In 2006, 20 UNC and Chilean students spent 10 days in Robinson Crusoe Island, off the coast of Chile, to document its land, culture, and people for their award-winning multimedia project, Chasing Crusoe. Four years later, they learned that a recent tsunami caused by the Chilean earthquake devastated the small island and its people. By leveraging their multimedia storytelling skills, the former students quickly acted, in what has become a full-fledged grassroots humanitarian campaign.
If the name Paige West does not ring a bell, you definitely need to keep reading. Director of MSNBC’s Interactive Studio, Paige leads 11 online producers to develop all of the interactive multimedia for the “top global news site.” Talk about a big role to fill! We are honored to select Paige for this week’s “Innovative Individual” for all of her innovative work at MSNBC, as well as her other multimedia contributions at Second Story and NewsU.
2009 UNC master’s graduate Phil Daquila recently launched his thesis, “The Improvisers.” In it, he beautifully documents how people improvise in all aspects of life, from the extracurricular activities of dance and music, to the life-altering decisions made in our professions. Notice how all aspects of this site are carefully designed, from the typography in the videos to the site header. All together, there are seven videos documenting everything from firefighters improvising while putting out fires, to musicians improvising on stage.
If you watched “The Frontline of Mexico’s AIDS War” by the Washington Post in 2008, or enjoyed the “Choosing a President” presentation by The New York Times, you were watching the talented work of Nancy Donaldson. During her short career she has already produced a wealth of innovative multimedia projects from two of the most highly respected news organizations. As is evident from her inspirational work, it seemed clear that she deserved the title for this week’s Innovative Individual.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Vu Nguyen’s blog “BiofusionDesign” come back alive recently with several posts about his latest mapping projects at MSNBC. The best part about it is that he discusses what tools he used for specific projects, and other “behind the scenes” information. If graphics interest you, I would highly suggest checking out Vu’s site for inspirational projects, insights and tips about the field.
UNC professors Laura Ruel and Don Wittekind recently notified me about a new assignment they gave their “Intro to Multimedia” students this year, which I have thoroughly enjoyed checking out. Each student is required to find a multimedia project to critique, and their write-ups are being posted on the class Website for everyone to read. The reviews are honest and insightful, and surely a big help to producers who are curious to learn how an average user views their projects.
UNC professor Pat Davison unveiled his latest multimedia project today called “Living Galapagos.” Coined as the “first in-depth multimedia project to examine the impact of humans in the Galapagos Islands,” this Flash-based project is definitely a sight to see. Davison traveled with 21 students and four coaches to document the stories, people, places and facts of the islands.
I was recently asked to be a part of the 2009-2010 News21 project at UNC. Funded by Carnegie and Knight, this initiative worked with eight participating Universities to push the barrier in terms of multimedia storytelling on a wide range of topics. I finally got the time to look through each project at length, and am excited to hear what you think about my analysis on these inspirational projects.
Back in February, I noted that videographer Nacho Corbella made a clean sweep in NPPA’s monthly multimedia competitions with his notable projects. He recently notified me that he had completed his master’s thesis project, “Faces of the Crisis,” which I had been eagerly awaiting. Low and behold, I will go ahead and guess that you will soon seen this project in NPPA’s winners gallery …
UNC students and faculty were extremely busy this summer, splitting their time and effort amongst the News 21 site, Pat Davison’s soon to-be-launched Galapagos site, and a UNC Kenan-Flagler Profiles site. Three multimedia projects in three months … all with different goals, clients and project specs. Adjunct professors Mike Schmidt and Jay Heinz put together a team to document MBA faculty and alumni and create a site to promote the prestigious program.