Category Archives: digital resources

Catch up post: Tripods, multimedia and more

Posted on by
7

As I said yesterday, it’s been busy at Dickinson mansions so I’m catching up on reading as much as anything else at the moment. Here is some of what has caught my eye: (cue Journerdism style long post)
Vlogs

Ian Reeves continues to entertain with his Vlog on all things video journalism

More cams on the street

Howard Owens posted about his companies video roll-out. I look forward to seeing the fruits of that one but a comment by Tish Gier that “There’s interesting things going on in the UK, but some is, perhaps, an over-reaction and a tad neurotic….” raised my eyebrow a little. Interesting, yes. Neurotic, I’m not sure how. Maybe she means that we aren’t doing the all out beating of chests and hand wringing that oranisations in the states are doing. Who knows.

Tripod’s – use ‘em if you got ‘em

The newspaper video group is usually gripped by one or two ‘for and against’ style arguments at any one time and one of the current ones is about the use of tripods. It was kicked off by Michael Rosenblum who continues the thread on his blog. It’s clear from his post that rather than having a pop at tripods, which he concedes are one of those things to be used when appropriate, he is saying that tripods represent a TV structure. For Rosenblum, hand-held represents a photographic approach and Rosenblum believes that this is inherently superior.

Despite the fact that it is largely a visual medium, television has not entered the realm of art and power of image that photojournalism carved out for itself. Despite airing 24 hours a day on hundreds of channels globally for half a century, we have no Capa of television journalism, no Cartier Bresson, no Sebastao Salgado.

That is a tragedy.

As newspapers move into online video, they can embrace the traditions of photojournalism – or they can embrace the traditions of television.

Let us hope they move toward the former….

Let us hope they do neither Micheal. Aligning the use of tripods with a fundamentalist view of what video on the web should be is a pretty shaky premise. If only photography where that clear cut. Let online video develop and don’t confuse technology and technique. Or do we need to restart the debate about b+w vs. colour or film Vs. digital for stills shooters?

Angela Grant takes Micheal to task over his idealogical objections and generates some interesting comments in the meantime. Jim Long picks up from a TV camera point of view and Cyndy Green also has a nice post about tripods, picking up on what was said on the list
Multimedia writing

In other parts of the web, I came across a very interesting site from Dave Brewer. Once of BBC news, then of CNN and now a media consultant. Amongst the interesting stuff on his pages is a MultiPlatform authoring tutorial. It would take a while to explain so go and have a go.

A lot of Dave’s work seems to be in helping establish media skills in emerging democracies and in a similar vein Dave is also involved in a site called Media Helping Media :

Media Helping Media (MHM) has been set up to provide a platform for those involved in establishing independent media in transition states, post-conflict countries and areas where freedom of expression and media freedom is under threat.

Well worth a look.

It was set up in conjunction with a guy called Bob Eggington. Amongst other stuff Bob helped set up BBC news online. He was also the external adviser on our MA Online Journalism for a number of years. A thoroughly decent fella he was too. In that freaky way that the web seems to work Bob is in the chair for the 6th Journalism Leaders Forum at the University.

Radio and Multimedia

Mike Mullane at Multimediameetsradio continues to ponder how all this new media impacts on Radio with his 10 ideas for a successful multimedia strategy

Student Blog

Last but not least a heads up to Megan Taylor who popped up in my technorati list the other day. Megan has a great site which is an example of how trainee journalists are embracing this stuff in a thoughtful and exciting way.

Flash and XML examples.

Posted on by
4

Posting has been light for the last week or so, not because I’m upset about being referred to as part of the ornery print brigade which would have my print colleagues in the department wetting themselves with laughter, but because it’s been pretty busy work wise.

I’ve been up to my neck in video training for print journalists and my teaching load crept up as a seminar timetable was swung in my general direction. Still, both gave me opportunity to spend time with interesting people, with interesting insights.

Whilst I’ve been away from the posting pages of the blog I have been keeping an eye on things including the frankly baffling debate about using tripods on the Newspaper video list and other great stuff that I will pick up on this week.

One thing I have been messing with, which I thought I would share, is some flash work I have been doing. My online students have been playing with flash, to good effect. I had made some templates for them to use, only to realise a few hours in that they were using FlashMX and I was working on 8. Oh, well.

So rather then let the files sit and do nought I thought I’d share for people to mess with.

The flash blocks
It’s simple stuff. A few swf files that read an XML file to display content. You load up the XML file with the story and the links to media and the display does the rest. The aim was to generate a number of blocks that could be reused, rather than have a new swf for every bit of content.

So far there is a text block, a text and image block and a video block. I do have a slideshow block as well but it uses a shareware piece of flash to drive the slideshow so I’m not distributing that. Let me know if you want details.

