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Virtual Reality
Join the Brown Institute in welcoming Raney Aronson-Rath, Executive Producer at FRONTLINE, PBS to talk about virtual reality, and its role in how we tell stories. With the recent explosion of VR – specifically 360-degree video– journalistic outlets are hungry for quality documentary content for immersive platforms. While immersive media experiences have become increasingly prevalent in the gaming and entertainment industry, we are only beginning to explore them within the context of documentary photography and journalism. How can media makers use immersion as a tool to build empathy, engage communities, and forward social change? How does immersing your viewer in content change the nature of the story you are telling? And how does this mode of experiencing a story change how journalists approach the planning, creation, and distribution of stories?
Raney Aronson-Rath leads FRONTLINE, PBS’ flagship investigative journalism series. She has been internationally recognized for her work to expand FRONTLINE’s reporting capacity, reimagine the documentary form across multiple platforms, and report and tell stories that matter in new, creative ways. Under Aronson-Rath’s leadership, FRONTLINE has won every major award in broadcast journalism, earned new funding to expand its investigative capacity and dramatically expanded its digital footprint. Under Aronson-Rath, FRONTLINE has produced several groundbreaking documentaries in VR — “Return to Chernobyl,” “On the Brink of Famine,” and “Ebola Outbreak” — and they will expand their exploration of virtual reality in journalism with a large grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Prior to FRONTLINE, Aronson-Rath worked at ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, and MSNBC. She earned her bachelor’s degree in South Asian studies and history from the University of Wisconsin, and received her master’s from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
The Virtual Reality workshop will take students who have little to no background in virtual reality and teach them the fundamentals of working in the medium. Journalists seeking to expand their storytelling beyond the still image and written word are encouraged to join. Selected participants will gain critical insights into emerging digital strategies in order to engage audiences across new immersive platforms.
The lab will commence with a discussion around exemplary case studies, and will then challeng participants to develop their own immersive story projects. Mixing theory with practice, participants will walk away from this lab with a concrete grasp of how they might integrate immersive storytelling into their practice and what that means for their subjects, audience, and impact.
Matt MacVey is developing immersive journalism curriculum and workshops at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Matt wrote a report about immersive media for the NYC Media Lab and worked on interactive stories in the exhibitions department at the American Museum of Natural History.
Marcelle Hopkins is the Executive Producer for 360 News at The New York Times. Before joining The Times, she produced and directed virtual reality documentaries for FRONTLINE and Emblematic Group. In the past two years, she has received a reporting fellowship from the International Women's Media Foundation, a Magic Grant from the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, a Ford Foundation JustFilms fellowship at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, and a United Nations Correspondents Association award. She spent seven years at Al Jazeera's UN bureau, where she produced TV news packages, interviews, features and documentaries.