Hand-holding tutorial

This Video 101 tutorial may be extremely helpful to anyone who is just beginning to shoot video. Skip the "recording" section, but I think the "shots" section is extremely helpful. It explains a lot of the techniques I talked about here. I even learned some stuff about diagonal lines in shots being better than horizontal and vertical lines.

Tribute to the towers

I don't know why it took me so long to see this photographer's tribute to the WTC towers. But I'm glad I watched, I really liked it. The music is kind of weird in places, but I think overall it adds to the piece. It is an employee-narrated voiceover, but the voice and words are interesting so it works.

Another source-narrated NYtimes slideshow

Hooray for using a source's voice to tell the story instead of a monotone reporter's voiceover. The NYtimes did it again with this slideshow, Islam in the Suburbs. But I think there's still problems with the narration...I couldn't really follow it because it sounds a lot more like a sermon than a journalism story.

What an interactive success

Like a lot of others, I was really impressed with MSNBC's interactive State of the Union analysis. From the reader comments, it seems like a whole lot of people were equally as impressed. Each heading at the top has TONS of reader comments. Some of the comments are like the length of a book...It's amazing that MSNBC produced such a successful, intricate package on deadline like this.

Edgies

Check out the winners of this year's Digital Edge Awards. Here's the categories I find most interesting:

Most Innovative Multimedia Storytelling

Circulation Less Than 75,000
Studio 55 vodcast
Naples Daily News

Circulation 75,000-250,000
John Muir Trail blog, The Fresno Bee

Circulation Greater than 250,000
Chicagotribune.com, Chicago Tribune Interactive

Best Use of Interactive Media

Circulation Less Than 75,000
Pigskin Review, Amarillo.com/Amarillo Globe-News

Circulation 75,000 to 250,000
RandomThis, Knoxville News Sentinel

Circulation Greater than 250,000
azcentral.com - wireless
azcentral.com and the Arizona Republic

Link via Howard Owens.

Young composer video

It took about six hours total to produce this video about a 16-year-old who won an orchestra composition contest. After pitching the story idea, the print side also decided to write a story. I like how the story and video complement each other.

MySanAntonio.com is a partnership between the Express-News and Kens 5, the Belo station in town. Kens 5 also produced a story about this. It's interesting to see how they differ.

But what will the button-pushing monkeys do now?

Pretty cool news about a European newspaper chain training its employees to put their own damn stories and photos on the web.

Link via Bryan Murley.

Excitement last week

I had a bit of (false) excitement last week when my office was evacuated because of a bomb scare. There was an abandoned suitcase on the side of the building. Police called the bomb squad, and they blew open the suitcase...There was nothing inside.

More info on flv compression

A coworker sent me this useful article about Flash video compression. There's also a forum that may come in handy someday.

Shiney equipment blinds everyone to real quality issue

I think it's a true red herring that everyone is so stuck on debating whether news orgs should buy high-end or low-end equipment.

It doesn't matter. Regardless of whether you buy the cheapest or the most expensive video camera in the world, if you put it in the hands of an untrained reporter who doesn't have time to shoot good video (and doesn't know how to do that even if they did have time), the end product is going to turn out like CRAP.

I think this is the worst advice I've ever heard about newspaper video:

Reporters spend most of their time thinking about getting all the right information to put enough words together to tell a coherent story. They have a notepad and a pen and busy hands. They must get the story. Video is, and should be, a secondary concern.

To create a GOOD video, shooting can't be a "secondary concern." It's the most important concern. Put the freakin' notepad down...The reporter could just take notes from the recorded interviews and jot down "color" details from the video when he or she gets back to the office.

To shoot a good video, you have to have multiple angles of your subject or action. Each angle must have multiple focal lengths. You must remember to shoot each stage of whatever action is happening, and shoot multiple angles of that action with wide, medium and tight shots. You must use restraint when pushing "record," so you're only getting the video that you know you'll use. When shooting, you must keep in mind that you'll need to edit sequences that alternate focal lengths so you're never cutting from wide to wide or something else that'll produce a jump cut. When shooting, you must keep in mind that you'll want to edit sequences with matched action. You must keep in mind that you need enough broll to cover all your interviews. That you need some nat sound and images for cutaways. How the hell could all of that be done as a "secondary concern?"

