Special Projects

Meet Keridan Velasquez, a young woman who went from being a 14 year old with a dream to a 22 year old with a thriving photography business. Payton Bachochin tells us her story in this short documentary.

Meet Guadalupe, a local young woman in recovery after a decade-long heroin addiction. Prior to her addiction, Guadalupe enjoyed expressing her creativity through art. However, the effects of her long-term drug abuse robbed her of her artistic abilities. In this short documentary, Larissa Rongholt interviews Guadalupe and shows us how she has switched her creative […]

Jarrett is a student at Marquette and also a very talented musician. He makes beats from scratch and then sells them online to musicians around the world. In this short documentary, Grant Sanger shows us Jarrett’s process from start to finish, and how he hopes to make a living off of his talent.

Current FAA medical examination laws are having a negative impact on pilots. In this short documentary, Kaylin Hart exposes the difficulties they go through to obtain a medical certificate from an aviation medical examiner due to several disqualifying disorders and conditions that invalidate several capable pilots every year. Many of them leave mental illnesses untreated […]

Meet Niko, a local worker who collects rocks and crystals. In this short documentary by Maribel Guarin, she explores how he got into collecting, how he interacts with the items in his collection, and his shopping process.

Gabby Beesley and I closed Wonderstate Milwaukee for the last time in December 2020. There was no celebration planned, but co-worker Averi Ziebell-Malone rolled in just as the last customers headed out. In typical fashion, she brought an infectious positive attitude and a bottle of Champagne. She tried to hand me a plastic cup while […]

A vein trailing east from I-41, North Avenue stretches from Milwaukee’s western suburbs, through the heart of the city, and all the way to the shoreline of Lake Michigan. In Wauwatosa, the street is lined with office buildings defined by sharp lines and modern exteriors cut into precise rectangles, their olive-tone sheens too new to […]

A line of customers overflows into the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Union hallway from the Grind Café, as four baristas froth milk and pull espresso in a hurry. A student employee and a manager stand together at the cash register, taking orders behind a plexiglass window. There’s a sign taped to it that reads, “New […]

In this short documentary, Jeromey Hodsdon introduces us to Midnight Angel, a local band of female musicians that will be returning to the stage this Summer after a hiatus caused by the pandemic.

In this short documentary, Cherita Booker shows us what it’s like to return to school while also navigating online classes during the pandemic.