Newsday teamed up with with local news station News12 to produce an inside look at one of the most dramatic gubernatorial contests in New York State history.
Videojournalist John Paraskevas and reporter Thomas Maier produced "Campaign Season: The 2010 Race for Governor" in seven chapters, posted throughout the course of the campaign. After Election Day, they compiled a 42-minute look at the winners and losers ... and the significance of the campaign itself.
It turned out to be a solid example of a daily newspaper and a local TV station employing their individual strengths for their mutual benefit.
Over eight months, Maier and Paraskevas filmed hours of video footage -- including exclusive interviews with candidates, party leaders and key political figures -- to track the ambitions, betrayals and behind-the-scenes influences in this race. This combination of video and print appeared in the pages of Newsday, the websites of Newsday and News12, was broadcast on special reports on News12, and presented on News12’s Video on Demand channel.
If you're in the Los Angeles area, check out a panel discussion presented by the International Documentary Association: "Can Your Documentary Really Change the World?"
Topics:
* How can you make sure that your documentary has the greatest possible impact? * What kinds of outreach and marketing campaigns are the most effective? * How can you best partner with non-profits to get your message out? * What do funders and broadcasters expect from documentary filmmakers? * What's the best way to build a successful social action campaign?
Panelists:
* Jennifer Arnold, Director, A SMALL ACT * Robert Kenner, Director, FOOD, INC. * Cara Mertes, Director, Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program * Dennis Palmieri, Director of Communications, ITVS * Sara Hutchison (moderator), IDA Board of Directors
It's Monday, December 20, 7-9pm, at The Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax, with audience Q&A and wine reception to follow. Tickets are $15 for IDA members, $20 for non-members.
The event is part of the IDA's Doc U series of educational seminars and workshops for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers. "Taught by artists and industry experts, participants receive vital training and insight on various topics including fundraising, distribution, licensing, marketing, and business tactics."
Voting ends this Wednesday (9/15) for the ViewChange Online Film Contest, which showcases "powerful five-minute films that tell stories of progress in developing countries" and illuminates "how the world is working together to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals."
The contest is sponsored by LinkTV.org, the online component of Link TV, "the first nationwide television network dedicated to providing Americans with global perspectives on news, events and culture." The Website currently serves 4,300-plus international documentary video segments and programs, with 3.4-million views per year.
The video contest is designed "to raise awareness, inspire action, and accelerate the worldwide movement to reduce extreme poverty by 2015," and "to show the personal stories behind these global targets [and] how development efforts are helping the world's poorest people to improve their lives."
For videojournalism practitioners and enthusiasts, here is an opportunity to see dozens of examples of high-quality work from around the world.
A $20,000 Grand Prize goes to the overall winner, plus $5,000 to the winner of each category:
* Sustainability
* Innovation
* Overcoming Conflict
* Empowerment
* Leadership & Governance
* Local/Global Partnerships
Online voters will help determine the finalists in each category. Winners will be chosen by a distinguished panel of judges from many fields, including actor and UN Ambassador Danny Glover and US Senator Daniel K. Inouye. Videos of winners and finalists will be broadcast on Link TV and other television channels worldwide, and be available for high-quality streaming at ViewChange.org.
After a decade-long conflict, Sierra Leone has many challenges ahead including improving child and maternal health. In 2009, one in eight women died during pregnancy. Fatimata Konte, an expecting mother, fears giving birth after already losing five of her children. She hopes the new policy to bring free health care to all pregnant women will save her next child and make giving birth safe for all women.
For more contest info, go here. Watch and vote here.
In our recent item about documentary filmmakers who become Hollywood moviemakers, we speculated that someday the trend might reverse itself -- and, as though on cue, we were reminded that Spike Lee's sprawling If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise premiered last week on HBO. It's his second four-hour documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, following 2006’s Peabody Award–winning When the Levees Broke.
This month the airwaves have been deluged with fifth-anniversary Katrina documentaries, ranging in tone from retrospective to investigative. On Monday, for one night only, Harry Shearer's own post-Katrina expose, The Big Uneasy, will screen in theaters nationwide.
