What If Your Subject Doesn't Want to Talk to You?

Ken Kobré is the author of the widest-selling text on photojournalism "Photojournalism: The Professionals' Approach," (Focal Press-Elsevier 1980) and is also the head of photojournalism at San Francisco State University.

He is also the inventor of the Lightscoop, a universally acclaimed camera accessory that improves pop-up flash photographs. Ken also has an active freelance career that has included Newsweek,Time, and The New York Times.

Here's an except from Chapter 11 of his newest book, "Videojournalism: Multimedia Storytelling," including advice on what to do if your subject refuses the interview. The goal of the book is to offer videojournalists lessons in shooting, editing, producing, and distributing their own videos.

The book can be purchased at Amazon and other retailers.

The following excerpt has been provided by Focal Press.

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PLANNING THE INTERVIEW

Thoughtful interviews are well planned. Planning means contacting your subjects, explaining your story and why you need their input. It also requires detailing who your story is for and how and where it will be used. Good preparation also demands you arrange a mutually suitable time and place for the interview. And it means preparing questions that will elicit the most informative and engaging responses. Never just show up on someone’s doorstep unannounced, expecting a thoughtful and cooperative subject to be waiting for you.

There’s no need to go into exhaustive detail in your initial contact. You want to offer just enough information so your subject will be prepared for the interview, but won’t give them the opportunity to rehearse responses. Offer general areas of conversation you’ll be exploring, but don’t provide a list of specific questions, as that will ruin any chance for spontaneity.

Choose a time and location that will provide minimal distraction and noise. Ideally, you can shoot your subject in his or her “natural habitat”—at work or at home, or in a location that’s appropriate for the story itself. Make sure to schedule enough time—and remember to include time for setting up your location for recording optimal audio and video.

You don’t want to be rushed. Depending on the nature and complexity of your story, you may need to make multiple visits, at a variety of locations—especially if you’re following a process over a period of time. Or things can
become more complicated as you unearth new information that requires an on-camera response or rebuttal from other sources. Let the subject know that.

How much time should you request for your interview? That really depends on too many factors for us to generalize. TV news reporters are accustomed to getting in and out fast. They have frequent and rigid deadlines to meet and they know that only a short sound bite—a telling comment or observation extracted from a longer interview—will be used for their minute-long story. They realize there is no point in burdening the editor (most likely themselves) with wading through a half-hour conversation for the “money” quote. Instead, they fire off three quick questions, and they’re good to go.

Videojournalists face fewer such constraints. But at the same time, busy audiences do expect and appreciate economy. Even though stories can be told more expansively, nobody has the patience to sit through rambling monologues, especially when so many other online distractions beckon.

WHAT IF THE PERSON DOESN'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU?

If someone does not want to be interviewed, that’s certainly his or her right. Plenty of people are wary of strangers in general and journalists in particular. Even a public official is not obligated to grant an interview. But if a source is important to your story, here are some tips for enticing him or her to cooperate:

• Don’t use the word “interview”—it can be off-putting. Say you’d like to talk or chat. It sounds less intimidating. (But be clear that your conversation will be on camera.)

• Like a good salesperson, try to intuit what’s causing the resistance and overcome specific objections by anticipating and accommodating the person’s concerns.

• If it’s a question of the person not having enough time right then, offer a more convenient time or place—perhaps in the person’s car on the way to work.

• If someone is afraid of looking bad or sounding stupid, explain why his or her perspective is so vital and necessary for your story.

• If the person claims to have nothing to say, reiterate the information you are seeking. If he or she still feels uncomfortable, at least ask for suggestions of other possible sources.

• If you’re having trouble getting access to a source, particularly one in an official capacity who may be surrounded by protective underlings, be persistent. Call, write, email, or just show up. Find a mutual acquaintance (or another source) to serve as intermediary.

• Be clear that the story will be told with or without the person’s cooperation—and so to be fair, you want to provide an opportunity to tell his or her side of the story.

• Appeal to the person’s vanity. Each person has something special and important to contribute to your story. Emphasize the person’s unique contribution.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/ken-kobres-advice-on-conducting-interviews

ASMP NorCal Presents 'Photojournalism Today'

Please join me and four accomplished photojournalists on Tuesday, March 13 in San Francisco for a panel discussion about the challenges of working in the news media today.

Hosted by the Northern California chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers, the "Photojournalism Today" panel includes:

Noah Berger, a freelancer who has spent the past 17 years covering Bay Area news for editorial, corporate, and government clients. On the news side, Berger works principally for the Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, Bloomberg News and the New York Times. He also covers transportation/development issues for state agencies and health care for the Blue Shield Foundation and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Mike Kepka (pictured), a San Francisco Chronicle staff photographer since 1999. Five years ago, he started producing his own photo/multimedia column for the Chronicle called The City Exposed, which celebrates San Francisco’s quirky collection of characters. In the past year he has transformed his column into a venue for new forms of multimedia techniques that continue to follow a true “one-man-band” style of reporting and production. You can follow Kepka’s work at www.Sfgate.com/cityexposed and vimeo.com/sfchronicle and on Twitter at @thecityexposed.

