Upper Midwest plastics road show

Name: Processor of the Year 2008, an annual award for the “best plastics company”
Type of work: I shot it, edited it and did the interviews. The awards coordinator took care of all the background information that made my interviewing go more smoothly. And yes, that’s me narrating.
Background: Every year Plastics News awards a U.S.-based plastics company an award called Processor of the Year. For 2008, I tagged along with a senior reporter to do video interviews and profiles of the finalist firms.

Each video runs around six minutes because they were shown at an awards reception. Normally I would not advise publications to run videos much longer than three.

This was my first set of feature-length video reports. I’ve never shot or edited anything this long. Among the many challenges:

• Getting proper lighting in factories and offices
• Capturing usable sound of machinery and executives
• Making sure my subjects were comfortable in front of the camera
• Making sure I could fake it and look comfortable myself
• Narrating videos clearly and coherently
• Braving below-zero conditions in Minnesota and keeping the equipment running

Although I could pick these videos apart in terms of production quality (from lighting to audio to framing), I won’t. I am proud of myself for completing them, and I learned a lot. I rarely get to leave the friendly confines of my desk in Akron, so this adventure presented an awesome opportunity to spread my wings.

It looks like I will be doing another set for 2009. I hope we pick finalists in warmer states.