Blog ContributorBy: Emilie Bell
This semester I had the opportunity of taking on a lead position for the Emerge web magazine’s video and documentary team. My team decided to focus on three main projects: a mental health series, a young entrepreneur series and a podcast. Although it was a lot of work, and at times it felt like we bit off more than we could chew, in the end we accomplished what we set out to do – and in my biased opinion, I think we did a really great job.
Emerge ended up being a lot of fun and a great capstone project to be able to tackle with the peers I have been working with for four years now. It was great to be able to get an opportunity to work with my classmates as professionals without having our professors dictate every move we make. Although it was a bumpy road, we made it to the finish line and I believe everyone should be proud of the work they produced.
I will not miss the Tuesday nights, staying at the school past 10 p.m. trying to talk to each group, or the Facebook messages, texts, phone calls and emails I received every day from a group member asking questions, or just the stress in general. But those are all minor things compared to what I have got out of this project.
I am a much stronger journalist now. Having been able to have a hand in two of the videos our team produced, I was able to work on my interviewing and storytelling skills. I have also become a better leader. This role challenged me in many ways. I had to learn how to tell people “no” and to really decide which ideas were better than others, and recognize that being in charge does not always mean being liked by everyone. I also learned to appreciate the work videographers put into their videos. Being a journalist, I had never had the opportunity to see all the behind-the- scenes work. I am extremely grateful for the three videography students on this team, and all the effort they put into creating really awesome videos!
In one semester, the video/doc team created three mental health videos and four young entrepreneur videos, as well as four podcasts . We would not have been able to produce the content we did without the contribution of each person on the team. I was fortunate to have been part of such a dedicated and talented group of people. This is definitely an experience I will never forget.
Emilie Bell, Vid/Doc Editor-in-Chief
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