Brothers on the Pitch

The Premiere

The FedEx Global Education Center welcomed over 300 attendees for the premiere of Uprooted. Photo Credit: Tenley Mae Garrett

Last night was special.

Four months of hard work culminated in a successful presentation of our project, Uprooted.

Over 300 members of our community came to campus to watch the live presentation of the short documentaries that told the stories of Venezuelan migrants in Medellín, Colombia. It was a surreal experience to see the impact the films had, and I’m grateful to have been a part of this amazing project.

The ‘Economy’ team. From left, journalist Brooklynn Cooper, visual storytellers Bryan Cereijo and Abby Cantrell, and designer Kailee Akers.

Celebrating after the premiere. Photo Credit: Alex Kormann

To the Vinotinto FC family, thank you so much for allowing us into your lives and sharing your story. The world now knows how special you all are.

Laurenti Velasquez and Alvaro Junior Cardenas of Vinotinto FC.

The Process

After filming for 10 days in Colombia, our team had a little over a month to edit the films together. We would share our radio cuts, scenes, assemblies, and rough cuts in class and give each other feedback. It was a long and tedious process, but it proved worthy.

Here’s what our final timeline looked like:

Scenes are coded by different colors, natural sounds make up the first three audio tracks, the interview audio makes up the fourth track, and the music bed is in the fifth and sixth track. Having this coordination is definitely helpful during the polishing phase.

While the video team worked on editing the short documentaries, the developers, writers, designers and photographers worked on making sure the website was coming together, the stories were polished, the interactive graphics were functioning, and the photo journey was edited.

The Final Product

And here is my team’s final video:

Most Venezuelans who have the fortune of making it to Colombia find the things that they lack in their home country: food, safety, employment and the list goes on. But sometimes, even when life’s basic necessities are fulfilled, you can still feel a void. This is the story of how an immigrant from Caracas filled his void through sport—and helped dozens of other Venezuelans fill theirs too in the process.

You can explore the rest of the project at http://uprooted.unc.edu - where you will find the four other documentaries, the written pieces, the interactive graphics, and the photojourney.