notesonafilm

An extremely pretentious shot of the author.

I officially started my new job today as a Multimedia Specialist for Novant Health. Well, kind of; I have two days of orientation before reporting to duty early on Wednesday morning, but for all intents and purposes, today was my first day. I’m excited about the opportunity to expand my horizons by working on multimedia projects in the healthcare industry and becoming a new addition to the Novant family.

For the past year and a half prior to this position, I served as the resident Director of Photography on the Multimedia Team at UNC-Greensboro’s Division of Continual Learning. I began my tenure briefly under the leadership of Multimedia Lead Greg Robbins, whom I’d worked with previously on various projects and who was a colleague in the undergraduate program of UNC-Greensboro’s Media Studies Department (in our day it was called the Broadcasting/Cinema Department). Greg took a job in NYC about two weeks after I began, where he still resides and continues to produce outstanding work. The core original team I worked with was with Bryan R. Higgins, Matt Newton and Jon Fredette. Newton, subsequently, made the trek up to NYC himself in July of last year; congruously, Patrick T. Griffin was hired as the new Multimedia Lead.

My job with UNC-Greensboro entailed shooting/lighting all the projects they shot, whether it be educational courses, marketing content or promotional material. However, because we were a small team, I also had many chances at producing, directing, editing and doing visual effects on certain courses in which I was the multimedia liaison. Yet, in looking back on my time with UNC-Greensboro, it’s not the course work that I am most proud of (though there was one nursing course that I was able to do an amusing music video for). My most satisfying work with the institution were the commercial and marketing projects that we had the opportunity to work on.

My first marketing project with UNCG was shooting the UNCG in 3 commercial that was aired throughout the state of North Carolina in 2010. This, my first project with DCL (not counting some contract work a few years prior), was Greg Robbins’s last project for the division. Following that, several months later and now under the direction of Matt Newton, we completed the Office of Online Learning commercial. It aired before movies in several theaters in Greensboro, N.C.; it also won a UPCEA Gold Award for Interactive Marketing. Another project I was quite fond of was a marketing piece for the All-Arts Sciences and Technology Camp, in which we incorporated many aspects of the various classes in fun and exciting ways using Adobe After Effects.

My final three projects worth noting with UNCG have been a series of “viral” campaign videos. Two of these videos I have already posted here and given a background write-up for: “Text Storm” and “Textris”. The final installment in these videos was shot one week before my final day at UNCG; it was shot on 16mm film with a Bolex H-16. An in depth look at this project will be posted once everything is wrapped and it is released online.

I got to work on some great projects at UNCG and immensely enjoyed working with the other members of the Multimedia Team. In addition, I got to meet and work with many other wonderful people at the DCL office and beyond. I also couldn’t have asked for better supervisors than Patrick, Greg and our senior supervisor, Chris Dunst . Sure, as with any job there were times I wanted to pull my hair out, but all-in-all I enjoyed many parts of my tenure in the position. I am looking forward to the position ahead of me and hope to continue to grow in it as both an artist and technician.