Shearer is a man of many talents -- satirist, radio host, novelist, journalist, fine artist, and more. You've heard him as the voice of many Simpsons characters over the past 20 years, and have seen him perform in a comedic film genre he helped pioneer -- the mockumentary (Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration).
But there's nothing funny about The Big Uneasy, which features Shearer interviewing New Orleans residents and officials to reveal that "some of the same flawed methods responsible for the levee failure during Katrina are being used to rebuild the system expected to protect the new New Orleans from future peril."
The Big Uneasy is laced with computer imagery that takes you inside the structures that failed so catastrophically, and boasts never–before–seen video of the moments when New Orleans began to flood and the painstaking investigations that followed. The Big Uneasy marks the beginning of the end of five years of ignorance about what happened to one of our nation’s most treasured cities — and serves as a stark reminder that the same agency that failed to protect New Orleans still exists in other cities across America.
The Los Angeles Times takes a look at top documentary filmmakers who successfully made the leap to Hollywood moviemaking. It's not as natural a transition as you might expect, but what fascinates us is the qualities they bring with them -- which add up to exceptional visual storytelling abilities.
Documentary directors may be better equipped than most to deliver something that's frequently missing from narrative movies: emotional truthfulness. What's more, nonfiction storytellers directing narrative features are comfortable shooting in the increasingly popular verité style that mashes extemporaneous camera moves with scripted action and dialogue.
Michael Apted is a pioneering example, having produced the 7 Up series, and then giving us features such as Gorillas in the Mist (based on a true story), and now exploring terrain far removed from real life: the next Chronicles of Narnia film.
Paul Greengrass spent the first ten years of his career making documentaries, and his trademark handheld-camera technique ("To be perfectly honest, I couldn't afford tripods") has served him well with hit features such as United 93 (a 9/11 film based on real-life people and events) and two Bourne films.
Some other examples:
Nanette Burstein (pictured) Documentaries: American Teen, The Kid Stays in the Picture Feature: Going the Distance
Andrew Jarecki Documentary: Capturing the Friedmans Feature: All Good Things
Seth Gordon Documentary: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Features: Four Christmases, Horrible Bosses (upcoming)
James Marsh Documentary: Man on Wire (Oscar-winner) Feature: Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980
Amir Bar-Lev Documentary: The Tillman Story Feature: Biopic of Jerry Garcia (upcoming)
Jose Padilha Documentary: Bus 174 Features: Elite Squad 2, The Sigma Protocol (upcoming)
The documentarians-turned-dramatists say the two genres are unexpectedly comparable, and that their nonfiction backgrounds often helped them in critical ways. Even though a feature film may have a manufactured story, directors of documentaries and features are constantly looking for openness from the people in front of their cameras.
Padilha says directors with documentary training tend to be adept at telling stories, and shooting in a style that invites, rather than distances, the audience. "You don't have a script, so you have to focus on the narrative. You come up with a shooting plan based on what you decide the story is," Padilha says.
Documentary directors, Padilha adds, know how to use their cameras in service of that story. In a feature, "Instead of moving the camera by itself, you move the camera with the actors." In a documentary, he says, "The camera is always trying to find what matters in the action, so the audience can find what's relevant."
The documentary filmmakers interviewed for the Times story acknowledged that their hearts may be in non-fiction storytelling, but their wallets do better when they apply their talents to fiction -- especially considering that this year's excellent feature-length Oscar winner, "The Cove," grossed just $857,000 in the U.S.
As feature-length video distribution over the internet becomes more viable (as is already happening via Netflix, Hulu, et al), that financial picture is likely to improve considerably. Might feature filmmakers someday turn their lenses to nonfiction stories?
Tonight, PBS Frontline/World will broadcast a 15-minute version of the documentary "In the Shadow of the Raid," by directors Greg Brosnan and Jennifer Szymaszek.
The documentary details the devastating cross-border economic impact of the United States' largest ever immigration raid, in Postville, Iowa on May 12, 2008. The raid exactly two years ago on the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant wrought economic disaster on a Guatemalan village and wrecked the economy of a former Midwestern boom town.
