Video Producer and Photographer – Austin Prep
I’ve made many videos for Austin Preparatory School, but the one to the left is my favorite. I love that I have a job lets me a teach students filmmaking and photography, and practice it too. This graduation video was one of those projects where everything came together. The original task was just to get a few highlights of the commencement ceremony to have for the archives. When I started editing it was clear to me that everything was coming together, and this project could be something special. Twenty hours later, I’m syncing Austin’s chorus singers to pop music. My works for the school range from event coverage, to promotions, to capital campaign initiatives, with some favorites including a look at a colleague’s heartwarming Christmas art project, and a Valentine’s Day video of students sharing their favorite things about the school.
Director – Austin Prep Student Media
When Austin Prep brought me on board a couple years ago, I was tasked with creating a student media organization. APS Media was born, featuring a student television studio, podcasting team, and digital newspaper. Each week, the students come together to produce news programming like Austin in Focus, short films like An Austin Christmas Story, and event coverage like the school’s beach clean-up. The program has grown and is now integrated into the school day, as I teach a middle school digital storytelling course and an upper school filmmaking elective (which included one student’s final project that makes me cry every time I watch).
8th/9th Grade Class Project – Creative Arts Web Design
A big emphasis in my technology classes is developing collaborative, real-world skills. When a parent from Creative Arts, a local non-profit extracurricular arts school, reached out inquiring about a website redesign, it was the perfect opportunity for a cool project. For a month my four classes were transformed into a web design studio, as each worked together to develop one website to be presented to the Creative Arts Executive Board. Students hosted the executive director to develop an understanding of their client’s needs, self-divided into departments, created prototypes and mock-ups, and put together a pitch in our school’s board room. After receiving feedback, one of my top students with an interest in graphic design implemented suggestions into a final site. It’s now live, check out Laura’s work over at weteachcreativearts.org.
Independent Contractor
I’ve had the pleasure to work with several great organizations in producing independent work. At Beth Israel, an internship that started as sleep study research led to my producing tutorial videos on how to work the monitoring equipment. At Cox Sports, I worked as editor, lighting, cameraman, production assistant, and website and social media director, covering Rhode Island college and high school sports programming. In addition to being on the Storage Product Marketing and Global Services team at EMC, where I designed the organization’s social media strategy for the annual Cisco Live event, I produced a video showcasing a top research lab for 300 top executives. Finally, I filmed and edited behind-the-scenes looks at top local business ventures for use on the Boston World Partnerships section of the Boston Globe’s website.
Executive Producer – Candlepin New Generation
A lot of people have obscure hobbies. Mine is candlepin bowling. As a kid, I competed on a public access television show called Candlepin for Kids, which started in 2001. When I graduated from competing I took over the independent production, ultimately hosting, editing and directing over one hundred half-hour episodes, with our thirteenth season wrapping up last spring. In 2014, I led a crowdfunding campaign that got our pilot episode on NESN (network of the Red Sox and Bruins), which led to the show getting picked up for fifteen episodes over two seasons. Check out your YouTube channel to see our most recent episodes, my NESN blog previewing our pilot episode, and the Boston Globe’s coverage of our annual international tournament.
Director – Summer@Austin Filmmaking Camp
In 2015, as Austin Prep launched its new summer camp offerings, I led two weeks of a filmmaking summer program, and it’s been a staple of my summer ever since. Each week, ten kids from grades 5-12 joined me and a staff of industry experts to learn the ins and outs of video production, develop expertise with professional equipment and software, and create numerous short films. Projects range from music videos, to parody shorts like “Toastbusters,” to behind-the-scenes GoPro videos. “Puddle,” the film to the right directed and produced by two terrific middle school students, was screened at the Boston Kids International Film Festival.
