Sharing on StoryCorps

Last fall Mike was contacted by a freelance reporter who was working in partnership with NPR's StoryCorps on a storytelling project for Atlantic Philanthropies. The project would tell stories in several areas of human rights, including deportation and the effect on children of immigrants living in the U.S. During their research for stories to  illustrate the issues they came across some newspaper articles that had been written about Isaac and Mike.

A few weeks later a team of two reporters came to town to interview the two of them. They recorded over two hours of interviews that would be edited and used in the final video. Several weeks after that, Harvey Wang, a photographer/videographer from New York came to Ogden to record video footage. 

Over two days he followed Mike and Isaac around, taking video of them doing a variety of everyday activities. On his last day here he came over for breakfast which was when we discovered he's a very talented photographer and filmmaker with an impressive portfolio of work. He's even won Emmy's! Who knew? Definitely not us, we just knew he was working on the project as a freelancer. 

We introduced him to O-town and its charms, and he kept us entertained with stories about his different projects. He even joined us for Salon Sunday with our group of friends from Foley's MMA Training Center. The group includes some MMA fighters, not the kind of guys you'd expect to find hanging out, drinking beer, and getting salon treatments. Salon Sundays aren't complete until we've had our nostrils waxed. I know, it sounds weird and painful, but don't knock it until you've tried it. After some cajoling, we convinced Harvey to give it a try. Yep, that was one of the Ogden highlights we had to share with the Emmy award winning artist from New York!

After he left we waited, and waited, to see the finished product. Around Christmastime a package arrived with CD's of Mike and Issac's complete interview, a thank you note and some pictures from Harvey. Still no finished project though.

Yesterday, curious and wondering why on earth we hadn't heard anything, I did some searching. Within minutes I found the video on the Atlantic Philanthropies website. As far as I can tell the entire project, which is being produced by a not-for-profit production company called LongHaul, isn't complete yet. But the video is. I think it's great! You can watch it here.