Video editing 101
Posted on October 4, 2007
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s video editing philosophy and procedure (link via the Seth Gitner via APPM):
Covering a courtroom drama
Posted on October 1, 2007
Trent Nelson, a photographer from the Salt Lake Tribune, was at the Warren Jeffs trial last week and blogged about his experience. It’s an interesting read, particularly since it makes me feel like I’m really getting an inside look at what a pool photographer goes through during a trial like this.
I also like the 60-second audio slideshow updates he produced for each day. What a nice way to enhance the audio, even in a situation where the photos may be limited.
You can watch the audio slideshow series here (unfortunately the index page doesn’t list all of them): Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9
A video of the reading of the verdict also was published by the newspaper to YouTube. Interestingly, this clip is linked from the paper’s Web site — meaning it seems that they ONLY published it to YouTube and don’t have it on their site at all.
I’ve noticed more and more papers are using YouTube. I think it’s a great form of viral marketing, but if you’re going to do this, you should take full advantage of the marketing potential by branding the video and including links to your site in the summaries.
Speaking of opportunities, the index page shows some missed ones. The long list of links doesn’t invite the reader. If it weren’t for the subject matter, my eyes would glaze over. But this page, the video and audio slideshows are great examples of how content can make up for any obstacles to quality (the style of the video, repetition of some photos and audio levels).
If you’re interested in this case or even the least bit fascinated by the polygamist lifestyle, you’ll watch/read it all and be hungry for more — not just because of the topic, but because of how the content is presented. THAT’s what makes storytelling skills so important. THAT’s what makes journalists unique.
In addition to the missing 60-second update archives, the leadership tree and community comparison graphics could have been so sweet if they were interactive. I know the constraints of resources, time and newsroom priorities; I deal with that every day at my newspaper. But I think this story warranted the extra time to create the interactive graphics and a better overall design.
Trying to change the world through film
Posted on September 19, 2007
So ask yourself this. If you had the entire world’s attention for just a few minutes, what story would you tell? Perhaps you think the world looks at you, your country and your culture… and just doesn’t understand. Then do something about it. Make a film
That’s what filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, who won the TED Prize, is challenging people to do with Pangea Day, which will take place on May 10, 2008, and feature short films submitted by people around the world.
It shows the power of video and the potential that some feel — and passionately so — that it holds. This ad reminds me of what user-generated video is all about and how newspapers should dig a little deeper when they can to receive some meaningful submissions.
Take a look:
Nat sounds make your story come alive
Posted on September 16, 2007
Mark Poepsel, who teaches Television News Writing at the University of Arizona, has put together two takes of a video package to illustrate the importance of using natural sounds in your video.
Two points to remember:
>> You should include natural sound at a low level underneath all of your b-roll
>> You should use nat sound breaks to highlight important moments in your story
‘If I don’t update my skills, I’m going to be obsolete’
Posted on September 5, 2007
Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jennifer Lin has been in the business for 25 years. In this video, she talks about her experience learning and producing video for her paper.
About two to three years ago, her managing editor mentioned that when young people applied for jobs, they talked about their video skills.
“It occurred to me that if I don’t update my skills, I’m going to be obsolete,” she said. So she spent a semester at University of Pennsylvania and learned how to shoot and edit video with Final Cut Pro.
Training is important, she stresses, but she finds the lack of classes offered and time available to be an obstacle. Regardless, you shouldn’t let that deter you because if you want to remain competitive in the marketplace as a journalist, she says, you should know how to use a video camera.
And her advice to students is the same: “If you want to be a journalist, if you want to be a newspaper reporter, you need to know not only how to write stories, but tell stories visually … this is the future.”
The importance of audio
Posted on September 2, 2007
We interrupt this holiday weekend to bring your attention to a post by Cliff Etzel Angela Grant (on Angela Grant’s blog) on how audio can make (or break) your video (I was determined to take the weekend off for some much needed R&R, but this post needs to be shared).
