Electric Fishwrap

I’ll be posting less frequently in the next couple of weeks because I’m trying to learn Sony Vegas, a video editing program for PC. Last weekend I took a tour with some friends to Diablo Lake.

Yes, it really was that green. The color is caused by the glacial flour of Skagit gneiss, made up of mica, feldspar (the reddish color on the rock faces) and quartz. The day was amazing. Even though it was 100+ degrees out the 36-degree water kept the trip relatively cool.

I took some video with my new camera and some stills (see eight pics I took on my Flickr photostream). Until I know how Vegas works, though, I’m not going to be doing much else other than learning how to edit. I didn’t have my tripod during the trip so it’s a little shaky, but I’ll try to post something from the trip in a week or two.

You don’t need a big budget to learn multimedia. There are plenty of low-cost tools to get you started.

Watch Kirk Mastin’s test of a $3,300 Canon XH A1 camcorder vs. a $120 Flip Camcorder (he also used a an iPod nano with a mic to record audio for the Flip video). Mastin is in the University of Washington’s masters program for digital media. Compare the footage between the two cameras. (He syncs Flip video and iPod audio with a hand clap in front of the camera and then match the audio spike in a video editing program.)

Mastin’s comparison has been making the rounds as of late, even though it was posted back in February. (There’s also a three-part Mexican Wrestling video shot with a Canon Powershot SD800 by Max Morse of ESPN.)

Also, lots of people are posting training tips lately:

• David Nolan at Multimedia Evangelist has posted several reports from a $2,000 training he’s attending on how to shoot video. Quick tips: shots are at least 10 seconds with no pans or zooms, get lots of b-roll and shoot many angles of the subject to help compress time for the viewer. (Thanks to NewsVideographer for the heads up.)
• Video for newspapers, by Mindy McAdams. This is an incredibly useful list of links, including shooting video for editing, what makes a good video and examples of video you have to see (like the Spokesman Review’s video of a paraplegic dog).
• 17 video tips, by Sue Robinson, guest blogger on Mindy’s Teaching Online Journalism.

It won’t win any Oscars, but I, and my newsroom, learned quite a bit from this experience.

One of my editors asked for a volunteer to go to the fair and “find a story.” I love the fair, and I like open-ended assignments like this. The first thing I did was grab a video camera and checked the charge on it. Another editor flagged me down as I was walking out the door. My video assignment: I was to use only the newsroom’s computer to edit and produce the video.

Let me explain. All of the video we’ve run on the site so far has been produced on home computers, usually by our interns or one of our editors. The reason they’ve done so is because our work computers aren’t as great. They have iMovie on them, which I learned is not a terrible program. Like anything else there is a learning curve to using it. I’ll admit my total ignorance here and say I’ve never in my life edited video, but I have read about best practices in producing video.

This video was fun to produce, but I shot way too little B-roll for it. I groan when I watch this, but I think the girls (and the adorable calf) make up for it. If I would’ve spent even five minutes getting better B-roll it would have been 100 times better.

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Of all multimedia skills that a reporter should know, video is my weak point. Sure, I’ve taken classes and read blogs about video, but how many times have I actually shot video for news purposes? It’s so low I’m embarrassed to say.

That will soon change. Friday my Canon HV30 will arrive in the mail (including a UV light filter to protect the lens). I probably spent at least eight hours last weekend researching which camera I should get and which store I should buy it from. I’ve been lurking a lot on the Canon HV20/HV30 user forums, too.

The hardest part is finding an editing program that works for me. I’ve never used video editing programs. Currently my laptop is Linux based, so I installed Cinelerra. But I hear Cinelerra doesn’t process HD video well. I think my best option is to reinstall Vista on the laptop and get a copy of Sony Vegas (at least platinum). Any suggestions for other programs to consider are very welcome.

I have a list of links a mile long on how to shoot video. As for editing it, I’ll probably search YouTube for tutorials on whichever program I end up using.

My plan to learn video is to just do it. Shoot lots of video. Try to edit at least one clip a week. The subject doesn’t matter, as long as I practice at becoming faster and more efficient with each try. The good clips will end up here.

Now to wait until Friday.

I read Al’s Morning Meeting column today about Hank Wilson, a journalist who learned multimedia during a Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism fellowship to learn visual journalism.

His project, entitled “No Snitching,” is about the culture of a neighborhood in east Newport News, Va. This is a great project with lots of content. His project has a poignant beginning with tasteful music interspersed with snapshots of the 30 people who died in Newport News in the past year.

In Al’s interview, Wilson says he never picked up a camera or knew much about Web design until he attended the fellowship.

