Hello! I’m
Mike Schmidt.
(Nice to meet you.)
I’m an Emmy award winning creative leader and the founder of the Reporter Video team in the newsroom at The New York Times. On any given day you can find me collaborating with talented storytellers, designers, animators, video producers, reporters, editors, illustrators and photographers. Prior workplaces include CNN’s Courageous Studio, Mashable and National Geographic Magazine, at each I’ve been responsible for the vision, creative strategy and management of video teams. Plus, I was a Creative Director and Digital Designer for the prescient but ill-fated iPad only news publication, The Daily.
I teach animation and motion graphics to grad students at CUNY.
When I’m not high fiving members of my team while seeking digital enlightenment through collaborative mayhem, I’m often found strolling with my wonderful rescue pup Billie. Thanks for visiting!
Featured
^ The New York Times, Reporter Video
As Senior Executive Producer of Reporter video I built a creative production team and an innvoative new content format for The Times featuring our reporters. I started these as part of a TikTok and Instagram strategy and they have become a regular feature on the top of the New York Times homepage. Readers love them, and so does The Times as it seeks to reinforce the values of independent journalism and expand the audience of loyal subscribers.
^ The New York Times, Features Video
As Director of Features Video and Design, my team made a range of projects across the features desks in the newsroom in Sports, Styles, and Culture. We won an Emmy and millions of views on YouTube for our investigation into Bob Ross. We built an audience around our music series Diary of a Song featuring Lil Nas X and Taylor Swift, and crafted innovative olympics stories about the dangers of winter sports, the absurdity of speed climbing and the kinetic differences between a marathon runner and a sprinter.
^ The New York Times, Snapchat Discover
As the Executive Producer for a special multimedia daily edition, custom animated and only on Snapchat, I was responsible for leadership, strategy and creative problem solving with a team of writers, animators, photo and video editors. We added millions of engaged young readers to The Times every week.
^ CNN Courageous Studio
As the Editorial Director for the new branded content studio at CNN, I was responsible for leadership, strategy and creative problem solving of a rapidly growing team of video producers and directors. We made big business deals and ambitious, dynamite projects with top tier brands for digital and TV audiences across the Turner portfolio.
^ Mashable
As the Director of Editorial Video, I was responsible for hiring, building and managing the team and the strategy and workflows to make all the editorial video published on the main site, Youtube channels, Facebook, and Snapchat Discover. We worked closely with the various editorial teams on news, docs, tech, comedy, puppies and whatever else we dreamt up. During my time there we went from 1M to 100M video views in less than 8 months.
^ The Marshall Project
The company I co-founded with Jody Sugure and Kate LaRue designed the site and design system for this forward thinking, non-profit single-topic journalism endeavor about the criminal justice system in the US. We developed design solutions that visually paid homage to the time period of namesake Thurgood Marshall, but felt modern and updated. Named the “World’s Best Designed Website” by the Society for News Design (SND).
^ National Geographic Short Form Video
I was responsible for three teams that made short form video as one cohesive unit. We made original short, documentary films for News, The Magazine and numerous special projects including animations, sponsored projects and over a dozen pilot series. I ran the video domain for National Geographic and led a web redesign for the site and ran the heavliy trafficked Youtube Channel.
^ Serengeti Lions
Nick Nichols and Nathan Williamson spent two years in the field with a battery of high tech image making gear. And the digital team came together to make one of my favorite all time projects. Jody Sugrue led the charge on the ux and design, and my team worked on the immersive video content. We even won a webby for best use of video.
^ Year in Review
At the end of 2013 a few of us cherry picked a handful of our favorite things created at NG that year. We crafted gorgeous new video teasers and built it into an interactive experience.
^ 125th Anniversary Issue
For this special magazine edition we developed a full multimedia experience for the iPad edition and the website. Incorporating video interviews of our photographers and an animated cover. Plus, we launched a 50-video series about the power of photography that appeared bi-weekly on our photo blog, Proof.
^ The Daily
I was amongst the first wave of iPad content creators at this innovative and beautiful, but ultimately doomed, news publication. I was there from the beginning to launch it on the first generation iPads and helped steer the design team for two years.
^ Gift & Gadget Guide
A micro-team from The Daily created a single, beautiful iPad issue featuring the best in tech with a retro-modern feel. Featuring gorgeous illustrations and designs, original photography and interactive videos it was downloaded over a million times.