Brooks Student Achieves First Sacramento Bee Multimedia Internship

With an education focused on photojournalism and storytelling that includes industry-current video and multimedia tools Aaron Vogel carved out new territory as the Sacramento Bee’s first multimedia intern.

Vogel did video projects for the paper. Some were short, requiring a fast turnaround. He shot a quick video interview with local DJs involved in a controversy. Another involved coverage of the funeral for a CHP officer in which three Bee videographers combined their efforts for the final piece.

The deadline work took Vogel’s skills to a new level. “It made me shoot tighter so I can edit more effectively,” Vogel said. Many of his stories were features. However if news happened, Vogel and the other photographers knew they would pursue the breaking story.

With the start of football season, Vogel brought his run-and-gun skills to the forefront by covering Friday night football with a quick turnaround. His day shift became a night shift. He would shoot the first half of a staff-selected high school football game of the week, then produce and polish the story for posting to the Web that evening. This assignment regularly took him until 2 am the following morning.

"This definitely sped up my editing techniques," Vogel said. "I picked up shortcuts with Final Cut Pro editing software. It helped me organize myself." Vogel found by using a spreadsheet he could note which team had the ball, the type of play and where he could find video of fans and marching bands. All this helped him put the video clips he needed into the story’s final timeline.

To land the internship Vogel traveled to Sacramento in June to meet the staff. “It helped my boss put a face on the potential intern,” Vogel said. “It was good for me because it was MY face.” He started in July and interned through mid-October before returning to school.

Vogel’s work at Brooks Institute inside and outside of classes helped land the position. His work in the first two required Visual Journalism video classes where he learned short form storytelling prepped him for the internship. “This is the key to newspaper video,” Vogel said. “I felt very comfortable in this internship proposing stories. I think they saw I didn’t need a lot of oversight with regard to production.”

Working twice as a teaching assistant at the Platypus Workshop video boot camp on the Brooks campus also impacted Vogel’s early career. As the head TA during the second year, Vogel proposed having the TAs show their video work to the Platypus class during one of the evening sessions. “All ten of us brought a piece of our work. We had a captive audience to show what we could do,” Vogel said. This TA work “has been a huge benefit for me in getting my name in front of people.”

Vogel eventually shifted gears and started work on a series of stories about wineries around Sacramento. His efforts built up a video archive for Web use after he returned to school. The footage can be edited and displayed using stories from the extensive Sacramento Bee story collection on wineries in the area.

For a change of pace Vogel covered the Sacramento Kings professional basketball team media day. To bring a different approach to this event, players were asked informal questions and were just allowed to talk while the camera rolled. Instead of the usual cookie cutter interviews, viewers will see more of the players’ personalities in the finished piece.

In addition, like many other papers, the Bee wants other staffers to learn what young shooters like Vogel have gotten in school. To move that forward, Vogel did video teaching for reporters and editors in one of the Bee’s outlying bureaus. It was all part of the newspaper evolution into the Web, multimedia and video, with Vogel doing his bit to bring people along into the new era.

Click here to view the video "The Sacramento Bee: Profiles in Composition"