Travel & Lifestyle Conversations

Christy Lee Rogers

Client Name
Rikarin
Date
February, 2013
Category
Serial Film

How Christy Lee Rogers is pushing the boundaries of Underwater Photography

The coronavirus pandemic forced me to think outside of the box as a journalist. This feature story with the international acclaimed artist, Christy Lee Rogers allowed me to get creative with my storytelling and producing especially while doing it all from my home.

Overview:
First, as a content creator, I developed a new series concept for the CNN Airport team titled Motivate during the pandemic. The series was designed to feature individuals and/or businesses with unique stories and how each of them managed to persevere, uplift, and inspire others through their work during unprecedented times.

Christy Lee Rogers’ PR team emailed me a pitch of her latest underwater photography installation, ‘Human’. I knew she was a perfect fit and ultimately the first story produced for the

"Riders of the Light" by Christy Lee Rogers Credit: Christy Lee Rogers

Challenges:

COVID-19 halted production in 2020, so the difficulties in producing this story were mainly technical as I had to quickly learn how to use different technology for me to interview Ms. Rogers from our separate homes instead of in-person and on location. I wasn’t allowed to work with a CNN crew to capture B-roll footage of her photography sessions and art. The interview was conduct and record via Cisco Webex. And, the footage used in the final piece came courtesy of Christy Lee Rogers and her video production team.

Impact:
The feature story about Christy Lee Rogers’ underwater photography broadcasted in roughly 60 US airports, on more than 2400 CNN Airport television screens, and with millions of potential air travel viewers.

I collaborated with the CNN Style team to produce a special video of Ms. Rogers’ story and wrote an article. Both the video and article were featured on CNN Style’s front page. The CNN Style team also shared the video on its social platforms including Instagram, IGTV, and Facebook. The story can also be viewed on the front page of www.christyleerogers.com.