Here is the trailer for the longer 30-minute version:
With a career that spans over 25 years, Neal Menschel has photographed some of the most important world events of the last few decades. He captured the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, photographed Nelson Mandela when apartheid ended in South Africa, and has covered half a dozen presidential elections. He was director of photography at the Christian Science Monitor for 13 years, and his clients have included Newsweek and the New York Times.
Watch the interview and you’ll learn:
1. The Importance of Anticipation — In Neal’s line of work, you never know when the unpredictable will happen. That’s why you always have to be on top of your game and ready to shoot at the drop of a hat. Watch Neal discuss how he keeps himself prepared for any situation.
2. Creating a Rapport with Your Subject — Many of Neal’s photographs manage to capture an emotional depth in his subjects because he has spent the time to get to know them before he even lifts a camera to his eye. Watch as he describes the importance of developing a rapport with the people he is shooting, and how this relationship turns into a “collaboration” that is essential to great photography.
3. How to Capture a Heart-Grabbing Image — From composition and lighting suggestions to the importance of using Sandisk cards (”In ten years I’ve never had one fail,” he says), Neal offers specific tips and tricks on what you can do to create moving, heart-wrenching images.
Menschel describes his routine for documentary shoots. He considers himself a journalist first, so he looks for stories that speak to the human heart and he gets to know his subjects as much as possible...
How would you like to see what is probably the world's longest documentary ... for free!
Conventional wisdom dictates that most viewers' attention spans are about ten minutes, tops. What if we told you that more than a million people tuned in to see this film, which clocks in at 7 1/2 hours, giving new meaning to the phrase "feature length"? True, the viewers are all from Norway, where we can't vouch for sufficient alternate distractions. But consider the subject of the documentary: a train ride.
That's right. Last month, 1.2 million Norwegians watched at least parts of "Bergensbanen" (Bergen Railway) on the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK: Norsk rikskringkasting). There's not much of a plot, or even characters. It's a continuous recording of every second aboard the passenger train (from the conductor's vantage point) from Bergen on the Norwegian west coast, crossing the scenic mountains to the capital of Oslo (about 300 miles).
The film became all the rage in Norway, lighting up Twitter with #bergensbanen tweets.
And now, with some caveats and regulations, NRK is making the whole thing available as a free download. If you've got the hard-drive space to accomodate 22 gigs.
The documentary had picture-in-picture clips with videos about Bergensbanen, a reporter interviewing people on the train, music and two cameras pointing to the sides of the train. Because of rights, we had to remove the music and many videoclips, so we decided to make a clean frontcamera version for this download. It’s recorded on a Sony 700 camera in XDCAM HD 1080 50i. The camera has a 30 seconds buffer, making it possible to switch disks when needed. So we have a continuous recording of 7 hours.
The original file was 165 GB, too much for most people to download. We coded a 720 50P, 1280×720 version, resulting in a 22 GB file.
Here’s a 10-minute excerpt. Look familiar? It's Finse, where the (shorter) scenes from Hoth in 'Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back' were filmed. Bon voyage et bonne vue!
To download the entire 7-plus hours, read the rules and instructions here.
Paste, the award-winning pop-culture magazine, has published a thoughtful list of the 25 best documentaries of the past decade.
Our first reaction was: "Wait! The decade's almost over?"
After that cold rush of reality set in, we devoured the list with glee, nodding in agreement at the selections we've personally savored, and adding those we haven't to our wildly out-of-control Netflix queue.
Upton Sinclair, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein may have set the standard for muckraking in the 20th century, but their heirs apparent are as likely to pick up a video camera as they are a pen when they fight the battles of the 21st. Technical advances have put professional tools into the hands of amateurs, but they explain only part of the reason that so much muckraking has moved from newspapers to video....
In 1974, high-wire walker Philippe Petit fulfilled a longstanding dream by sneaking into New York’s World Trade Center, stringing a cable between the tops of the two towers, and—with almost unfathomable guts—walking across it without a net. The man is clearly a nut, but he’s also a great storyteller with a heck of a story, and Man on Wire gives him a chance to tell it.
2. Iraq in Fragments (2007) Director: James Longley
Applying the full spectrum of cinematic technique to a nonfiction film, Longley made one of the most striking movies this year, an immersive view of life in Iraq; a record of opinions and faces from across the country, all captured at close range.
