Videojournalism Tutorials by D.C. Pros

Once again we're sharing some video tutorials about videojournalism from the International Journalists' Network. They're from top pros in Washington, D.C.

The first two are from Pierre Kattar, who produced Emmy-winning videojournalism for the Washington Post, and now flies solo.

Telling True Stories with Video, Part 1



Telling True Stories with Video, Part 2



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These next two are from Bill Gentile, a pioneering videojournalist who teaches at American University in Washington, D.C., where he founded and directs the school's Backpack Journalism Project.

Bill Gentile on Backpack Journalism, Part 1



Bill Gentile on Backpack Journalism, Part 2



Bill Gentile also runs acclaimed videojournalism workshops. The next one is March 10-13. More info here.

What Is Your Newsroom's Video Vision?

As an advisor to Bill Gentile's Backpack Journalism Project (pictured) at American University's School of Communication, multimedia producer Colin Mulvany recently shared his perspective of the rise and fall and eventual resurrection of newspaper videojournalism -- how we got here, and where we're going.

In his expansive essay Video Journalism at Newspapers, Mulvany concludes:

For the last several years, newspaper video journalists have collectively held their breath. Mass layoffs, newsroom reorganizations and non-paid furloughs have left journalists still employed at newspapers on-edge. The good news is the worst may be over.

Mulvany has been in the vanguard of shepherding still photogs into the video fold. He's generously dedicated his time and energies to educating a generation of videojournalists, and has even co-created a community Website, FindingTheFrame.com, to help novitiates learn from their more seasoned confreres.

Having built a seminal multimedia department for the Spokane's Spokesman-Review, Mulvany's advisory capacity extends beyond tutoring in-the-field practitioners and to counseling editorial management.

"I occasionally get calls from video producers or editors struggling with how to successfully integrate video into their newsrooms," he reveals.

These are the blueprint questions I would ask anyone on a similar quest:

* Do you have an overall vision for video in your newsroom?

* Why are you doing video in the first place?

* Is quality video valuable to your viewers?

* Has video gained traction on your website over time? If not, figure out why.

* Has your paper invested in training that empowers your video producers to be able to tell and edit a story effectively?

* Do you have (need) a web-savvy management structure in place to filter out bad video ideas and is an advocate for video based storytelling?

* If you are producing lots of video, do you have a website that showcases this valued web-only content?

* Can viewers find your videos quickly if they land on a story page and not on the home page?

* Can lower levels of video quality be acceptable if they meet a high news value bar?

* Do your videos load fast, have good, clean compression, and have full screen ability?

* Are you using social media to promote your video content?

* If you’re a small paper with dwindling resources, should you really be adding poorly produced video to your already bleak shovelware website?

For all the bleak economic realities he's encountered -- including layoffs and reductions of the troops he's personally trained -- Mulvany remains hopeful.

I still believe video journalism can generate revenue opportunities for newspapers, especially as the economy rebounds. The Internet is growing increasingly visual. Video, in many ways, is becoming the language of the Internet. Online viewers have steadily embraced video, so it’s imperative for newspapers to be there with compelling, well-edited video content for them to consume. But if video journalism, or backpack journalism, is to grow and succeed at newspapers, it will need a lot more nurturing and support from newsroom management than it is getting now.

Amen to that.

LINKS:

Backpack Journalism Project

Colin Mulvany's Mastering Multimedia blog

Finding the Frame Website

'Honest Truths' Studies Ethical Issues for VJs

Videojournalists face a slew of moral and ethical quandaries in every stage of shooting and editing their stories. A new study intelligently and engagingly addresses some of the most prevalent.

It's called Honest Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in Their Work, published by American University School of Communication's Center for Social Media.

This study provides a map of perceived ethical challenges that documentary filmmakers—directors and producer-directors—in the United States identify in the practice of their craft. It summarizes the results of 45 long-form interviews in which filmmakers were asked simply to describe recent ethical challenges that surfaced in their work.

The interview pool consisted of 41 directors or producer-directors who had released at least two productions at a national level and who have authorial control. Most of those makers had experience both with nonprofit outlets, such as public TV, and with cable or commercial network television. Also included were four executive producers in national television programming organizations. The population spanned three generations.

Documentary filmmakers identified themselves as creative artists for whom ethical behavior is at the core of their projects. At a time when there is unprecedented financial pressure on makers to lower costs and increase productivity, filmmakers reported that they routinely found themselves in situations where they needed to balance ethical responsibilities against practical considerations. Their comments can be grouped into three conflicting sets of responsibilities: to their subjects, their viewers, and their own artistic vision and production exigencies.

Filmmakers resolved these conflicts on an ad-hoc basis and argued routinely for situational, case-by-case ethical decisions. At the same time, they shared unarticulated general principles and limitations. They commonly shared such principles as, in relation to subjects, “Do no harm” and “Protect the vulnerable,” and, in relation to viewers, “Honor the viewer’s trust.”

Among the topics discussed:

* Staging, restaging, and effects

* Framing and editing

* Paying subjects

* Sharing decision-making and/or control of final cut

* Protecting vulnerable or endangered subjects

* Reselling or distributing images in other contexts

* Deliberate deception to achieve a greater good

The report concludes:

When filmmakers face ethical conflicts, they often resolve them in an ad-hoc way, keeping their deep face-to-face relationship with subjects and their more abstract relationship with the viewers in balance with practical concerns about cost, time, and ease of production.

The ethical conflicts put in motion by these features of a filmmaker’s embattled-truth-teller identity are, ironically for a truth-telling community, unable to be widely shared or even publicly discussed in most individual cases. Sometimes filmmakers are constrained by contract, but far more often they are constrained by the fear that openly discussing ethical issues will expose them to risk of censure or may jeopardize the next job.

Filmmakers thus find themselves without community norms or standards. Institutional standards and practices remain proprietary to the companies for which the filmmakers may be working and do not always reflect the terms they believe are appropriate to their craft. Their communities are far-flung, virtual, and sporadically rallied at film festivals and on listservs. Filmmakers need to share both experience and vocabulary and to be able to question their own and others’ decision-making processes without encountering prohibitive risk.

Documentary filmmakers need a larger, more sustained and public discussion of ethics, and they also need safe zones to share questions and to report concerns. Any documentary code of ethics that has credibility for a field with a wide range of practices must develop from a shared understanding of values, standards, and practices. A more extended and vigorous conversation is needed in order to cultivate such understanding in this field of creative practice.

Download the study here (PDF file).