News reaches me via the newspaper video group about  me about an excellent new project called Findingtheframe by  Colin Mulvany,  multimedia producer at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington.

According to Colin the site was set up as a website

for the sole purpose of connecting those who need feedback on their multimedia, to professionals willing to share some time and knowledge.

It came off the back of a post on his (excellent) blog Mastering Multimedia where he voiced his disappointment at the quality of the video being submitted to the NPPA Best of Photojournalism Multimedia Contest

The plan is to have onboard as many “expert” volunteers as possible that have solid foundations in video storytelling, audio slide shows or Flash projects. This pool of reviewers will peruse the submitted links of multimedia in the “Story Pool”. If they decide to comment on a story, it will then become public on theFinding the Frame home page where anyone else is free to give added feedback.

The site has already drawn in some great content and some lively debate. Well worth a look and if you are in that game then sign up to help review.

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• Mulvaney: Newspaper video has to improve (collegemediainnovation.org)

Image via Wikipedia

News reached me (via the excellent Newspaper video group) that the season end for House was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II. According to the petapixel blog Greg Yaitanes, the director of the show answered questions on twitter about the show. Most surprising for me was the suggestion that he didn’t use any special lenses or rigging.

When I posted a link to twitter, video whirlwind David Dynkley Gyimah commented:

Arun Marsh commented:

My reply.

It’s not the only show that has used the video side of DLSR’s as part of their shooting kit. Sci-fi series Caprica sneaked in a few shots taken using a DLSR.  Notes on video waded through a number of the shows podcasts to confirm the process and highlighted a nice exchange between the shows exec-producer David Eick and director Jonas Pate:

Pate: This opening sequence was not shot in [the] three camera style, it was actually shot with a [SLR]. And we put a funky little lens on the front of it called a Lensbaby and we shot the whole thing incredibly quickly in probably…I dunno, 30 minutes. Increasingly the digital technologies are allowing camera guys to work quicker.

Eick: Well yeah, what it does is it strips any of the mystique of the so-called art of film making, which is to say that anyone listening to this could probably make their own episode of Caprica if you study these podcasts long enough. The technology really has simplified and shrunk.

I heard a little of Dave’s response in that “…strips any of the mystique of the so-called art of film making”. And it’s a familiar refrain.

The idea that low-pro/pro-sumer equipment can push out pro-quality content is an argument we are more than used to in the world of videojournalism. Give anyone a camera and they are a film maker right?

Maybe not. It still takes a story and people passionate about telling that story to make great video whether it’s House or Video journalism. Kit like the Canon makes it easier for the ‘pros’ to do their job for less and (if you delve in to the caprica podcasts) what they feel is a more liberating and creative way.

In terms of video journalism, the canon may not be the piece of kit that opens the floodgates to the amateurs. But it does show that the walls are coming down.

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• Canon 5D Mark II used to shoot entire House season finale, director says it’s ‘the future’ (engadget.com)
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I’m getting back to my roots this week with lots of video stuff including my Newspaper video survey. So it was nice to get an email from James Cuff at the South Wales Echo who gave me the heads up for a video he produced as a promo for their re-design:

Your Echo through the ages from James Cuff on Vimeo.

How cool is that.

How did he do it. In a nice piece of cross-promotion for the video James told Walesonline.co.uk

“I filmed several of our journalists, who feature both in print and online, in our new green-screen studio before animating the elements in After Effects and editing the final video to a soundtrack.”

Green screen! After effects! Well, James does have a multimedia degree. But to have that kind of production skill in house is a coup for the paper. It shows through in James’ other video work.

Now my advice would be to take advantage of the advertising downspend and get some prime TV space for the ad whilst it’s cheap. Really get that disruptive strategy working

A twitter tag cloud of newspaper video (generated using cloud.li)

It’s grim times out there for video at the moment. The tag cloud above, generated from twitter, tells a familiar story.

As Colin Mulvany recently put it

Newspaper produced video is at a crossroads. As many U.S. publications turn inward to focus on their traditional print products, many online producers are wondering if they should continue to invest the extra time it takes to shoot and edit video. It’s such a crazy time to be a visual journalist. Newspaper photo staffs are being slashed and devalued, as publishers try to protect what’s left of their bottom lines.

If anyone is qualified to ask if video will survive it’s Colin. But I’m interested to find out whether video is still on the agenda and how it’s being done.

I’ve asked this question before when I conducted a survey of the who, what and how of video in 2007. The results of that little survey are still up and, according to my stats, get a regular look.  So I thought I would try the survey again and see how things have changed.

So if you are involved with producing video for the web,  I’d really appreciate you taking the time to complete the survey. It’s short and easy so won’t take too much time and I’ll share the results as I did last time.

