Q&A: Videographer, Sachi Cunningham
SACHI CUNNINGHAM is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at San Francisco State University. Previously, she was a staff video journalist at the Los Angeles Times, where she covered national and international stories from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, to the historic El Niño big wave season of 2010. Prior to the Times, Sachi worked on the staff of the PBS news documentary series FRONTLINE and FRONTLINE/World, where she covered stories around the world, from the first Presidential election in Afghanistan, to sex trafficking in Dubai. The Emmys, Webbys and Pictures of the Year International, among others, have honored Sachi’s work.
A graduate of UC Berkeley's School of Journalism and Brown University, Sachi’s stories focus on the ocean environment. Her camera has taken her in the water with 350-pound blue fin tuna and Michael Phelps. With a decade of experience in feature films and commercial productions in Hollywood prior to her career in journalism, Sachi’s stories are both entertaining and informative. She is a co-founder with Dr. Jennifer Galvin of reelblue LLC, a media production company. An avid surfer, when not crafting stories, Sachi can be found bobbing in the Pacific with her husband, eyes fixed on the horizon, waiting for the next wave. See more of her work at sachicunningham.com and follow her at @seasachi.
1. As an aquatic video journalist, can you share a story of a particularly challenging experience and how you worked around the challenges? Many of my stories have been about surfing, which is always challenging because you have to be in the right place at the right time. If you miss the shot as a visual journalist, it’s usually not good enough to just describe what you saw. I did a large multimedia video story about big wave surfing for the LA Times called “Chasing the Swell.” As the only reporter assigned to the story, it was difficult and financially prohibitive for me to always be in the right place at the right time. Luckily, I wasn’t the only one covering these big swells. It took my producing skills, rather than my shooting skills, to get some of the best shots in the documentary.
I worked with several freelance photographers and videographers to find the best shots to illustrate the story. Videographer Noel Robinson–who had the best footage of these swells–had died while surfing a big wave in Puerto Escondido, Mexico while I was still working on the story. I had been in touch with Noel about incorporating some of his footage into the videos. Thanks to the generosity of his friends and his brother, I was still able to look at Noel’s footage. I could not have made the film without his shots and I hope that the film does honor and justice to his hard work and talent.
2. What has been your experience balancing family life and career? I’m still learning about this, having just had a baby almost 10 months ago. I don’t think it’s ever easy; however, I do feel fortunate to have an academic schedule rather than a 9-5 office job or a job as a foreign correspondent. As most teachers know, teaching is a 24/7 schedule, with class prep, assignments to grade and students with questions at all hours of the day. However, I do a lot of this work after my daughter goes to bed. My most productive time of day is usually from 8 p.m. to midnight. The biggest challenge was and will continue to be shooting and reporting on location. I took my daughter on a documentary shoot last weekend, as I didn’t want to be away from her for the four days of the shoot. This was only possible because I have a very supportive husband who came along and took care of our daughter while I was shooting. Sheryl Sandberg was correct in pointing out in her book, Lean In, that finding a great life partner is a secret to success.
finding a great life partner is a secret to success.
3. What advice do you have for other journalists looking to start a family and balance career? I would say that if you want both, start planning for both early in your career. Success in journalism comes from a lot of hard work: a lot of time in the field and a lot of time editing and/or writing. In other words, I think it’s fairly hard to be successful if you don’t have a somewhat unbalanced life. Balance is relative when you're a workaholic. You need long stretches of concentrated time devoted to your work–often impossible when you have a family schedule to factor in. I started my career in journalism relatively late in life–I was 30 when I went to graduate school for journalism at UC Berkeley. I worked non-stop for the next seven years, but while at the LA Times, I felt my biological clock ticking. So much so, that I left that dream job in order to give myself the work/life balance I needed to start a family. My husband and I took a year to drive along the Pacific from California to Chile to explore ocean stories along the coast and to reassess our goals in journalism. I feel very fortunate that things worked out the way they did–I came back to a job teaching journalism at San Francisco State University and had my daughter a few weeks before my 40th birthday. If I could talk to a younger version of myself though, I might have suggested to her to get started on that journalism career earlier!
4. What common mistakes do journalists make and how can these be avoided? The most common mistake I see among my students is not reporting thoroughly enough. Because of the digital age in which we live, some people think that stories can be found and reported with a few Google searches. I see, though, the satisfaction that comes when students do their own “boots on the ground” reporting–especially if they fail the first time. There is never one straight route to a story’s end. The satisfaction comes from the hard work it takes in figuring out how to get there.
5. What tips do you have for applying to grants and funding for projects? I’m still learning about the grant game, but my advice is to do as much research as you can about what the grant givers are looking for. Talk to someone on the committee if you can. It’s often very specific stories they are looking to fund and if you don’t tailor the language in your application to those needs, you will be overlooked. You can also save yourself some time if you know your story does not qualify. That said, I'd advise to apply to as many as you can! It’s like playing baseball. Even if you get a bunch of strikes, you have to be at bat to get a home run. Don’t take a rejection letter as failure. If you aren’t getting rejections you aren’t applying to enough grants.
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