Getting the Story @ Ford Ironman World Championships with Jessi Stensland

Thanks Jessi Stensland, for your updates from the Ford Ironman World Championships! Stensland is a professional endurance athlete, movement specialist and active.com expert.
In anticipation of the Dec. 19th airing of the NBC Ford Ironman World Championships broadcast, I'll feature several of Stenland's video features from Kona with bonus info from Stensland. She'll answer what it's like to be on site covering THE IRONMAN, what stories touched her most, what race day is like and more!

Jessi Stensland is a storyteller.
"I like to capture life and stories," she says. "Those that are simply fun, that spread joy to the world and/or are inspirational and/or educational."

As part of her role at active.com Stensland has the pleasure of reporting from the Ford Ironman World Championships. "This year Kona was a lot of work but also a blast," she says. "Over the years I've realized how much more intricate of a process it is to really do it well, more efficiently and easily."

To produce each video feature Stensland needs: a vision for her topic, excellent supporting footage and the ability to engage her subject and to put him or her at ease. Stensland loves bringing out her subject's natural self while getting the story. She stays flexible too, giving the interviewee freedom to tell his or her story and letting the interview go where it needs to.

"I enjoy having a hand in all aspects of production: being on-camera, filming and editing," she says. "It's very helpful to know all three. While I'm on camera I'm also thinking ahead as to how useful the time I'm spending is, in relation to how I'll have to edit it later."

Creating a simple two-minute video from start to finish can take 90 minutes to produce. In addition to the actual interview time, Stensland must digitalize the video from tape to computer, make cuts and adjustments to the footage and audio, and insert pre-roll and title screens. Then the final piece is compressed, outputted and uploaded to the web site. More integrated features combining interviews, quotes, footage and music, can take 3-4 hours start to finish.

It's all a perfect fit for Stensland who loves sharing stories with the world. Video production takes her to new places where new faces wait to share their adventures with her. Keep up the good work Jessi!

Stay tuned for Stensland's features on: bike check-in, the Voice of Ironman Mike Reilly, Dig Me beach, Rudy Garcia-Tolson and race day!

Learn more about Stensland's day-long MovementU workshops here. Read @TriBoomer 's report from MovementU! He calls MovementU the "best day-long triathlon training clinic, evah!" My hubby & I are super excited for MovementU's Madison-area class in 2010!

Question for You:
- What's your dream job?

Also Read:
On Site @ Ford Ironman World Championships with Jessi Stensland

photo credit by me: I saw many sea turtles when I was on the Big Island. But I met this turtle in the Grand Cayman Islands.