You can take the survey on this blog at http://www.andydickinson.net/video-workload-survey-2009

or(if the scripting is playing up) at http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/111809/newspaper-video-2009

Feel free to share the link. The more the merrier.

I’m holed up in the Middlesbrough Central Travelodge and getting some kind of insight in to what living in halls must be like. To say the room is basic is,well, to give it more credit then it deserves. But hey, at least I have great stuff like this to look at.

Oooh look a mic on a stills cam

From a practical stand point it would be a bit like constantly shooting as if you are behind Tina Turners head. But I bet you never thought you’d see the day that a still’s camera had a mic on it.

The picture is from a very informative article over at B&H on getting the best sound from your Canon 5D

Hat tip to the Mediastorm blog for the link

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Tracy Boyer has an interesting post about the ethics of staging and directing contributors when shooting video. She sets out her stall in the intro

Allowing videographers to stage scenes, situations and/or actions is NOT journalism. We are here to document what we see, not recreate what we missed. If you missed the poignant kiss, that is your fault. How is it that journalism ethics can vary so greatly from print to broadcast?

I agree. It isn’t journalism. But I would go one step further. It has nothing to do with journalism. It has everything to do with the form, but nothing to do with journalism.

Or it could be about  that tired old argument trying to define the difference in the way ‘ethical’ videographers work compared to the “TV personality and videographer” who “bombard the scene and tell the subject what they want them to say”.  But we got past that TV is bad thing a while back didn’t we?

The journalism is in telling the story not the skill of being around long enough for the story to drift past your lens.

The ‘no retakes’ ethical position must also, logically,  require that you would never edit, that you never use lights and you never ask any questions. You may as well set up a hide and stalk your contributors like a wildlife documentary maker.

Every time a shot is framed or a cut made their is an editorial hand at play. In any time based media you cannot claim the purity of the scene when you play with the relationship of the scenes with each other over time.  When you cut out camera movements or slip wildtrack over an edit, in my view,  you have broken the same ethical code. Shoot a cut-away and edit that in… you get the idea.

What we have always focused on is the meaning and in that sense there is no difference here between print and online. We play with copy, editing quotes or using reported speech to tell the story. Asking someone to walk through a door again because we missed the shot is no different.

Of course we  use lights, we pick lenses, we edit to tell the story. We ask questions and guide. That’s what the form requires.

That we always present a fair, accurate and balanced view of the story is what journalism demands.

UPDATE: Angela Grant has responded to my view

The third of my recent new year convictions was Point-and-shoot, mojo video is the predominant form for newspaper video but organisations will still need to develop a quality video strategy

Not sure what point-and shoot is here’s my not so serious definition

Looking back over the year I’ve realised that I haven’t blogged about video very much.  Given that I started the year predicting newspaper video would die in 2008, you would be forgiven for thinking that I believe that had come true and there was nothing to write about.

The truth is that video is stronger than ever just not in newspapers. It’s fallen off the agenda and I think that’s for a number of reasons:

• The development of social media and community strategies

The development of social media has stolen videos star. Where video was once the defining mode of a forward thinking digital newspaper, now it’s social media and community. Investing in facebook apps, twitter, linked in forums etc is seen as an investment closer to the core business of a newspaper – linking with communities.

This focus on the dialogue is interesting for me. On the one hand I think it’s massively positive and, looking back over the year, that’s something that’s engaged me a lot. But I’m wary that some organisations have replaced one apparently effective technology with another. Just because you are doing it, doesn’t mean you are using it.

• The Immediacy of twitter

I’m using twitter as an example here of the return to the concept of immediacy in newsrooms. The take-up of cover it live, for example, shows how the idea of first is still an important factor. Video, especially the quality approach just doesn’t fit that style any more.

• The development of content management systems

I’ve spent a good deal of time (and you, bless you, have read a good deal of the drivel I’ve written) moaning about the way that video was effectively channeled by content management systems. We where always going to get video that was ‘too much like TV’ because it was in its own little part of the website, with no context, so it had to be packaged and TV like.

Now a most orgs have woken up to the fact that video should be embedded in the story. It should be another content element on the page that tells the part of the story it does best. The video of the crashed car, next to the story of Ronaldo’s accident for example.

Add a map showing the loacation of the crash and you have a near perfect example of mojo journalism

• The economic downturn

Video is time consuming and expensive. It takes a lot of people to do it (even badly) and in this climate some types of video are not cost effective anymore.

Fit for purpose

Put all those things together and the only viable strategy for getting video in your newsroom now is point-and-shoot. It’s responsive, cheap and easy to implement and the kind of video produced – short clip content, illustrative video and vignettes of action – is best suited to the embedded style we see on news sites.

That doesn’t mean I’m ditching the idea that a quality video strategy has lost.  It isn’t a betamax Vs. VHS type thing. Those that invested in the training and development of that strategy will always get good results from it.  Those who just bought lots of kit and left the newsroom to it will have already put the camera in a cupboard.

