How to Fail at Online Video

On his blog, videojournalist Glen Canning provides a humorous guide to screwing up. It will ring a bell for all of us who, at one time or another, have been careless about battery charging, audio levels, white balancing, autofocusing, lighting, and worse.

Anyone involved with producing online video probably is aware of the too numerous to mention web sites they can go to for helpful information and tips on how to do it right. From holding the camera right to getting the color right, it’s all there readily available for the eager to learn and grow. Yet through it all there isn’t much mention on how to do it wrong. So, here I am filling that niche. This is Glen Canning’s guide to failing at online video.

Ever forget to pack your tripod or otherwise plan ahead for a shoot? This guide's for you.

Job Prospects for Videojournalists?

UPDATE (8/5): As though on cue, the Business Insider backs up our observations -- with charts and real data! The Evolution Of The Journalism Job Market: We May Be Headed Into A Golden Age, by Michael Mandel. (Original post here.)

Is it our imagination or does there seem to be an increasing number of "help wanted" ads for videojournalists?

We haven't done any scientific research, but just poking around at online jobhunting Websites we are turning up a heck of a lot more opportunities than there were a year ago.

The mega-search engine for jobseekers, Indeed.com, turns up a slew of possibilities for "videojournalist," "video journalist" and "multimedia journalist."

Job descriptions indicate that newsrooms are still looking for jacks-of-all-trades, who can report, write, shoot, edit, produce, conquer social media, walk on water, etc.

Salaries seem to be mostly in the $30,000 to $50,000 range, indicating that these aren't necessarily entry level positions, but you better hope your kids qualify for college scholarships. Some salaries go as high as twice that, but those are mostly management slots in major markets.

Tellingly, JournalismJobs.com doesn't have any current openings for videojournalists -- but it does have a slew of reporting/editing gigs that require applicants to be able to shoot, edit and produce audio slideshows and video.

What has been your experience in seeking a job that enables or requires you to pursue videojournalism? What kinds of qualifications and background are employers seeking? How technically proficient are you expected to be? How much emphasis is put on your journalism pedigree and your storytelling chops? We're eager to hear about your jobhunting adventures.

First Prize for Excellent Advice

Videojournalist Colin Mulvany was elated to find that he won an "honorable mention" for one of his Spokesman-Review video stories (pictured) in this year's NPPA Best of Photojournalism contest in the multimedia category.

Until he realized that his was the only award in that category. There was no first, second or third prize. As he blogged:

What gives? This is the second year in a row I’ve placed in this News Video category. Last year I received a 2nd place, but no third was given. This troubles me. Not because I didn’t place higher, but because the judges didn’t see a video that reached a high enough level of excellence to place.

Rather than stew, he sought to figure out what was missing. During an online chat with the contest judges afterwards, he asked forthrightly why they chose to withhold those awards. Their response, as we previously reported, was illuminating:

"This was a real struggle for us. Many were full of technical errors and ignored the basic principles of photojournalism. We saw lots of evidence of urgency, however we really couldn’t award anything that had technical or fundamental errors."

Then as fate would have it, Colin subsequently helped judge the NPPA’s Monthly Multimedia Contest ... and saw for himself what the other judges were seeing.

"Video at newspapers," he concluded, "needs to improve. Dramatically."

Here is the gist of his prescriptive advice, but we advise you to soak up the specifics. Based on what we see every day at KobreGuide, in our quest to discover excellent videojournalism, when it comes to what's missing in 99 percent of the videojournalism stories out there, Colin has really hit the nail on the head.

Among the recurring problems he finds:

* Storytelling (making the transition from still images to video sequences)

* Bland Videos (no surprising revelations or engaging hooks)

* Structure (lack of dramatic narrative)

* Technical flaws (jarringly distracting audio and/or video glitches)

* Editing (lack of pacing, transitions, sequencing, layering, orchestration, audio mixing)

* Journalism (lack of basic reporting principles, the most frequent offense being the absence of multiple sources)

Colin recommends that videojournalists not be shy about collaborating with whoever can strengthen the story -- a print reporter, a video editor, even a script writer and narrator. He concludes, as we have, that newspaper videojournalists shouldn't strive to emulate TV news crews, but at the same time need to acknowledge that we have much to learn from them. We should embrace opportunities to partner with them, and even immerse ourselves in video workshops so that we can get better acquainted with the basic fundamentals of producing solid video stories. (He recommends a few that are worthy of your attention.)