Each individual block can be called with a variable that points to the xml – text_player.swf?file=text_content will open the text player and load the contents of a file called text_content.xml. You can change the look and feel of each block by editing the FLA file and republishing it. I think that I have commented them in enough detail and there is nothing tricky in there.

In action

Flash blocks example

This example uses a ‘wrapper’ swf to call each block.

I’m know there are lots of ways of doing this stuff better, and the load times don’t break any records, but if people want something to bash around with as a starting block they are pretty solid.

You can download the swf’s, fla’s and media files in Stuffit format. (right-click and save the link)
Let me know if you get any use out of them at all.

Why video is a must for radio stations

Posted on by
3

If you think that it’s just TV and newspapers having the video discussion then think again. Mike Mullane’s post, at Multimedia meets radio, shows that the debate echoes across the industry – even in radio

Managing change is always a serious challenge and nowhere more so than in a radio newsroom. Journalists are a conservative lot: hidebound, inflexible, technophobes and whingers by nature.

Ouch. But fond as they are of corduroy and jumpers the radio lot are not too intractable as Mike notes. After a grudging acceptance of the web:

…the debate has moved on and the new mantra is that radio journalists don’t do video. Apparently, it’s one thing to encroach on the territory of print journalists by producing text for the website, but they draw the line at video.

That’s TV, they claim. Sadly, they still haven’t grasped multimedia and don’t understand convergence.

Join in if you know the words. Give the man some support.

He finishes the post:

Broadcasters have been forced to embrace the Internet and must now produce video if they want to survive and stay relevant. Young people in particular are turning their backs on radio and TV in favour of podcasts, or video sharing sites like YouTube.

BBC Five Live is rising to the challenge by providing images to accompany many of its sporting programmes. I have heard that they are turning Mark Kermode’s film reviews into video podcasts.

No doubt, some of my colleagues will accuse Radio Five Live of making “cheap television.” Pay no attention: for the most part, they are the same people who predicted no-one would ever read a news article online.

Amen.

Use soda to attract the best

Posted on by
2

Interesting advice on attracting multi-platform savvy people from Alan Schulman, Chief Creative Officer of Brand New World (via MediaPost)

As always, talent right out of school comes to the industry through very different doors. Some from design; others from typography, animation or illustration. Some from film school; others from journalism school. The difference is, few if any discriminate between above- and below-the-line disciplines. They just want to do great work in a great place.

My advice? Feed them software and sodas, don’t expect them in before 10 a.m., and watch what happens while their hybrid skills, from design and animation to filmmaking and typography, come to life both on-air AND online… without ever placing one above the other.

For me the killer line in that is : “The difference is, few if any discriminate between above- and below-the-line disciplines”

Does your newsroom?

How long should online video be?

Posted on by
7

Two great responses to the question ‘How long should online video be?’ from the Newspaper Video list.

Davin McHenry from Bakersfield.com says:

The only limits we have here in Bakersfield are: If your video is over two minutes you have to have another editor watch the video and suggest possible cuts.

I think blanket limits are silly. There are video stories that can’t
be told in two minutes. We’ve had stuff that ran 6-7 minutes.

The trick is to allow freedom of length without people abusing it.
It’s very easy to fall in love with your own footage and let videos go on and on. You have to be self disciplined and, frankly, be brutal with your footage.

His first point is a great idea and his last point is one of the toughest lessons to learn in video (online or broadcast)

Another Bakersfield bod, Jennifer Baldwin, notes:

I actually made a two-parter because my video would have been 12 minutes if I hadn’t!

It’s worth remembering that we can break content in to blocks and show it on the same page. Look at Yolanda’s Crossing over at the Dallas News as an example

Pre-roll idents should go

Posted on by
Reply

Steve Outing talks about Newspapers in an unbundled world in an article over at Editor and Publisher

The whole article draws a number of parallels with the changing distribution and business the models the music industry deal with and the problems newspapers are facing.  Steve highlights ways that we can learn from the music biz’s move from a model that was based on buying a CD to a more open model of music shareing:

As many a music and tech industry pundit has pronounced lately, the CD is nearly dead.

Anybody notice the parallel with newspapers?

It’s Interesting stuff and a worthwhile take on trying to get people to understand the way the newspaper industry is changing (interestingly Howard Owens takes music as his theme for expanding on the development of online video.)

Outings main point seems to be get your content out there rather than expect people to come to you and you will benefit from this new consumption and distribution model.

He has specific advice for video:

If you’re going to the trouble and expense of getting into video news, then make sure you spread it around; don’t horde it on your own website and expect that to be enough.

Unlike some of the TV networks these days — which send out the lawyers when one of their clips gets uploaded to YouTube by zealous fans — newspaper companies should jump for joy that their video work can be distributed and seen by Youtube’s huge audience. Think about getting your video work on multiple video services (there are lots of them).

