Learn Videojournalism Online from Top Pros

We're proud to announce that KobreGuide is officially an affiliate of the New York Video School (NYVS), an online education center created by pioneering videojournalist Michael Rosenblum.

NYVS provides anyone with a video camera an easy and affordable way to learn to make films and videos like a Hollywood professional.

As a NYVS member you'll have access to video courses, critiques, tutorials and a learning community that will help you quickly become a master at video editing, video production, videography, iMovie, Final Cut Pro and much more!

NYVS instructors have worked with PBS, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, ABC, CBS, the New York Times, and many other leading media institutions.

Among the benefits of registering for the NYVS online curriculum:

* Learn video with hundreds of online tutorials
* View the latest video news and events
* Find opportunities to use your videos
* Participate in online video contests
* Post and search for jobs and internships
* Find places to make money creating video

NYVS courses have been grouped into five categories: Storytelling, Shooting, Editing, Practical Use, Video Basics

Andre Malok, a videojournalist at the Newark Star-Ledger, took Rosenblum's popular VJ video training bootcamp two years ago. He recently produced this stellar 24-minute online documentary (below), "The Wreck of the Lady Mary." The in-depth video represents a rare high-quality blend of reporting and interviewing with shooting and editing. Remarkably Malok accomplished it all single-handedly, using techniques and skills that you can acquire at NYVS.

The Lady Mary left the Port of Cape May on the morning of March 18, 2009 on a routine scallop fishing trip. The vessel with its crew of seven traveled 66 miles to a restricted scallop fishing area. Early on March 24, the boat sank to the bottom of the ocean, and six of the seven crewman were killed. Was the boat swamped in rough seas? Or did a passing container ship strike the boat without ever knowing it? After months of investigation, the Star-Ledger explores the mystery of the wreck of the Lady Mary.

For more info on NYVS, or to enroll in courses, please go here.

Newspaper Wins DuPont Broadcast Award

What's remarkable about the 13 recipients of this year's Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for national broadcast journalism is that, amidst the usual alphabet-soup suspects (ABC, CBS, PBS, BBC, NPR), we find the Las Vegas Sun.

Videojournalism stories on the Websites of print newspapers (such as the Detroit Free Press) have started winning Emmy Awards, which were previously bestowed only upon TV productions. But this is the first time that the prestigious DuPont award has gone to a print newspaper -- in this case, for "Bottoming Out," an online multimedia package about gambling addiction.

(Needless to say, the video was originally showcased on KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism at the time of publication.)

The cornerstone of the three-part package is a video self-portrait by Tony McDew, who documented his own Las Vegas casino slot machine addiction with the hope of helping others, and in the process ended up quitting gambling himself.

The series is strengthened by a powerful video diary following one man’s descent into gambling addiction with strong interactive engagement. The Las Vegas Sun explored problem gambling three ways — through the experiences of an addict; by examining what happens inside the brain of an addict; and by considering the role of slot machine designs in feeding gambling addictions. The web site also provides support and resources to help gambling addicts.

Part 1: Tony's Story
The pull of a drug, a push to the brink

Part 2: The Physiology
Illness theory gaining ground for gambling addiction

Part 3: The Machines
Could the game be partly to blame for addiction?



LINKS:

* Las Vegas Sun's award-winning multimedia package on gambling addiction.

* Las Vegas Sun story about DuPont Award

* "Bottoming Out" on KobreGuide

* 2011 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award Winners

MediaStorm Is First Web DuPont Winner

The Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism are usually won by prominent TV and radio organizations. Yesterday, for the first time, a duPont Award went to a Web-based entry.

Among such recipients as CBS, HBO, PBS and NPR was Brian Storm's MediaStorm, the Brooklyn-based multimedia production studio that has partnered with news organizations and NGOs around the world to create pioneering videojournalism (as proudly showcased on KobreGuide).

MediaStorm's winning entry was Intended Consequences, "a moving multimedia presentation about Rwandan children born of rape," with photographs and interviews by Jonathan Torgovnik.

