My interest in people and innate fear of boredom attracted me to video production. The first time I picked up a video camera with a motive to tell a story, I realized the power and the access this new medium gave me. I was welcomed into people's lives, and was able to ask questions and instigate dialogue. I was hooked. I was also in Florida at the time.
I needed more, a city that would feed my hunger for stories. I relocated to New York City to work at VH1 for a short period. When it was time to go home, I was still intrigued with the city. I transferred to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and continued studying the art of storytelling through filmmaking. Soon New York itself was not enough. I needed international fuel.
I found a group of college students that were traveling to Honduras to rebuild after Hurricane Mitch. I brought my camera along, and turned my experience and the raw footage into a promotional video for American Jewish World Service(AJWS). AJWS was so pleased with the video that I returned to El Salvador 6 months later to document another relief effort.
That was it. I had uncovered my passion in life. Upon graduation from NYU, I became an employed storyteller at Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, where I inspired people to donate money for various projects that Hadassah ran. Still, the human situation stories intrigued me, and I found myself in a remote village in Ethiopia following Bewoket, an Ethiopian boy that saved his own life and ended up in Atlanta, GA for heart surgery. In the same vein as Bewoket, I was drawn to help tell the story of Perla Ovitz, the youngest of a family of seven dwarfs that survived the Holocaust together.
The West Coast beckoned me to relocate to Seattle in 2004, curious about new media and the way technology is changing, I chose to pursue a Masters in Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington.
The borders have opened for me to reach beyond the video medium and enter into the web and interactivity with my storytelling.
Welcome to Andrea's Stories, enjoy exploring and learning how I can help you tell your story.
copyright 2007
