David Leeson and Scott Kesterson have posted their third trailer for “At War“, a heartrending and powerful look at the cost of war on everyone involved. The film is due for a January 2008 release. I’m in Dallas to interview David as part of my research on the changes facing photojournalism today and how we [...]
Here’s a link to Ken Stone’s fantastic Final Cut Pro tutorial site with an extensive list of video and text tutorials, white papers, and audio tutorials.
Here’s a nice little video example of shotgun microphone positions for sound capture (on camera, off camera, and with a boom) from David Tamés at Kino-Eye.
Comparison of Camera vs. Boom Microphone: Here’s a quick comparison I did of recording dialog with an MKH60 Shotgun Microphone mounted on a camera vs. mounted on a boom.
Well, the first couple of weeks of teaching classes this fall have been interesting. I’m teaching a new course this semester, the role of images in mediating reality, for honors students. The course introduces them to visual literacy and teaches them that visuals influence their perception of reality and their behavior. Needless to say I’m [...]
A very well done soundslide piece titled “Simple Happiness” about a widowed Vietnamese woman and her son living on the streets of Hanoi from Ehrin Macksey, managing director of Relative Exposure and Asian Stock in Vietnam. I like the way Ehrin worked in the Google map with the story as well. His agency has [...]
Some very good tips from professional videographer Bill Pryor. Some you’ve heard, but it’s always good to have a refresher!
Top Ten Mistakes of Rookie Filmmakers
by Bill Pryor
Nobody can can cover everything you need to know in a short article, but I can point out the ten most common mistakes I see over and over.
Bad sound. [...]
I just arrived home from this weekend’s National Press Photographers Association Women in Photojournalism conference in Austin, Texas. Needless to say it was a fantastic experience and the theme from this summer’s NPPA Summit was carried through to this conference - multimedia is the future but excellent storytelling is still key.
I was very impressed and [...]
Last reminder, the National Press Photographers Association Women in Photojournalism conference and workshops in Austin, Texas, is today through Sunday (August 17-19) at the Hyatt Regency Austin. Tonight (August 17) is the ice-breaker, the conference starts in earnest tomorrow morning (August 18). You can still register at the door. This conference is not just [...]
While it may never be used by news sites, a very interesting slide show tool from Animoto that was just released after finishing beta testing:
From the website: Animoto is a web application that automatically generates professionally produced videos, each a customized orchestration of user-selected images and music. Using patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology and high-end [...]
“Five Steps To Multimedia Reporting” is a great site for multimedia training from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and the USC Annenberg School for Communication. The site is geared to reporters who need to learn how to create multimedia stories. The tutorials cover video (cameras, accessories, shooting tips, stand-ups and voice-overs, iMovie, Final [...]
Just a reminder, the National Press Photographers Association Women in Photojournalism conference and workshops in Austin, Texas, is from August 17-19 at the Hyatt Regency Austin. Today (August 10) is the last day you can register online. This conference is not just for “women only,” anyone can attend. There will be several multimedia sessions on [...]
From FreeGeekery.com, a great list of 15 freeware programs for filmmakers that translates very well to multimedia. Programs for film editing, screenwriting, sound editing and storyboarding will help bring your productions to a new level - for a very nice price!
From an earlier post:
The dates for Cutting Edge IX have been released. And while this is geared toward television news, it could be a great opportunity for multimedia producers to learn advanced editing techniques. News announcement from the NPPA:
DURHAM, NC (July 14, 2007) – Shawn Montano, director of the Cutting Edge IX: Order of the [...]
Coming up real fast is the National Press Photographers Association Women in Photojournalism conference and workshops in Austin, Texas, from August 17-19 at the Hyatt Regency Austin. This conference is not just for “women only,” anyone can attend. There will be several multimedia sessions on audio slide shows and video. Our brethren from the television [...]
I haven’t used online video editors before but JayCut’s flash uploader was easy to use and supported video, photo, and audio in multiple formats. To add clips, music, transitions, or effects to the time line I just placed them into the editor. Once the files were uploaded they were converted to flash for the editor [...]