She offers these tips (and more, so be sure to check out her post and comments):
* The use of audio editing applications for editing voice overs such as SONY’s Sound Forge, Adobe’s Audition and other similar applications will help to provide a professionally edited voice over that imparts information to viewers about what they are watching. Training materials exist that can provide the basis of audio for video for Sound Forge and Adobe Audition. You can bring your video clips into your audio editing application, compose your script while reviewing your footage, and then read a written audio narrative script according to scene, transitions, etc. Plugins allow the cleaning up of audio tracks in our video footage. All it requires is the willingness to learn how to edit audio. Learn to use these applications, for they will become a part of the credo of the Solo Video journalist.
* Do your voice overs in a silent area, preferably with sound absorbing material on the walls nearby to reduce possible room echo. Building a simple voice box out of egg crate foam and foam core and using this as a simple sound booth will greatly enhance the sound of your audio narrations.
* Utilize a separate mic if possible, such as your shotgun mic or use a voice recorder and then import your audio narrative into your audio editing application to tweak and render out a final clip to import into your video project.
* When on location, and I have to go back to my motel room, I utilize my Rode shotgun VideoMic on a table top tripod attached to my Laptop, and then utilize blankets, towels, etc in a semicircular pattern around the mic to help deaden the noise and echo in the room and this creates a makeshift sound booth when reading a script. It actually does a pretty respectable job in a pinch when editing on location and you don’t have access to a sound booth.
And this is a BIG one:
As our work is seen by more and more people, the legalities of music in a video has to be addressed. The use of copyrighted music and/or sampling of said music is ILLEGAL without proper licensing. Again, being informed of the various tools available for scoring music for video is a key to C.Y.A. If you want to add music, musical scoring can now be accomplished with little or no experience with such applications as SONY’s Cinescore, Adobe’s Soundbooth and Smartsound’s Sonicfire Pro. These applications, with a little hands-on training, allow you to produce royalty free musical scoring to your video projects without worry of copyright infringement.
OK. That’s all for today. Get back to your holiday. I’m headed to the beach!
Serving the reader
Posted on August 29, 2007
The New York Times has a special section devoted to the U.S. Open, complete with:
>> Stories (of course)
>> A blog
>> Photo galleries (tennis makes for some funny looking moments in time, doesn’t it?)
>> Men and women’s scoreboards, which include links to player stats
>> Two videos so far (In the Shadow of the U.S. Open and Life on the Pro Circuit)
>> And much multimedia.
The videos are somewhat interesting, but at 5 minutes, I think they’re too long. (I started to get bored at 1:45/2 minutes.)
I was so glad to see a handful of interactive graphics and database multimedia:
>> Interactive brackets. The men and women’s matchups also include links to stories and other interactives
>> An interactive timeline of Serena Williams’s professional career. This graphic shows her rise to the top 20, her fall in 2006 and her comeback in 2007.
>> An interactive look at court types. In The Master of Clay Takes Aim at the Fast Courts, readers get a look at Rafael Nadal’s approach on three of the game’s surfaces.
I was reminded of Nora Paul’s talk about interactive graphics at the Multimedia New Producers Workshop when I saw this piece. Should we have to click a “next”? Paul posited that forcing readers to always take an action rather than sitting back and viewing the interactive could possibly annoy them.
Could be true in some cases, I agree. However here there’s a lot of information to digest, and I think breaking it up in chunks helps the reader. I almost wish I had more opportunities to click around and interact.
I also really like the 3D graphics used here with the tennis ball and the different turfs. The surfaces of the courts look quite realistic and it makes the interactive much more interesting too look at.
>> An interactive audio graphic. How do you beat Roger Federer? NYTimes.com asked friends, tennis players, coaches and the chair of the American Board of Sports Psychology for their theories. This is a great idea, and I think the presentation is nicely done with the large photo. I just wish they had a counter on the audio clips.
>> And a map, which is not interactive. This is a missed opportunity. Why not put it in Google maps or something like it so I can get personalized directions, find other areas of interest and print out larger views as needed?
Note: The headline is a groaner, I know. But I couldn’t resist.
MNPW: How to teach a cat to fetch (or training your newsroom)
Posted on August 22, 2007
On the second day of the Multimedia News Producers Workshop, Photojournalist Mike De Sisti of postcrescent.com and Multimedia Producer Jenni Pinkley of startribune.com talked about how to take all this knowledge back to our newsrooms.