Jane Tyska, a photo and videojournalist at the Oakland Tribune/Bay Area News Group. Tyska spent a month in Nepal and Bhutan in 2010, following a Bhutanese refugee family from a camp in eastern Nepal to their new home in Oakland, and continued to document them until the birth of their first baby. Tyska also documented the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti and a local contractor’s efforts to help rebuild. She has won a national award for the Bhutan project from the South Asian Journalists Association and a YIPPA international press photo award for her Haiti work. Tyska has also received recent awards from the California Newspapers Publishers Association and the East Bay and Peninsula Press Clubs.

Judy Walgren, the Director of Photography at the San Francisco Chronicle for just over one year. She faces daily challenges involving a depleted budget and fewer photojournalists to shoot the increasing number of Chronicle iPad app assignments, which require panoramas, galleries, and multimedia. Before coming to the Chronicle, Walgren was staff photographer at the Denver Post, the Rocky Mountain News and the Dallas Morning News, where she was part of a team that received the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting on violent human rights abuses against women worldwide. She has been awarded the Barbara Jordan Award for reporting on people with disabilities, the Sidney Hillman Award, and multiple Harry Chapin World Hunger Awards, in addition to other honors.


I'll be debuting segments of my new documentary feature, "Deadline Every Second: On Assignment with 12 AP Photojournalists."

Price:

ASMP NorCal members:     5.00

Affiliates, students            10.00

Non-members                  15.00

Pizza and drinks will be available with the purchase of a $5 food ticket.

Time:
6-7 pm Social hour with pizza and drink
7-9:30 pm Panel discussion

Location:
Left Space Studios
2055 Bryant Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

 http://www.leftspace.com/   

"Videojournalism: Multimedia Storytelling" Textbook Is Now Available

Great news! My new textbook, "Videojournalism: Multimedia Storytelling," has arrived! According to its editor, it has already received more requests for possible college adoptions than any previous book published in the film/broadcast division of Focal Press.

There are sixteen richly illustrated chapters that provide detailed practical lessons in shooting, editing, producing and distributing the kind of high-quality videojournalism that is showcased in KobreGuide.com :

1 Telling Stories 

2 Finding  and Evaluating  a Story 

3 Successful Story Topics 

4 Producing  a Story 

5 Camera Basics 

6 Camera Exposure  and Handling 

7 Light  and Color 

8 Recording Sound 

9 Combining Audio  and Stills 

10 Shooting  a Sequence 

11 Conducting an Interview 

12 Writing a Script 

13 Editing the Story 

14 Ethics 

15 The Law 

16 Marketing a Story

Students and professionals alike will learn how to find a riveting story; gain access to charismatic characters who can tell their own tales; shoot candid clips; expertly interview the players; record clear, clean sound; write a script with pizzazz; and, finally, edit the material into a piece worthy of five minutes of a viewer's attention... while never losing sight of the main point: telling a great story.

The book is based on extensive interviews with (and contributions from) top professionals in the field. It  is for anyone learning how to master the art and craft of telling real short-form stories with words, sound and pictures for the Web or television. The opening chapters cover the foundations of multimedia storytelling, and the book progresses to the techniques required to shoot professional video, and record high quality sound and market the resulting product.

Most importantly, the book does not lose sight of the fundamental and enduring principals of JOURNALISM -- reporting, interviewing, writing, editing, and storytelling -- that will serve students well not only in producing quality videojournalism, but also throughout their careers, despite the rapidly changing technology scene.

SPECIAL BONUS:

Every multimedia story mentioned in the book can be easily found online by going to one special Web page, where you will also find various "how-to" video tutorials and interviews with leading practitioners. 

Additionally, you can keep up with the latest changes in the rapidly evolving field (new cameras, books, editing software, etc.) by checking the KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism Website, and also "Liking" the KobreGuide Facebook Page. 

This book owes much of its depth and breadth to the eight contributors who each wrote chapters: 

* Stan Heist , executive producer, Maryland Newsline, and adjunct professor, University of Maryland

* Kathy Kieliszewski, Deputy Director of Photo and Video, Detroit Free Press

* Jerry Lazar , executive editor, KobreGuide.com

* Regina McCombs, faculty for Multimedia and Mobile, The Poynter Institute

* Josh Meltzer, photojournalist-in-residence at Western Kentucky University, formerly with the Roanoke Times

* Mary Thorsby, independent business writer, Thorsby and Associates

* David Weintraub, instructor, Visual Communications Sequence, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina

* Donald R. Winslow, editor, News Photographer magazine

I am confident their research and writing will stand the test of time.

"Videojournalism" is available online at Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and is also available in Nook and  Kindle editions. 

I look forward to your feedback and comments!

Audio Slideshows: Soundslides or Final Cut?

Since 2005, Joe Weiss' revolutionary Soundslides software has enabled newspaper Websites to produce audio slideshows -- and paved the way toward multimedia and videojournalism. For the first time, picture stories could be narrated -- by the reporter, the photographer, the subject -- and even augmented with natural sounds.