3. Grizzly Man (2005) Director: Werner Herzog
This profile of nature lover Timothy Treadwell, who unwisely tried to live among wild bears in Alaska until he was devoured, cuts a Herzogian swath across the hillside: A man attempts to find harmony with nature but instead finds, as Herzog puts it, “chaos, hostility and murder.”
4. The Fog of War (2003) Director: Errol Morris
For those who lived through the ’60s, the name Robert McNamara provokes an entire range of emotions and experiences. But even those too young to remember the former U.S. Secretary of Defense will find Errol Morris’ amazing film an incredibly relevant portrait of a man who helped shape the 20th century.
5. Bowling For Columbine (2002) Director: Michael Moore
Michael Moore can sometimes seem glib and shrill, driving even his supporters nuts. But with Columbine, arguably his most important film, he successfully tackles the insanity of America’s gun problem—a problem so insane that Marilyn Manson, in a candid interview, emerges as the voice of reason.
Check out the rest of the list here -- plenty of good viewing to last you through 2010!
Please share with us your favorite documentaries of the past decade that did not make this list.
What will the 2010 - 2019 list look like? According to Paste, given the industry's economics, it might be a short list indeed:
Given the troubled state of theatrical distribution, many documentaries are more likely to be seen at home than the mall. But who will finance them? Even with so many outlets -- from traditional theaters and aging broadcast television to new and unproven avenues like SnagFilms, YouTube, and Netflix Instant -- most documentarians are unlikely to earn enough to keep working. It’s a gap that’s yet to be bridged: the distance between the obvious value of hard-nosed reporting and the cost of getting the results in front of an audience.
P.S. One response to Paste's list can be found on In One Eye, Out the Other, a blog by a 26-year-old U.K. documentary filmmaker named Charlotte, who offers a list twice as long. ("I tried to limit to 25 but it’s just impossible.") Here are her top 10:
1. The Fog of War (Morris, 2003) 2. The Staircase (de Lestrade, 2004) 3. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Lee,2006) 4. Journeys with George (Pelosi, 2002) 5. Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (Stone, 2004) 6. Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (Forbes, 2008) 7. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006) 8. Dark Days (Singer, 2000) 9. Power of Nightmares (Curtis, 2004) 10. Grizzly Man (Herzog, 2005)
For Charlotte's full list (with links to trailers), go here.
Big congrats to the Detroit Free Press (freep.com) for winning a national Emmy Award last night for its multimedia package documenting Christ Child House, a foster home for boys in Detroit, that was previously showcased on KobreGuide.
(Other nominees in the category that honors new approaches to news and documentary reporting included MediaStorm's "Intended Consequences," also spotlighted on KobreGuide.)
Special kudos to project leader Kathy Kieliszewski and her team of videographers, photographers, and reporters. In addition to "one man band" videojournalism projects, the Detroit Free Press devotes staff and resources to large-scale productions, involving many contributors over long periods of time. As their multiple Emmys indicate, it's an investment that pays off.
The Free Press has now won four national Emmys, more than any other newspaper, all of which have appeared on KobreGuide's Emmy channel.
Go see (and hear!) ' It Might Get Loud,' a new untraditional documentary.
Rock icons from three different generations -- Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), the Edge (U2) and Jack White (White Stripes) -- come together to talk about the electric guitar and their musical influences. The maestros swap stories and crank up their instruments on an empty soundstage for a superstar jam session. Along the way, they visit the majestic hall where "Stairway to Heaven'' was composed, and we are taken to the high school classroom where U2 first met and rehearsed in their teens. Jack White composes a song on-camera at a Tennessee farmhouse, and the Edge lays down tracks for a U2 single.
It's directed by Davis Guggenheim, who also directed Al Gore's Oscar-winning global-warming documentary, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' along with a slew of critically acclaimed TV series.
'It Might Get Loud' sets out to explain the influence of electric guitars on our lives in a way that hasn't been attempted before -- by intertwining the intimate stories of three who have famously mastered it. We are treated to small personal moments from three very different lives and careers, shot over the course of a year on two continents and artfully woven together, culminating in a combined jam that was shot with seven cameras on a Hollywood sound stage .
