Samples of Published Articles
"Accidental Video Producers"
by Nina Cornett
My husband Dean and I fell into video producing by way of theft. Someone stole more than 100 standing hardwoods from his family land. When we reported the theft, the prosecutor advised us to make a video of the stumps and damage, because video is more effective in court than words. That was eight years ago, and we didn't even own a camera. If we needed to photograph something, we bought a disposable, took our 26 exposures, and forgot about cameras until the next disposable.
We took the prosecutor's advice and bought a video camera. Learning how to use it fell to my husband, and he applied himself with determination. Pretty soon he was not just pointing and shooting, but was talking about factors like white balance and depth of field, concepts we had never entertained in our previous life.
Luckily, we live on a beautiful salmon river in Alaska, and have wonderful scenery and wildlife to photograph. We started taking the camera along whenever we went out. Our very first camera-toting outing was a morning's fishing. We had no sooner arrived on the river than a mother moose and calf appeared on the opposite bank. We immediately started to unfold the tripod and attach the camera. We were all thumbs, because the moose and calf put pressure on us by down-sloping off the steep bank and wading across the river straight toward us. As we were desperately trying to get set up, she was coming closer and closer.
We knew we needed to retreat, pronto, and finally just abandoned the camera, unsure if it was properly set up, turned on, or aimed. Once she'd gone and we came out of hiding, we discovered that the camera was running and aimed correctly, and captured perfect footage. You could even hear the stomping and sploshing as mother and calf passed. That helped to cement our interest in outdoor photography. When we had visitors, we began memorializing their visits with a gift video to take home.
The next step came about three years ago, when a neighbor showed us a wedding video and told us he was using Adobe Premiere Elements to edit his video. We fooled around with his copy and learned that a software editor is a lot more effective than on-camera editing. So we invested in a copy.
Another step came shortly afterward when a friend in Kentucky received one of our memorial videos, and decided we had skill enough to make a promotional documentary of a Kentucky state park with a sizable population of black bears. He was very pleased with the video, and took it to the Kentucky PBS director. It didn't make the cut, but we were encouraged.
Our next effort was a 30-minute documentary on the disappearance of the American chestnut. It's a dramatic story of blight, desperate efforts to control it, failure, and loss of a valuable species. We offered that to our PBS director, and were delighted to learn it had been accepted. It has run roughly once every two months on Kentucky PBS channels for about two years, and we hope it will run longer. It has also aired in New England.
We were very lucky to have only our second documentary picked up by PBS affiliates. We have since submitted two more, and neither made the cut. Videomaker emphasizes that the most important factor for a successful video is the story, and we agree. What made American Chestnut: Appalachian Apocalypse a success, we are convinced, is the research and the story. We are hoping to find another good story like that one. Meanwhile, we are accumulating wonderful video of wildlife, and plan to keep on with that.
For those in reach of Kentucky Educational Television, airdates for American Chestnut can be found at www.ket.org. For others, it can be viewed at www.cornettmedia.com.
(Published in August 2012 issue of Videomaker magazine, circulated worldwide)
My husband Dean and I fell into video producing by way of theft. Someone stole more than 100 standing hardwoods from his family land. When we reported the theft, the prosecutor advised us to make a video of the stumps and damage, because video is more effective in court than words. That was eight years ago, and we didn't even own a camera. If we needed to photograph something, we bought a disposable, took our 26 exposures, and forgot about cameras until the next disposable.
We took the prosecutor's advice and bought a video camera. Learning how to use it fell to my husband, and he applied himself with determination. Pretty soon he was not just pointing and shooting, but was talking about factors like white balance and depth of field, concepts we had never entertained in our previous life.
Luckily, we live on a beautiful salmon river in Alaska, and have wonderful scenery and wildlife to photograph. We started taking the camera along whenever we went out. Our very first camera-toting outing was a morning's fishing. We had no sooner arrived on the river than a mother moose and calf appeared on the opposite bank. We immediately started to unfold the tripod and attach the camera. We were all thumbs, because the moose and calf put pressure on us by down-sloping off the steep bank and wading across the river straight toward us. As we were desperately trying to get set up, she was coming closer and closer.
