My main job is to shape the features through the interviews. Then I suggest (kindly dictate?) the edits and give feedback on how it fits together with the visuals. Still not sure what that job is called, but it’s kind of like writing except with pictures and sounds. lol.
We hosted these all on YouTube but have since switched to Vimeo (much better!!).
Three videos and some brief commentary after the jump.
Hmm… so I see another month is about to slip by without me clocking in on this blog. Can’t have that. Without any ado, here are a few things I been up to:
Handed in my MA project to the committee that will decide if I am good to grad—or not! *cross fingers*
Accepted my first freelance assignment in a year-and-a-half. Now that the bulk of the MA work is done, I can do this again!
Got a killer URL and am building a site which I hope to monetize. Will it (soft) launch next week? No promises…
BONUS: July 2009 Atelier Hawai’i web extra production about a summer painting course. Helped conceptualize the video, conduct and edit the interviews (content) and write the script. This came together well.
Malamalama, the magazine where I have been a writer and online editor (content manager) for the past several years, is being cut back from three to two print issues per year.
However, they’re adding 4 web-only issues to the production schedule–in addition to weekly updates–which means more online content is needed, especially audio and video. As a feature journalist and content producer the chance to work with an enthusiastic team on new media projects is super fun, even with the increased workload(!).
So far we’ve taken a collaborative approach to the producer’s role of these web extras and are improvising and learning with every assignment. I’ve mostly been the one to collect and edit the interviews (with sound help as needed) while magazine art director Rowen Tabusa and photographer R. David Beales handle the visual content and editing. Then I write the meta data or descriptions, upload the content and often do some online promotion.
Links to our web extras with a few notes on productions are below.
Feedback is very welcome!
Web Extras
Bamboo Ridge: Celebrating 30 years of local writing and writers written by me, picture by Cory Lum, audio and video work by Rowen Tabusa. The Bamboo Ridge package was for the first online issue in the new magazine layout–why yes, it *is* built on WordPress heh–a whole other accomplishment of which I am proud and enjoyed working on.
From Page to Stage, a behind-the-scenes look at The Little Snow Fox and Other Tales of the North Pacific. This was put together in lightening speed with almost no advance planning — whew!
Homecoming 2008 cute slideshow put together by David and Rowen.
Our best work came next, the Writing with Thread feature about a world-class textile show in the art gallery. This one hit a minor chord with YouTube commenters.
Most recently, Newcomer Butterfly has a Light Footprint is one I wrote and did an audio extra recorded over the telephone (photographs by lepidopterist Jim Snyder). This is my most self-contained web extra and even includes my voice sounding goofy as usual. I do like that Yahoo audio player that comes out.
Eating cheesecake and sampling cocktails, yeah, I know, I make it look easy. But the painstaking hours of research paid off because both these articles look good enough to eat. And drink.
A Sergio Goes photo takes full page in the Hana Hou piece and the four (count em, 4!) pages in HI Luxury include a shot of my girl Chia making a sour face while muddling limes. haha.
A special issue The Nation is dedicated to the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and ongoing resistance to U.S. control. Elinor Langer’s article “Famous Are the Flowers: Hawaiian Resistance Then–And Now” is, according to the editors “a probing exploration of the annexation of Hawai’i by the United States and of the issues of sovereignty and indigenous rights that persist in the wake of that seizure–accomplished not by treaty but by threat of force and unilateral act of Congress.”
Every article is not accessible without a subscription, but the main story is, as are some editorials and historic pieces of note linked from the Hawaiian Independence Blog. I thought the main feature was an informative read, tho I kind of kept expecting to hear about the armed resistance that took place at the time of the overthrow, because I wanted to know more. I remember something about rebels hiding out in Palolo Valley?! The armed resistance was apparently short-lived, but obviously worthy of consideration alongside the weighty petitions of protest.
Doug at Shaka Zine thought there might be some larger problems with the reporting, errors larger than the couple typos I noticed. Will be interesting to see the scholars and activists respond to this. Also the comments look like they might get good…
BTW Shaka Zine is by old school zine-ster, performance artist, poet and _________ Doug Upp–the man has many talents. (I’m so glad you’re blogging!! everybody needs more Doug Upp in their lives. Big fan. *smooches*)
Wrote about a great spot that Rowen has been telling me about for over a year, The Dragon Upstairs. The piece came out okay. But the place itself is very cool and a must-do in Honolulu, if you appreciate jazz even a little bit.
