Diana Sole | President MotionMasters

Outlier: The Story of Katherine Johnson



Join the WELD Charleston Chapter as we welcome Diana Sole, President, MotionMasters, in the showing of Katherine Johnson’s Documentary. 

In mathematical terms, an outlier is a data point that differs greatly from other observations. It’s an apt description for a person too, that is outside the norms. Outlier: the story of Katherine Johnson is a one-hour documentary about the trajectory of an African American girl-wonder, whose mathematical genius would catapult astronauts into space.

Born in 1918, Johnson graduated high school at the age of 14, college at 18, and went on to a career with NASA where she broke race and gender barriers.

Hired by NASA in 1953 for her mathematical prowess, Johnson was responsible for plotting the trajectories for launches and reentries. Some of her notable calculations include the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space in 1959. Johnson also verified computer space division calculations for John Glenn’s 1962 flight. She was the first woman in NASA’s to author a technical report – and in all co-authored 21 technical papers. In 2015 President Barack Obama presented Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Johnson not only succeeded in a white, male-dominated field, she excelled.

 From America’s first attempt at manned space flights, to the Shuttle program, Johnson was an integral part of the mission. 

The documentary includes an interview with Johnson herself, as well as interviews with NASA’s chief historian, a curator at the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Museum, and an interview with Margot Shetterly, the author of the book, “Hidden Figures”. Johnson’s life was one of three profiled in the Hollywood film of the same name.

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Location:

Girl Scouts of Black Diamond

Networking:

11:30am – 12:00pm

Program:

12:00pm – 1:30pm

Event Host

Diana Sole-Walko, president of MotionMasters of Charleston, speaks to the Parkersburg Rotary Club about the upcoming documentary “The Blennerhassetts” about Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett. (Photo Provided)

PARKERSBURG — A Charleston company is working on a documentary about Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett.

MotionMasters is raising funds for the project, to be called “The Blennerhassetts,”said Diana Sole-Walko, chief executive officer of the company. The documentary would be ready by next winter if all the money was in hand, otherwise it looks like it will be released in 2021, she said.

“We have to go out and raise the money for the production,” Sole-Walco said.

Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett are the namesakes of Blennerhassett Island in the Ohio River adjacent to Belpre. The wealthy Blennerhassetts came to America in 1796 from Ireland and settled on Blennerhassett Island where they built an opulent home in the midst of the American frontier.

Harman met with Aaron Burr on the island where they allegedly conspired to commit treason. Burr was later acquitted and Harman was released from prison following the acquittal, but the Blennerhassett fortune and lot in life tanked after and they died in destitution.

The documentary will cover all facets of the Blennerhassetts’ life and times, including their lives on the island and their association with Burr, Sole-Walko said. The production company recently interviewed Nancy Isenberg, an historian who wrote a definitive book about Burr, for the documentary, Sole-Walko said.

“It’s really a documentary about the Blennerhassetts,” she said.

Read more of this article at newsandsentinel.com

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PARKERSBURG — A documentary film on Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett will be made in Wood County.

Representatives from MotionMasters, a video production company in Dunbar, appeared before the Wood County Commission Thursday to discuss their upcoming project concerning the area’s famous residents.

The company, which has been in business for over 30 years, has produced documentaries about Katherine Johnson, Burning Springs, U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, the Rev. Leon Sullivan, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia and John Marshall.

“We produce documentaries about West Virginia history,” owner Diana Sole Walko said.

All of their films have premiered on West Virginia Public Broadcasting and are regularly shown in West Virginia schools and other venues.

“Our work gets the highest ratings on Public Broadcasting,” Walko said.

Their documentary on Burning Springs, detailing the early oil and gas industry, premiered a few years ago at the Smoot Theatre in Parkersburg. Walko spoke highly of working with the late David McKain of the Oil and Gas Museum of the Mid-Ohio Valley on that one.

MotionMasters’ work is supported through grants and individual donations.

“No one commissions us to do them,” Walko said. “We do them and raise the funds to do them. Our work does get national and international exposure.”

They wanted to focus on doing a documentary on the Blennerhassetts. Years ago they did a 10-15 minute video on the Blennerhassetts that still plays at the Blennerhassett Museum.

“We are looking to now do an hour to an hour-and-a-half in length story that puts everything into context.”

This would include the story of the Blennerhassetts coming to this area and their connection to Aaron Burr.

Walko said they have a commitment from Ray Swick, retired historian for the Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park, to do an interview for the documentary.

For their other projects, they have secured money from the state and the state Department of Education because their work is shown in schools.

This project will be executively produced by Susan Shoemaker, who has done work with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.

“She is a West Virginia native,” Walko said. “She and I have gotten acquainted over the last several years and we are going to team our efforts on this.

“We are excited to be teaming with someone with her level of credentials.”

Walko asked the commissioners if they could contribute funding toward the project. Commissioners said the budget period just ended and they were not sure what could be available.

Because they were early in the process with work expected to take 18 months on the project, Walko said they could come back next year when the commission begins working on its budget for next year to see if they can secure funding then.

Commissioners suggested local people who might be able to provide information and insights.

Walko said they were looking forward to getting started.

“We are committed to telling our West Virginia story to a broader audience,” Walko said.

They are just starting the fundraising process and are looking for contributors.

The anticipated release for the documentary is the fall of 2020.

For more information on the project or about donating, call 304-345-8800.

The Kanawha County Public Library in Charleston, WV hosted a showing of the documentary Outlier: The Story of Katherine Johnson produced by MotionMasters. The West Virginia native was portrayed in the movie Hidden Figures for her work with NASA.

Click here to view WOWK TV news package.