We knew we needed to retreat, pronto, and finally just abandoned the camera, unsure if it was properly set up, turned on, or aimed. Once she'd gone and we came out of hiding, we discovered that the camera was running and aimed correctly, and captured perfect footage. You could even hear the stomping and sploshing as mother and calf passed. That helped to cement our interest in outdoor photography. When we had visitors, we began memorializing their visits with a gift video to take home.
The next step came about three years ago, when a neighbor showed us a wedding video and told us he was using Adobe Premiere Elements to edit his video. We fooled around with his copy and learned that a software editor is a lot more effective than on-camera editing. So we invested in a copy.
Another step came shortly afterward when a friend in Kentucky received one of our memorial videos, and decided we had skill enough to make a promotional documentary of a Kentucky state park with a sizable population of black bears. He was very pleased with the video, and took it to the Kentucky PBS director. It didn't make the cut, but we were encouraged.
Our next effort was a 30-minute documentary on the disappearance of the American chestnut. It's a dramatic story of blight, desperate efforts to control it, failure, and loss of a valuable species. We offered that to our PBS director, and were delighted to learn it had been accepted. It has run roughly once every two months on Kentucky PBS channels for about two years, and we hope it will run longer. It has also aired in New England.
We were very lucky to have only our second documentary picked up by PBS affiliates. We have since submitted two more, and neither made the cut. Videomaker emphasizes that the most important factor for a successful video is the story, and we agree. What made American Chestnut: Appalachian Apocalypse a success, we are convinced, is the research and the story. We are hoping to find another good story like that one. Meanwhile, we are accumulating wonderful video of wildlife, and plan to keep on with that.
For those in reach of Kentucky Educational Television, airdates for American Chestnut can be found at www.ket.org. For others, it can be viewed at www.cornettmedia.com.
(Published in August 2012 issue of Videomaker magazine, circulated worldwide)
"Volunteering is the Real Iditarod Challenge"
By Nina Cornett
The guy who said ''distance lends enchantment'' had it right about me and the Iditarod, although I might have put
it ''distance lends delusion.'' Not that I had any grand delusions, let me move right on to say. All I wanted was to be an Iditarod volunteer. I'd been following the Last Great Race for years from the Lower 48, and I knew it was
mostly put on by volunteers. My delusion was that I could be one.
When the major national sponsors pulled back from the Iditarod, I composed stiff, indignant letters telling them that if they were unable to support the Iditarod, I was unable to support them, and would be boycotting them henceforth (never mind that I had never bought their products).
When my husband and I finally got back to Alaska, I headed straight for Iditarod headquarters. I got
my first hint it might not be so easy when I picked up the volunteer materials. There was a question that asked, ''Have you been an Iditarod volunteer in previous years? If so, list areas and years.'' The materials also noted that
''unfortunately, we are coming to the point of having to turn people away. '' It added, ''so if you're interested, apply early.''
It also warned that some jobs, like dog handlers, needed special training. I didn't even consider those. But I thought I could probably handle the phones and faxes at communications headquarters, and my Pentagon job had required enough attendance at formal affairs that I figured I could handle banquet hostess.
I marked down those and a couple more, and mulled over ways to enhance my chances. They came down to impressing the Iditarod with my experience, and promptness. In my civil service career, I'd started in Alaska as a GS-5 (not the highest position you can hold, for those not au courant with civil service grades) and risen eventually to Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the Pentagon. I mulled over putting that down, but in the end I didn't. There didn't seem to be a natural place on the form to work it in, and it seemed kind of name-droppy.
I settled for promptness. I filed the application nearly six months ahead and waited to be called. Meanwhile, I kept out a long skirt and a pretty blouse when I packed the rest of my Pentagon wardrobe and put it in storage. By
February, I knew that waiting to hear wasn't working. So I thought of another strategy. When I made my annual Iditarod contribution, I put in a little note asking about the status of my application.
Bribery? Yes. But it got me a nice letter from the race director offering to help if I didn't get called. I took her up on her offer. After a couple of miss-each-other exchanges, her staff gave me phone numbers of the coordinators of the areas I’d volunteered for (all except banquet hostess -- they just laughed when I asked about that. Either I didn't sound like a person who'd know how to behave at a banquet, or they had lots of applications from Hollywood or from the Forbes 400.)
So I started phoning. That didn't work at first, but I decided repetition is the key, so I kept leaving messages. Bugging someone who's already swamped is not the best way to start a relationship, but the coordinators were surprisingly polite when I finally got through. T.J. Sheffield, the communications coordinator, tactful man that he is, even thanked me for my ''persistence.''