"Until you know what you are doing wrong," he writes, "you can’t improve your video storytelling."

Go follow Colin's prizeworthy advice, and before long you will be winning those awards!

Ruud Elmendorp: Videojournalism in Africa

Ruud Elmendorp, a Dutch videojournalist in Africa, writes about his professional experiences:

Before 2000 I was the typical television reporter coming with a crew. When the small digital cameras entered the market I took the challenge to do it on my own. As early video journalists we for some reason were forced into an innovative and creative approach. We had to do something different [than] the traditional crews, and so we did.

That was before I moved to Africa.

Here I saw that almost every television person is a video journalist. Most local television channels cannot afford full crews, and they depend on one-man-bands. ...

Being a VJ is about logistics.

In many African countries you have to a be a video journalist to move around. In remote areas it’s difficult to travel with a full crew, or you have to rent an expensive 4×4. A VJ can hop in local transport, or even board humanitarian or military flights taking the last and only, lucky-for-you, seat.

There are so many times it happened to me like that, and on arrival you’d discover that none of the traditional crews had made it there. That’s of course best, and it happens often.

It’s the same with borders. A video journalist can easily cross since the camera will be stowed away in your backpack, and no customs officer will bother. No need to fill out temporary import forms, or to pay deposits. They just consider you a tourist.

Being a VJ is about press freedom.

In several countries in Africa the press is free, as long as it doesn’t criticize the government or other big entities too openly. It means that when things get dirty, it will become difficult for journalists to get there.

The fun part about it is that you will not openly be denied access. They let you go through friendly but lenghty accrediation procedures. If you get accredited at last, the event you were looking for will be long gone. Most journalists by then will have moved to other things to report on, and that’s what they’re aiming at.

Still, in the end your accreditation will only be a piece of paper, or a stamp. On the way you will find roadblocks manned by police officers who of course never heard of it, and can only let you pass after paying a hefty bribe.

The video journalist would be long back from shooting that same event, by being one of the passengers on local transport....

Read Ruud Elmendorp's full report here. Visit his website here.

What Does a NY Times VJ Do?

Here's an illuminating first-person behind-the-scenes look at being a New York Times videojournalist, by Brent McDonald (right).

Reporter. Camera operator. Sound technician. Lighting technician. Writer. Narrator. Editor. Those aren’t seven jobs. They’re one. Mine. Oh, yes, I also carry up to 100 pounds of gear. (That’s right: add Sherpa to the job description.) I’m a VJ; a video journalist.

Today, The New York Times has nearly a dozen full-time video journalists and an expanding network of freelancers producing stories from all over the world, for every section of the newspaper and Web site. We don’t have beats. Our basic role is to provide a visual and emotional lens into stories, from sports profiles to investigative exposés. The journalists in our group have contributed to work that has won a Peabody Award, an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and a Pulitzer Prize.

And yet, when I tell people I’m a VJ, I still often get the same questions I did when I started four years ago. (1) What? The Times makes video? (2) What does that mean, exactly? The answer to the first question is self-evident. The best way to answer the second is to describe some stories I’ve worked on recently...

Read the rest here.

(Photo by Nicholas D. Kristof/NYTimes)

Career Lessons from Groucho

With massive layoffs at newspapers and TV news departments, photojournalists and videojournalists are legitimately complaining that their industry is passing them by. Even the best and brightest are being sent to pasture. Top newspapers in our nation's capital have recently lost the award-winning talents of luminaries such as Travis Fox and Pierre Kattar (Washington Post) and Mary Calvert and Janet Reeves (Washington Times) -- a horrifying scenario that's reverberating in newsrooms throughout the land.

Every photography and journalism trade publication wails, "How can this be happening?" and "What can we do to stop the bloodbath?" Sure, we know all the economic reasons, but it's so... unfair! To rob these superstars of their forum, and deprive audiences of their work is so... wrong!