Its low cost and ease of use have made Soundslides enormously popular. But now that more photographers are shooting and editing video -- which itself has become more accessible and affordable -- they've been producing audio slideshows using Apple's Final Cut Pro or Adobe's Premiere Pro.

The Spokesman-Review's Colin Mulvany, a multimedia trailblazer, writes on his Mastering Multimedia blog: "I cannot say building an audio slide show is easier with a video editing program, but it does afford you some added features that are hard, if not impossible, to replicate in Soundslides."

He then goes on to share invaluable lessons and shortcuts he's learned while producing audio slideshows in Final Cut Pro, and takes you through a step-by-step process for making your pictures look and flow better. He also intelligently addresses such issues as cross-fading:

In Soundslides the default is to add a cross-fade to every image. I see a trend away from this as more people edit in video programs. Most of the time I just use quick cut between photos. It took me a while to break the cross fade habit, but now I see how much better a show flows without all that cross fading. It also makes it easier to edit to a beat in the audio.

Mulvany also cautions against going overboard with the Ken Burns style of zooming in and out of photos. There are occasions when you'll want to take advantage of the ability to create motion with a static image, but as he notes, "you don't want to make the viewer seasick."

Mulvany shot, edited, and narrated a terrific video story about the quirky "One of a Kind in the World Museum." As you can see below, it's essentially an audio slideshow in a video player. Given the static nature of museum objects, which are at the heart of this piece, he made excellent use of Final Cut split-screen features to enhance the use of motion on still images -- something that would not be possible with Soundslides.

Also, video players make it easier to embed and share multimedia stories, as we've done here:


Read Colin Mulvany's blog here. What are your thoughts and experiences regarding audio slideshows? Do you prefer the ease of using Soundslides? Or is it worth the extra effort and expense to produce them as videos in Final Cut?

Canon Hybrid is 'Game Changer' for AP Visuals

Kevin Roach,the Associated Press's VP for Broadcast News, tells Beet.TV that the hybrid Canon 5D Mark II (the first DSLR to enable 1080p video) is a "game changer" for visual journalism. .

The AP wisely committed resources to supplying both its print reporters and still photographers with these pricey tools (which run about $2500 each just for the body) -- and, here's the important part, the necessary training to ensure worthwhile results.

The video interview below includes samples of AP footage -- both raw and "produced." Note that stories often combine stills and video in the same piece, a testament to the enduring power of a single memorable frame.



Everyone loves the image quality, but pros concur that there are still enormous audio drawbacks for newsgatherers. Because there is no audio out (i.e. for headphones), you can't hear the interviews you are recording, to ensure their sound quality. Also, large video files require frequent changes of memory cards. And we've been hearing complaints about the challenge of focusing while in video mode.

We suspect all this will improve soon, and advise media outlets to follow AP's lead in acquainting qualified staffers with the tools and knowledge that will empower them to augment their visual storytelling prowess. It's a prudent investment.

Lots of Inspiration for Visual Journalists

Richard Koci Hernandez has posted his list of 25 books every visual journalist should have on their shelf, on his MultimediaShooter.com blog.

(To which we'd humbly add Photojournalism: The Professionals' Approach, 6th edition.)

He's also posted a glorious roundup of treats, Featured Work: Curated, Must See, Visual Stories. Many of these videos and multimedia stories have similarly been showcased here on KobreChannel.com -- a combination of great minds thinking alike, and the cream always rising to the top.

The selections are worthy of your attention, and will give you plenty to look at and enjoy this holiday weekend!

'A Chance Meeting': Powerful Reunion Story

The accidental reunion of long-lost friends or relatives can be a powerful premise for a video story.

Jesse Tinsley, of the Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), produced 'A Chance Meeting' about the unlikely re-convergence of two WWII veterans from different countries.

Two elderly gentlemen, each suffering the indignities of advanced age, meet in a hospital room. Their conversation reveals they have something in common going back many years.

And their reunion magically happens to take place on Veterans Day -- what are the odds?


The narrator's voiceover is well-scripted and voiced. Plus, note the effective combo of audio of one of the subjects relating the story as we see archival WWII footage. Also, note the story structure -- starting briefly in the present to tease the story before going back seven decades. (The other way around -- starting with WWII -- could have lost the audience instantly.)

The video is composed almost entirely of still images -- we hear but don't see one of the subjects talking, and there is only one brief video moment of the two men interacting. We would argue that more such moments would substantially strengthen the piece.

Here's the accompanying text story, 'Priest meets paratrooper who liberated his town during WWII.'

'A Chance Meeting' brought to mind another WWII-related reunion story, 'Berlin Classmates Reunite After 80 Years,' as showcased on KobreGuide.

Q&A with 'Pine Point' Tourguides, The Goggles

We told you about an innovative approach to interactive multimedia storytelling -- "Welcome to Pine Point," about the Canadian mining town that vanished in 1988, and what became of its residents.

Now here's an insightful interview with The Goggles, the creative team who developed and produced it, by Andrea Pitzer for Nieman Storyboard (a cousin of Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab). The Goggles are Michael Simons and Paul Shoebridge (pictured).

