Faces of Psychiatry

Recently finished four profiles of psychiatrists for the APA. The project was created to show the face of modern psychiatry. No more couches and old white men in beards. In fact, our four psychiatrists included two women and two men.

So who were they? The first was the highest ranking psychiatrist in the Armed Services. She helped reorient the military toward addressing brain trauma and issues like PTSD. She also reached out to the NFL and families of troops to address the stigma that prevents people from seeking care.

The second psychiatrist mentors Residents and helps run an outpatient clinic. We saw her in action and she tries to give her young doctors new ways of seeing and understanding their patients.

The third, a child psychiatrist, has a private practice and works in a hospital ER. We watched his interaction with "patients" and were struck by his empathy and ability to put people at ease. And he liked being able to help adolescents navigate the often rocky path of moving toward adulthood.

And the fourth, a research scientist at NIH, has spent his career trying to understand and then combat the stranglehold of addiction. In recent years he's been working on strategies for involving communities to effectively reach out to kids at risk. And they've been having some success.

So what have I learned from the experience?

The face of modern psychiatry is a rainbow of people and possibilities.

That the brain remains one of the most complex and mysterious parts of our bodies, and yet, there are often effective treatments that can make a huge difference in the well-being of patients.

That there is a great need for the services that psychiatry can offer and yet, a stigma persists against getting treatment.

That there are many practice options open to psychiatrists, and yet among many policy makers, illness of the brain is still not viewed the same as illness of the heart, liver or lung.

That there is great optimism among the psychiatrists we spoke with.

And that they find fulfillment and fascination in their work.

In all, an inspiring project. And an excellent example of what I like best about what we do, which is learn about people and practices we would most likely never encounter in the routine of daily life. And also, I got to ask a psychiatrist, "tell me how you feel about that..."

Printing Press Then and Now

As part of our series for the Folger Shakespeare Library celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the King James Bible, we did a short video on the printing process. This illustration gives you a good idea of what was involved in a typical print shop back in the day. There's one person inking the plate, another operating the press, still others setting type, one person checking what's been printed, a young boy apprentice in the foreground helping out. Way in the background you can see a woman bringing in a load of paper. And above on drying racks is the results of the days efforts.

It would take weeks to print a book, thanks to the labor of all those people.

The printing process has certainly changed. A typical printing press for a modern newspaper is a pretty self-contained unit, It can run up to 3000 feet per minute (that's a lot of newspapers) and it also cuts and shapes the paper to size. Obviously requiring a lot less people per page. But I'm wondering if this behemoth isn't also rapidly becoming as outmoded as the first print shop pictured above.

Perhaps a better example of the printing press of the future is the little item pictured below.

The Face of Modern Psychiatry

Working on a short documentary for the American Psychiatric Association. The APA wants to put a face on modern Psychiatry and the video will profile four Psychiatrists. What stands out is that these days Psychiatry bares little resemblance to the early days of Freud, Jung and the rest of the gang. In fact, modern Psychiatry has transformed itself from an argument over competing theories of personality to a modern medical practice based on research and science. And yes, psychiatrists still do therapy and they can use brain imaging to shows its effectiveness. I guess you could say they've moved from an emphasis on the "mind" to a focus on the brain.

And the video? One psychiatrist we're profiling is a government research scientist trying to combat addiction. His agency is partnering with local communies to put in place early intervention and prevention strategies. The second works with brain trauma and helped create a strong public outreach and education program. The third works with children and adolescents in private practice and the ER, working one-on-one with patients in both an office and hospital setting. And the fourth manages an out-patient clinic for a University Hospital. She's concerned with caring for patients and mentoring young psychiatrists-in-training.

And while it is not the focus of the video, many people still give mental health a low priority compared to physical health. There is still a stigma attached to it and we seem to have difficulty understanding that mental illness is a disease and not simply a lack of will power.

Hopefully, the video will help us gain a little insight and a new perspective on these issues.

Art for Art's Sake

Google is changing how we experience museum masterpieces. The Google Art Project is a partnership between Google and 17 of the world's leading arts organizations. A short video explains what they are doing.
And for some of the museums, there's a virtual tour of the galleries as well. Easy access for anyone with a computer and curiosity. If this keeps up, we'll never have to leave the comfort of the old rockin' chair...

Photojournalism: Something Old, Something New

It all started with a

blog in the NYT about the death of photojournalism. Quoting Neil Burgess, former UK Bureau Chief of Magnum: "Magazines and newspapers are no longer putting any money into photojournalism. They will commission a portrait or two. They might send a photographer off with a writer to illustrate the writer’s story, but they no longer fund photojournalism. They no longer fund photo-reportage. They only fund photo illustration."

His comments remind me of one of the great examples of modern photojournalism that originated in the NYT photography blog, Lens. One in Eight Million was groundbreaking, based on the simple concept that NY is a city of interesting characters. Each piece (running about three minutes) plucked a New Yorker out of their every day life and told their story with a sound montage of their voice and evocative B&W photography by a NYT photographer. The people came from all walks of life and the series described as an "ode to the city," won an Emmy for "new approaches to documentary." I found "One in Eight Million" fascinating, posted several blog entries about it, "One in Eight Million" "Letter to Michelle McNally" , told friends and colleagues. It takes empathy and considerable skill to create a compelling story arc in three minutes. You can still see the pieces by following the link above.

But that was that. For whatever reason, the NYT decided to end it. I'm sure that Emmy was a bittersweet moment for the series producers and photographers.

