Ins and Outs of the Newseum

By Dean’s Intern Sunshine Yang at the Newseum

The first thing I learned was that the Newseum was a maze. I quickly had to learn which elevators took you where and how to get back to the editing suite if you forgot to bring your keycard with you, even if you just went to grab another cup of coffee. The second thing I learned was that this beautiful glass building was entirely filled with precious artifacts, and I was among only a few who had access to them.

I was lucky enough to be given access to one of the closed off rooms deep inside the Newseum with our Sony a7iii and take some b-roll of Samantha Bee’s pantsuit. It was amazing to watch the Collections Department take note of every delicate detail they could find about it… the texture of the material, if there were any stains upon arrival, how many buttons there were on each sleeve -take note, one button was loose.

To get the camera shots I wanted, I performed a variety of poses one might see in the gym. This included raising my arms above my head and angling my body on my tiptoes to get an upper wide shot, climbing on a ladder and leaning over the pantsuit with my camera tightly screwed to a monopod as everyone worked under me… and doing squats over and over again as I try to capture the best shot of a tilt up to the pantsuit and panning to Kelly, director of Collections at the Newseum, and her intern.

Aside from playing with camera, lighting and sound equipment on the second and fourth floor, one can find me on the third floor, closed away from the noise of downtown DC and the direct sunlight streaming through Newseum’s glass windows. Away from the distractions of the outside world, I typically find myself in a soundproof editing suite with my eyes darting back and forth between two monitors as I stitch together videos for our “Lighter Side of News” exhibition -which changes every other week- and short sixty second promos for our upcoming exhibition, “Stonewall,” the biggest project my director is currently working on.

The first Stonewall promo I weaved together was a piece from our interview with Cynthia Nixon. Working with the foundation of a storyline from such a well-known figure was refreshing and the creative process in shifting through our endless library of audio tracks was the most difficult, as there were so many options to choose from. Ironically enough, while this process was challenging, it was also the most fun for me. The best feeling about spending most of my time in our editing suites is being able to see my work posted on the Newseum’s social media and sharing it with my family and friends.

I’ll keep you all updated with our next few upcoming projects and let’s hope I figure out which elevators I should be taking by then.