Ya know how the sales person always tries to sell you a lens filter for your shiny new camera? It usually involves some pitch about how one day you’ll be glad you paid the $20 bucks to protect that front element from all sorts of freak occurrences yet unnamed. Buying all my newspaper’s video equipment [...]
Entries from June 2008
June 25, 2008
Opening your video: How not to lose viewers
Finding a good opening to your video is critical. Far too often, newspaper produced video fails to quickly grab the viewer’s attention. Online viewers are a fickle bunch, where the click of a mouse button will lead them to some other cooler destination. The key is to smack ‘em upside the head and wake them [...]
June 21, 2008
Colleague Dan Pelle’s videos connect emotionally to viewer
In 2005 I attended the Platypus Workshop, a nine-day intensive video boot camp in Ventura, California. The not so subtle battle cry of this workshop was to “tear down the still shooter and build you back up as a videographer.” That did not quite happen to me as I continue to covet my still camera. [...]
June 17, 2008
Multimedia Immersion Program website up
The NPPA Multimedia Immersion Program held in the last week of May has posted the videos of it workshop participants. I was a coach again this year and I was impressed at the quality of work produced in such a short time by people with varying video and multimedia skills. Check it out here.
June 13, 2008
US vs.Them
Nick Eaton, our new sports video journalist at The Spokesman-Review, ran into one of those cringeworthy US vs. TV moments earlier this week when he shot a video story on mascot tryouts at Eastern Washington University. From Nick’s blog post:
“OK, it’s funny. A reporter gets into the suit and “auditions.” Har har har. Makes for [...]
June 12, 2008
The Spokesman-Review transparent newsroom
“The story of how a small newspaper opened its editorial decision making process to the public in order to gain credibility with great results. A case study produced by Innovation Media Consulting on American Newspaper about The Spokesman Review newspaper in the United States.”
This is a video I shot about our Transparent Newsroom at the [...]
June 7, 2008
Stop bitchin’ and just train yourself
The number of newspaper video journalists is growing amongst the dwindling ranks in newsrooms. The Newark Star-Ledger in New Jersey recently converted 20 reporters and photographers. In my own newsroom at The Spokesman-Review, three more reporters are being outfitting with Macbooks, Final Cut Express and video cameras. But just because someone dumps at bunch of gear on [...]