Pinkley put together a YouTube video (above; you have to click on it, I can’t embed it, unfortunately) describing how we get everyone as excited about multimedia as we are. It’s as simple as:
>> Measure and gauge interest
>> Create a buzz; show them they can have fun
>> Be patient (they’re scared).
Just watch the video. It’s much more fun.
Which reinforces to me that learning has to be as fun and exciting as all these new applications with which we’re now working.
Reporters, photographers, copyeditors and assignment editors are used to a certain workflow, and they know what’s expected of them. And now we’re asking them to redefine how they tell stories. Oh, and at the same time, they need to figure out how to operate this machinery and navigate these software applications and content management systems they’ve never seen before. Yeah, and do everything they’ve already been doing on the job, too. Thanks so much.
I don’t mean to stereotype here because there are exceptions in hopefully every newsroom. But I do feel the majority of people find change to be stressful, even when it’s good change. Add on top of the stress of changing workflows and expectations that people are just plain worried about keeping their jobs. This is a tough time to be asking them to move outside of their comfort zone.
So it’s important to remind them that this is fun. And it’s for them. These audio and video clips, interactive graphics, slideshows and more enhance their stories. It makes their writing more accessible to readers, which, I imagine, can only make them shine as multimedia stars when the company is looking for ways to downsize.
Pinkley described how she teaches her newsroom, which is a part of the paper’s overall training program for their staff. Classes are for about 6-10 people in two sessions of approximately three-hour blocks, during which they gather and edit audio.
She also worked on SeeSaw, a compilation of life samplings told through multimedia, with reporters and photographers in her newsroom. The benefit of this evergreen content is that as it adds to the community development of the site, it gives the newsroom a chance to learn and play with multimedia projects and storytelling.
Mike De Sisti teaches reporters video at his paper. In this example video shown below (click on the image to go to the page to watch it), which he played during the session, he worked with Post-Crescent reporter Kate McGinty to produce a video project.
What a great way to educate a.) the public on what reporters are doing with video, and b.) reporters on what they can do in telling a story through video. And as a bonus, she got a chance to show off what she learned.
The mechanics are a critical part of learning multimedia, but it’s also essential to understand what kind of multimedia to use when. For his paper, De Sisti has put together a multimedia production star system that rates the overall necessary skill level of each project.
I’ve heard of other papers using tiered systems for multimedia projects, and I think these are important to share with reporters and photographers and particularly assignment editors so they can understand the different levels of projects. I particularly like the production time guides given.
>> One star: Raw video, recorded for no more than 45 seconds. The final product has no editing or titles. Production time: 1-2 hours, which includes shooting, ingestion, formatting and posting.
>> Two star: Very rough cut video. Two to four cuts in a short video with limited titles. Production time: 2-4 hours, which includes shooting, ingestion, formatting and posting.
>> Three star: Project is shot, edited and posted the same day. Includes 1-3 brief interviews (A roll) with other shots (B roll). Titles are used as intro and to introduce people. Production time: 4-6 hours, which includes shooting, ingestion, formatting and posting.
>> Four star: Often supplements in-depth enterprise stories. Video may contain several interviews and voiceovers or on-camera reporter interviews. Production time: May take several days to complete, which includes shooting, ingestion, formatting and posting.
MNPW: The master speaks
Posted on August 22, 2007
Ken Speake, a “master storyteller” who worked in TV for more than 37 years and KARE-11 in Minnesota for 28 years, talked to the Multimedia News Producers Workshop group about, well, storytelling.
And he showed us some samples of his work, too, which reminded me of a CBS News Sunday Morning tone/style. They’re informative and fact-based, but personal and pull out the emotional side of the story. He is retired now, and he still talks about his first story at KARE, which won a silver medal at the New York Film Festival.
OK, so what can this TV reporter tell us online newspapers about video? After all, *we’re* supposed to be doing things different and better than TV, right? Not so fast. These guys and gals have been working in their craft for years. And it’s wise of us to learn from their experiences.
And, after talking to him, we may have more in common with TV than we think — or, rather, we SHOULD have more in common with TV than we think.
For instance, he explained that his workflow process was highly collaborative. He was responsible for telling the story. He’d shoot the video and write the script, and then he’d hand it off to the editor to put it together. That person would do “the second half of the storytelling,” he explained.
