Focusing on Army story through camera lens

By Kari Hawkins (The Redstone Rocket)April 20, 2012

Focusing on Army story through camera lens
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

Joseph Givens' love for being in front of the camera led him into a job that took him all around the world as an Air Force videographer.

And even though a health condition cut his Air Force career short, Givens has continued to use his skills as one of the military's best videographers to tell the story of the military in video -- only now he works for the Army Materiel Command.

"The fact that I'm still able to create, to tell a story, to be an artist, it's why I love my job," Givens said as he sat in the video editing suite at AMC headquarters that he had the opportunity to design and equip when he came on staff in 2011.

"I'm not necessarily the kind of guy who likes to be wired to a desk. I like to be out meeting people, doing research. Through video, I can tell the Army story. I can influence emotion in people. There's an automatic reward for me at the conclusion of a video. I'm sharing a life one video at a time."

Givens, 27, grew up in Waco, Texas, as the son of a Navy sailor. He enlisted in the Air Force in 2002, even though his dream was to be a basketball player or an actor.

"It was a better route for my life at the time," he said. "I tried college right out of high school, and it didn't click with me. The next option was the military."

His first career choice was to be a computer programmer in the Air Force, but he would have to wait a year before a position in that field would open up. He enlisted without choosing a specific career field and was assigned to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in video production.

"I thought I'd end up being a cop or something like that," he said. "But they made me a videographer. They put me behind a camera instead of in front. And with that field, I traveled all over the world, including a six-month deployment to Iraq in 2005."

Givens' deployment involved serving at a video hub, where field reporters would send their video for editing and then for shipment on to the Pentagon. He did do some video filming, including the filming of the testimonies of 150 former Iranian terrorists who were housed by the U.S. in Iraq for two years before returning to their own country.

After four years, Givens was ready to move on, thinking he would start a career as an actor or filmmaker. But then he got accepted into the Military Motion Media Program at Syracuse University in 2006.

"There was a competition DoD-wide and four from each branch could make it into the program," he said. "For my application, I submitted a field documentary of a unit preparing for deployment. I took two weeks TDY to get the material, and then I had to edit it down to four minutes."

Givens graduated from the program in May 2007, completed his associate degree at the Community College of the Air Force in audiovisual production in October 2007 and graduated from Airman Leadership School in February 2008. He was assigned to Maxwell Air Force Base, where he continued his college education by attending Trenholm State Technical College in Alabama, receiving a certificate in web database development in October 2008. He also earned a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Excelsior College in Albany, N.Y.

What he learned at Syracuse University, though, gave Givens, then a senior airman, even more skills for telling military stories with a camera. So, in 2008, when he was a broadcaster for Air University Television at Maxwell AFB, Givens submitted his work in a competition that named him the Department of Defense's Military Videographer of the Year.

He was also awarded second place in the editing category, which recognizes the best use of post-production techniques such as narration, interviews, music, dissolves, wipes, split screens, slow motion and computer graphics.

"I felt very confident about the competition. My skills had really developed and my supervisor, who had won the award twice, encouraged me to apply," he said.

Givens submitted a host of videos to qualify in the categories of documentary and field product. Then he submitted two videos for the final competition. They were Air Force ROTC Experience and Air Force ROTC Field Training, filmed at an Army training facility in Hattiesburg, Miss.

"My editing skills were judged on my Tribute to Airmen videos and I was named the year's Videographer for the Year for all four branches," Givens said.

As the winner, Givens attended an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., and a White House press dinner. He received several pieces of camera equipment and was even offered a scholarship to Boston University, which he declined.

Givens' Air Force career came to a sudden halt in 2010 when it was discovered that he suffered from keratoconus in both eyes during a physical exam in preparation for an assignment at Kunsan Air Base, Korea.

Keratoconus is a degenerative disorder in which structural changes in the eye's cornea cause it to thin and change to a more conical shape than its normal curve. It can cause substantial distortion of vision, with multiple images, streaking and sensitivity to light. For most patients, the symptoms can be managed with the use of contact lenses and other treatments. But 10 to 20 percent of patients require a corneal transplant.

Givens' initial diagnosis was verified by a cornea specialist and treated with the use of contacts. But a medical review board still found Givens unfit for duty because of the condition.

"Twenty years of service was on my radar. I had just got my degree, so I was looking at becoming an officer. My wife was pregnant. And then we were told I had 90 days to make arrangements to leave the Air Force," he recalled.

"Three months later, I had a baby. But I didn't have a job and we didn't have any money. I was learning how to write resumes and preparing for job interviews. We drove back home to Dallas,Texas, and lived with my wife's parents in a 10-by-10 bedroom. I was very independent for eight years and all of a sudden I didn't have a job."

Givens used the GI Bill to go back to college in hopes of pursuing an acting career. He continued to send out resumes in search of a job. During the next year, he searched for a job, went to school and sought out different treatment options to keep his eye disease from worsening.

"The first year after my diagnosis, I had bad fluctuations in my eyesight," he said. "The Veterans Administration made it very difficult to see a specialist while all the time my condition seemed to be progressing. So, I sought treatment on my own and took care of the cost on my own so that I could get this under control."

With no luck in his job search, Givens got an acting agent and was ready to commit to an acting career. But, then, suddenly, he received three emails for job interviews. One of those was with the Army Materiel Command at Redstone Arsenal.

"We prayed on it because I didn't really know what to do," Givens said. "I talked to a few of my military friends, and they raved about North Alabama. I talked to Lira Frye (AMC's public affairs officer) on the phone and I realized this was a great opportunity because I could establish the studio and the program from the ground up."

Givens arrived at Redstone in February 2011, and quickly got involved in choosing the equipment for AMC's video department, which includes an editing suite and studio. He is a one-man shop charged with telling the AMC story through video.

"AMC stories can be everywhere this command has a presence, although I do focus a lot on what is happening at Redstone," he said. "This is a very rewarding job, and my family (including wife, Monisha, and soon to be 2-year-old daughter Leah) and I love living in this area."

AMC's videos, seen on its website as well as on other news and social media sites and on DoD websites, have the potential of reaching 400 million website visitors each year.

"We are broadcasting the AMC story," Givens said. "I do the research, shooting and editing of each story we share. AMC is really out there doing things for war fighters, and it's exciting to tell that story."

As for his eyesight, Givens said it is stable with no further degeneration and the outlook is good that it will remain that way for several years. Besides wearing contacts, he is trying other treatments with hopes they will slow any progression of his disease and prevent the need for a corneal transplant.

With his contacts, Givens' eyesight is nearly perfect -- and so are his AMC news videos.