Then we read this recent blog post by marketing superguru Seth Godin. Though he was addressing mass marketers, his wisdom applies to visual journalists as well: "Just because you're good at something doesn't mean the market cares any longer."

He imparts cold truths by reminding us of the career of comic genius Groucho Marx.

The Marx Brothers were great at vaudeville. Live comedy in a theatre. And then the market for vaudeville was killed by the movies. Groucho didn't complain about this or argue that people should respect the hard work he and his brothers had put in. No, they went into the movies.

Then the market for movies like the Marx Brothers were making dried up. Groucho didn't start trying to fix the market. Instead, he saw a new medium and went there. His TV work was among his best (and certainly most lucrative).

It's extremely difficult to repair the market.

It's a lot easier to find a market that will respect and pay for the work you can do. Technology companies have been running this race for years. Now, all of us must.

If some cultural shift has turned what you do into a commodity, don't argue. Find a new place before the competition does. It's not easy or fair, but it's true.

OK, all you visual storytellers. Now that your stock photos sell for pennies, media staff positions are drying up, and "citizen photographers" are cornering the market with shoddy goods at the right price (free!) -- what are you going to do with your talents?

What's your plan?

Are there avenues still open for you to explore? Probably not. Those days are gone, kaput -- get used to it, live with it, deal with it. Can you forge new avenues, create new paths, blaze new trails? Pioneer and conquer new territory, like Groucho did? You bet your life.

First Feature Film About Videojournalists?

There are plenty of classic films that glamorize journalists, from The Front Page to All the President's Men, but how about a movie about heroic videojournalists?

Poking around our iPhone apps, of all places, we stumbled across one!

It's called Burma VJ, and it's about a real event -- the 2007 uprising in Myanmar, as seen through the cameras of the independent videojournalist group, Democratic Voice of Burma.

While 100,000 people (including thousands of Buddhist monks) took to the streets to protest the country's repressive regime that has held them hostage for over 40 years, foreign news crews were banned to enter and the Internet was shut down. The Democratic Voice of Burma, a collective of 30 anonymous and underground videojournalists (VJs), recorded these historic and dramatic events on handycams and smuggled the footage out of the country, where it was broadcast worldwide via satellite. Risking torture and life imprisonment, the VJs vividly document the brutal clashes with the military and undercover police – even after they themselves become targets of the authorities.

Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, the acclaimed filmmaker, Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the videojournalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country. Armed with small handycams the Burma VJs stop at nothing to make their reportages from the streets of Rangoon. Their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered as free usage for international media.

The whole world has witnessed single event clips made by the VJs, but for the very first time, their individual images have been carefully put together and at once, they tell a much bigger story. The film offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching.

Amidst marching monks, brutal police agents, and shooting military the reporters embark on their dangerous mission, working around the clock to keep the world informed of events inside the closed country. Their compulsive instinct to shoot what they witness, rather than any deliberate heroism, turns their lives into that of freedom fighters.

Burma VJ is directed by Anders Østergaard, and written by Anders Østergaard & Jan Krogsgaard.

LINKS:

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Videojournalists Should Be Shot

We've often thought it would be a good idea if journalists-in-training were required to subject themselves to a reporter's interview, so they could get an empathic sense of what it's like to be grilled by a stranger who may or may not care about (nor even understand) what they are trying to tell them.

Then the student journalist should be required to read what was written about them -- and think about how they'd feel if it were published for the world to see (without, of course, any pre-approval). They'd get an opportunity to see if they come across in a way that accurately represents them, their thoughts, their feelings. Do they feel they've been accurately represented and quoted?

Ditto for budding photojournalists -- they should be forced to endure a session with a photographer who follows them around at their home, office, or other event. They should experience that intrusion first-hand, and feel what it's like to be posed or asked to perform certain activities for the sake of the camera.

And then they should look at the resulting pictures, and ask themselves if they feel they've been accurately portrayed to the world.

Now we can take it all one step further. Up-and-coming videojournalists should be followed by an inquiring videographer who documents their every word and mannerism. And, again, they should view the final results, and ask themselves how they feel about it.

So it is with great interest that we stumbled upon this item from the Canadian Journalism Project, by part-time journalist John Longhurst, who has both conducted interviews as a reporter, and been in positions which required him to be interviewed by reporters.

