Santa Barbara town in shock after mass shooting

Usually on breaking stories, especially ones about death and destruction, I concentrate on feeding video to producers in DC where my colleagues package it or feed it out to clients. I often don’t have time to voice a package, much less shoot a standup, because they want more, more, better, now! For this story, I filed 4 separate 2-3 minute chunks of edited video from Isla Vista. Then I pushed to do a full-fledged package with a stand-up.

I was AP’s only staffer on scene for much of the morning. Here’s one of several wire stories with my byline.

I jumped a couple fences to confirm that the license plate on the suspect’s BMW matched the one in his photos on social media. But for hours after the shootings, the AP was conservative about connecting Elliot Roger’s YouTube rant with the crime. So I wrote a script thinking that by the time I tracked, edited and uploaded, the video would be vetted. When it wasn’t, I had to rewrite. My version ran online, then the DC producers re-cut it to insert Roger’s video. That’s why the suspect’s video didn’t lead the piece.

High-tech cargo airship under construction in SoCal

Getting everyone on board for a cross-format package is no small feat. I spotted this story, pitched it to powers-that-be in Video and to the local editors in Los Angeles. The result was worth it and got great play in print and in video.

High-tech cargo airship under construction in California

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON  January 30, 2013

AP Photo by Jae HongTUSTIN, Calif. (AP) — The massive blimp-like aircraft flies but just barely, hovering only a dozen feet off a military hangar floor during flight testing south of Los Angeles.

Still, the fact that the hulking 230-foot-long Aeroscraft could fly for just a few minutes represents a step forward in aviation, according to the engineers who developed it. The Department of Defense and NASA have invested $35 million in the prototype because of its potential to one day carry more cargo than any other aircraft to disaster zones and forward military bases.

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Water-dropping helicopters and worried residents: yet another SoCal fire

North County San Diego Fires, driving selfie

driving selfie, North Co. San Diego fires, May 2014

I shoot so many wildfires that they all tend to blur together. This one was above Glendora last January. I fed three times that day, which is impressive because up in those hills, cell phone coverage can be spotty.

The challenge is always the same: Explain how weather, topography, or the people who live there make a particular natural disaster unique. Get close to the action but not uncomfortably close, which is even harder with the short zoom on my little camera. Make the visual details — firefighters’ faces or creeping flames or people’s precious possessions ravaged by heat — tell the story.

NOTE: I didn’t write or edit this package (obviously, because the San Gabriel Valley requires a definite article, the copy makes it sound like this bedroom community is in the boondocks, and the Jesus statue at the retreat center needed some set-up in the script). They didn’t even use the best stuff! Isn’t that the videographer’s lament?

More tough photos of me covering wildfires solo after the jump. Continue reading →