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Stories by Sarah
@SarahCavender
Building social strategies that connect communities with the news that matters.
Digital Media & Writing
Certification through Wright State University
Throughout these courses, I was able to better improve and learn how to effectively produce and execute projects whether that be individually or in a group of other students. The experiences I had through editing videos, photos, and integrating storytelling in a variety of ways has helped me improve as a journalist. Storytelling is a crucial part of my role and being equipped with the skills to allow me to tell a story in multiple ways like video, photo, or audio helps the reader.
Projects
‘We’re ready for a fresh start’: The aftermath of a faculty union strike
For an independent study, I spent a semester interviewing and trying to find out what it means for a university to come back together after a higher education strike. The story asked the overarching question of in the aftermath of a campus-wide division, how does a community rebuild its trust and reconnect.
Grounded Birds
For a class project, we were assigned to document a person or place. Here are a series of photos documenting the early morning of a small-town airport.
While creating this project my original idea fell through due to the pilot and student cancelling the flying lesson I was going to document. Instead, I found another plan of action and photographed what an airport looks like the morning before pilots came in. This change of plans happened the moment I arrived on location. Which taught me how to find another angle to the story.
News Deserts in America
For a Social Media&Personal Branding course at Wright State I dove into the background and research of how news deserts can result in lack of sufficient information in local communities.
For this project I was very new to editing and creating video content. It was a long list of learning experiences from finding stock video to figuring out how to edit information that was engaging but also informative. Contacting local and national leaders in the industry to do research and then adding their information to the visual story.
Reflections of Light: Middletown Lights
For a Visual Communication course at Wright State I went to one of Dayton's most popular light displays, Light Up Middletown. The volunteer base organization has spent the last 19 years celebrating the holidays with a light display for all ages. Here is a look at the reflections of light by the city and an interview with a couple people who make it happen each year.
This project challenged how to edit the footage in a way that a viewer could really see the images as well as the audio. I learned a lot from structuring the video alone so it made sense and was interesting.
Flyer redo assignment
For a technical writing course, we were asked to take a flyer and redo it to follow the guidelines of how a proper document should look.
Recreating a flyer like this was a lot of reorganization and thinking critically but about what a resident/community member would be engaged by. There was so much information on the original that needed to be included but done in a less overwhelming way.