Remember the days when we used to scoff at a Skype interview?

They really weren’t too long ago. Less than a year, if we’re being specific. And we can be specific, because any video storyteller knows exactly when the rules changed and dictated new ways we’d all be required to do our jobs.

These days, when I turn on my station’s evening newscasts, the majority of interviews are done over Zoom. When I watch some of the most innovative storytellers at stations across the country, I often see a new definition of a two-camera interview. One camera focuses on the reporter facing a computer monitor. The other isn’t even a camera; it’s a screen recorder.

In most cases, these look like limits. I have refused to stow away my camera during the COVID-19 pandemic, preferring to shoot stories and interviews whenever possible, but I recognize the difficulties in doing so. I can’t put a lavaliere mic on my interview subjects, and I can’t get within six feet of another human being. I’m not allowed to shoot stories indoors, which means I’m especially grateful to work where winter temperatures rarely dip below freezing. But rain and wind can hinder a shoot, and I can’t control it.

Yes, there’s plenty we still can’t do.

But I’m constantly reminded, including during Super Bowl coverage this past week, of what we can do – and what we could have done before the pandemic but never did.

Ten days before football’s biggest game, I received a request to help our sister station in Tampa. The city was not only hosting the Super Bowl, but its team – the eventual champion Buccaneers – had won the right to play in it. The station, I was told, would be producing hours of additional content. They would welcome emotional stories to beef up their coverage.

I was asked to provide those stories – and do so without ever setting foot in the city. I would work remotely from Atlanta while producing relevant, meaningful pieces for Tampa.

I came up with an idea that I likely wouldn’t have suggested before the pandemic.

I had been thinking about Tom Brady, the seemingly ageless Bucs quarterback who had taken the team to his tenth Super Bowl. (He had made the first nine – and won six – with the New England Patriots.) Excepting those in Boston and Tampa, football fans by and large can’t stand Brady. He wins too much. He doesn’t seem to slow down. He screams on the sidelines. He’s married to a supermodel. He gives haters plenty of fodder.

But with his resume on the field, most fans ultimately respect Brady – or, at least, what he’s accomplished. That became my premise: talk to opposing fans about this odd dichotomy of emotions.

If I was in Tampa, I might camp out at a fan zone or city hub and spring the question on passersby, hoping some would entertain. This time? I could expand my circle, because I didn’t need to interview people in person. I could do a Twitter search and reach out directly to fans who had mused about Brady. I could go to the different NFL teams’ fan sites and email their editors. I could cultivate richer, funnier, more meaningful conversations, because I could interview anyone, anywhere, as long as they were available.

Again, I could have done this anytime. I could have used this approach in 2020, 2019, and so on.

But so often, in both journalism and life, we invent limits. We impose doubts. We cancel ideas before we flesh them out. We reject concepts because of cosmetic reasons.

Limits are funny. Often they coax bursts of creativity as we try to solve them. Perhaps just as often, we create limits where they needn’t be.

To be sure, I’ll still scoff at a Skype interview when I can get in my car, stand at a social distance, and conduct the interview in person. But over the past year, I like to think I’ve gotten much more adept at expanding my options, both in who I interview and how I tell stories. It’s a lesson I’ll take with me when this pandemic mercifully subsides.

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.