The technology in our field has always changed, he tells Al: “The skills you have as a journalist are what matters. The ability to put people at ease and have them talk with you. The ability to find and tell a compelling story.”

Wilson does have advice for the rest of us who can’t take a 24-week break from our jobs for a fellowship:

My advice to anyone who wants to learn multimedia skills is to start doing it. Make a small, one-minute movie a day. Figure out how to see in video. Watch lots of documentaries and see how a story is told visually. Check out all the Web sites that post multimedia stories. Find a class that will teach you video editing or Flash; there are lots of them online. But most of all don’t be afraid and get started.

That’s great advice!

Our cops reporter, Tahlia Ganser, just returned from Florida after spending six weeks at Poynter’s summer fellowship (7/25: link changed, here’s a new one). She returned with many observations, exciting stories and a clear vision of the future.

For reporters, that includes video. To not study video journalism as a reporter is a death knell to your career. So where do we start?

(This video is Cyndy Green’s rebuttal to Andy Dickenson’s Quality and Quantity shorts)

Reporters cannot afford to wait for someone else to train us. No need to reinvent the wheel, there are plenty of training resources if you look in the right places.

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Two weeks ago, Skagit Valley Herald editor in chief Don Nelson sat down with the reporting staff and told us about some upcoming changes in the newsroom. (For the curious, I asked Don permission if I could blog about this and he gave me the green light.)

Reporters were handed a four-page outline of how we can incorporate the Web into our daily reporting.

Here’s a brief outline of the new Web strategy. If you want to read the entire four-page handout (culled to three pages with my excellent paper-folding-and-taping skills), read the PDF here (includes bonus doodles).

• Editors will select which stories have the best potential for multimedia during their weekly editors meeting. At least two stories per week will be assigned for “multi-platform” presentation.
• Editors are responsible for coordinating the production and editing of the multimedia.
• Photographers must “think video” for breaking news.
• Photographers are a “first priority” to train in video production and editing. Editors and interested reporters come after the photogs are trained. Training will come from in-house or online sources.
• Reporters are responsible for audio recording and editing, including narration and interviews with subjects.

Reporters seemed skeptical and skittish because of the layoffs around the country. Even our own newsroom is not immune from this recent trend. Our business reporter position is frozen. Someone mumbled “do more with less,” which earned a funny statement from Don Nelson:

“I hate the phrase ‘More with less.’ It’s a despicable lie,” Don said. “I prefer ‘Different and better.’”

(For the record, I hate “more with less” with a passion, and Don’s comment has to be the most awesome comeback to it that I’ve ever heard. Cynical journalists are free to disagree, but I still love my job.)
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If your news organization has not produced video much, or sold video ads, the Newspaper Association of America is here to help.

Check out the new online primer for video production. It’s got advice from B roll footage to equipment purchasing guides to how to promote your online video. There is even a guide on how to market video ads (because, face it, news is a business in most places in the country).

“Zooming In on Online Video: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspaper Web Sites” is intended to help newspapers of any size develop profitable video applications. As competition heats up for online video mindshare, newspapers have an excellent opportunity to leverage their skills and content and capture an even larger share of online advertising spending.

Also from the ad front, what makes an online video ad less annoying? Read what Mark Glaser wrote on MediaShift (hint: keep it short, silly).

There is so much information here that I’ll likely spend several hours surfing the links. I am glad to see a news tutorial that applies to the ad department.

Thanks to Beth Lawton on Wired Journalists for the heads up on the NAA video training site.

Check out this amazing multimedia presentation by the Des Moines Register.

Two weeks ago an EF-5 tornado, the biggest possible on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, ripped through the southern half of Parkersburg, Iowa. Like most communities after tragedy, the town pulled together. Neighbors searched for each other among the wreckage. People pitched in together and cleaned up the roads. So far, eight people have died from their injuries.

The Register’s multimedia presentation merges an attractive flash interface with user-submitted stories, photographer-shot video and it combines before images from the county assessor database with images photographers took after the storm.

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A couple of years ago I went to a narrative writing workshop with Tom Hallman, a Pulitzer-prizewinning reporter from the Oregonian. Just like anything else, narrative writing takes time to learn. (There is a form to narrative writing. Just read “Writing for Story: Craft Secrets of Dramatic Nonfiction” by Jon Franklin and you’ll see what I mean.)

Reporters asked how they would ever find the time to learn this new style when many of them have story quotas. The short answer was prioritize your work and realize that not every story deserves your full attention. The long answer was learn at home, read books, try new things with your copy on your own time.

The same can be said for multimedia. I know a number of reporters who want to wait on the company to teach them multimedia skills.

Colin Mulvany, the multimedia editor at the Spokesman Review, says reporters should train themselves on their own time.

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