Says Guggenheim: "I hope the audience will fall in love with these guys as much as I did, not just as rock stars, but as individuals and artists who turned their individual life experiences into music: beautiful, raw, in-your-face, visceral, and transcendent."
The film succeeds in capturing what collectively excites us about electric guitars through the prism of three strong protagonists and their private journeys. And in the great rock 'n' roll spirit, those individual solos build to a tour de force ensemble climax.
One element that distinguishes this documentary style is that the filmmaker has imposed his own template and agenda -- bringing together three people who would not have otherwise assembled but for this film.
Lesson for videojournalists: Look for instances in which it makes narrative sense to physically bring together characters who might not otherwise meet. Their natural interactions and conversations can be exponentially more colorful and illuminating than anything that might be revealed through individual talking-head interviews.
Congratulations to all nominees for the 30th annual Emmy awards in the "News & Documentary" category, which includes a number of online videos that we are proud to have showcased on KobreGuide :
Outstanding Informational Programming -- Long Form
We're always pleased when judges of major awards select video stories that we've chosen to champion and share with viewers long before they were awards contenders.
Naturally it makes us wonder which stories we pick this week might be vying for prestigious awards next year -- and are pleased to be able to present them to you now, so that when they get tapped for glory, you can say you saw them when.
And, yes, we're still tickled by the fact that the Television Academy is bestowing awards on videos that have appeared only online. "New Approaches" indeed!
The awards will be presented Sept. 21 in New York. Meanwhile, see previous nominees and winners on KobreGuide's Emmy awards channel.
Controversial documentarian Michael Moore may have come up with the first interactive movie trailer.
At big-city theaters this week, the teaser for his new as-yet-untitled film (below), about the U.S. economic meltdown, satirically invited the audience to donate money for victims of the economic crisis -- "needy banks and corporations."
Whereupon ushers marched down the aisles wearing t-shirts and carrying collection cans marked "Save Our CEOs."
Hi, I’m Michael Moore. Instead of using this time to tell you about my new movie, I’d like to take a moment and ask you to join me in helping our fellow Americans. The downturn in the economy has hurt many people -- people who have had no choice but to go on government assistance. Yet our welfare agencies can only do so much. That’s why I’m asking you to reach into your pockets right now and lend a hand.
Ushers will be coming down the aisles to collect your donations for Citibank, Bank of America, AIG, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and a host of other needy banks and corporations. Won’t you please give generously? Now, I know what you’re thinking: “I already gave at the bailout.” And I know you did. But even if you’ve given in the past, give some more. It’ll make you feel... good.
This is a guy who knows a thing or two about marketing. Videojournalists, take note!
KobreGuide gladly showcased Hulu's first hour-long documentary, Crawford, an illuminating look at the townsfolk in Pres. George W. Bush's adopted hometown, and how they were affected by his arrival.
We wondered whether viewers would have the time, patience and inclination to commit to spending an hour or more gazing at a movie on a computer monitor. But we also realized that this fare will soon appear on your TV set, among other screens. So, despite the fact that most of what's on KobreGuide is in the 2- to 7-minute range, we subsequently devoted an entire section of KobreGuide to longer video stories, in our "Got an Hour?" section.
Hulu is an NBC Universal-News Corp. joint venture that mostly streams primetime sitcoms online after they air on TV. When we recently checked in, we were amazed to find that, in the past few months, Hulu's feature-length documentary offerings have increased exponentially. They've even been given their own section.
Andy Forssell, Hulu's SVP of content acquisition and distribution, recently told Broadcasting & Cable magazine that its documentary section will feature films as well as short-form content. “It is really an exciting part of the industry. These filmmakers and their distributors are really looking at streaming carefully,” Forssell said, adding that the site is working with its major content partners to seed the section as well:
One of the opportunities in the movies [section] was to focus more on documentaries because the online availability provided them with a great chance to find and reach an audience. We focus on making a great platform but we love making connections between audience and content.
It is a great outlet for the content creators, because a very small percentage of their films may be in theaters; they are looking to be online.
