A note to Multimedia Immersion Program participants

Beginning Tuesday in Louisville, Kentucky, 50 people will be empowered to produce video for their publications websites. This is the second year that I have been a coach at the NPPA’s Multimedia Immersion Program. I’d like to take a moment to tell those lucky 50 boot campers what they can expect.
If you have never shot [...]

Get thee to Convergence ‘08

Next week, I am heading to Louisville, Kentucky to be a coach at the NPPA’s Multimedia Immersion Program. This is the second year that I have participated in the four-day video boot camp. A lot has changed in the newspaper industry in the past year, and I am stoked to be able to hang with [...]

Great audio starts in the field

You’ve probably heard it a thousand times before–viewers will forgive you for bad video, but they’ll bolt if forced to listen to bad audio. Wind noise and distorted audio hurts the ears.  Have a video where the subject can’t be heard over distracting ambient nosie? I, like most people, just hit the back button on [...]

Soundslides goes full screen!

 
As I was finishing up producing an audio slideshow for Spokesman-Review photojournalist, Brian Plonka, I came across this new beta version of Soundslides Plus today.I see Joe Weiss has been busy updating the program. One bad-ass feature is a new full screen mode. I have been waiting for this since he released this ground breaking audio slideshow production tool in 2005. [...]

Nothin’ but blue skies from now on…

I just got done reading the Newspaper Association of America’s report on newspaper video. What struck me most is how many newspapers are making video storytelling a priority on their websites. Four years ago, when I started shooting video for my newspaper’s website, I felt like actor Will Smith in the movie “I am Legend”—alone [...]

Radio from the newsroom

Ok, here’s an unusual way to use multimedia in your newsroom. Recently my newspaper The Spokesman-Review, signed a deal with Los Angeles-based Mapleton to produce hourly radio newscasts. These two-minute long newscasts are now being broadcast on a local news talk radio station as well as on Spokesmanreview.com. (Listen to a broadcast here.)
Two veteran news radio [...]

Canadian video journalist John Lehmann’s star is rising

I first met John Lehmann in Vancouver, Canada after he invited me to speak about multimedia at last year’s Western Canadian Photojournalism Conference. Lehmann works for the Globe and Mail newspaper and is the consummate photojournalist. A sharp eye for visuals and a keen sense of story, Lehmann ranks up there with the best shooters [...]

The Digital Journalist puts newspaper video in perspective

There is a great editorial on video storytelling in this month’s TheDigitalJouranlist.org that echos everything I believe in. If you shoot video for a newspaper, you’ll want to  pass this editoral on to your supervisors. A snippet of wisdom:
Newspaper video should carry the imprint of the parent. It should represent the editorial image of the newspaper. Remember, any piece of [...]

Creatures from the Heart

 
I posted this project in Video Journal  called Creatures from the Heart. It is about sculpture artist Bill Sanders whose failing heart is preventing him from doing his art. During the interview, I asked the question, “Is it hard for you to not to be able to do your art?” He paused; his chin started to quiver and [...]

Random Final Cut tip #2–Lower thirds

I think it’s time for everyone to banish that ugly black bar used to display lower thirds titles in Final Cut Pro/Express. For the longest time, I struggled with what to do with white text on a light background. I usually ended up using the standard black bar, which is so wide it usually lands [...]