I see other examples, too. Here's a link to NYT Photographer Chang Lee's innovative "Second Chance" series that also died on the vine. It launched in the NYT website in June, 2009 and I believe ended later that year. I wrote several blog posts "A New Way of Seeing" and "Capturing the Stillness" about his work, too. Chang was incorporating video and photography to frame a person's story in key "moments." He created those moments to allow the viewer time to pause and reflect, and gain a deeper insight into the story he was telling. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Chang Lee helped show the truth behind the cliche.

So, for about a year or two, the NYT was one of the most innovative sites on the web for using video and photography to tell stories. And yes, I still see the names of their great photographers in picture credits, but now it's news photography, not explorations of ideas, issues, people, environments, etc. that seemed to offer such promise in the early days of Lens.

Well, I can't end this post with such a downer, so I want to point you towards something new. New to me, anyway. And that's a new site devoted to photojournalism. It's called Fraction Magazine and it features a wide variety of work, much of it devoted to telling stories with pictures. And reviews. And sometimes wonderful surprises, like the work below, created in the 40s by Gita Lenz. Her work, recently rediscovered and published, was featured in the Edward Steichen-curated exhibit "Abstraction in Photography" at the Museum of Modern Art and calls to mind some of the great work of that era.

And these days, Fraction is a great place for those interested in new ways of using images to capture character and exploring the art and ambiance of storytelling. And, hopefully, it will be around for a long time as a source of inspiration for all of those involved in the visual arts.

Time and Space

Working on a short video celebrating the contribution Planning Director Amanda Burden makes to the City of New York has me thinking about space in more ways than one. I've been editing and interweaving the comments of five people (architects, planners, innovators, etc) describing the impact she's made on the city. I organized their dialogue thematically, added pauses between their thoughts and selected music to bind everything together and create an emotional arc. I've found that designing video this way makes it easier to absorb their thoughts. So all of this had to be accomplished before adding images of a revitalized New York.

And while they're all talking about Amanda Burden, creating a livable city, urban design, space and sustainability, I'm thinking about how to create a different kind of space within the boundaries of this short three to four minute video.

First, some background:

Editing what people say is quite a different experience than editing their words on paper. Most people tend to speak quickly; their thoughts tumble out a melange of phrases, repetitions, with stops, restarts, stutters and an often twisted sentence structure. Reading allows you to stop and consider. But video keeps on rollin' by, so if you're not careful with the words, music and images, it's easy to bombard, overwhelm or simply bore your audience. So how one fills up the space in a three to four minute video is the difference between ho hum and wow.

And what makes it more complicated is this:

When we speak face-to-face we can usually decode what someone is saying by paying attention to their tone of voice, emotional cues, hand gestures, facial expression and body language. But making a video, we usually try to avoid "talking heads," so all those comprehension cues get thrown out the window as we cover up their visual insights with images. Which makes the ability to carefully edit and place spoken comments all the more important.

And you have to do it invisibly, making it seem and sound like the words weren't edited at all.

Once you've mastered that skill, you need to orchestrate how the words are delivered for maximum impact. Any seasoned public speaker knows that timing is the riverbed through which the words flow. It's what comedians and actors live for: Timing. And that's also crucial when editing and structuring someone's words.

And no, I don't change their meaning. I use editing to enhance what they're saying, making their remarks succinct and crystal clear. And then I surgically add space between the phrases, sometimes even adding full stops, to create, with the music, an internal rhythm. Giving greater weight and impact to the words that remain. And giving the viewer the space to process what's being said.

It's a little like a poem,

where the visual space

on the page

gives the words

greater meaning.

Ultimately, it's more like designing than editing, with each moment constructed as a brief embrace and then sending them on to the next.

What You See/What You Get

Is what you see inevitably what you get? Well not necessarily. Here's an example of what I mean:

Working on a video for the US Conference of Mayors about JFK and the Call to Public Service. Using still images from his presidency and moments from his speeches to capture that sense of who he was and how he inspired others. And opening the piece with just a few comments from mayors talking about how he inspired them and the nation.

Since this was to be an introduction to the video, I wanted to keep the comments short and succinct. So I chopped up their statements to pare down their thoughts and organized them to get the flow I wanted. So far, so good. But then the question: what images should I use? It would have to be something to visually play off what was being said.

Since this video is being created for the 50th anniversary of his presidency, I wanted something dreamy and nostalgic for starters. That, plus the right kind of music, would give more emotional weight to the opening and more power to the comments. When I saw this photo, I decided to shape the introduction around it. This photo is a great example of the difference between seeing and perceiving. What do you "see" when you look at this image and how do you perceive or take in what you are "seeing?" In considering the creative process, each question gets a different answer. Here's what I mean:

Objectively speaking, the photo above shows President Kennedy consulting with his brother Robert, who was then Attorney General. Their body language shows a personal and "private" moment and reflects the seriousness of what they are discussing. The president is obviously distracted by something or someone. Probably the photographer. He is looking away from his brother, and facing the camera. That's the first thing I "saw." But I perceived something else. If the photo was cropped to focus just on the President, it would give the image a totally different context. Still a serious moment, but more abstract. And now you can read much more into the photo. The President's gaze seem as if he was looking right at the viewer, as if sending a message. Which makes it very engaging.

And look at the background. You can see leaves, but they're white. Meaning it was a sunny day and the Kennedy brothers were in shadow, probably standing under a portico at the White House. Also, the photographer was some distance away, using a telephoto lens, which flattens the image. Now the background is out of focus, making the image a little less "real" and more abstract. If the photo was exposed for the sun striking the leaves, the President would be in darkness. But printing the photo so you can clearly see his face also gives it a grainy quality. Again helping make the image more abstract. And that abstraction takes you out of the "reality" of the moment and makes it easier for you to add in someone's thoughts or feelings. The bottom line? You get a dreamy, almost ghostly quality to the image. Perfect for a representation of nostalgic memory.