According to B&C:
The section puts all of the documentary movies, TV shows and shorts in one place, making it easier for users to find. Plus it will help Hulu form relationships with independent filmmakers and studios, which could become a valuable source of content down the line.
Hulu's documentary channel features television programming from PBS, as well as the recently canceled FX show 30 Days. Newly added films include Super Size Me, which was the inspiration for the FX show, as well as Kicking It, which aired on ESPN last year, and Confessions of a Super Hero.
We'll be looking through their selections to find programming worthy of KobreGuide. Our feeling is that, if the material is meritorious and engaging, people will commit to it. We hope you agree.
We're intrigued by this trailer for a documentary film about documentary films. It's called Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary, and features 33 influential filmmakers from 14 countries, including such luminaries as Albert Maysles, Errol Morris and Werner Herzog.
Can film capture reality? What ethical issues arise when portraying real lives? How does editing or music condition our emotional response to film? More than 100 clips enliven the discussion, offering a panoramic overview of contemporary documentary cinema.
It's directed by Pepita Ferrari and produced by the National Film Board of Canada, which has created over 13,000 productions and won over 5000 awards, including 12 Academy Awards®. The NFB was founded in 1939 by filmmaker John Grierson, who is credited with coining the term “documentary” in 1926.
"The moment journalism institutions began answering to their shareholders and their ever-increasing demands for profit margins, the public’s need to know was in jeopardy."
The speaker is Brian Storm, visionary president of MediaStorm, the award-winning multimedia production studio based in New York City. (MediaStorm's mini-documentaries are proudly showcased here on KobreGuide.)
Brian returned to his alma matter recently to deliver an excellent commencement speech at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism graduation ceremony. Here are some highlights:
Walter Williams wrote in The Journalist’s Creed that “The supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service.” There’s no mention of 25% profit margins as a metric for success. If you want to make a pile of money, this is not the right profession for you. Frankly, Journalism needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for a quick buck. Journalists lead a rich life, but rarely get rich. We are inherently purpose driven, not profit driven. Simply put, we, the practitioners of this craft, need to take journalism back....
It is one of the most exciting times in history to be a young journalist. You have an almost limitless palette of storytelling tools, an audience unbound by physical borders and the most powerful communications technology ever developed at your disposal.
One phenomenon of newspaper-generated videojournalism has been the emergence of the "one-man band" syndrome: print reporters and/or still photographers suddenly being forced to master every aspect of documentary filmmaking, including reporting, shooting and editing pieces by themselves. For less pay.
While TV news relied on a small team (reporter, cameraperson, editor, writer) -- each professionally trained and skilled at their respective jobs -- newspapers had no tradition in moving images and, budget-strapped, simply piled on extra chores and demanded extra skills from their already overtaxed staffs.
Well now it's happening in TV news, too.
As the Washington Post reports, WUSA, Channel 9, will become the first station in Washington to replace its crews with one-person "multimedia journalists" who will shoot and edit news stories single-handedly. This story is worthy of your attention, because it underscores a dangerous mentality among media management types, who think this is a smart way to save a buck, and seem hellbent on convincing themselves that this will somehow improve quality.
The change will blur the distinctions between the station's reporters and its camera and production people. Reporters will soon be shooting and editing their own stories, and camera people will be doing the work of reporters, occasionally appearing on the air or on in video clips on Channel 9's Web site.
For decades, TV journalists have worked in teams, with the lines of responsibility regulated by union rules or simple tradition. Stories were covered by a crew consisting of a camera operator and a correspondent (and further back, by a sound or lighting technician); their work was overseen by a producer and their footage assembled into a finished story by an editor.
But technology -- handheld or tripod-mounted cameras, laptop editing programs and the Internet -- have made it possible for one person to handle all those assignments, station managers say.
The change is driven by increasing financial pressure on TV stations, as advertisers disappear from nightly newscasts and audiences scatter to the growing number of channels and Web sites. In fact, separate from its new union agreement, WUSA -- owned by media giant Gannett -- plans an across-the-board cut in reporters' salaries as it increases their responsibilities. Multimedia journalists will earn 30 to 50 percent less than what traditional reporters have been earning, with salaries topping out at around $90,000 annually, according to people at the station.