Our observation is that, in lieu of traditional audio narration, the multimedia project made excellent use of still and video images, but still seemed text-heavy -- because of its origins as a potential book project, and The Goggles' previous foray in traditional book publishing. Here we're introduced to the concept of the "liquid book," and also the controversial notion of what happens when you tell a story that leads linearly from A to Z, in traditional fashion, without stopping at B through Y.

Excerpts:

What if your hometown disappeared, literally vanished from the map? How would you hold onto it? Would the community of people who had lived there continue? “Welcome to Pine Point” is a website that explores the death of a town and the people whose memories and mementos tell its story today. The site lives online under the auspices of the National Film Board of Canada. It incorporates music to haunting effect but is especially innovative in its use of text and design.

Q: Did you call it a liquid book, or is that a term someone else coined?

Simons: Other people have tried to come up with a term for it. People are excited about it. They thought it might be a new form of storytelling, something they hadn’t seen before. So that was a name other people attached to it.

It was new to us, this kind of interactive documentary, but we didn’t find anything else that we could reference for this, except for, obviously, books and film. But nothing interactive – nothing with the written word, audio and visual. So I think that’s what’s been exciting people the most so far. What is this thing? What we’ve been told is that they’re not used to having this emotional response from a website.

Shoebridge: Because we were book guys, we kept a lot of the old handmade book-like things, in keeping with that medium-is-the-message concept. We tried to emphasize what each medium does well. Keeping the words as writing rather than voiceover narrative was something we wrestled with at the start, but I think we’re happy we kept it as words.

For us, it’s that kind of internal narrator. You can have a different conversation with yourself. And reading is a more active experience than listening. I think we’re happy we did that, but we haven’t seen multimedia projects where writing is the number one thing you’re seeing, and everything else informs that.

Q: Is there anything about the Pine Point project that people wouldn’t know from watching it that would be useful for them to know?

Shoebridge: The thing for us that we’re happiest with is that we stuck to what linear “narrative” has done for so long: that beginning, middle and end. Because we stuck with that, that’s the thing that worked the best for us. People want to be told stories, they want to be engaged.

When people think of digital interactive media, one of the first things they say is “It’s going to have multiple entry points, and you can go wherever you want to.” And sure, you can deliver certain kinds of information like that, but it’s not super-great for stories, at least in our experience. You can skip ahead, if you want to, you can go four chapters ahead, but you can also do that with a book.

We’re hoping that we’re keeping people engaged and keeping each section as interesting as possible. For us, I think that was the key. We had to break it into chunks, because that’s how it had to go. We wanted people to be engaged, so using media like writing meant that you have to read it to experience it. You could flip through it and kind of experience it, but if you don’t read it, you’re not really getting engaged.

And then breaking it into pieces like a magazine. If you flip to the middle of the magazine, it’s still intriguing, you still want to keep going through it. For us, I think we tried to pull as much old-media logic into a new media form as we could.

Simons: The challenges and limitations were things that we had never considered before, like the loading up of information. Part of the more bite-sized pieces of the story were dictated by how much information we’d be able to technically upload onto someone’s computer so it didn’t crash, while still keeping it seamless and moving. We were presented a lot with technical challenges that we didn’t know about or care about before we got into this world. So some of those things did inform how we had to deliver the story. I don’t think it changed the content, but certainly the experience was altered by limitations of the media.

***
Read the entire interview here.

Nieman Storyboard's motto: "Breaking down story in every medium." Find more examples here.

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



***
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.

How to Have a Commanding Broadcast Voice

Solo videojournalists have to not only report, shoot and edit their stories, but often have to provide voiceover narration. It's no secret that most of us are horrified by hearing the actual sound of our own voice. It never sounds as rich and authoritative as it does inside our own heads.

Dr. Ann S. Utterback to the rescue! The author of the "Broadcast Voice Handbook," plus seven other books about speaking, has more than 35 years of experience counseling on-air talent at major TV networks, local affiliates, and other TV and radio stations throughout North America.

In this video, courtesy of the International Journalists' Network, Dr. Utterback teaches you how to have a commanding voice:



A common problem, that most of us don't realize while we're reading a script (but is painfully obvious in playback), is that the sensitive mic is picking up the sound of us inhaling between phrases or sentences. Dr. Utterback demonstrates how to eliminate those audible intakes of air:



LINKS:
* Utterback Publishing
* A Voice Doc
* IJNet.org video tutorials

Beet.TV Videojournalism Panel Livestream

UPDATE: To see the archived videos and liveblog of this event, go here.

Watch this space on Tuesday, Feb. 1 at 9am ET (6am PT) for the livestream of Beet.TV's videojournalism panel, "Exploring the digital transformation of video news reporting and distribution."



The panelists consitute a veritable Who's Who of top execs at major media institutions. (See list here.)

On Twitter, you can follow Beet.TV via @Beet_TV . The hashtag for the livestream is #beetmeet.

See you there!

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.

Beet.TV's Online Videojournalism Summit

Look at all these heavy-hitters who will be on the panel of Beet.TV's Online Video Journalism Summit, which will be streamed live on Feb. 1 (9-11:30 am ET).

The topic is "Exploring the digital transformation of video news reporting and distribution."