Important, of course, is effectively incorporating your branding onto the videos. In caption fields, include the URL to get viewers to your website. Include a watermark logo in the video, and an intro that covers who produced this video, and perhaps sponsors.

Just as with newsworthy photos and Flickr, major news video can attract a significant audience on Youtube, et al. Newspaper companies should take advantage of what these online video services can offer in terms of exposure. And don’t just tolerate your video work showing up on such services — actively encourage and promote it!

Radical stuff for an industry that still (for the majority) cant get beyond thinking that online is a way to get more people reading your newspaper rather than developing new audiences. Give our stuff away! Why would we do that?

But I’m not going there (not today) What piqued my interest was the idea of branding your content to get your name out there.

Pre-roll overload

I’ve been watching a lot of online video lately just to keep an eye in and as part of my training course with newspaper journo’s and the issue of branding became one of those things that bugged me.

A lot of the other video I watched had 3 sometime 10 second pre-roll idents. Little music and graphic stabs that told you, usually with a whooshing noise or an explosion, that you where watching video from the dailywherever.com. For an immediate medium I was waiting a long time to get the info I wanted – the actual video

We already know that users are pretty intolerant of pre-roll ads in video and no matter how much we kid ourselves, our indents are pre-roll ads. And before anyone says that users will live with that as the price for better quality video, let’s not forget where that debate gets us.

So a circle to be squared here.

How do we take advantage, as Outing suggests, of this brave new world and put our content out there whilst still making it work for us if the way we brand our content winds the user up?

On a practical level my view would be go post-roll and watermark the video with a small graphic in the corner.

But on a broader level maybe, if we are still hoping to leverage our brand ‘control’ our content and funnel users from these community spaces, we still don’t really ‘get’ how these spaces work.

Newspaper Video: Debate highlights good practice

Posted on by
4

The discussion about the judging of online video has the capacity to become a real meta-conversation but, as with all good chat amongst people with experience and passion in the area, it also throws up the useful stuff.

In the Newspaper video yahoo group, where a lot of this stuff plays out, Chuck Fadely has linked to ‘good’ newspaper video.

But in clicking round the comments I’ve also found one or two people doing the ‘taxonomy’ thing for online video that I did a while back. It’s fair to say that my take on it feel more in to the production process and output side of things.

Paul Bradshaw’s defining areas fall in to the same area but have a much more editorial slant:

  • ‘Moving pictures’. I call this the ‘Daily Prophet approach’ after the newspaper in Harry Potter where the images are magically animated. This is where video is added to a text story as an illustration, without narration but in the same way as a still image might be used. A good example is this story from the Eastern Daily Press. I’m also thinking CCTV footage would fit here;
  • The Video Diary. This splits into two sub-categories:
    • The video blog/vlog: person speaks into camera about their thoughts/opinions/experiences – Ian Reeves’ first attempt is a good example, which also happens to include some reflections on online video journalism;
    • The personal account: person with a story to tell is filmed by another person about their thoughts/opinions/experiences. This may be combined with others to form a video feature. The Washington Post’s ‘Being a Black Man‘ is one example of such video being integrated with a multimedia interactive.
  • Edited narrative. This is essentially a replication of the TV documentary or package, but in (generally) shorter form. The Exeter Express & Echo seem to have the right idea here, going out onto the streets to talk to (gasp) people (one student commented that the story itself would have been much duller in print), although they also do…
  • TV show/vodcast. Again, this is replicating broadcast techniques and is generally the most redundant type of online video. Rocketboom is an example of it done well (most likely because they are not coming from a print or broadcast organisation, but are online-only). The Daily Telegraph do it with their Business Daily, as do many local newspapers, including the Bolton News and Manchester Evening News. For advertising sales departments, it’s a useful way of tapping into TV advertising budgets, but for readers it’s redundant compared to searchable, scannable web text. Its only real use is for readers who want to download a video bulletin to watch on the move (vodcast), so why do so many newspapers force users to stream it? Control, control, control.

I like the idea of the Daily Prophet in particular.
But if Paul’s and my definitions of online covered the production aspects then The Five E’s of online video from Jeff Rayport’s talk from the Online Publishers Association conference in London. (via Jeff Jarvis’ blog summary ) cover the pre-production and why element.

  • Extend content you have and bring it to online media.
  • Expand video activities to make new and experimental forms of content.
  • Expose (let the outside in; e.g., NY Times wedding videos, Le Monde user videos).
  • Explode (let the inside out; syndication, in other words).
  • Exhale (you don’t know what will work so relax).

Put them all together, and add a bit of Moncks Monikers and a dash of Kevin Anderson and I think there is enough there to at least start to answer the Why, what and how questions of online video.

I might set my students the task of using the defintions here to quantify and assess the video that Chuck links to.