Channel 9 will switch to the new system early next year, becoming the first station in a major market to revamp its entire newsroom.
Leave it to management to put an absurdly positive spin on this:
"We believe strongly that [this change] will raise both the quality and quantity of the product we're putting out" on TV and on the internet, said Allan Horlick, the president and general manager of WUSA. "The concept of a multimedia journalist, having his own beat, with an area of expertise, and a limitless virtual news desk is something we can get very excited about."
However, the concept gets mixed reviews in other quarters.
Veteran TV journalists say their concern isn't the quantity of news that can be produced but the quality, because not all TV journalists are skilled enough to do a job formerly handled by specialists. "There are some people who will be very good at this, and some not as much," said Bill Lord, WJLA's news director. "If you're forcing everyone to do things against their skill levels and desire, your product suffers."
Lord says stations in Nashville and San Francisco have used multimedia journalists on an experimental basis in recent years but have backed away because of "falling quality" and declining ratings.
Another concern: safety. With complicated, fast-moving news stories such as traffic accidents or civil unrest, people on a news crew watch out for one another, said Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. "You need to be careful," she said.
The upcoming changes at WUSA have soured veteran reporter Gary Reels, who began working at the station in 1980. "It takes a lot of time to shoot and edit and write and prepare a story, and if you have one person doing all that, something has to give," he said .
After a successful run on the festival circuit, the feature-length "Dust," by German documentary filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky, arrives in theaters this month. (Bitomsky has been Dean of the School of Film/Video at the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia since 1993.)
The New York Times called it "eccentric and profoundly informative." If its glowing review is any indication, "Dust" should prove once and for all that no subject matter is too small for a videojournalist's consideration:
His film is both an essay and an exposé, a meditation on the philosophical implications of dust — which exists, according to one of his interview subjects, in a liminal state between matter and nonmatter — and an analysis of its place in the physical world.
Which is, of course, everywhere. Scenes of professional cleaners in offices and laboratories, and of ordinary people tidying up their homes, only emphasize the futility of trying to control or eradicate dust. And visits to abandoned industrial sites and demolished buildings show that, left to its own devices, dust will take over the world...
Comprehensive though it is, “Dust” feels like a preliminary investigation, a pilot for a multi-episode, hundred-hour series that would track dust all around the world.
There may never be a sufficient online audience for feature-length documentaries. Most computer users don't have the time, patience, or opportunity to watch more than a few minutes of video at a time on their monitors.
However, producers of longform documentaries, including TV networks and filmmakers, are recognizing the value of creating mini-video segments and trailers to promote their programs.
"Scream Bloody Murder," Christiane Amanpour's two-hour documentary about the heroes who tried to stop genocide when no one listened, premieres this week on CNN. To promote it, CNN posted a compelling segment of that documentary online. In "Witness to Torture," we are introduced to Nusreta Sivac, who survived horrific atrocities while imprisoned in a Bosnian concentration camp. She is still haunted daily by her nightmarish experience. For her, the war never ended.
In a rare move, CNN also put together a short behind-the-scenes look at the making of "Scream Bloody Murder," incorporating interviews with Amanpour and her producers, called "In Our Words." Like "Witness to Torture," it is a self-contained documentary unto itself, and appropriately targeted for the intimacy of watching it on a computer monitor rather than a TV screen.
But in all instances, be forewarned: There is graphic content, and viewer discretion is advised.
How to Evaluate Online Casino Reviews in Canada
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Unlike land-based casinos in Canada, where a licensed venue can be visited
and staff observed directly, online operators reach players through
websites, ...
What’s in Your Bag with John Lehmann
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John Lehmann is award winning photojournalist with the Globe and Mail in
Canada. John shares with Munetake Kayo what he carries while working, and
why he c...
Videographer job at University of Texas System
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Matt Flores, a former colleague at the San Antonio Express-News, called me
today asking if I know anyone interested in a videographer position at the
Unive...
Newsday teamed up with with local news station News12 to produce an inside look at one of the most dramatic gubernatorial contests in New York State history. 
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