Black Arts and Culture

Portsmouth Is Hiring Freelance Videographers To Capture City’s Stories

Portsmouth is recruiting freelance videographers to document the city’s stories, with hopes of producing award-worthy content that highlights local culture, history, and community life.

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By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

HAMPTON

The City of Portsmouth is hiring freelance videographers for upcoming productions that could someday win awards.

The city is looking for videographers who will capture the stories of Portsmouth. Applicants should own a camera–but ownership is a plus (not required) and have reliable transportation. Compensation is not based on experience, according to the recruitment ad posted on the city’s website.

“If you have experience with documentary-style filming, interviews, and basic sound, we want to hear from you,” the advertisement on the city’s website says. Send your portfolio to COHENA@PORTSMOUTHVA.GOV.

Will newly hired videographers help Portsmouth produce and win local and national awards? To date, several cities have produced informative and entertaining documentaries including New York (The City Dark, 2011), St. Louis (The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011). Academy Awards were given to those who produced “Bowling for Columbine,” “Harlan County, U.S.A.,” and “An Inconvenient Truth.” This 2006 American documentary film was produced by Davis Guggenheim. It is about former vice president of the United States Al Gore’s campaign to educate people about global warming. The film features a slide show that, by Gore’s own estimate, has presented slide shows over 1,000 times to audiences.

A documentary about Norfolk is currently available on Netflix. It is called “Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter. It chronicles crimes committed by a man with ties to Norfolk. A local cold case detective’s work in solving a cold murder case from the 1980s is gaining national attention in the new Netflix documentary.

Virginia Beach is the setting for a documentary released two years ago. It tells the story of The Dome, a concert venue at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, and its place as a leading venue in Hampton Roads.

“Been Here Stay Here” is a documentary on Tangier island, which is slipping into the Chesapeake Bay. The documentary offers a rare and deeply human look at a community standing at a crossroads.

Chesapeake is included in a documentary titled, “Water’s Edge: Black Watermen of the Chesapeake,” which won recognition at the 66th Capital Emmy Awards for exploring the lives of Black watermen who caught and sold seafood from the Chesapeake Bay. The documentary features numerous Black watermen including Oxford sailmaker Downes F. Curtis, the son of a waterman, and Frederick Jewett, who owned and operated the Coulbourne and Jewett Seafood Packing Company in St. Michaels with his partner William H.T. Coulbourne.

The documentary’s director, Alexis Aggrey, is the founder and principal executive of the Aggrey Company, a regionally based film production company with a goal to focus on giving people of color and marginalized communities “a chance to learn about themselves through their stories told through the lens of their own experience.”

Maryland Public Television, the media distributor of “Water’s Edge,” describes the award-winning film as chronicling the brave and resilient “unsung Marylanders that revolutionized an industry, dreamed beyond their circumstances and are still keeping this tradition alive today.”