Learn Visual Editing at the Kalish Workshop

If you want to learn visual editing, your best bargain is the intensive Kalish Workshop, June 4-8 at Ball State University in Indiana. Registration is only $500 to work with top pros.

The Kalish has reinvented itself to bridge the training needs of two distinct yet related news gathering groups: Online news organizations with staffs that possess incredible web skills but need help in visual storytelling and journalistic skills; and newspaper organizations that have skilled visual storytellers and journalists but are lacking web skills.

Kalish director Scott Sines (whose day job is managing editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal) writes:

The 2010 Kalish is accepting applications [through May 1] for the 21st edition of this venerable workshop. It's an opportunity to learn cross-platform multimedia skills from a faculty of Emmy and Pulitzer Prize winning visual editors. Brian Storm, Geri Migielicz, Sue Morrow, Randy Cox and Kenny Irby will be on the faculty this year, along with other industry experts. The core faculty has worked together on this program for many years and most of them stay through the duration of the workshop, providing ample time to answer your questions. Last year we closed registration at 30 people and attracted a diverse group of working professionals, students and professors from six countries. It was one of our most successful workshops and this year should be better.

After much thought, and vigorous eyebrow raising, The Kalish board, with the support of the National Press Photographers Foundation, have decided to keep the registration fee for this year's workshop at $500. It's the lowest rate you'll find for a workshop of this quality. You'll receive four full days (June 4-8) of intense hands-on instruction.

The traditional Kalish values of ethical decision-making in journalism and management remain. The workshop begins with a primer in FinalCut Pro, progresses through picture selection, multiple picture editing and news judgment, to multimedia and management.

The days are long and packed with real-life decision-making exercises in visual storytelling, which you will be expected to defend in front of the group. We work hard and then we play hard. Please ask any Kalish alum about their experience with us; they are our best references. You can hear testimonials and learn more about the workshop at kalishworkshop.org .

More info here.

Apply here.

Is There Life After Videojournalism?

Newspaper photographers who've made the leap to videojournalism with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success are now wondering if all that technical training was worth it, now that papers in their death throes are cutting back on video and laying off staffers.

We've asserted all along that those who possess both solid visual storytelling and journalism skills should pursue assignments from non-profits and corporations who need their stories told online -- and can afford to pay for it.

And now the Photo District News backs us up with an excellent report by David Walker, "Multimedia Journalists Discover Life After Newspapers."

As layoffs continue to decimate newsrooms all over the country, a pressing question for staff photographers is, what is plan B when the pink slip comes? How do you translate your photojournalism skills into some other means of earning a living?

A handful of former newspaper photographers with strong multimedia skills and some entrepreneurial drive are reporting at least one promising lead: the growing demand for story-driven video production from non-profits and corporations trying to build brands and markets through the Web in particular.

Examples abound:

• Former Virginian-Pilot staff photographer Chris Tyree has launched a multimedia production company called Weyo with Stephen Katz, who is still a staff photographer at the paper and won POYi Newspaper Photographer of the Year honors in 2008. Clients include Physicians for Peace, Resolve.org, and the Samaritan's Purse Canada.
  
  
• Geri Migielicz, who was the San Jose Mercury News's director of photography, left in February to start Story4, an independent multimedia production company serving primarily non-profit organizations. Former Mercury News videojournalist Richard Koci Hernandez and Dai Sugano (still with the paper) are Story4 contributors. Clients include Big Sur Land Trust and the Women's Foundation of California.

Some videojournalists are going it alone, including Pulitzer prizewinning photog David Leeson, who took a buyout from the Dallas Morning News last year, and has since gone on to produce videos for the engineering department of Southern Methodist University.

But what about established video production companies that corporations and PR companies usually hire for video? Don't they already have a lock on the big-bucks clients? Turns out that a videojournalist's storytelling skills can be a big plus in this market.

And how about the pay?

PDN reports that fees are all over the map -- but, generally speaking, corporate and even non-profit marketing budgets easily put newspaper budgets to shame. Fees range from $5,000 to $15,000 for a video -- and that effort might also entail providing stills and even an accompanying Website. Bigger projects can draw six-figure pricetags.

MediaStorm president Brian Storm acknowledges that the corporate work he does for clients such as Starbucks pays multiples of editorial gigs, but helps foot the bills for those do-good journalism projects that are closer to the heart.

So staff videojournalists who are looking to augment their dwindling and uncertain salaries, or to build an exit strategy, would do well to read PDN's report on how some videojournalism pioneers are putting their skills to profitable use.