MediaStorm Videos Focus on Street & Circus Acts

MediaStorm has posted the results of its fifth weeklong Advanced Multimedia Reporting Workshop, held last month in New York.

Six pros formed two teams to hone their skills by creating high-quality stories incorporating audio, video, still photography, and editing -- under the tutelage and supervision of MediaStorm's seasoned producers.

Both videos are highly recommended viewing -- as well as the behind-the-scenes video that introduces you to the videojournalists-in-training.

* Family Kocktail, by Deanne Fitzmaurice, Stan Alcorn and Doug Grant. (6:50)

Kryssy Kocktail was a loner who dreamed of running away from her troubled family to join the circus. Now she eats fire, lays on a bed of nails and sits on an electric chair as a performer in the Coney Island Circus Sideshow in Brooklyn, NY. In realizing one dream, she discovers another: to be a part of a family.

* The Art of Attraction, by Paolo Black, Melissa Pracht and Scott Lituchy. (11:45)

The New York Post called acrobatic street-artist twins Tic and Tac "The Best Buskers in New York City." At seven, twins Kareem and Tyheem Barnes were playing hooky from school and break-dancing on trains for $50 a day each. Tic and Tac catapult themselves into New York's iconic home of street-artists, Washington Square Park, where they pull crowds and big money with their neck-crushing acrobatics.

* Behind the Scenes, by Maisie Crow. (9:05)

MediaStorm intern Maisie Crow takes us behind the scenes of the MediaStorm Advanced Multimedia Reporting Workshop, to see six participants join the MediaStorm team to conceive, report, and produce two multimedia stories over the course of a week... The six participants included a Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer, the head of visual communications at a major international corporation, editors at NGOs, a university photographer, and a brand consultant.

The next MediaStorm workshop will be held in New York, Feb. 20-26, 2010. Tuition is $3,500. Application deadline is Dec. 14.