But to ignore the quality strategy all together will be a mistake. When Laura at Journalism.co.uk asked me for new years prediction via  twitter here’s what I said:

I said much the same thing in my predictions last year and I still believe it.

It will not be long before video finds itself back in the commercial sector. Video ads, advertorial content, wedding vids, video house guides, video production, whatever you like, would be fair game for an ad department looking to expand it’s repertoire. The investment in the distribution technology has been made. What the ad departments need to do is start behaving like broadcast ad sales.

Newspapers as commercial broadcasters

Here in the UK I think we will see some very interesting changes to the broadcasting landscape after a general election (maybe sooner if the credit crunch really bites) with local media really starting to define itself as something more than the weak, territorial battleground it is at the moment. A commercial production capacity will be a head-start in building the capacity to commercially exploit that.

A point-and-shoot strategy won’t help develop that. The skills will be geared more to the newsroom not to the more structured video that a commercial strategy will need. One will suit the newsroom, the other the commercial imperitive. A division that will warm the hearts of many a journalist who’s been asked to knock out a quick video of the local furniture shop.

So have I finnaly come down on the side of p&s? No. I was never for or against either strategy. But the truth is we now have a convention. A way of making and using video on non-broadcast news websites and I’d be a fool to advocate doing anything different.

But to lose the capacity to “high-quality” video is, I think a mistake. How orgs make it fit will be the best indicator of how they are approaching the next year or so.  If you do video and you have no quality stratgey then you are not thinking about the future. All you have done is adopted the P&S strategy because it’s cheap and that’s no strategy at all.

A map of Norwegian papers using Youtube

Christoph Schmitz has created a map of Norwegian newspapers using Youtube.  With mine and Mark Luckie’s we could be on our way to a world atlas!

Update: Just checked my trackbacks and found this list of polish papers with you tube sites.

Update 2: Alex Gamela has created a map of Portuguese newspapers using YouTube. Great stuff.

Inspired by Mark S. Luckie and his fantastic map of US newspapers using youtube I thought I would give it a go for the UK. The result (nowhere near as nice as Marks) is a real mix of pipes, maps and google docs. So it isn’t neat but it kinda works. If you notice that there is a paper missing then you can use the form at the end of this post to add it.

View Larger Map

The map includes regional and national press and there may be some accounts linked to more than one paper as the publisher may only have one website for that area. There may also be some accounts listed that are no longer used or vary rarely updated. They still carry content so they i’ve kept them in as a ‘presence’.

I was interesting to find a number of individuals using their accounts to host the papers video. Nice in the sense that they were having a go but also a little disappointing in the lack of support. Still, I suppose that’s innovation for ya!

I’m slowly formulating a ‘state of the medium address’ on video which I’m hoping to get headspace and time for before xmas and this has added a bit of food for thought. But, in the meantime, you can judge the quality and the effectiveness yourself by taking a look at the the latest 20 videos from these sites below (another pipe which takes a while to show up) which at some point I will try and append with view stats etc.

Michael Rosenblum @ Society of Editors 08 from Paul Bradshaw on Vimeo.

Michael Rosenblum has been doing his ‘sky is falling in’ schtick again this time at the recent society of editors do. Thanks to some spiffing video from Paul Bradhaw Rosenblum’s view has been stirring up some nodding comments of agreements.

One of the things I like about seeing Michael talk is not because of what he is saying. I like it to see which arcane ‘industry’ from the past he’ll pick to compare the industry to.  Last time I saw him it was the ice industry. He’s great value.

But is that why people listen to Rosenblum?

Say what you like about Michael, his message is always pretty consistent and in the best tradition of a good sales pitch contains an unarguable truth - you can’t carry on as you are. But there is nothing unique about that message. A lot of people have been saying for a long time especially with respect to video.

So is it his success rate?

Well, there are certainly those who have benefited from his way of doing things but there are plenty of other projects that have had mixed reaction and success. Michael has as many doubters as fans.  I’m a fan but I don’t think he has an answer that works across the board.

So what is it? Here’s my theory.

Like for like

Micheal gets listened to, especially at events like this, because he looks like the majority of people in the room. He is a senior-management/executive talking to a room of senior-management/executives about what they should do.

Is that a poor reflection on Michael? Of course not. He has a view to pitch and aims it really well. It’s more a problem with his audience.

Many people are listening to Rosenblum because they are hearing the message for the first time. That doesnt mean Micheal has anything new to say. It means that, too their shame, the people in the room have not been listening up until that point.

As suprising as it may be to them, there are people in their organisations who are as knowledgable and passionate about video as he is. They may have more experience of the particular problems in their company and more direct suggestions to help solve them.

They may not give as good a show but they may give as good advice.