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 [...]
In February 2008 the Barefoot Workshops, run by Chandler Griffin, will hit the Mississippi Delta. This is a 2-week workshop designed for new documentary filmmakers who want to start a career in film and television documentary. Chandler Griffin runs the Barefoot Workshops, a a New York City-based not-for-profit 501(c)3, that offers short, intensive workshops around [...]
Television shows on the Internet have replaced news programming as the most widely viewed online content. Traditional television programming online and Internet video are expected to grow in the next several years and will soon become entrenched as mainstream according to WebPro News. -more
Filmmaker Deborah Scranton talks about and shows clips from her documentary The War Tapes in this video from TED. She put video cameras in the hands of Charlie Company, a unit of the National Guard, for one year in Iraq. The soldiers footage and diaries tell a very personal story of the war [...]
Check out Scott Kesterson and David Leeson’s excellent work on a feature length film, “At War“, based on Scott’s documentary footage shot in Afghanistan over a one year embed. David Leeson is editing the film now and has completed a few trailers that can be viewed on the site. Scott is an interesting story, [...]
The reported cost of the Sony PMW-EX1 HD camera will be in the $8,000 range. A bit pricey for personal consumption, but remember the old days when the first digital cameras were in the $20,000 range. It wasn’t until Nikon introduced the D-1 in the $5,000 range that prices came down. Give it time and [...]
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.
Scholarship opportunity for students from College Scholarships.org:
The Blogging Scholarship
Is Your Blog Worthy of a $10,000 Scholarship? Do you maintain a weblog and attend college? Would you like $10,000 to help pay for books, tuition, or other living costs? If so, read on. We’re giving away $10,000 this year to a college student who blogs. The [...]
Richard MacManus at Read/Write Web has compiled an interesting list of future trends for the web. Highlights below:
10 Future Web Trends
by Richard MacManus
We’re well into the current era of the Web, commonly referred to as Web 2.0. Features of this phase of the Web include search, social networks, online media (music, video, etc), content aggregation [...]
Excellent piece by Mark Glaser at MediaShift on the migration of jobs from traditional print journalism to digital.
Traditional Journalism Job Cuts Countered by Digital Additions
by Mark Glaser
If you follow the world of traditional journalism, you can’t help but notice the seemingly constant stream of layoffs and buyouts at news organizations. But media observers don’t often [...]
Video search is still a hot topic and this piece by Katherine Boehret at Wall Street Journal Online looks at the major players. She gives high praise to Truveo as one of the best of the bunch.
The Best Way To Search Videos On the Internet
By KATHERINE BOEHRET, Wall Street Journal Online
Some fascinating results can be [...]
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 [...]
The Bivings Group, a Washington, DC-based Internet communications firm released a list of the Top 10 Newspaper Websites on their blog, The Bivings Report. They judged sites on their web features as well as design, aesthetics and usability.
(1) New York Times: We love the general feeling of the NYT site, which is pleasing to [...]
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 [...]
Some bad news thrown in with some good news from the recent release of the Cox Center 2006 Annual Survey Findings of Journalism and Mass Communication Graduates. I do like the fact that more journalists are working on the web. I don’t like the fact that they are not being compensated properly for it [...]
“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 [...]
An interesting technique to reduce noise from high gain night shots on high definition video from Zen Films, an independent production and publishing company. They use Neat Image, a plug-in for Photoshop designed to reduce visible noise and grain in photographic images produced by digital cameras and scanners.
Noise Reduction on HiDef images
I made a great [...]
This is a great piece on aging and sexuality called “Never too old.” Good editing, narration, and sound. I love the way StoryBridge.tv has taken a sensitive topic in a not so exciting venue (classroom) and made it riveting. I showed this in my visual communication class the other day and the students raved about [...]
Great find from Angela Grant at News Videographer concerning a recent study on consumer desires for online video. As a disclaimer on the report, Akamai, the company funding the study, has a large stake in the online community through their software and hardware divisions.
Video technological problems won’t fly
How long will a crappy video experiences fly [...]
Here’s a great read from Robert Logan, “The 14 Messages of New Media,” on MediaShift about his extension of Marshall McLuhan’s statement that “the medium is the message.” He lists 14 characteristics of new media today that, “… seem to have 14 distinct messages that intertwine and support each other.” A very interesting read.
1. two-way [...]
Here is an interesting development that I haven’t paid very much attention to, online storage. I’m getting ready to buy a Terabyte drive, which should last a little while for storing video, but if the need ever arose this might be a good place to go. My concern would be reliability and security. Here’s a [...]
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!
For those of you who dabble in design - enjoy!
TeacherClick, a website for teachers (duh), offers free online computer tutorials to the educational community. If you’re looking for something to supplement a book there are some free tutorials that will work well for what we do, especially the Flash and Dreamweaver sections. The site has tutorials for: Flash 8, Excel 2003, Dreamweaver 8, Flash [...]
The Online Journalism Review just published a five step guide for website usability testing that can gauge readers’ reactions to multimedia projects and website design. A very solid guide to making sure that what you produce actually reaches and communicates with your audience.
OJR’s ‘five guide’ to do-it-yourself website usability testing
Use these steps, and these forms, [...]
Dependent Films, an Illinois based independent film company, has put together a nice collection of tools and utilities for filmmakers that are definitely transferable to what we do with video and multimedia in journalism. Tools such as: script templates for Microsoft Word, an editing log, field tape log, camera shot list, personal release form, storyboard [...]
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 [...]
NPPA The Digital Journalist
