I’m thrilled to announce that a story I did for the Seattle Channel program City Stream has been nominated for an Emmy award in the human interest category. The story is a piece about sustainable fishing in Puget Sound, and profiles friend and client Pete Knutson of Loki Fish. I shot and edited the piece, working together with producer Penny Legate who wrote and voiced the story. Last year I was nominated twice, but unfortunately didn’t bring home the award. Hoping this year will be different. I continue to produce stories for the Seattle Channel, mostly focusing on green and environmental issues. Recent stories include how Safeco and Qwest Fields are composting their food scraps and packaging, teaching organic gardening in public housing at Yesler Terrace, a profile of Sustainable West Seattle, a new housing and commercial development along N. Rainier Ave, and others. Most of these videos can be found on other parts of this site or on our Vimeo channel linked to in the bottom left corner of the front page of this website.
Via my work with The Seattle Channel, I’ve just learned that we won a NATOA Award, commonly referred to as the Emmys of government television. The Government Programming Awards (GPAs) are annual awards that recognize excellence in broadcast, cable, multimedia and electronic programming produced by local government agencies, in this case The City of Seattle. The piece was the story about Rob Rose and his organization The Rose International Fund for Children and their work on behalf of young people with disabilities in Nepal, and the movement to battle the stigma of disability in Nepal and South Asia. We won’t know until September whether we won the category or not, but the nomination itself is an award as all nominations are given recognition for their work. There will be an awards banquet in Washington D.C. in early October. Very cool.
I was excited to show how a video like this can make an event come to life online, in a way that still pictures and words simply can’t. With a video, folks who have an interest in the event but wonder whether it’ll be worth their time or not can get a real sense of what’s going on here, and see and hear the testimonials of the participants. Plus, I’ve been helping to educate the group about how to share the file with their members on their blogs and website to give the piece further exposure in attracting more members to the community. Based on what’s being said here, it’s clear this group is an effective place for networking and connecting both for learning around these issues and for business. It’s my hope to make some new connections with this community so that they can begin using video as a tool to share with their customers and community the green choices that they’re making in their businesses.
On Friday, the New York Times ran this article about the city of Seattle and what kind of place it is for raising children. In the article was a link to Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn’s new Youth & Families Initiative, which I just happened to have finished the video for earlier in the week. Our initial plan was to wait til next week to roll it out, but with the link and increased attention to the initiative, they decided to make the video live that day. It was an exciting synchronicity for me. I was pleased with the way the piece turned out and felt like it really captured the energy in the room, and the broad spectrum of Seattleites who were participating in the conversation. I felt like NYT readers or visitors to the Youth and Families website could get a real sense of what the actually took place at initiative events , and that ideally they’d be moved to get involved in helping to make Seattle a healthier, more equitable community.
