This week marks our 10th Anniversary here at MediaStorm, my home for almost the same length.
After Brian miraculously plucked my resumé from the slush pile back in 2006, he told me there was enough money to pay me for just a week. After that was an uncertainty.
But I simply refused to believe it. A company whose burgeoning ethos so matched my own could not possibly be temporary.
You see, I had spent the better part of the previous decade in cable television, producing reality TV. It was educational and aimed at teens, but it was reality TV nonetheless. I walked away knowing that nonfiction TV is a 10headed hydra that can never be satiated. Feed me , it cries. Feed me, feed me, feed me . Every day, every week, every month. You must always keep feeding the beast. And there are 100 caretakers all constantly negotiating that diet. Want to spice things up? Well, we’re going to need to check with 16 different people first.
Then came Brian’s Gramercy Park apartment where the two of us shared a desk and a mouse as we took turns at editing. We ate sushi for lunch and took three months to complete our first project together, Kingsley’s Crossing.
Kingsley’s Crossing is the story of one man’s dream to leave the poverty of life in Africa for the promised land of Europe. We walk in his shoes, as photojournalist Olivier Jobard accompanies Kingsley on his uncertain and perilous journey (see the film at http://mediastorm.com/publication/kingsleyscrossing).
We knew what we wanted to do but didn’t know exactly how to get there. But we learned. We put in the time, 10, 12hour days, each testing the other’s commitment to getting it right.
After a decade of squashing hours of footage into 22 minute holes, I could finally breath. There were no more time restrictions. There were no more layer upon layer of hierarchy. I was beholden to only one thing: story. And because of my career experience thus far, I knew exactly how privileged I was.
Since then, I have worked on single stories that have taken the better part of a year. I have been afforded the time to get it right. Project after project, MediaStorm–Brian Storm–has given me that.
And that time, my friends, is a gift I will forever appreciate.
Eric Maierson
INFORMATION
http://mediastorm.com