Moderaters:

Alex Weprin
Editor, TVNewser

Andy Plesser
Executive Producer, Beet.TV

Guest Speaker:

Chris Cillizza (pictured)
The Washington Post, "The Fix" blogger

Panelists:

Ann Derry - Editorial Director, Video and Television, The New York Times

Steven King - Editor of Video, The Washington Post

Mark Larkin - Vice President, CBSNews.com

Mark Lukasiewicz - Vice President, NBC News Specials and Digital Media, NBC News

Mosheh Oinounou - International Editor, Bloomberg Television

Kevin Roach - Vice President & Director of U.S. Broadcast News, The Associated Press

Anna Robertson - Director of Original Video and Social Media, Yahoo! News

Mike Stepanovich - Managing Editor, Reuters Insider

Mike Toppo - Senior Director for News Operations and Production, CNN.com

Jeff Whatcott - Senior Vice President, Brightcove

Newsday, News12 Join Forces for N.Y. Gubernatorial Campaign Documentary

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.

Newsday's Maier and Paraskevas previously produced "Fallout: The Legacy of Brookhaven Lab," a 9-part investigative series about survivors from an H-bomb test who were sent back to a radioactive island to be used as guinea pigs for research. It is showcased on KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism.

Out My Window: 360-degree Interactive Documentary

"For most of my life, I've despised highrise buildings," writes Canadian documentary director Katerina Cizek. "It was with considerable humility that I began to examine my own relationship to the urban and the vertical."

The result is a massively ambitious multimedia undertaking that Cizek has spearheaded for the National Film Board of Canada, "Highrise." It is showcased this week on Telegraph21.com.

Most remarkable about the first segment of the global project, "Out My Window," is that it almost looks and feels like a videogame. Cizek tackled the challenge of creating the panoramic environment when she crossed paths with Yellowbird, a Dutch company founded in 2009 that specializes in interactive streaming 3D video technology.

Consequently, viewers can tour highrise units, and watch first-person stories about their occupants, all over the planet: "The towers in the world, the worlds in the towers."

Concrete residential highrise buildings are the most commonly built form of the last century. On the outside, they all look the same. But inside these towers of concrete and glass, people create community, art and meaning amid the ruins of modernism.

Meet remarkable residents who look out on the world from highrise windows, and harness the human spirit.

With more than 90 minutes of material to explore, "Out My Window" features 49 stories from 13 cities, told in 13 languages.

As Telegraph21 reports:

Cizek directed the project via Skype, Facebook and email, in a collaborative process with photographers, journalists, architects, researchers, activists, digital developers and artists from around the world.

In Cizek's words, "the fragmented, non-linear stories of 'Out My Window' reflect the way we tell our stories. Pieces. Snippets. Small tales that, as they add up, create a collage of meaning, of experience. Together, subtly, gently, the stories accumulate into epic narratives about globalization, migration, poverty, environmentalism, reclamation, and the search for spiritual meaning."

Cizek's documentary work has chronicled the Digital Revolution, and has itself become part of the movement. She works across many media platforms: linear films, radio, print, television, emerging new media and live presentations. Among many other accomplishments, Cizek also created and rolled out the award-winning NFB Filmmaker-in-Residence program, an innovative partnership of media with medicine, previously showcased on KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism.

Follow the development of "Highrise" here.

Clueless in Columbus

Here are five lessons the media should learn from the Columbus Dispatch's video story about Ted Williams. (That golden-throated homeless guy does have a name.)

* 1. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. The gift horse we're talking about is not Williams. By now you've probably read that the Dispatch had its video yanked from YouTube, after it had garnered umpteen million views. Why? It turns out that they didn't put it there in the first place -- an anonymous fan did. Did the newspaper thank him profusely? No, it issued a copyright infringement claim, and poof it was gone. Now of course the Dispatch has every right to protect its intellectual property. But if somebody hadn't posted the video on YouTube, you can be sure that it would have never gone viral, TV networks would have never paid attention, and Williams would still be panhandling by the off-ramp.

Incredibly, the Dispatch does not even enable embedding of its own videos. To be fair, a lot of newspapers -- perhaps cowed by their own clueless attorneys -- similarly do not allow their videos to appear anywhere but on their own Websites, essentially guaranteeing that nobody outside their own geographic area will stumble upon it. This is despite the fact that newspapers can still emblazon videos with their own logos, and attach pre-roll or embedded advertising, so that they will benefit both promotionally and financially from its broad dissemination.

By the way, removing video from YouTube is like playing Whack-a-Mole; it's gonna keep popping up all over the place anyway, so what's the point?

The Dispatch itself tried to analyze its own success story ("How the 'golden voice' video went viral") and came to this remarkably uninsightful conclusion: "There's no predicting the fate of videos posted online, experts say." Yeah, but you don't need an "expert" to predict the fate of videos that are confined to the Webpages of their own publication, and prohibited from being circulated on YouTube, Facebook and other social media.