I submitted one more story to HI Luxury, and I’ve enjoyed working with them. The staff I’ve talked to seem like fun, intelligent people. Hopefully someone as sparkly-prosed, literate and in-the-know as myself ;~j takes the nightlife entertainment writer position and that door will close for me.
I’m also resigning quadmag.com, my pet project of the last ten years. I will always represent for that site, but I’m officially retired. (I’m living the dream! retire by 30 haha.) We’d love to see it keep going, but with TeN in San Francisco and Lance in Portland, it’s been hard to keep the momentum and these technical lumps are demoralizing. I’m just done.
Updated the list of articles for December and January to include a New Year’s Eve piece for HI Luxury and a story on UH summer programs in historical preservation and archeology on the Big Island of Hawaii for Malamalama.
Also added is the list of my Malamalama stories from Feb. 04 – Jan. 07. These are on subjects I usually wouldnt even think to write about (except the one on KTUH radio). I learn a lot writing about such diverse topics in history, the environment, tourism and the arts, as well as the interests of the institution behind the curtain.
The layout on the website doesnt do much justice to the photos and illustrations. The PDFs of Malamalama that are available for download are much better.
Finally, managed to get together links for some early Hana Hou stories. That’s the inflight magazine for Hawaiian Airlines. I need to write more for them, they do a really good job.
Updated the list of articles to include the October/November issue of HI Luxury magazine, which has a piece by yours truly called “Get Up & Get Down: Happy hour and more at the Hanohano Room.”
This magazine impresses me more and more with each issue. Unfortunately the band was not correctly identified in the caption; Maria Ramos and Deshannon Higa of grOOve.imProV.arTiSts are decidedly not Son Caribe(!). I’ll have to try to make that up to them. The photos again are by Chris McDonough, and those are my unmanicured fingers holding the electric blue cocktail on the main page.
One of the first real interviews I did after graduating from journalism school was in 1998 with Del tha Funkee Homosapien, a solo emcee and official or unofficial head of the Hieroglyphics crew. Their whole collective came to Honolulu to film a video for the song “You Never Know.” The song and the video don’t even really go together, but the week or two they spent here confirmed that Hawaii and hiphop did.
As an eager, wanna-be, hiphop journalist, I finagled a bunch of interviews for RE:ACT magazine, which was actually more of a zine, but I would never call it that. I spent hours talking with Del, A-Plus, Tajai, Casual, Pep-Love and the video director, whose name escapes me, as did his interview, due to an amateurish technical error on my part. The Del interview was the most in depth and exists online on a very early version of the quadmag site.
The article on Spiritual Ecology is the one I wish I had written, tho athletics was a fun topic given the recent Once a Warrior commotion. The people I spoke with for the story are really committed to helping athletes learn how to learn, whereas the book’s angle is apparently more in line with the athletes getting their work done for them. How shocking!
My story next issue (January) should be fun! I got to go to the Big Island and ramble around old kalo (taro) terraces and Volcanoes National Park.
These are the articles that kept me busy and having fun this summer. The Hana Hou ones should eventually be online, I’ll link em up when they are. I dont think HI Luxury has a website.
August/September 2007
HI Luxury
“A Whole New Light: ARTafterDARK events bring an eclectic crowd to the Honolulu Academy of Arts,” my first article for a new magazine! Photos by Chris McDonough.
June/July 2007
Hana Hou: The Magazine of Hawaiian Airlines
“Sonic Room,” late night impressions from Lotus Soundbar in Waikiki. Part of a larger article called “After 10: ‘Awa, kilts and coco puffs: excursions into Honolulu’s late-night latitudes.” Photos by Sergio Goes.
“Get Your Kicks,” round-up of specialty sneakers with Hawaii designers collaborating on styles including the Aloha Dunk, Sig Zane Converse and shoes for Gravis and Run Athletics. Photo by Dana Edmonds.
“Funkify Yourself,” profile of an off-beat Chinatown boutique. Photo by Sergio Goes.