Hmm. Sounds a lot like what newsrooms are forced to do because of time/resource constraints — reporters and photographers recording the video and then handing it off to an online editor back in the newsroom.
To make this process successful, he said, TRUSTing your coworkers is CRITICAL. And he admitted he didn’t even sit with the editor and most often would never see the piece until it aired. It’s their job to do the editing, he said.
I think this may be hard for a newsroom to accept that is so used to having control of a project throughout its entire creation.
OK, so how do you tell a good story?
>> Become relaxed with yourself and spend time with the people you’re interviewing. “It’s an attitude thing,” Speake said.
If people show up with an arrogant viewpoint as a TV reporter, you’ll find resistance. But if you show up and say you want to help them tell their story, they’ll be more likely to help you.
Humble yourself. Be modest. Make yourself vulnerable. Make yourself human. Ask for help from them.
>> Be curious. Learn something from the story and challenge yourself to present it in a new way.
>> Report with your ears. Notice your surroundings because something better could be going on that no one else is noticing.
>> Gather sound. Find the “evocative” sound.
>> Listen hard so you can really hear what the person is saying and can ask the right follow-up questions.
>> Think ahead of time. An example of this is the release of the swans in a video he showed (unfortunately, I can’t find it online). He took waders with him so he got close shots of the swans from the front as they swam into the water. None of the other photographers thought of this, and they were stuck on land, shooting the backs of the birds.
>> Don’t be afraid to break the rules.
And speaking of breaking the rules … we ended the session with an discussion about how online newspapers are different from TV because we “never” use narration (that’s what the attendees said). So what advice can Speake give us in telling those type of stories?
That’s a tough assignment, he said. If you don’t use your own voice, the challenge is to get all of your story on tape. Listening carefully and stringing the cuts together becomes even more important.
But are there times when the reporter’s voice can or should be incorporated? The Web interview is being formed to be a “the subject tells the story,” but are we limiting ourselves by doing this? Maybe we should break the rules once in a while?
Angela Grant brought up this same concern in a recent post “Use a FREAKIN voiceover already.”
My first video story
Posted on August 18, 2007
After a micro-mini Final Cut Pro tutorial this morning, attendees in the video track at the Multimedia News Producers Workshop captured video and got to work on editing. We had five hours to pull it all together. Five hours!?!? Surely it was only two. The time passed by so quickly.
Julie Jones and Mike De Sisti were on hand to answer all of our questions from “wait, how do I start??” to “how do I export this?” and many, many more in between.
And also to remind us that we needn’t get too stressed out about the final product because we’re going to fail beautifully on our first attempt. That’s how it goes when you’re learning. It relieved a lot of pressure for me, at least, and I think our class did a great job for 1 1/2 days of video instruction. You can see the full lineup on the MNPW YouTube channel (TK soon).
Here’s what I came up with from my trip to The Wienery, a hot dog/burger joint in Minneapolis:
Lessons learned (of many):
>> I need more nat sounds and video. I had a lot of b-roll but very little I could use for transitions. But I really liked the guy playing the piano while he waited for his order (could you hear the burp at the end?). Mike recommended I use that to move the piece along. Voila. It saved me, I think.
>> As I suspected, I, in fact, got no sequencing whatsoever. So I’ll need to practice that next time.
>> I must GET CLOSE to the person I’m taping. I missed a lot of good cooking/food prep shots because I was too timid to get right up to the stove. This is going to take some practice to feel comfortable interacting with them with a camera in my hands. Julie explained it to me that it’s like having a conversation with the person. You have to interact with them to be able to get the shots you need to tell the story. And if I don’t feel comfortable doing that, they’re certainly not going to feel comfortable, either.
>> If I could edit again, I’d put an outside or establishing shot near the beginning that shows where we’re at so I don’t have to set it up in the text.
>> Shake much? I need to use a tripod. They didn’t supply us with any, but the camera’s just too heavy to hold steady.
>> I’d use a wireless mic on the owner/cook because the background noise is too loud; he was wired to Barbara’s (my video buddy on this assignment) camera, not mine. We didn’t have time to try to share clips.
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