I just returned from a three and a half-day stint as a multimedia story coach at the Fall Workshop sponsored by Syracuse University for more than 50 undergraduate and graduate students in the Multimedia, Photography, and Design (MPD) departments of the Newhouse School. This year, the students documented life in the nearby town of Skaneateles, New York, recording audio, writing short stories, and shooting photos and video.

My past two summer workshop projects have involved efforts to create multimedia stories using a mix of still photography and audio in one case and video in the other. Each was seeking to address broad, big themes by finding individual situations or characters as subjects who could then provide a way into the story.

Participants grappled with the challenge of transforming big themes into multimedia stories that could be appreciated and assimilated by the audience. In that effort, I saw interesting patterns emerge as the challenges needing to be met by the students.

As we prepared for the VJ workshop at Brooks Institute I had multiple e-mail conversations with Paul Myers, a professor there. We discussed a theme for my individual talk and overall aspirations for the project.

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to visit MediaStorm in Brooklyn to talk in depth with Brian Storm and his team about their multimedia storytelling and aspirations for the future.