Cecelia Brown Interview
For my
interview I spoke to Cecelia Brown. Cecilia walks an interesting line in the
multimedia journalism world, producing audio and visual stories, mostly documentary style stories. When I asked
her how she would describe what she does, she summed it up by calling herself a
documentary storyteller. Above all the thing she does in her job is share real peoples
stories through various forms, her most recognized and prideful work being her
documentaries that focus on individuals. We spoke a lot about the work-life balance that comes with
working in the journalism world, something she recommends is keeping a steady stream
of freelance work to help “pay the bills” and get you set up to spend your
other time working on the projects you are really passionate about. She shared
the wisdom she’s been told when she’s considered giving up on the shorter
contracted jobs; “never give them up,” because they are crucial to working in
this world and keeping yourself afloat. She shared that it is harder to head her
own projects and work on the things she wants to do. The process for getting
your own projects out there is more complicated as first it needs to be pitched
to a company or producer, then it has to be accepted by someone and you work
with them to fund your project and hire the people you will need. She shared
that often times you can run into issues with running out of budget or issues
with the company underfunding you among other things. She gave an example of a
project she got hired to help shoot; the person who made the pitch ran out of
money to pay herself for the project. She was able to pay her staff but not
herself. You need to be able to work well with others because no matter what
you are working on, it is going to pass by someone else’s eye. Cecelia
described this as a blessing often times because you wont have to only rely on
your own mind and with the connections you make in this line of work there will
always be people ready to give their opinions on your work which can lead to
some great feedback. Your connections with others are also supper important, you
could be a regular client for a particular company and that can be a great way
to keep yourself a steady stream of freelance work. It is also important to
understand that it is important to ensure you give yourself time to work towards
the things you are passionate about and to tell the stories you really want to
tell. Cecelia said that for some just working advertisements and doing
freelance/contract work to earn a lot of money is all they need, but for most
that isn’t why they join the journalism world. Although that can be a great way
to earn income, it can lead to heavy burnout and you might not be getting much
satisfaction out of it. That’s why for Cecelia it is important that she maintain
that balance between the shorter projects that earn her the income she needs to
peruse the stories she wants to share. It is a hard balance to have and its not
one she can easily describe, she said in many ways she is still figuring it out.
But that balance is key, and something that you will need if you want to become
a multimedia storyteller.
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