Soul of Athens Blog

I have never approached a story like this before. Surrounded by a crew of people with so much talent was inspiring. Working along side of these people, till the wee hours in the morning, pushed my own creativity to new heights I don’t believe I could have reached on my own.

At the age of 33, I usually find it hard to harder to stay up late at night. But, this is what I found myself doing night after night editing along the other people working on this project night after night. Scott Quad gets to be a crazy place at 5 AM. Some were getting giddy and laughing uncontrollably, some were quiet and focusing in more and more on their end goal, and after gallons and gallons of coffee a few were ready to bounce off of the walls.

In the end everyone created something in such a short amount of time it’s amazing to say the least. I was proud and thankful to be a part of this process with such an amazing group of talented people. Thank you.

Ty Wright

0f the night laying on my rooftop staring at the moon well into the “supposed to be gathering content” phase of Soul of Athens. I had a couple other ideas that had fallen through in the first three or four weeks of the quarter and I was left struggling to come up with an interesting idea that fit my group’s conceptual tie, Shelter.

After spending a little over six months in this new, exciting area I realized that I had this vast resource at my fingertips to help relay this idea of taking shelter, finding comfort, and enjoying this place I’m calling home for the next year and a half, the people I’ve met and their stories of why they find this place special.

I wanted to tell this story in a very different way, one as unique as the reasons people love this place. Trying to reinvent the way I see and tell stories all while learning a new medium, video, was one of the best experiences I’ve had since picking up a camera. I left the questions simple and the conversation open while interviewing each subject in the video piece. Having known most of the subjects in the piece from previous times I’ve spent with them it was a wonderful, relaxing experience to just sit down and talk about things they find comfort in.

I hope you enjoy the piece as much as I enjoyed producing it.

Best,

Brad Vest

www.bradvest.com

This project for SOA was a lot like a rollercoaster ride: fun, thrilling, scary, and even had a few twists and turns.

When I initially started this project it was literally like I was standing in line for a ride that common sense was telling me I didn’t have to go on. I was nervous, concerned, and a little confused as to what I was doing and why. I was placed in the Shelter edition and encouraged to go out and find a story. I had a basic idea, focused on religion and how it gives people a spiritual shelter, and two amazing people to photograph, Betsy and Briju.

The actual photo shoots were the climb up the first big hill. Anticipation for creating beautiful photographs and the overall final piece was building! I can’t thank Betsy and Briju enough for opening up all aspects of their lives to me, while also teaching me about Indian culture and letting me taste some amazing cooking! (I honestly had no idea that people in India used so much coconut!) Ty and Andrea, the senior producers for Shelter, gave me tons of advice and encouragement for the story, so thanks you two! And by the end of my first round of content gathering I was on the descent of that hill; I had photos to edit, a story line to lock-in, and a rush of adrenalin and freedom.

However, at week 4 my project took an interesting twist: I switched editions! Basically, I was prepared to climb up another hill; instead I was jerked left for a loop-d-loop. A couple hours before my interview with Betsy and Briju, I found out that my story would now be in Passage. So not only did I need to shift the storyline of my piece, I also started working with people (senior procedures, producers, and other Passage content creators) who had only a very vague idea of what my story was. However, Kayana, Kate, and Marcus (new senior producers) were all very nice and helpful with my piece. They gave me advice for my interview and also gave me some more shooting tips for the next big hill I went up, again with building anticipation, for my final content gathering opportunities.

Now the ride was supposed to be slowing down, with only a couple of small little bumps along the way; content was gathered, editing was taking place, and production was starting to happen (thanks Annette!). However, the day before my final rough draft was due, I found out that Betsy went into pre-term labor (at 28 weeks) and had been rushed to Columbus! Talk about coming up to a corkscrew without any notice! To make a long story short, the basic storyline that I had in previous rough drafts got completely re-worked that night and a new story was slowly emerging.

After that, the ride slowly started to level out and the exit platform was getting closer. Other than a few technical blips (and the fact that I still have only very minimal skills in Final Cut Pro) and a couple more late nights at Alden, I was able to finish my project with the help of some fellow riders (Annette and Marcus in particular with production).

At this point the ride is now pulling into the gate and the safety bars are lifting up. All I can say is that this experience has overall been hectic, crazy, stressful, exhilarating, fun… and totally worth it!

-Kylie Schafer

P.S.  Betsy and Briju had a boy, Rufus, and he is doing well!