* 2. A sound bite is not a story. Look at how much basic journalistic info is missing from that initial story -- wonderful details filled in later by TV reporters who did due diligence. We didn't get to see Williams' makeshift tent, nor the homeless man he shares it with. We didn't find out about his nine adult kids (!), his grandchildren, or his 90-something mom he hadn't seen in 20 years.

Though he alludes to past use of alcohol and drugs, and offers a cursory acknowledgement that "a few other things became a part of my life," we had no idea he was referring to serious crimes. Where's the rap sheet, mug shots, court documents? He was an "ex-radio announcer"? Where? When? Why did he quit or get fired? Basically the reporter turned on the videocamera, asked one question, and let the subject ramble. That's fine for wedding receptions, not for interviews.

* 3. Journalism requires multiple sources. Here we get one perspective -- Ted Williams' own narrative. No credible newspaper editor would allow a reporter to file a print story with only one person's voice. That's called a press release.

We need to hear from his aforementioned tent-mate, family members, even reaction from other passing drivers. And where are his former radio colleagues and/or employers? Amazingly, we still haven't seen any video on any of these people (except for his emotional reunion with his elderly mother, strategized and staged by two TV networks).

In addition to perspective, we need context. How about an interview with a top radio DJ or professional voiceover artist who can comment authoritatively on the qualities of Williams' voice that make it distinctive and commercial? How about talking to a casting agent or product-promotions specialist who can give us insight into how much Williams stands to earn in his resurrected career? What are his realistic prospects, once the novelty of his newfound celebrity has worn off?

* 4. Know what you've got. Incredibly, the videographer waited a week after he first saw Williams -- and heard his voice -- to come back with a camera. More incredibly, when he did return, it was with a cheap handheld Flip cam with its awful internal mic that doesn't filter out wind noise. Most incredibly, after he shot the video, it sat on a shelf for six weeks, waiting for "a slow news day" to make its initial appearance. (See #1: Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.) Looking at what passes for videojournalism on the Dispatch's site, we're hard pressed to figure out exactly what other stories pre-empted it during that time.

* 5. Clean up your act. And while we were looking at the Dispatch's video offerings, we were especially struck by the godawful navigation scheme -- just a complete hodgepodge of disorganized thumbnails artlessly slapped onto a Web page, with no apparent thought given to luring or keeping viewers. (Even the Ted Williams-related videos are not clustered together, nor are links provided between similarly themed videos or even to their text counterparts.) Again, to be fair, this is a common problem at newspaper Websites -- video remains a low-priority afterthought because of low viewership. It's slapped up there carelessly because "no one watches it anyway," which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Seriously, look at this page, and tell us that your average teenager couldn't have done a better job designing it.

And one final lesson for all of us, not just media pros. What if Ted Williams' sign had said, "I have a God-given gift for operating a fork lift." What if he had been a plumber or electrician who had fallen on hard times? True, much of the appeal of the video was the incongruity of a disheveled man with an unexpectedly rich baritone voice. But we've personally seen two short wiry guys carry our grand piano up steep stairs for a moving company -- that was an impressively jarring sight! What if one of them subsequently lost his job and was forced to find employment with a cardboard sign? Who would stop to video him?

Without devaluing Williams and his legitimate accomplishments, we do have to wonder about the distinctly American values system that champions and rewards those who can make a lot of money for "glamour" professions that have more to do with entertainment-related talents than manual skills. And yet in an age when we desperately need to focus on rebuilding this country and its sagging infrastructure, those seemingly pedestrian skill sets are precisely what should be spotlighted.

Something for videojournalists to contemplate when they seek subjects for their next stories.

Giving Voice to a Panhandler's Story

Everybody's got a story. You just gotta stop and ask them. That's what Columbus (OH) Dispatch videojournalist Doral Chenoweth III discovered when he asked to hear the "God-given gift of voice" that a panhandling homeless man advertised on a cardboard sign off a freeway ramp: "I'm an ex-radio announcer who has fallen on hard times."

In a short video, we learn that the man's name is Ted Williams, and he confesses that his career was derailed by alcohol and drugs. But he says he's been clean and sober for two years and is now looking for a comeback. And, yes, his deep announcer-like voice is sufficiently remarkably (and incongruous with his appearance) to have garnered 4.5 million views on YouTube.



Williams is reportedly getting lucrative job offers from radio stations and even TV networks, thanks to the viral video. Read his story here.

UPDATE (1/5 9:30 a.m.): In an appearance on the local "Dave and Jimmy" talk radio show, Ted Williams reveals he is awash in offers from national broadcast media -- even overwhelmed by the sudden courtship. ESPN reports he has been offered an announcer job by the Cleveland Cavaliers.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: If a videojournalist had set out to do a roundup piece on "Hidden Talents of the Homeless," would it have been as effective, and had as much impact? On the one hand, there's the old journalism canard: "One is an example, two is a coincidence, three is a trend." On the other hand, as crusading New York Times videojournalist Nick Kristof often warns, viewers actively care about the plight of one person with a hard-luck story, and will go out of their way to help (with donations, petition-signing, etc.). But introduce their equally beleaguered family or community -- or even a single sibling -- and paradoxically the situation suddenly seems hopeless and our empathy shrinks to zero. Contemplating massacres or plagues, psychic numbing and compassion fatigue takes over. The lesson? Big numbers don't move us, but individual stories do. What do you think?

