Mark Lent's photo of world record water skier Jerry Pope and me shooting video of Mark's work from a chase boat. ©1998 Mark Lent
As I prepare for the second weekend of our Storytelling in Health Care Leadership seminar, I’ve been going through some old work and reels. Lots of material is recorded, some in older formats than others: Hi 8, DVC-PRO, DV. I came across some video from a shoot in 1998. Before we see the video, I need to set up the story.
In 1997, shortly after the death of Princess Diana, I began producing a web documentary project called “Behind the Viewfinder – A Year in the Life of Photojournalism”. It was a regular diary of 10 photojournalists, telling their stories and their work. Some people have called it blogging before we knew what blogging was. The site, just as it was created, is still live at www.digitalstoryteller.com/YITL
I was also shooting video interviews for a video documentary of the work. So here is the set up for the video below:
Photojournalist Mark Lent was shooting a project about Jerry Pope, a world record holding water skier. Jerry is paraplegic and skied 100 kilometers without stopping. So Mark, the photojournalist, was facing backwards in the tow boat pulling Jerry. The photo would illustrate a story about Jerry.
I was in a chase boat, and we cruised along side and behind Jerry, videotaping Mark, taking photos of Jerry. The boat motor sound was loud, so Mark was wearing a wireless microphone, which transmitted everything he said to the video camera and to my earphones. Mark ultimately wrote about the day in his post for Behind the Viewfinder on September 5, 1998.
If we fast forward 11 and a half years later. Saturday afternoon, I was reviewing old tapes for possible examples to share with students in the next seminar session. In my search, I came across an un-logged tape and popped it in the video deck to preview it. What I found was the video from that day.
You can clearly hear Mark’s voice, and his shutter, as he takes the photos including the photo included here. The video below is compressed to a .mp4 to make it a quick load for you. You’ll want Quicktime.
If you need the windows version of the video, click here