If by this time you've got the idea that there's more competition for volunteer positions than there is to go under the arch first at Nome, I can't prove you wrong. My long skirt never did come out of the closet. But I did get to
participate in a couple of areas, and I enoyed it a lot. And I want to be involved in the Iditarod again.
So, am I going to fill out a volunteer application and call and wheedle until someone lets me help again? I'm mulling it over. Maybe I'll start training a team of dogs and enter one of the Iditarod qualifying races. The Klondike 300 has a nice ring to it. What's more, getting into a race depends on something tangible, like paying an entry fee. And with fewer than 50 people running, th0se odds are better -- at least on paper. And I think it might be easier. On all of us.
Published in the Anchorage Daily News Sunday Edition, "We Alaskans" literary section.
The guy who said ''distance lends enchantment'' had it right about me and the Iditarod, although I might have put
it ''distance lends delusion.'' Not that I had any grand delusions, let me move right on to say. All I wanted was to be an Iditarod volunteer. I'd been following the Last Great Race for years from the Lower 48, and I knew it was
mostly put on by volunteers. My delusion was that I could be one.
When the major national sponsors pulled back from the Iditarod, I composed stiff, indignant letters telling them that if they were unable to support the Iditarod, I was unable to support them, and would be boycotting them henceforth (never mind that I had never bought their products).
When my husband and I finally got back to Alaska, I headed straight for Iditarod headquarters. I got
my first hint it might not be so easy when I picked up the volunteer materials. There was a question that asked, ''Have you been an Iditarod volunteer in previous years? If so, list areas and years.'' The materials also noted that
''unfortunately, we are coming to the point of having to turn people away. '' It added, ''so if you're interested, apply early.''
It also warned that some jobs, like dog handlers, needed special training. I didn't even consider those. But I thought I could probably handle the phones and faxes at communications headquarters, and my Pentagon job had required enough attendance at formal affairs that I figured I could handle banquet hostess.
I marked down those and a couple more, and mulled over ways to enhance my chances. They came down to impressing the Iditarod with my experience, and promptness. In my civil service career, I'd started in Alaska as a GS-5 (not the highest position you can hold, for those not au courant with civil service grades) and risen eventually to Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the Pentagon. I mulled over putting that down, but in the end I didn't. There didn't seem to be a natural place on the form to work it in, and it seemed kind of name-droppy.
I settled for promptness. I filed the application nearly six months ahead and waited to be called. Meanwhile, I kept out a long skirt and a pretty blouse when I packed the rest of my Pentagon wardrobe and put it in storage. By
February, I knew that waiting to hear wasn't working. So I thought of another strategy. When I made my annual Iditarod contribution, I put in a little note asking about the status of my application.
Bribery? Yes. But it got me a nice letter from the race director offering to help if I didn't get called. I took her up on her offer. After a couple of miss-each-other exchanges, her staff gave me phone numbers of the coordinators of the areas I’d volunteered for (all except banquet hostess -- they just laughed when I asked about that. Either I didn't sound like a person who'd know how to behave at a banquet, or they had lots of applications from Hollywood or from the Forbes 400.)
So I started phoning. That didn't work at first, but I decided repetition is the key, so I kept leaving messages. Bugging someone who's already swamped is not the best way to start a relationship, but the coordinators were surprisingly polite when I finally got through. T.J. Sheffield, the communications coordinator, tactful man that he is, even thanked me for my ''persistence.''
If by this time you've got the idea that there's more competition for volunteer positions than there is to go under the arch first at Nome, I can't prove you wrong. My long skirt never did come out of the closet. But I did get to
participate in a couple of areas, and I enoyed it a lot. And I want to be involved in the Iditarod again.
So, am I going to fill out a volunteer application and call and wheedle until someone lets me help again? I'm mulling it over. Maybe I'll start training a team of dogs and enter one of the Iditarod qualifying races. The Klondike 300 has a nice ring to it. What's more, getting into a race depends on something tangible, like paying an entry fee. And with fewer than 50 people running, th0se odds are better -- at least on paper. And I think it might be easier. On all of us.
Published in the Anchorage Daily News Sunday Edition, "We Alaskans" literary section.
