Washington Post Video

(click through for the interactive project on washingtonpost.com)

What matters in a pro kitchen: instant reaction, mindless repetition and crisp, efficient maneuvers. Restaurants run on the French “kitchen brigade” system, modeled after a military hierarchy more than a century ago. There’s the chef, a couple of lieutenants (the sous-chefs), and a platoon of line cooks —the kitchen infantry — manning stations assigned by menu category: appetizers, fish, meat and so on.

It has to be this way. The restaurant kitchen is a highly physical place, and if the saucier lunging toward the stove collides with the meat cook slinging plated quail toward the waiters, there will be a meltdown. Chefs, like generals, know they have two choices: discipline or chaos.

Watch the cook staff at the height of dinner service — the open-kitchen trend has put them increasingly on view — and you’ll see an intricate ballet. A refined body awareness and familiarity allows these tattooed Baryshnikovs to dance silently around one another between flashing knives and a stove at full flame.

“There’s a kind of wonderful grace that only happens when people are really good at what they do, and they adjust to each other’s motions,” says Ruth Reichl, former editor in chief of Gourmet magazine.

- Sarah Kaufmann / The Washington Post “At CityZen, chefs cook up sweet moves”

This interactive project was a collaboration between videojournalist Ben de la Cruz, Pulitzer prize winning dance critic Sarah Kaufman, and interactive web designer Grace Koerber.

This occasional series looks at the choreography of life, and this first installment, set in CityZen, focuses on the delicate dance of waiters, chefs and patrons in a crowded restaurant.

Sadly, this is videojournalist Ben de la Cruz’s last assignment for The Post, as he left yesterday to work with NPR. Ben had a long and storied career here at The Post, and we’re sad to see him go, but happy to see him start a new chapter in his career. Send him off right by checking out his final, beautiful, thoughtfully shot, compelling and engaging piece, “The Dance of Life: The Kitchen”

-AJ Chavar videojournalist/The Washington Post

Source:

Roadkill Grill and Mormon missionaries | Best of Post Video

Investing a bit of time into the shorter feature stories we’re assigned is always a blessing. Being a videojournalist at the Post basically means you are a general assignment reporter, going from the news desk, to investigative, to feature—occasionally all in one week! Feature stories can fall under any department though, and the best are those that we get a nice chunk of time to sink our teeth into the project and really devote to it. Here are a batch of videos from a wide variety of assignments that the video team got to have a lot of creative control on:

On the hunt for real roadkill in West Virginia (by Evelio Contreras)

Washington Post columnist John Kelly investigates where the meat comes from at the annual Roadkill Cook-off and Autumn Harvest Festival in Marlinton, W.Va.

A day in the life of Mormon missionaries (by Ben de la Cruz)

Go behind the scenes with Elders David Liew and Gregg Karren, Mormon missionaries, as they spread the word of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Newt Gingrich’s stage presence (Produced by Jayne Orenstein)

The Washington Post’s Sarah Kaufman says Newt Gingrich has the ability to be both arrogant and graceful during debates, and his stage presence is winning over potential voters.

Drug trafficking in Belize (Produced by Kristen Boghosian)

The Washington Post’s Nick Miroff reports on the threat of Mexican drug cartels to Central America’s least-populated country.

After deportation, a family divided (by Alexandra Garcia)

Princess Martinez was born and raised in south Texas. She and her six daughters are U.S. citizens, but her husband is not. Last year, he was deported, and the whole family moved just south of the border to Mexico. Then, the family faced an increasingly common dilemma: where to educate U.S. citizen children after a non-citizen parent is deported.

Home for homeless GLBT youth (by Whitney Shefte)

The Wanda Alston House in Northeast is a transitional housing space for homeless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth between ages 16 and 24. Residents can live in the house, which is run by the nonprofit Transgender Health Empowerment, for up to 18 months while they attend school and get jobs. Sarah Feliciano, who has lived in the Wanda Alston House since March, is a transgender female who became homeless after her mother rejected her decision to live as a woman.

MTV turns 30 (Produced by Jayne Orenstein)

The Washington Post’s Jen Chaney looks back on the early years of MTV, which celebrated 30 years of being on air in August, and talks about how the music-focused network sped up our culture.

Fact Checking the Candidates

Over the past week we published a series in print and online in the Post called “The Contenders” in which we profiled all of the GOP presidential hopefuls. For video, we wanted some unique content to enrich the online package. Videojournalist AJ Chavar partnered once again with the Washington Post’s resident fact checker, Glenn Kessler, to review each of the major candidates’ biggest misleading claims. Additionally, video producer Jayne Orenstein collaborated with Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post dance critic Sarah Kaufman to produce videos on what the candidate’s body language can say about them. Watch the videos below, and use the fullscreen button in the lower right to view them larger than the thumbnails:

Mitt Romney

Rick Perry

Michele Bachmann

Newt Gingrich

Ron Paul