? As the questions kept coming, I was certain that I had to tell this story through her eyes.

Upon meeting Rebekah, I knew that she was the perfect subject to introduce our viewers to ultrarunning. As I began to document her lifestyle and training regimen, our graphics department worked on building the course and elevation graphics. I pulled in photographer Josh Meltzer to help capture Rebekah’s candid moments as Seth Gitner dedicated his time to driving around and producing panoramas of the race course. With only a week to go before the race, I began bringing together the content with an intuitive navigation and easy, straight-forward design. Once the design and programming was complete, we launched a preview version of the package which allowed our audience to get to know Rebekah and learn about the course.

As I set out Friday night with cameras, lights and warm clothing I couldn’t help but laugh at myself for what the next 24 hours would bring. With Rebekah’s husband and son to keep me company, we raced from one aid station to the next up, over and around mountains through the wee hours of the night. I had made a personal goal to have rough edits of each video done by the time Rebekah finished the race so I repeatedly shot video at one aid station, drove to the next, captured the video on my computer, began editing while watching for Rebekah, shot video of her, packed up and drove the next station, etc etc. It was exhilarating but exhausting. Josh met us the next morning to help photograph the race as well as produce some more video. After 15 hours and 40 minutes, Rebekah raced a personal best (PR) and I packed up the car to finish production back at the office.

By the next afternoon, we had produced nine videos, a comprehensive photo gallery and built out the last section of the site. After working 36 hours in the past two days, I was excited with the result but ready for a nap!

This project couldn’t have been possible without the help of a team of dedicated journalists. We all learned a lot both about the sport of ultrarunning and the commitment to undertake such a large project. It truly was a great experience for all those involved and I can only hope that the final result captures the dedicated lifestyle of ultrarunners.

Other posts that might interest you:

• Behind the Scenes of JSOnline’s “Wasted in Wisconsin”
• Behind the scenes of New York Times “Olympics Medal Count Map”
• Behind the scenes: Roanoke.com’s “Taubman Museum of Art”

© 20 December 2007 Innovative Interactivity (II).