Missing Persons: Behind the Scenes

By Eric Seals
Staff Photographer
Detroit Free Press

Shooting and producing video at the Detroit Free Press has often involved searching for features or slice-of-life stories that let me be creative and have fun telling a story, while constantly challenging myself. Sometimes, however, I like to produce stories that have a newsier edge to them, in order to mix things up and push me out of my comfort zone.

Working on this piece, "The Search for Missing People in Detroit," was another opportunity for me to try that. Here's what went into planning, shooting and editing this video.

Our police reporter, Gina Damron, had started working on a story about a new Missing Persons Unit inside the Detroit Police Department. The assignment was given to me to spend a couple of days on it, turning it into a 1:30 video piece for Web and the local CBS affiliate and stills for the newspaper. After spending the first day with the officers, based on the access I was given, the comfort level we had with each other and seeing the potential of a good story developing, I wanted to pursue it harder and work it into a longer piece.

Before I got involved, Gina had already made contacts and talked with a few victims of people missing in the city. She told me the story about Sandrew King (pictured) and how when he talked about his missing grandfather, he was riveting. The way he told his story took you into the void inside him and the lack of closure he still feels.

This is one of the benefits of working with a good reporter who also understands the power of good visual storytelling, what’s involved in the process and what it takes to pull it all together.

I sat Sandrew down in front of a plain, non-distracting background, lit him with an octagon softbox (with four 85 watt CFL lights) and we both interviewed him. We asked questions that got him to get into his feelings about the night his grandfather disappeared, the loneliness and lack of closure he and the family felt the past year. We got him to recount his search for him in abandoned homes in Detroit, as he wondered if he was still alive.

Sandrew was that type of interview for me that is usually hard to get, where a person is just so expressive, with emotion in the voice and dramatic pauses (and not the kind where you know someone is going overboard, playing to the camera). He was just real genuine in talking with us to the point where he just forgot about the softbox and all my gear around him. He was on a mission to let others know the emptiness that is still inside him. “I wouldn’t wish this kind of feeling on my worst enemy,” he said towards the end of our time with him.

The emptiness and emotion in this piece was powerful to convey and a critical element in holding the viewer glued throughout the 4:37 piece. A book I’ve read three times and recommend, talks about emotions as being an important element that can make us all better storytellers. It's called “In The Blink of An Eye” by legendary film editor Walter Murch.

Murch asks, “How do you want the to audience to feel? If they are feeling what you want them to feel all the way through the film, you’ve done about as much as you can ever do. What they finally remember is not the editing, not the camerawork, not even the story -- it’s how they felt.” He says in film editing, and I’d say in shooting as well, that emotion, story and rhythm come before anything else in the frame or the timeline.

Throughout the shooting process and before sitting down to edit in Final Cut, I was constantly thinking, asking myself what I had and what direction I was steering this piece in, and formulating its structure. Did I have enough b-roll? Did I have anything to cover when Sandrew talks about the emptiness he feels? Did I need to do more active interviewing with the police?

I’ve learned from others that the collaborative process between videojournalists and the print reporters we work with is very important and special. There’s no doubt that as visual storytellers, we have a big stake in the final outcome and the look or style of the piece. Working with Gina and other reporters at the Free Press it is always about STORY -- not my story or her story, but the viewers’ story. No matter how short or long a piece is, if we are not in tune together with structure and bouncing ideas off each other for both the written and visual piece, the work will fall apart or not be anywhere near as good as it could be.

The idea for narration didn’t enter my mind until I was halfway done shooting. There are many opinions out there about narrating. Many people don’t care for it, claiming, “I don’t want to sound like those TV guys.” Others prefer using text. For me narration can work well, especially in a complicated piece. Narration really helps tie or bridge things together, it shortens the overall length of the piece and with good (but short) script writing and enunciation, it can really help get the viewer to understand the story quicker. Good examples can be found everywhere, just look at some of the really nice work produced by Frontline, NOVA, ESPN, and HBO documentaries.

I’ve been doing video storytelling for two-and-a-half years at the Free Press. Often in the past after shooting a piece, I’d sit in front of a 30-inch monitor staring at a Final Cut timeline that just as well could have been a big table with lots of jigsaw puzzle pieces all over it. I’d usually say something like, “OK, now what the hell do I do?” I’d have no good sense of story, or structure or what I'd want to say. It was as if I was just out gathering stuff: just making pretty visuals and getting good crisp audio.

In the past year I feel like I’m just starting to understand the story structure and what I want to say before the edit. For others this might be a no-brainer, but for me there are so many balls I juggle all the time -- from a constantly changing story, the technical issues, the visuals, the learning curve -- that add up to a big commitment of time and energy. When the story arc starts to unfold in front of you, it’s a lot more gratifying than sitting in a dark video editing room waiting on an epiphany that we all know very rarely shows up.

