Where is the line?
I’ve begun working on a video piece that I’m hoping to be able to edit and finish next week. It’s a piece about a local museum and some of the interpretors there in the living history village. All I’m doing is a little who are you and why do you love the museum. I’ll cut this with a bunch of cover video of the people doing their jobs and general shots of people on the grounds and such.
So is this a news piece? Advertorial? Propaganda?
I don’t know. I’m attempting to shed light on the people who work at the facility by attacking the story in a different way. I’m more interested in them than I am in visitors who have shown up and why they paid the admission. To many it’s a labor of love and a job that satisfies them in a way no other task could.
My intent is for news. Time to wait for the bread to come out of the oven. (So to speak.)
A new post.
I covered a conference a couple of weeks ago. It was interesting and really focused on how businesses can use social networking tools in their marketing campaigns. One idea was to use a blog to control your message. You can also use the blog to point to your website, twitter account, facebook, MySpace and all the rest. Pretty crazy once it all starts snow balling. Anyhow the biggest thing for a blog is to always, always, always have new content on the site. If not, people will never come back and you’ve lost customers and revenue.
Amen.
Like my post?
More Video
I’m working on my fourth video now. It’s a straight forward piece, and I’ll be putting the final titles and such on it this morning. Once it’s up and posted I’ll copy in a link for comments.
I’m not an expert at video by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that I’m getting better. It’s such a different mentality for me. I can blend into a room with my still cameras and no one knows I’m there, but that’s not possible or even practical with video. You are going to be seen, and you have to get in people’s way; not only in their face for an interview, but also in their face while they are working. This will take a while for me to adapt.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is it isn’t coming easy for me. I’ve got to work at it. That means I can spend a couple of hours editing and not think anything of it, in fact in doesn’t even feel like that much time. (Depending on computer crashes.) Since I’m slow at the editing process, I’m not afraid to take a little more time to experiment. If at first you don’t succeed as they say.
I should also say that I’m lucky. I’ve been choosing assignments that I don’t have to turn around the same day. This is primarily because I still have my normal assignments to cover as well. Squeezing all these assignments in is a challenge, but I’m adapting. This weekend I’m debating shooting a nat-sound video piece on the last day of racing at Fonner Park. I’ll post that too, maybe even with a still photo.
My transition to videography.
Last week, April 4-10, I was in Norman, OK, for the 49th annual National Press Photographers News Video Workshop. It was intense. No really, it was intense.
After getting over only being allowed to know the schedule when we arrived each day, I quickly settled into the 13-14 hour days and routine of morning lectures, afternoon hands on shooting, and more lectures and extra sessions in the evening. It was completely worth the effort and expense. Now I am working to keep my promise to the paper of producing 1-2 projects a week. The first two can be seen at:
So I realize that it’s impossible to remember and apply everything I learned about sequencing, cutting on action and screen direction. I am trying though and I think that is progress. I’m just trying to adapt to the changes of the industry and learn new skills. That will be good for my paper and good for me.
One of the most important things that I came away from the conference was that you have to get off the sidelines and get into the game. Now I’m in.
