March 9, 2009

Video Storytellingand

Only Online

Housekeeping

Office hours tomorrow from 1 to 4 p.m. at Starbucks on South University

Guest lecturer: Charlie LeDuff of the Detroit News Read Chapter 6 on Visual Storytelling as a follow-

up and primer for today’s lecture and Wednesday’s lecture

Marsh lecture: Wednesday 5 to 7 p.m. in the Michigan League

Advancing the Story—we will be using this more as the semester progress. Please be up-to-date with readings.

Twitter Presentation

Christy HammondFacebook Group has John Stewart’s take on

Twitter. Take a look

Video Techniques

Planning. If you haven’t constructed a plan for your video—get started.

The following are tools—and guidelines—as shoot video and prepare to edit.

They are meant to as guidelines—not necessarily commandments. Keep them in mind as you shoot your video—you will come away with cleaner, better lit, better recorded video so you don’t have to re-do interviews.

Knowledge and planning upfront will help you create a better product

The Zoom

Thou shalt not zoom… Flattens the images you are capturing You lose depth of field Creates distance from you and your subject. So zoom with your feet.

When can you zoom? You want to show the scene where the speaker is—could

you create this a different way—by shooting sequences?

From: Poynter Institute’s Video Storytelling Lecture

The Pan

Thou shalt not pan Unless it is a motivated action—football player

running down the field If you pan, put your face where you are going to end.

You will be weakest at the end of the shot. So if you are following the football player look toward where he is going.

Be careful of your sound in a pan, your eye will win out over the ear as you are watching the movement and not thinking about the sound

The Hold

Thou shall keep thy shot for 10 seconds Don’t stop taping right as people finish speaking. This gives you some extra time for edits so that you

don’t catch people in mid-sentence. Six seconds of video is the least amount of useable

time.

The Soundbite

Thou shall seek out subjective soundbites You will always remember what you feel not what you

know Soundbites should almost always be subjective

information—instead of explanatory Use voice-overs or written text to explain Use soundbites to create the emotion and subjectivity

of the piece

The Cutaways and Sequences

Thou shalt shoot cutaways and sequences Page 154 in Advancing the Story Cutaways help create natural transitions instead of

creating transitions through editing. Shoot people as they walk into a room or as they leave. Think about how you can lead the viewer through the story.

Sequencing gives your video energy. Don’t just shoot b-roll of a basketball or broomball game.

Shoot wide shots, medium shots, close up and super close-up to create sequences that you can then overlay with a voice over.

The Shoot More

Thou shalt shoot more video than you think you need. Need we say more on this topic?

The Light

Thou shalt honor great lighting Shoot on the shadow side of the interview subject Never—if possible—shoot at high noon. Never shoot to full-face video if you can help it. Most

people look better in a half profile The law of thirds—put the visual focus at the exterior

sides of the shot—and include something else to create visual focus—Sarah Palin and the turkey shot

The Sound

Thou shalt always wear headphones Your ear hears things differently than the microphone You will pick up on low sound qualities It will tell you when you need to change mikes It will tell you when natural sound is far too loud—

buses going by, the sound of an espresso machine etc. Your ear may not hear them, but the mike will.

The Sound continued

Thou shalt always shoot natural sound and will shut up during shooting Natural sound brings your viewer closer It can be used as a way to transition in and out of

edits The sound of a basketball on a court The sound of a fire Dissolve with your audio not with the video and will

help create a more continuous video story

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What now?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/business/media/09carr.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

How do these…

www.politico.comwww.huffingtonpost.comwww.dailybeast.comwww.michiganmessenger.comwww.spot.us

Stack up to these

The Washington PostThe New York TimesVanity FairThe Detroit Free PressMother Jones

Do journalism standards rule in the blogosphere?

Journalism of verification Blogosphere is less about verification than speed and

personal opinion Traditional journalism is about hearing many points of

view—and rarely inserting yourself into the story (at least in theory)

The lines have blurred between opinion and journalism Traditional journalism has an op-ed and editorial page. In

online journalism, they appear together Context is difficult to discern online

Traditional journalism created a context for information. You could trust that what you were reading was factual.

Journalism of verification

Verification sets journalism apart from entertainment, propaganda, fiction, and art.

Verification means overseeing—gatekeeping—citizen journalism. Just because it comes from a “citizen” doesn’t make it factual.

How do we bring the journalism of verification to the blogosphere? Or is the genie out of the bottle?

Realism vs. objectivity

“Realism” was practiced in 19th century journalism—reporters dig out the facts, order them, and the truth is revealed. What a journalist saw may be enough to create a news story.

“Objectivity” was practiced in the 20th century—the scientific approach to journalism: research, sourcing, analysis.

This is “objectivity” of method—not objectivity as an aim in journalism

What should the blogosphere practice?

A combination of both? Both—with the addition of citizen journalism,

hyperlinking, Add in thoroughness, accuracy, fairness, and

transparency—as espoused by Dan Gilmour of “We the Media.”

Fairness and balance—as methods not high-minded ideal—so that we are driving toward better, more trusted content online.

Independence from faction?

The blogosphere appears to be all about “factions.”

Websites like the Huffington Post have a specific “view” of the world—linking to news articles that support its world-view

Is the Huffington Post really an “Internet newspaper” as Huffington claims? Or something else?

Look at who funds the sites to determine if they are free from faction.

Does the blogosphere monitor power?

This may be the one place where the blogosphere has stepped in where traditional journalism has stepped away.

Increasingly the Internet is seen as the place for investigative journalism (see article on www.voiceofsandiego.org)

ProPublica, funded by foundations and edited by former WSJ editor Paul Steiger, not only runs its investigations on its website, but now serves as the investigative unit for traditional newspapers.

Journalism as the public forum

Traditional journalism ran letters to the editors days after stories. Corrections ran on inside pages, days later

The blogosphere does have a self-correcting function.

Still what first appears on the blogosphere often remains top of mind—even if the story is eventually found to be untrue