As with many things we do in this business, we are never completely happy with the finished product. There are aspects of this video I’d love to change in hindsight, from incorporating less video at the beginning of Sandrew holding his grandfather's picture to perhaps ending it with the camera looking up at the bare trees. Those ideas and others came from seeking out opinions on my edit, keeping an open mind, and seeking and learning from constructive criticism. I’m always looking for tips from colleagues at the Free Press and others whose storytelling I respect at newspapers and TV stations across the country.

So let me ask you -- did the "Missing People" video hold your interest the whole way through? Did it leave you wanting to know more than I told you in the 4:37 piece? How do we balance the short time element of video storytelling on the Web with trying to answer questions that will be raised by the viewer? How can we stay committed to good storytelling without letting the piece drag on and on?

Do emotions (happy or sad and reflective) play an important role in the stories you tell or in the videos you watch? Just like shooting for Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment in a still image, we need people to feel something when they watch what we do. But should emotion supercede the story or the rhythm of the piece?" Let us know your thoughts.



Look for more of Eric Seals' videojournalism on KobreGuide's Detroit Free Press channel.

Newspapers Upload More Video Than TV Broadcasters

Here's the best news of the year... so far.

Newspapers have surpassed TV broadcasters in the number of online video uploads and total minutes streamed.

Now we're not saying that all those videos are any good. Most, alas, are dreadful. Or nothing more than raw footage of local high school teams.

But it's significant that newpapers are growing to appreciate the irrefutable allure of video as part of the journalism storytelling mix.

All the juicy details are in a report that has nothing to do with newspapers vs. broadcast video. Instead, it's a white paper about "Peak Video Engagement By Days of the Week and Times of Day" -- i.e. when we watch video -- jointly commissioned by Brightcove (the most ubiquitous videoplayer platform for media companies) and TubeMogul (an online video analytics platform used by advertisers).

Their third-quarter report divulges these fascinating discoveries:

• Newspapers saw significant growth in the number of titles uploaded (51% growth) and surpassed broadcasters in total minutes streamed for the first time this quarter. This is an interesting development, and suggests that newspapers are rapidly adopting and producing video content for what was once a print business. This data also bears out the distinct differences in the content between the two verticals: broadcasters have fewer but longer titles, while newspapers are producing many more, but shorter titles on a more regular basis.

• Online media properties (which includes pure-play Web properties and blogs) also had a strong growth quarter in player loads (127% growth) and titles uploaded (23% growth), suggesting that video adoption and production activity is on the rise across the growing media category.

• Newspapers have surpassed broadcasters in the total minutes streamed this quarter, with 313 million minutes streamed, compared to 290 million for broadcasters. This is an interesting turning point because while broadcasters tend to have longer-form content, newspapers lead the group in sheer number of titles uploaded. It’s likely that spikes in news video production coincided with large events of the quarter, including continued coverage of the World Cup that finished up in July, and of the mid-term elections in the US.

• Q3 saw a significant increase in titles uploaded for newspapers, with a quarter to quarter growth of 51%, and a 110% growth compared to the same quarter last year. Newspapers lead the number of titles uploaded for media companies with 482,000 titles uploaded in the quarter.

• This quarter, we also saw significant growth (23% since last quarter) in title uploads from the online media category, which has now surpassed broadcast uploads, a first this quarter. This represents a 188% increase in video uploads year over year for online media.

The future of videojournalism is here. Now for our collective New Years resolution, let's work on allocating more resources towards improving the quality of those video stories, so we can attract more eyeballs to them. That in turn will woo advertising revenue, which can then be reinvested in further improving those videos, leading to a big happy upward spiral for everyone.

Oh, and if you're still wondering about when folks watch video, here is the report's conclusion: Wednesday is the most popular day for total video views, but people spend more minutes watching videos on weekends (including Friday). So lots of shorter videos mid-week; fewer but longer videos during the weekend. As for optimal times of day for viewing video: "Magazines peaked during working hours, while newspapers had more steady engagement into the evening hours. And, as expected, broadcasters total daily views peaked during traditional 'prime time' hours from 6-11PM, mirroring their television counterparts."

Read the full report here.

Videojournalism Opportunity in Detroit

One of our favorite newspapers is hiring a staff photographer. Nowadays, because their work will appear not just in print, but also on the Web and mobile platforms, that also means videographer.

In fact, a glance at their help-wanted ad is testimonial to how many disparate skills visual journalists must master these days:

The Emmy Award-winning Photography & Video department at the Detroit Free Press seeks a Staff Photographer to shoot and produce video, multimedia and photographic content....

JOB REQUIREMENTS:

* Strong news judgment and writing skills with emphasis on script writing and news production
* Ability to juggle multiple stories, multiple platforms and multiple media
* Superior video editing skills in Final Cut Pro - a fluency in Avid is OK
* Computer and audio/video equipment proficiency
* Creative approach to social media and alternative video production methods
* Ability to work well with others
* Strong ethics in news gathering and editing

We’re seeking candidates from all visual news organization backgrounds – whether that would be TV, a newspaper or a Web site.

To see samples of the illustrious staff's high-quality work, visit the Detroit Free Press channel on KobreGuide. The lucky candidate who lands this cherished slot will be in excellent company. For more info, and to apply, go here.