Changing up a few things.
I’m using this site as a place to display work sample from here on out. I’ll be moving my blogging over to robertlahue.wordpress.com.
Adjust bookmarks accordingly.
Changing up a few things.
I’m using this site as a place to display work sample from here on out. I’ll be moving my blogging over to robertlahue.wordpress.com.
Adjust bookmarks accordingly.
On Friday, I was invited up to my alma mater, Chico State, to do a workshop with the videographers of my old college newspaper, The Orion.
As part of that, I gave them a handout with a few suggestions for how to tell stories with video. But, I figured that there’s people out in the public who know even more than I do. So I’m posting up the handout I wrote up and wanting to see what else people have to suggest as far as this subject goes.
SHOOTING
EDITING
Remember, they think what they’re saying means something. You have to reflect that when you write to them, even when they’re wrong.
This gentleman responded with his thanks and hopes we’ll write something on Mamo Rafiq soon.
Also important: When you say you’re going to do something, do it.
For an even better example of being a social journalist in the social media age, read this post by my KDMC small group teammate Mandy Jenkins, now a social news editor for HuffPo Politics.
…and you don’t even have to friend me on Facebook to follow it!
You can click here to view it.
Going to shoot video in your news organization? You better be flexible and be able to think your way out of problems.
It’s safe to say that things, usually, will not go as planned. The dream background will not work. Shadows are going to jack with your universe. Microphones will not perform to the best of their abilities.
That’s when you’re going to get well-acquainted with your video editing software.
We do a lot here with the Marysville Gold Sox, a summer college baseball team. For those of you not familiar with college baseball, during summer when school is out players will play on teams outside of school, often in towns that treat it similar to minor league baseball, but more affordable. Think of the movie “Summer Catch.” In that film, Freddie Prinze Jr. is playing in the Cape Cod League, the premier summer college league in the country.
One regular feature we do is “Meet the Gold Sox,” where a sports reporter interviews one of the players on the team using a two-camera shoot, then in post-production we overlay the videos with b-roll featuring game highlights of the player in action.
For a recent interview with a middle infielder from Northern Colorado University, the post-filming check revealed a number of problems. The first was one dealt with regularly in that players ballcaps create shadows across their faces. That can be dealt with easily by bringing up midtones, and I’d rather have baseball players wearing baseball caps.
A couple of other problems were going to be tougher to deal with. First, the mic was being held too far away from the player when he was talking compared to when the reporter was talking in it, which created a big difference in the sound level. Second, somehow the reporter wound up looking at the wrong camera for the wide shot, rendering a lot of the pre- and post-interview segments unusable. (Actually, I bet he looked at the wrong camera because the guy running both cameras — guilty — didn’t make sure to tell him which camera to look at first.)
This required a lot of work in the soundtrack with FinalCut Express to fix, along with strategically placing highlights, and cutting to our ending graphic sooner than we usually do.
For comparison’s sake, here’s a clip of raw video:
And here’s what the finished product looked like: