Job Opening: International Monetary Fund looking for multimedia storyteller

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) based in Washington D.C. is ramping-up its communication outreach in the area of multimedia, interactive and video technologies. Key to this outreach is the use of visual story telling to illuminate the work of the Fund and how it affects populations around the World.

Effective immediately, the IMF has an opening for a full-time contractual multimedia storyteller. The position requires an experienced individual capable of producing photographs, video and audio using Adobe and Final Cut Pro applications to tell compelling stories concerning the work of the Fund.

Specifically the position requires capturing and acquiring content and composing stories for distribution to the Internet and Worldwide news media outlets. Some international traveled required. Full benefits provided. All tools provided including a recently constructed HD broadcast capable Multimedia Center.

Send inquiries and include contact information to Phughes@imf.org.

Knight Digital Media Center looking for News Entrepreneurs and Newsroom Leaders for Upcoming Workshops

If you’re looking for professional training opportunities, the Knight Digital Media Center has a couple of great programs coming up.

The News Entrepreneur Boot Camp is designed for 20 competitively selected digital entrepreneurs with great ideas for community news and information initiatives in the public interest. The boot camp will be held May 16-21, at USC Annenberg. Deadline for applications is February 19, 2010.

The Transformative Leadership Institute is looking for people who are already positioned as the new leaders of news and information in the community interest. They are looking for leaders from major established news organizations that are transforming themselves and also for news entrepreneurs who are reinventing models for news and information. You can nominate yourself, or anyone else you feel is qualified for this program. The final list of fellows will be named in May. Deadline for nominations is March 31, 2010.

You can see a full list of upcoming seminars and workshops at their site. If you have questions about either of these opportunities, you can contact Vikki Porter, Director of KDMC, at vporter@usc.edu. For updates and announcements on new programs, you can also check them out on twitter: @kdmc.

LIFE.com looking for Spring Interns

LIFE.com is seeking spring-term interns for its Photography Department.

Internships are paid and not for credit.

Ideal candidates can start as soon as possible and are able to commit to 2-3 days, 14-20 hours per week over the course of 4–6 months.

Primary Duties:
Interns will assist the Photo Department in researching and sourcing archival and current content, building photo galleries, scanning, retouching and performing other tasks not yet specified. LIFE provides unique opportunities for it’s interns to become deeply involved with ongoing projects and upcoming content.

Applicants should be employment ready, self-motivated, detail oriented, and able to remain focused on long-term assignments.

Skills Required:
An interest in and familiarity with current and historical news events, as well as celebrity culture; knowledge of LIFE Magazine; proficient with Photoshop; strong retouching ability; keen visual sense; articulate; able to work independently; able to learn quickly; possess a positive, can-do attitude. Prior web experience is a plus.

Please direct cover letters and resumes to Liz Ronk, liz_ronk@life.com. No phone calls, please.

MediaStorm welcomes Megan Lange

We are excited to welcome Megan Lange as a Spring 2010 intern. She will be working with us for the next few months to produce some exciting projects we have coming down the pipeline.

Megan is a recent graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where she obtained a B.A. in Photojournalism and Psychology. She also studied for a semester in London through the SUAbroad program with a concentration in photojournalism. Megan spent her summer in Uganda, documenting the conditions of the families left in the Tegotatoo IDP camp resulting from a 20-year civil war and producing a multimedia project for Every Child Ministries. She has interned with The Muskegon Chronicle, and externed with The Post-Standard.

Interested in interning with us? MediaStorm accepts interns throughout the year, in multimedia production, design, motion graphics, and/or programming for web. The deadline for our fall 2010 Internship is June 15, 2010. See our site for more information.

ASPP “Reinvention Weekend” to be held April 15-18, 2010, in Boston, MA – Registration open now

The American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP) and the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) invite you to come to Boston for an exciting “Reinvention Weekend” April 15th – 18th. The entire conference is geared to Reinvent, Reimagine and Reinvigorate your career or your approach to the photography business.

The conference begins on Thursday April 15th with a one day trade show (tables still available), and then will continue with 2 days of great sessions. Brian Storm is the keynote speaker and will also join a panel to discuss thought-provoking insights into the new paradigms for our industry. Be inspired by thought leaders, story-tellers, and community service activists. Lend your voice to the critical discussions between the different segments of our industry. Learn from the experts how to use social media and web tools to enhance your business. Even receive free career make-over sessions.

Speakers will include Rick Smolan, Ilise Benun of marketing-mentor.com, Allen Murabayashi and Andrew Fingerman of PhotoShelter, Caitlin Jewell of Silverscape, Nancy Andrews of Detroit Free Press, Ian Ginsberg of VII Agency, Lou Jones and others. Program details are available at the ASPP site.

PACA is our conference partner in Boston. During Trade Show hours on Thursday, PACA is providing a demonstration of their newly launched pacaSearch. This mega meta-search engine is setting a new standard for stock image searching.

The registration fees for this 3-day event is only $495 for ASPP* and PACA members, and $590 for sister organizations. Registration is open, so mark your calendar and start making your plans to be there now! For sponsorship opportunities, contact cathy@aspp.com

The weekend will take place at the beautiful and historic Omni Parker House Hotel in downtown Boston. We have arranged a special room rate of $199 per night (not including taxes) for all Conference attendees from April 12 through April 18. Please visit their site for immediate online reservations. But hurry! The cut-off date for accepting reservations into our room block is Thursday, March 25, 2010.

For more information contact Cathy Sachs, Executive Director, ASPP.

Apply now for Knight Digital Media Center’s Web Publishing for Independent Journalists Workshop- Deadline Feb 17

The Knight Digital Media Center at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is offering some terrific educational opportunities this spring, including a Web Publishing for Independent Journalists Workshop to be held March 21-26, 2010.

The career path for many of today’s journalists is merging with entrepreneurship. Journalists who once covered topical, feature and investigative news for established newspapers are becoming independent publishers of specialty blogs and hyperlocal community news site. These sites fulfill an important role in the emerging news and information landscape.

Powerful and easy to use Web publishing tools make creating quality online news sites easy and affordable. These new tools are allowing individual journalists and community journalism to flourish as part of the evolving news eco-system.

The Knight Digital Media Center at the University of California Berkeley is offering an innovative new training workshop for journalists who have or are actively seeking to venture into online community or specialty news publishing. The Web Publishing for Independent Journalists Workshop will provide journalists with the hands-on training and tools to get started with an online publishing enterprise.

Participants in the Web Publishing for Independent Journalists Workshop will receive training on:

• Setting up and maintaining a WordPress blog
• Establishing a brand
• Shooting good video and video editing
• Using Photoshop to prepare images for publication
• How to sell advertising
• Data visualization at the community level
• Basic Mapping and Data-driven Maps
• Using social media to develop and engage with audiences
• SEO and Google Analytics

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Wednesday, February 17, 2010

WHO SHOULD APPLY: Journalists who have already begun or are in the process of launching an online news venture.

HOW TO APPLY: An online application form and instructions are available at: http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/training/

To fill out the application, you’ll need to register at the site (and confirm that in an email link). By registering, you’ll be able to save your application and return later to edit, update or complete. The application includes questions about your contact information and your proficiency in various equipment and software, as well as a statement of interest by you, a letter of recommendation from a colleague who knows your professional work, and a resume summary of your journalism experience.

If you have any questions, please contact Alisha Diego Klatt, KDMC program specialist, at aklatt@berkeley.edu or (510) 642-3892.

Things We Love: Projects Worth Watching

As always, we’ve been busy trying to keep up to date with all of the fantastic multimedia being produced out there. Here are a few more projects we’ve been watching that we wanted to share with you. You can see the previously highlighted projects here.

9. The Third & The Seventh by Alex Roman Simply stunning visuals. Play it full screen. – Eric Maierson The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

10. Black Passport Stanley Greene’s transition from a fashion to conflict photographer. – Brian Storm

11. Roping the Wind by Nacho Corbella We loved working with Nacho at the MediaStorm Advanced Multimedia Workshop. It’s great to see his latest project, a very elegant production. – Brian Storm

12. William and the Windmill A young man in Malawi with an inspired idea. From the dynamic duo in Toronto. – Brian Storm William and the Windmill from Randy Risling on Vimeo.

13. Visura Magazine Celebrating one profilic year of publishing. – Brian Storm

14. Timelapse movie: The Alps — part II (night) by Michael Rissi Breathtaking stop timelapse of the skies. Astronomers rejoice. – Eric Maierson Timelapse movie: The Alps — part II (night) from Michael Rissi on Vimeo.

15. Follow the Money Where does your money go when you pay at the gas pump? Talking Eyes Media and LeftChannel’s new animated video,”Follow the Money,” takes you on a fantasy voyage through the pipelines back to the source of the oil reserves. – Brian Storm

16. Sweet Dreams by Carol Guzy Touching multimedia project, and Carol Guzy’s story that accompanies it is not to be missed- super intimate look at the connection between a journalist and a subject, turned friend. -Jessica Stuart

17. Interviews 50 Cents The unique combination of Ray Farkas’ visuals and Alex Chadwick’s questions. – Brian Storm

18. THE COAL WAR by Chad A. Stevens Give. Save. A Mountain. – Brian Storm

19. Think Different Wishing Apple the best of luck for their product launch tomorrow. – Brian Storm

Thanks to everyone who commented and added suggestions on our last round of projects, we’d love to keep hearing from you, please tell us about any notable projects that shouldn’t be missed in the comments!

A Guide to Getting Good

Here’s the secret to getting good: practice, a lot.

It’s that simple and that difficult.

People tell me they want to produce work like MediaStorm. You can. Yes, we are fortunate to work with many incredibly talented photographers. But the storytelling techniques we use in our work are not revolutionary. They’re the same techniques described by Aristotle in his Poetics, 2000 years ago. What’s different is that we work our stories. We watch and re-watch literally dozens of times, replacing soundbites, removing the inauthentic, rearranging, restructuring, often for weeks at a time. Sometimes it feels endless but in the end, it works.

And it can for you, too.

When I produced Driftless by Danny Wilcox Frazier I worked more hours than I thought I could. But I did. And in the end, I became a better editor for it. And the same applies to you, if you put in the hours.

Malcom Gladwell once famously proclaimed that you need 10,000 hours of practice to become a superstar.

Start. Now.

I want to compose my own music. I’m not a musician. A teacher, in fact, once told me I had no rhythm. But I’ve been taking piano for the last six years with that goal in mind. I don’t know if I’ll get there but I know for sure that I won’t if I don’t try. So I practice every morning for twenty-minutes.

Regardless of your discipline, the rule remains: practice, a lot.

In 1986, I bought a copy of Talking Heads Stop Making Sense. As much as the music, what stuck with me all these years were the words that surrounded the CD insert like a frame. They said, and I’m paraphrasing, “If you are an artist it is work. If you are a painter it is work. If you are a writer it is work.”

If you are a multimedia producer it is work.

Sometimes I think that we forget that work does not have to be drudgery. If you love what you do, then work can be an act of love.

All right, enough preaching. Go practice.

Intended Consequences named as first web winner of Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards

Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism today announced the 2010 winners of the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards. MediaStorm is honored to be the first web recipient of a duPont Award, for Intended Consequences, by Jonathan Torgovnik.

From their site:

In painfully intimate interviews photojournalist Jonathan Torgovnik explores an unfathomable question: can a mother can love a child born out of rape. The women profiled in this haunting multimedia presentation were caught in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when mass rapes resulted in the birth of an estimated 20,000 children. It spotlights an issue which had not been as widely covered as other war crimes in Rwanda, and is the first Web-based production to win a duPont Award. The women speak simply about their brutal experiences, their isolation and suffering, and the way forward. The producers made excellent creative choices that contributed to the impact of the reporting without resorting to sensationalism.

The duPont Awards, administered since 1968 by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, are considered to be the most prestigious broadcast journalism awards and the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes, which are also administered at the Journalism School. Selected by the duPont Jury for excellence in broadcast journalism, the award-winning news programs aired in the United States between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009. The honorees will be presented with silver duPont batons at a ceremony held at Columbia University on Thursday, January 21, 2010.

Congratulations to all of the winners, there’s some really amazing work in there. You can see the full list at the duPont site.

Intended Consequences wins Anthropographia Award for Multimedia and Human Rights

We are pleased to announce that Intended Consequences by Jonathan Torgovnik has won The Anthropographia Award for Multimedia and Human Rights. Congratulations also to Marcus Bleasdale, whose still project The Rape of a Nation won the The Anthropographia Award for Photography and Human Rights. The multimedia piece, produced by MediaStorm, also received an Honorary Mention.

Anthropographia’s aim is to create new spaces for photojournalism; new spaces that encourage the promotion of human rights, expose social injustice and underline the multiple realities of our current world. The jury shortlisted 24 photography essays as well as 10 multimedia pieces which will be displayed on large scale exhibitions internationally.

Projects will be screened at the New York Photo Festival, and at several other locations. Full listing, along with all of the winners, on the Anthropographia site.