Producing Deep Conversations On Global Topics

A Two-Day Production Yields Multiple Videos For the Client

MTI was contacted by the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (CELL), a nonpartisan nonprofit institution working to empower citizens with the necessary tools to help prevent terrorism and extremist violence. Based in Denver, the organization called MTI for a two-day interview job. As part of their “renowned speaker series,” the company was looking for a “fireside chat”-style format. And so MTI chose to stage the production at, appropriately, the studio at the International Association of Fire Fighters headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The interviewer was David P. Cohen, a former tech executive, as well as senior agency official and congressional staffer, who works on cyber security and data privacy issues, among other areas, with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a multidisciplinary law, business, and policy firm.

The two subjects to be interviewed were Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an award-winning author and scholar of extremism and radicalization, who is the founding director of PERIL, the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University.

And Bruce R. Hoffman a professor at Georgetown University and also Professor Emeritus of Terrorism Studies at St Andrews University, Scotland. Prof. Hoffman has been studying terrorism and insurgency for nearly five decades.

Video Crew, Equipment and Editing

The videographers for both of the two days of shooting were John Murphy and Albert Liesegang. Equipment included a pair of Sony FX6 4K cameras, Aputure lights, and multiple microphones to capture each speaker cleanly. As the photos indicate, a lot of work and gear go into making an interview seem intimate.

CELL will handle the editing, creating several videos from the full interviews. These will be posted and streamed in January, aimed at special events and schools.