Story Rationale:

Our team decided to create the story about Weston Zaludek and his passion for beer for a few reasons. First and foremost, the access. In regards to Alex and Andrew’s Q&A’s which involved adults passionate about weightlifting and helping children, it was clear that access for both of those would be very difficult to obtain. In terms of weightlifting, it was improbable to gain access to a public gym or the football team’s facilities. In terms of the camp organizer, it is very complicated to gain access to taking photos and videos of children. However, in terms of the brew master, the access was simple, we just had to get in contact with him.

Weston’s schedule made the most sense for our team, and job provided the most dynamic footage in terms of what we would be able to obtain.  Our intention with the story was to gain access to a person’s given passion; to study the reasons why people end up in their given field of work and what it means to them. What we learned is that many passions are bred out of disparity, found when one person is at the end of their rope. For Weston, he was lost in life with only one skill that he turned into a lucrative business.

For the multimedia story, we focused on Weston and his story to focus on what it means to him specifically. For the text piece, we used Weston and his coworkers/friends Neil and Joe to highlight the connectivity that brings them together out of the process of brewing beer. One thing we would we would do differently would be try to spend even more time with the subject in order to really gain access into their psyche and capture more vulnerable footage of Weston, possibly at his family farm, which he mentioned in his interview.