Travis Fox's Journey Along the Mexican Border

Washington Post videojournalist Travis Fox previously documented "Mexico at War: On the Front Lines," a series of five short videos that investigated the drug trade's spiraling violence and its numerous human implications.

Tomorrow Fox returns to the scene with a travelogue, "Journey Along the Border," visually chronicling the "militarized hot zone, where tens of thousands of Mexican soldiers are fighting a vicious drug war against well-armed, rich and powerful drug traffickers, who smuggle across these desert highways 90 percent of the cocaine so voraciously consumed in the United States. On the U.S. side, the federal government is pouring taxpayer money into the border, promising to stem the flow of cash and guns heading south, while the border patrol continues its ceaseless cat-and-mouse search for Mexican migrants sneaking north."

Fox's daily diary approach is similar to the methodology of his cross-country video trek last fall, "Hard Times," which explored how the economic downturn might influence Americans' votes in the upcoming presidential election. (See "Hard Times" and the previous installment of "Mexico at War" showcased on KobreGuide.com.)

"We're going to tell the stories of overwhelmed small town sheriffs, of drug smugglers and drug czars, of the Mexicans who struggle to survive in dusty villages and the Americans who fear that the drug war is getting way too close for comfort. We're going to talk to cops and mayors, some scientists and singers, and lots of regular folks, too. We've got a map, an ice chest, a video camera, and the laptops. "

We'll be watching. Look for the project on KobreGuide's Washington Post channel.

Interactive Intimacy

On KobreGuide.com we previously spotlighted an innovative use of interactive video: A Conversation with Sir Ian McKellen, in which the acting legend discusses Shakespeare and "Richard III," line by line. You click on any of a series of questions about Shakespeare or the play, and the actor addresses the camera and answers it, as though talking directly to you. He'll even chit-chat while you're figuring out which question to click next, humorously cajoling you to select one already! It's the closest thing to having him in the room with you.

Now the Los Angeles Times has cleverly adopted this technique for its online mega-package about how south-of-the-border drug wars are impacting us in the U.S. : Mexico Under Seige.

In an interactive video Q&A session, staff writers Sam Quinones and Richard Marosi each fill your monitor as they look directly at you and answer such questions as: Is it safe to travel to Tijuana? How are drugs getting across the border? Why can't Mexican police handle the problem? You can even type in your own questions for them to answer another day.

As with Sir Ian, while they patiently wait for you to click on another question, the reporters just sit there, against a black backdrop -- not as a still image, but on a video loop, to give the impression that they're a living, breathing presence. It's the kind of intimacy that is designed for the one-to-one interaction that you're more likely to find on a computer monitor than on a TV screen.

We look forward to seeing what other uses videojournalists can find for this non-linear storytelling technique.