WASHINGTON, DC, 23 February 2011 — I got a query this morning from a person inquiring about my “Backpack Documentary Expedition: Nicaragua,” coming up this summer. She was concerned that her lack of experience with new digital cameras might be a stumbling block on the journey. Here’s part of my response: “The methodology that we […]
WASHINGTON, DC, 9 February 2011 — The “Backpack Documentary Expedition: Nicaragua,” is a 10-day immersion in the craft of character-driven documentary making. We follow American volunteers with a leading U.S. non-profit to the Nicaraguan town of Ticuantepe, just outside the capital of Managua. For me, it’s not just about teaching backpack video journalism, or documentary. […]
WASHINGTON, 22 January 2011 — Maria Howell (R) is on a roll. Last summer she was the winner of the Associated Press/American University Backpack Journalism Foreign Internship that took her to the AP bureau in Jerusalem. Last fall she took on a backpack journalism internship at WashingtonPost.com. And this week she begins a backpack video […]
WASHINGTON, DC, 18 January 2011 — I’m finally catching up to posting material generated during our December Backpack Journalism Workshop at Maryland Public Television. That’s Andrea Boston in the center, with Esther Gentile looking over her shoulder and Don Sladkin on the left. I’m on the right giving instruction. (Photos by Kelly Donnellan, Esther Gentile […]
WASHINGTON, 18 NOVEMBER 2010 — I can’t tell you how many of my backpack journalism students lose critical visual and audio information because they are not connected to their characters with headphones. Once your character is out of sight and you are not listening to him/her over the wireless microphone, you’ve cut yourself off not […]
By Kady Buchanan WASHINGTON, DC, 28 October 2010 – Alexandra Garcia, a graduate of American University’s School of Communication, returned to a classroom she left six years ago to discuss her efforts to “show the people” through her work at the Washington Post. Garcia is the latest in Professor Bill Gentile’s Backpack Journalism Speaker Series […]