He argues that professional journalists should subject themselves to this "shoe-on-the-other-foot" treatment, to periodically be reminded of their subjects' vulnerability.

It goes without saying that the subject cannot see the end result before it is published or broadcast. To maximize the anxiety, the final result should be posted on the Web or some other conspicuous place where anyone can see it.

Oh, and let's not forget about pictures: lots will be taken and you won’t be allowed to go home to change into different clothing. Some video will be a bonus.

Speaking of video, all TV journalists will have an additional requirement: They will have to do "the walk" or one of its equivalents — sitting at their computers and looking busy, reading a report and looking terribly interested or answering a fake phone call and pretending to be fascinated by the person on the other end.

Trust me — it isn’t easy to "look natural" when walking nowhere while a camera is trained on you.

Once a year, all reporters should be required to be interviewed. I think it will, in the end, make them more sensitive and better journalists — or at least just as intimidated and anxious as the rest of us.

Full article here.

Videojournalist Arrested While Shooting Healthcare Protest

Those Congressional healthcare reform public forums are getting ugly, with protesters disrupting and shouting down legitimate debate, and police being called in to calm things down.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch videojournalist Jake Wagman was arrested while shooting a recent such event, raising an age-old legal issue of photographer/videographer rights. (See Chapter 16 in "Photojournalism: The Professionals' Approach")

You can see Wagman's own video of protesters at a town hall meeting hosted by U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, leading up to his arrest, here.

You can read the Post-Dispatch's story about the raucous event here, which includes an account of Wagman's arrest.

[Police spokesperson] Rich Eckhard said Wagman and a P-D photographer were repeatedly asked to back up and stop taking flash photographs because the bursts of light were making it hard for officers to see.

Wagman moved back, then came closer to the officers, he said. Eckhard did not know how close Wagman was to the officers, but said the reporter was asked several times to "stay back."

"We have to maintain the peace, we have to restore order," Eckhard said. "It's not time for debate at that time of the evening when you have assaults and people reacting to assaults."

Arnie Robbins, editor of the Post-Dispatch, issued this statement Friday.

"In arresting our reporter, we think the police overreacted and were overzealous. While we understand that police have difficult jobs and were in a volatile situation, we hope they understand that reporters, too, have difficult jobs and were in a volatile situation."

Robbins also said, "On two separate occasions, police asked our reporter to move farther away from the scene. He identified himself and complied -- he was also wearing his press badge clearly visible around his neck. On a third occasion, two police officers asked him to leave.

Before he could explain who he was and that he was standing where two other officers had told him to, a police officer counted to two, handcuffed him and arrested him. Even later, after identifying himself as a Post-Dispatch reporter, the police processed him.

"We absolutely think that our reporter handled himself responsibly. We absolutely do not think that charges are warranted," Robbins added.

Wagman was not using any type of lighting when videotaping. He said he was shooting video near a parking lot of Bernard Middle School when he was asked by a St. Louis County police officer to step back. Wagman, wearing a Post-Dispatch identification card around his neck, asked where he should stand. He was directed to an area of the sidewalk. He complied, he said.

A few minutes later, Wagman said, another officer asked him to move further away from the scene. Wagman identified himself as a reporter and did as he was told, he said.

Then two different officers approached the sidewalk where Wagman stood.

Here is Wagman's account of what happened next:

"A pair of officers began instructing everyone to leave. I asked, 'I'm not sure why I have to go.' (We were, after all, on public property - a school.)

"One of the officers responded, 'You can either leave now or come with me to jail.'

"I attempted to interject. He cut me off. He began counting. I attempted to interject again. I was unsuccessful.

"Once the officer's count reached 'two,' he grabbed my wrists and handcuffed me behind my back. My camera -- which had been recording the conversation - dropped to the ground."

Carlos Miller is a multimedia journalist who was arrested by Miami police after taking photos of them against their wishes, which he believes to be "a clear violation of my First Amendment rights." Since that arrest in Feb. 2007, he has been fighting a lengthy legal battle against the State of Florida to prove his innocence.

Miller wrote about the Wagman arrest on his Website, 'Photography is Not a Crime: It's a First Amendment Right,' where you can find archived accounts of similar situations.