I’ve been keeping tabs on Pachyderm for a while now and it looks like September 2007 the NMC (New Media Consortium) will offer hosted accounts for a small subscription fee to individuals. Pachyderm is the equivalent of Joe Weiss’ SoundSlides, but on super steroids, with the ability to allow anyone to upload images, audio, and [...]
The musician Moby has created a free music download site called “mobygratis” for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for independent, non-profit films, videos, or shorts. You can listen to the available music and download whatever you want to use. The music is free as long as it’s [...]
American Journal, an online magazine published monthly by American Journal Publishing, has some great content. They are also always looking for more. This would be another outlet for stories that may have been sidelined in some way, but that you want to still present to a major audience. The one thing I didn’t see was [...]
Last year Michelle Seelig, Ph.D., from the University of Miami School of Communication conducted a survey to see what the perception of people in mass media, specifically visual communicators, is of the use of sound with still images. Michelle is still working on the results and implications of her study, but you can see the [...]
Hillman Curtis on Creating Short Films for the Web
Text and images by Hillman Curtis.
New Riders Publishing, Berkeley, 2005
An excellent book, Curtis offers a look into his filmmaking process. He takes you through the ideas that drive the story, through setup, shoot, and the assembly of a rough cut, to the final edit. Hillman also offers [...]
Mindy McAdams is attending the Travel Channel Academy in Silver Spring, Maryland, this summer. Check out her post from the first day and go to her blog, Teaching Online Journalism, to keep up on her experiences.
Boot camp for VJs
I’m attending the second Travel Channel Academy, in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. It’s a [...]
And once again from MediaStorm a great piece by conservationist J. Michael Fay and National Geographic photographer Michael Nichols who traveled to Zakouma National Park in Chad in 2006 to document the problems that threaten the refuge’s existence. There is also a very interesting interactive map you can link to at the National Geographic site.
Great new multimedia piece about the illegal trade of animals in Asia by photographer Patrick Brown and put together by the pros at MediaStorm. Brown has been working on this story for the last five years. Check it out!
The dates for Cutting Edge IX have been released. And while this is geared toward television news, it could be a great opportunity for multimedia producers to learn advanced editing techniques. News announcement from the NPPA:
DURHAM, NC (July 14, 2007) – Shawn Montano, director of the Cutting Edge IX: Order of the Edit workshop, announced [...]
Recently, Mark Glaser on PBS’s Mediashift blog wrote about the 10 Reasons There’s a Bright Future for Journalism. Make sure and read the entire article, but one thing I come away with is that access and the shift of power from the few to the many in the form of citizen journalism is the driving [...]
More “sound” information (pun intended) from Eli Kao and Jeff Towne at Transom.org. This article highlights Digidesign’s Pro Tools digital audio software.
A Beginner’s Guide to Pro Tools
by Eli Kao and Jeff Towne
Digidesign’s Pro Tools is an industry-standard digital audio program used for a variety of applications, from mixing film sound in Hollywood to producing [...]
From Transom.org, here is a great comparison chart for portable digital recorders compiled by Jeff Towne. Reviews are usually a dime a dozen, but it’s always good to hear from those in the business of audio production who know what they’re talking about (Transom.org is an experiment in channeling new work and voices to public [...]
In this piece last month by Nora Paul and Laura Ruel on the Online Journalism Review, the authors found in their study on online slide show navigation that, “this observation of navigational methods use makes clear that if you can only have one navigation method – the “next” method, moving linearly through the set of [...]
This is an older story from the Online Journalism Review on shooting web video from Regina McCombs at the Star Tribune. It’s still very relevant and a good reminder about creating well thought out video stories.
Shooting Web video: How to put your readers at the scene
Freelance writers, bloggers and independent journalists yearning to use [...]
Good tips from Al Tompkins at Poynter on improving the quality of your voice for multimedia.
How to Improve Your Voice (Even if You Hate Your Voice)
There is one thing that now binds just about all journalists, now that print people are “doing audio” online. Just about all of us, it seems, are unhappy with the [...]
NPPA The Digital Journalist
