Television, Video Production
Insight Florida is a 30-minute news magazine show I completed as my master’s capstone project in pursuit of my master’s degree at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The program examines in-depth three major stories of the North Central Florida area — the cleanup of the Koppers Superfund site in Gainesville, the question of whether to restore the Ocklawaha River at Kirkpatrick Dam in Putnam County, and UF’s quest to become a top-10 public university, and how the innovation mindset in Gainesville ties in with that quest.
Since I was looking to get producing experience from my master’s project, I took all the producer roles in the making of this project. I was the executive producer, selecting the stories, deciding on the angles the stories were covered, recruiting talent and approving the scripts. I was the field producer, setting up the logistics of interviews and shoots, setting up the lights, camera and gear, and shooting the video. Lastly, I was the post-production producer, creating animations in Adobe After Effects and editing the program in Adobe Premiere Pro.
I pitched the program to Florida’s 5, WUFT-TV’s management in November 2013, asking the group to air the program. The group approved, and WUFT-TV aired the program in late November and throughout December 2013. The program was also posted on wuft.org. One of the documentary’s segments, “A Contentious Cleanup,” went on to win a regional Edward R. Murrow award in the Video News Documentary category.