HUNTINGTON – West Virginia Alliance for STEM and the Arts (WV AllSTAR) in partnership with Marshall University and the Green Bank Observatory are co-hosting the inaugural “Reaching for the Stars: The West Virginia STEM and the Arts Film Festival” at the Joan C. Edwards Playhouse and on Marshall University’s campus beginning Thursday, Feb. 28 running through Saturday, March 2. All events are free and open to the public, tickets can be obtained from the Joan C. Edwards Playhouse Box Office starting Monday, Feb. 25.

Katherine Johnson

Another unique factor about the Festival is that four of the five films are made by women filmmakers, and two of the women filmmakers are local West Virginians (both award-winning) Deborah Novak and Diana Sole Walko.

Katherine Johnson shines in the well told and inspiring produced documentary “Outlier: The Story of Katherine Johnson” by Sole Walko.

Read more of this article at herald-dispatch.com

For more information about the Film Festival, visit www.wvallstar.org.

Now you can watch several of our documentaries on Amazon Prime Video! Watch the biographies of US Sen. Robert C. Byrd and the Rev. Leon Sullivan. Learn more about the tug of war between Wheeling and Charleston for the state capitol in “A Moving Monument.” Brush up on your Civil War history and the struggle for statehood in “Burning Springs.”

They’re all favorites on West Virginia Public Broadcasting – and now you can watch them wherever, whenever!  More to come, so stay tuned!

Find them here:  amazon.com/v/motionmasters

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Although a book and the hit movie “Hidden Figures” introduced West Virginia native and NASA mathematician, Katherine Johnson, to the world, there is more to be learned about her remarkable story. At least that’s the aim of documentary filmmaker Diana Sole-Walko of Motion Masters in Charleston. The documentary entitled “Outlier” will premiere Monday night on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

“We started on this project before there was a book and before there was a movie,” said Sole-Walko on MetroNews Talkline. “We actually started it in January of 2015 and interviewed Katherine herself in March of that year. We’re very excited after three years of work to roll out this documentary.”

Sole-Walko believes her piece captures the true character of Johnson herself, without all of the dramatic license used in Hollywood’s recreation of events.

“You get to see Katherine herself. No matter how good Taraji Henson was–and she was fabulous in the role– you get a sense of who Katherine is as a person,” Sole-Walko explained. “Her catbird character comes out in the interview we did with her.”

Sole-Walko says the idea to chronicle the life of Katherine Johnson was planted in her mind several years ago when she attended a function at West Virginia State University in which they were honoring a number of alumni. She was blown away when listening to Johnson speak at the event.

“I was taken in by this story of an African American woman who stood up in front of the group as regal as could be and spoke about her years at NASA,” she said. “I started to track down, well who was that woman.”

It’s not her first time taking on a challenging project which requires endless research, meticulous detail, and constant editing and refinement to get a finished product which is not only compelling, but accurate. Sole-Walko has documentaries to her credit on the life of Dr. Leon Sullivan and U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd.

The documentary will air Monday night on West Virginia Public Broadcasting following the U.S. Senate debate from Wheeling and re-air on Thursday night.

The fundraising campaign is focused on improving the facilities for several university sports teams, and expanding innovation opportunities at the school. Video production took place during soccer season, so our videographers were able to grab some live action game footage at a playoff match during the Golden Eagles’ run up to winning the DII National Championship. But how to capture baseball or lacrosse, which was out of season? In order to tell the story we needed to show all three sports. The solution — MotionMasters transformed one of UC’s ballrooms into a studio from top to bottom. Using multiple cameras, videographers Rich Granberry and Wesley Poole captured “hero shots” of three student athletes in uniform kicking a soccer ball, swinging a baseball bat and cradling a lacrosse stick. The hero shots were interspersed with interview footage of the same athletes.

In all, 10 interviews were recorded in various locations across campus using two cameras. As usual, senior producer Diane Dimoff made the interviewees comfortable and drew out great comments to bolster the school’s case statement on why the funds were needed.Lo
ok closely at our interview with baseball coach Andrew Wright.  We chose to conduct his interview in the batting cage at UC. The primary camera was a locked off medium shot with the coach framed on camera right. Camera two was a close-up profile shot. While the cage’s netting provided an interesting backdrop, we wanted to ensure the viewer could easily identify the location. We decided to add two baseball players working through drills in the background of our shot. This would immediately establish our location as well as create a more dynamic interview. Interestingly, though, the baseball players were
not present during the coach’s interview.  They were added in post-production. The challenge would be ensuring the baseball players would be in the correct position depending on the interview bites we would eventually decide to use.

Here’s how the effect was accomplished: we chose to utilize Camera One’s locked position, shooting the coach framed right without the players in the background.  After we finished the interview, we brought in the two baseball players and left Camera One in its locked position, making sure the players positioned themselves frame left. In post-production, we merged the two images from Camera One so that it appears the baseball players are practicing behind the coach. This technique gave us the ability to choose the player action we wanted in the background. The effect accomplished our goal of an easily identifiable dynamic interview setting.

The finished video is less than 7 minutes long. And according to our client, we scored a big win!

West Virginia film Office

Where are you from, where are you located now, and what are your ties to WV?

I grew up on a dirt road farm along Wylie Ridge, which snakes along the hilltops between Weirton and New Cumberland, WV.  My family roots run deep in West Virginia — I have ancestors who carved out a life in these mountains and fought in the French and Indian War, which is long before the formation of our state.  I am a student of West Virginia history.  When I was in high school, I was a member of a music group that performed Mountain Heritage music, and we sometimes performed with Patrick Ward Gainer, a folklorist/musician who was passionate about recording the musical heritage of our state. Years later, I started producing documentaries about our state.  And there’s so many more I’d like to do! I am blessed to have crafted a career doing what I love, and living where I choose.

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