In painfully intimate interviews photojournalist Jonathan Torgovnik explores an unfathomable question: can a mother love a child born out of rape. The women profiled in this haunting multimedia presentation were caught in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when mass rapes resulted in the birth of an estimated 20,000 children. It spotlights an issue which had not been as widely covered as other war crimes in Rwanda, and is the first Web-based production to win a duPont Award. The women speak simply about their brutal experiences, their isolation and suffering, and the way forward. The producers made excellent creative choices that contributed to the impact of the reporting without resorting to sensationalism.

Jonathan Torgovnik; photography and interviews; Chad A. Stevens, producer; Jules Shell, on-location video; Bob Sacha, Chad A. Stevens, studio video; Pamela Chen, Sherman Jia, composers; Tim Klimowicz, graphics; Brian Storm, executive producer

Well deserved kudos to Brian and his MediaStormtroopers!

DuPont details and other winners here.

Descriptions of winning programs here.

First Video Ad in a Print Magazine

In September, Entertainment Weekly will publish the first video ad -- in its print edition.

The British press is abuzz with this technological breakthrough, but the American press is remarkably blase about it.

We found stories about it on the Websites for the U.K.'s Guardian, Daily Mail, Telegraph, London Times, Irish Times, the BBC, even the kids' version of BBC.

Apparently they're all transfixed by the "Harry Potter" quality of moving images on a printed page, though it's not nearly that impressive.

It works like one of those singing greeting cards -- opening the page activates a superslim computer chip. The screen is about the size of your cellphone display (2" x 1.5").

Each chip can hold up to 40 minutes of video.

The first will contain previews of CBS's 'Two and a Half Men' (pictured), 'The Big Bang Theory,' 'Accidentally on Purpose,' plus other shows from the network's fall lineup. And ads for the new Pepsi Max.

The cost of the video ad hasn't been reported, and it remains to be seen whether it will have a positive effect on sales, as Esquire experienced last year when it employed the novelty of using the Amazon Kindle's e-ink on its cover.

Naturally, our question is: How long before print magazines use video for editorial purposes? You can tell some good stories in 40 minutes!

Here's a sneak preview of the CBS/Pepsi ad supplement in Entertainment Weekly's Sept. 18 Fall Preview edition, containing the video-in-print player:

Guess How Much Online Video We Watch?

How many online videos do you watch every month? How much time do you spend watching them?

The average U.S. Internet user watched 111 videos, for a total of 6.4 hours, during the month of April, according to data released yesterday by ComScore Video Metrix service.

Nearly 152 million U.S. Web users collectively watched 16.8 billion online videos, an increase of 16 percent from the previous month.

What's especially remarkable is that Google's YouTube accounted for 6.8 billion of those viewed videos (or 40.7 percent of the online video market), with 107.8 million viewers -- a 15 percent increase over March.

Fox Interactive Media (MySpace) ranked a distant second with 513 million videos and 58.8 million viewers (3.1 percent), followed by Hulu with 397 million videos and 40.1 million viewers (2.4 percent) and Yahoo! with 355 million videos and 45.4 million viewers (2.1 percent). Also in the top ten: Viacom, Microsoft, Turner Network, CBS, Disney, AOL.

Other notable findings for April 2009:

• 78.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
  
• The duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes.

For the record, here at KobreGuide, we watch many hours of videojournalism every month to find the best story every weekday for you! If our average video is about 5 minutes, that would add up to nearly two hours of high-quality viewing we provide you every month. And, if you're an "average" consumer (as measured by ComScore), that would still leave you more than four hours a month for goofing around on YouTube!

So our advice: Enjoy your candy, but don't forget your veggies. They're good for you, and taste good, too!

The Sand Dancer, Redux

We showcased this charming CBS video profile, The Sand Dancer, (on KobreGuide's KarmaTube channel), about a New Zealand fellow who creates magnificent (if necessarily short-lived) paintings, using sticks and rakes for his "brushes" and the beach itself for his "canvas."



Today we got word from New Zealand documentary filmmaker Valerie Reid of Force Five Films that CBS used without permission footage from her award-winning 2006 video profile of the Sand Dancer. In the spirit of fairness, and in support of independent filmmakers everywhere, we offer her original ten-minute version below, with our high recommendation: