Innovative Individuals

Innovative Individuals: Dai Sugano

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Multimedia extraordinaire Dai Sugano came highly recommended for inclusion in the “Innovative Individuals” series. I first stumbled across his work awhile back when I was looking through all of the inspirational multimedia on MercuryNewsPhoto.com, which he helped create. After spending some time on his Web site to learn that he teaches multimedia at Stanford in addition to his role as Senior Multimedia Editor at San Jose Mercury News, I realized that he had earned this title long ago. Thus, I am excited to kick off the new year by featuring Dai Sugano as 2010′s first innovative individual.

Q) How do you drive innovation in your work?

A) Innovation to me is an organic process and is sometimes found in the process of doing. As a photojournalist, editing in Final Cut Pro is both fun and challenging. When I try to do something new, a kind of video editing I haven’t done for example, I know it’s not gonna be great, but I do it because I know that sometimes the new technique will lead to something and I begin to see it develop as another method. I especially experienced this growth when I edited both a fashion video “Spring Glow” and a video essay on poverty, “India’s Left Behind.” The organic process makes editing really interesting when discoveries happen. Sometimes they happen during the short breaks between sitting in front of my laptop and I go back ready to edit the next sequence.

Q) What piece in your portfolio are you most proud of and why?

A) Producing “Uprooted” was a memorable experience. I had hours and hours of footage after shooting for over six months. I felt like techniques and know-how I gained while doing short videos and some experimental pieces helped me in covering what I thought was an important story to tell. Working on in-depth stories about social issues, like Uprooted, makes me realize what I really like and appreciate about being a photojournalist in the first place as I work with the people I encounter.

Q) Please provide a brief educational and professional history.

A) Grew up in Japan until I was 18, then moved to the U.S. I have a B.S in Journalism from San Jose State University. Did a few internships including the Seattle Times and San Jose Mercury News where I currently work as Photojournalist and Senior Multimedia Editor.

Q) Where do you believe multimedia fits into today’s society and how will that role change over time?

A) In terms of journalists using multimedia, delivering on an internet platform lets us have a little more control as to how long the piece can be, enabling journalists to go deeper when stories require more space to develop the issue at hand. At the same time, we have to be better editors with our work, just because there is more space doesn’t mean the quality should suffer. I like how flexible each piece can be in multimedia storytelling, allowing for pace changes in a single piece, a lot of visuals in one frame to a very simple yet powerful photograph in another frame. And these are just a couple of examples, the potential is amazing. So, we have these incredible opportunities to tell stories in powerful ways with photos, video, info-graphics, animation, text, audio and more. With each new method, we take on more responsibility as a multimedia journalist in order to integrate layers of information without losing our focus on the person’s story we are reporting. What stands out in multimedia is quality storytelling where the methods don’t overwhelm the audience and get in the way of the story. Our challenge is to continually improve at using today’s tools and those in the future as we tell stories.

Q) What is one thing on your “To-Do” list?

A) Learn the program After Effects.

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Want to nominate a deserving colleague, friend or inspirational figure to be highlighted in this series? Confidential nominations can be emailed to tracynboyer@gmail.com on an ongoing basis. Self nominations are also welcome. A person will be featured every Friday, so look for the next “innovative individual” Friday, January 8th!

Other posts that might interest you:

• Innovative Individuals: Richard Koci Hernandez
• Innovative Individuals: Henrik Kastenskov
• Innovative Individuals: Brent Foster

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