message in a bottle

23 hours in New Jersey: How I crammed seven shoots into one trip for a powerful story

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Whenever I ask my boss for the go-ahead to fly for a story, I shake a little.

I don’t ask often. But when I do, I know I’m requesting an investment. A plane trip requires extra time, at least one additional workday if you combine both flights. It sends me beyond my market, for a story that must remain relevant for a local audience. Above all, it demands money: hundreds of dollars at minimum for travel, lodging, and food.

I know the stakes. So I never go too far with my requests. I research the cheapest flights and try to minimize my nights away, all while ensuring I give myself enough time to make the trip worth it. And “worth it,” in these cases, means gathering enough footage, interviews, and moments to allow me to tell memorable stories.

I got the chance last month, and I turned 23 hours into seven shoots, for a story that demanded each one.

An e-mail popped into WXIA-TV inboxes from a man in New Jersey who claimed to have found a message in a bottle along the Tuckahoe River. The letter, he said, was written by an Atlanta woman named Mary Carter, but he couldn’t track her down because “Mary Carter” is a relatively common name. He had been touched by Mary’s letter of prayer and didn’t want to give up his efforts to find her, so he reached out to us. I asked him to send me a copy of the letter, and within two hours I had located, contacted, and delivered the exciting surprise to Mary herself. I arranged an interview with her, and the man in New Jersey – a high school athletic trainer named Tom Connors – called in via Skype to say hello.

I hadn’t planned on traveling for the story … until I heard Tom and Mary’s conversation.

Mary’s “message in a bottle” wasn’t a frivolous note. It was a letter of prayer, written by a two-time stroke survivor who at the time was watching her elderly father suffer through pneumonia. On a quick trip with friends to Atlantic City, Mary wrote a series of prayers on paper, folded the paper into a pill bottle, and threw the bottle into the Atlantic Ocean.

Tom found the bottle – and its emotional letter – at his own point of prayer. Around the same time Mary wrote her message, one of Tom’s students had wound up on a ventilator with Guillain-Barre Syndrome. He had spent the last six months visiting his student, Amanda, in the hospital and helping her rehab back to full strength.

When they spoke via Skype, Tom and Mary realized how much they had in common. And so did I.

Driving back to the station, I called Tom to learn more, and I discovered a story that went far beyond Atlanta. I mused that I’d love to fly up to New Jersey for a day and shoot his side, but I didn’t know if I’d get the green light.

But I asked my boss. And I got it – by pitching a short, tightly packed trip that would maximize a minimal stay.

(more…)

More time to tell a story? Better make it count

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I woke up and didn’t know where I was.

The room was pitch-black. My alarm had just disrupted five hours of uninterrupted sleep. I spent five seconds scanning for context clues until I remembered:

“I’m at a hotel. I’m on St. Simons Island. And I need to leave immediately for the beach to shoot a sunrise.”

TV news journalists often must execute their assignments within an immovable window of time. At my station, we hold a morning meeting at 9:30, match reporters with stories by 10, and then expect those stories to air sometime between 5 and 6:30 PM. Deadlines loom over every decision: “Should I get these extra shots? Do this extra interview? Actually sit down for lunch? Only if I have enough time.”

Long-form storytelling pushes back those boundaries. In my new role, I produce a story a week while handling a variety of other responsibilities for my station and company. I largely set my own schedule, and I know my assignment long before the day it is due. When I ask myself if I should take an extra step in service of the story, I often do not need to consider time as a factor.

So I often answer, “Yes,” arriving earlier, staying later, and working weekends far more than I did before. I pace myself and make sure to balance my hours when I can, but when I see the potential to tell a powerful story, I relish the chance to do so.

That’s what led me to this hotel on the Georgia coast. I had learned about a man from metro Atlanta named Douglas Stephens, who in 1981 threw a beer bottle into the ocean with a message inside. Thirty-six years later, the bottle had been found, and the man who discovered it was planning to return it to its original owner.

I had to be there.

So despite having just returned to Atlanta from a work trip Thursday evening, I prepared to leave again nearly 24 hours later. I packed a bag, gathered my gear, and set off on a five-hour drive — half of it in darkness — for the coast. I arrived on the island at 11:30 PM and went to sleep just after midnight, bracing myself for a busy Saturday.

I could have planned a much longer rest; the two men weren’t planning to exchange the bottle until 12:30 the following day. But I knew, to tell the story right, I needed to do more. I woke up at 6 AM so I could shoot sunrise on the beach just before 7. I drove to the nearest UPS Store to print photos and then headed back to the beach to capture them on video. I arranged a 10:30 interview with the man who found the bottle, Ryan Burchett, at his home in nearby Brunswick. Then I asked him to keep wearing his wireless microphone while I drove ahead to the meeting spot to put a similar mic on Douglas.

When the meeting happened, it brought smiles to all involved. I stood back and captured the moments, knowing I had done everything possible to produce a story worthy of them.

The piece would run the following week (you can watch it above), and I knew I would need to spend several days beforehand putting it together. But in this moment, I didn’t think about that. I said goodbye to Douglas and Ryan, packed my gear, ate a triumphant lunch, and began the five-hour drive back home.

And when I went to sleep that night in my own bed, I refused to set an alarm.

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The Solo Video Journalist is available for purchase. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the publisher’s web site.

Matt Pearl is the author of the Telling the Story blog and podcast. Feel free to comment below or e-mail Matt at matt@tellingthestoryblog.com. You can also follow Matt on Facebook and Twitter.