Recent Work: Domestic Helpers Fight Legal Battle for Equality

A Filipina domestic worker is fighting for the right for permanent residency in Hong Kong's High Court. But the case strikes at the core of much more than just the right to abode.



Read our story here: http://on.wsj.com/oCxhVu

Recent WSJ Work: Living in Hong Kong's Tiny Apartment Units

Hong Kong's home prices have skyrocketed in recent years, forcing residents like Yang Lianchun and her family to live in subdivided apartments. She talks to the WSJ about what it's like for a family of four to live in 150 square feet of space.

Recent WSJ Work: Japan Earthquake

A woman carrying her baby around in the town of Ishinomaki, Northeastern Japan. She was looking for any supplies she could find in the rubble.

A day after a massive earthquake and tsunami hit Northeastern Japan, I hopped on a plane to Tokyo and then to Fukushima airport. From there we visited various areas: one where people were sleeping on the stage of an auditorium waiting to hear whether their hometown had been contaminated with radioactivity; one where rotten fish were strewn on the ground -- a reminder of an industry that used to feed the people in that neighborhood; another one where someone was wading through mud, headed towards their destroyed houses to find the dogs they had left behind. It was a three-day-long stay; three very full days.

There are many things I've learned.
Practical things, like 'don't wear sneakers when you're covering the aftermath of a tsunami'.

Don't save on little things, like 'utility belts' for lenses, extra batteries, a good wind jacket, etc. They make a big difference when you work on little sleep and in difficult environments.

But more importantly I learned that grilling a fish with your pals in a middle of the road after you've lost everything can be incredibly uplifting. So can 5 pieces of chewy candy that a stranger offers you, mumbling the word "candy" in broken English.

Anyhoo, here's a selection of the videos I produced from there (I'm on my second trip here now, so expect more to come):

A video about the economic repercussions of the tsunami for a town of ship building companies and food processing facilities:

A video about the reunion of a family after days of being disconnected:

A video about evacuees from near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant:

And some photographs:

Recent WSJ work: Dim Sum Masters at Work

Grease under my feet as I'm stumbling through a slippery kitchen, 3000 USD worth of equipment in my hands.

One-(wo)man-band

My job is to be a videographer. Translated from jargon-heavy web lingo to everyday speech this means I shoot, edit and script videos and one day possibly even slideshows. 

Whenever I pitch a story package, however, I extend my job description. 

One-(wo)man-band. 

The problem with this is not that you have to suddenly present a story in three different formats. That's just having to juggle different software and taking into account a lot of production time. What killed me was that I realized (possibly too late) I had to report on three stories about the same theme with slightly different angles. You see, components have to complement not re-iterate. And that's where it got icky. 

So here are a few lessons I've learned from this and I hope some of you will find it useful:

1. Preparations: The key to all of this seems to be pre-reporting. Finding your story angle for the print piece in advance will help loads. So once you've got that pinned you can see what's missing or under-explored. The misconception I had was that I could predict which part would play which role. I thought I knew in advance what I would need for each component. But interviews always change your angle on the story, ever so slightly. Hence, figure out the print component. Then the additional components will crystalize when you realize which parts you weren't able to explore in the print story and are important to get the whole picture.  
2. Material: That's a biggie. Not only does the article need a still image. The video needs about 10 images of what you couldn't get on tape while filming the office of your interviewee or visiting a space where an event took place. And the best graphics have great visualizations of data you need to get from your source or have crisp and beautiful images that are cut out or processed in one or another way. So a grocery list while reporting multimedia-style might be: a few photos (for article), images from things your interviewee talking about (for video) and illustrations/3D models/powerpoint presentations/stills/data (for graphic). 
3. Time: Unless you have a team of people working with you, you might want to do this sort of reporting only for enterprise stories.

Suggestions and comments welcome!

SUV time...right now?

A quick video I did with another reporter at the WSJ. It's quite bizarre to be looking at cars that eat up so much gas, when gas prices are so high. But apparently car dealers have been offering rebates on those metal monsters as they've not been selling too well.

I guess the most telling quote in this was: "The majority of people who come in for this, the last thing on their mind is gas mileage."