I'd be quite happy to answer David McHenry's challenge, using the absolute cheapest video camera on the market--but not a video phone. ;-) I'd bet that with my training in shooting and editing, the cheap-o camera product I produce blow out of the water anything some po-dunk reporter could shoot with a $20,000 camera.

I actually do subscribe to the idea that the quality of the video camera doesn't matter as much (although at work, I am using a Sony HDR-Z1U). It's true that we're compressing it so much, the technical quality ends up being--INTERNET quality.

I really wish the quality debate could move away from this red herring. The true issue is TRAINING and giving the reporters enough TIME to worry about their print product, but also shoot/edit good video.

"Secondary concern" my ass.

Second round

Hmong New Year's. Cool time lapse sequence in the middle, but audio quality issues.

Hanukkah. Held my attention throughout.

Woman races despite disability. There's a lot of soundslides projects about people overcoming injuries or disabilities to reach some goal, and it's easy to do them wrong. This one is right.

Grandpa cares for great grand children. It's so cute how the kid keeps piping up in the interview.

Package about missionaries helping kids in Nicaragua. Check out the last slideshow "The Children."

Birth of a giraffe. Wow! Good narration, nice use of music, and nat sound at the end (I had no idea giraffes made that noise).

Individual audio slideshows

I'm going through individual audio slideshows, my last category of the December NPPA multimedia contest.

I had no problem watching to the end of this one about an elderly couple that got married. And there was a nice reward for doing that; a very funny ending that gave me a good chuckle.

A slideshow about migrant workers in Taiwan moved along well because of a good script, quickly-changing pictures, and good picture quality. To view, click the first button at the bottom. It seems this slideshow is miscategorized...It really belongs in Team slideshow.

Wow. This slideshow about street racing, and it's fatal consequences, really has it all. In the beginning we see really great photos, nat sound, and compelling narration from sources. A black screen shifts gears to a mother grieving for a daughter who died in a street-racing accident. The photos here aren't as compelling, but the audio really makes up for it. The show runs long, but at no point did it enter my mind to stop watching.

I liked this story about an organic animal farm. There's this one part where the guy says, "Listen to what you hear." Then he lists all these farm sounds that you can hear...But there's no nat sound of that stuff! Hello? Seems like that would be a given...

This one about a soldier at an outpost in Ramadi is worth the time. Really great pictures. Audio tells the type of story where you want to know what happens next.

Two very comprehensive packages, about Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein, are definitely miscategorized. They should be in team categories. They look really great, but to tell the truth, I don't feel like investing that much time right now.

The list goes on and on...I'm through about half of the individual slideshows now. I need a break. More later...

Data heads

I think Ryan Sholin hit the nail on the head talking about the need for sites to use computer-assisted reporting to create data infographics.

What we might miss in our efforts is the opportunity to take advantage of one more element the Web presents better than print:

Data.

Computer-assisted reporting has been around for years, but now here we are with tools like MySQL and Django and Google Maps and more. Each one of these things can be a thousand times more effective at building a story out of information than an Excel spreadsheet.

I love using these types of tools on news web sites. But the truth is I shake in my boots thinking about MYSELF actually learning to create them. I'm so busy with my multimedia job, fine tuning the skills I need to do that well, that I hate to think of diluting my job by having to learn things like MySQL. I'm at the point now where I'm pretty comfy with HTML and ActionScript...But I think I'd like to stop there, and try to become an expert at what I'm currently doing at work.

So, I agree that in addition to multimedia and interactivity, that sites should be offering data infographics. I just hope that it will be someone else's job.

Get shorty

I agree with Howard Owens' assessment that it's not at all bad that short stories are better for the Web. This is even more true for multimedia.

Since many people are sneaking peaks at news sites while they should be working, they already feel guilty. A lot of times they think it's okay to read something really quickly, but watching a video is crossing the line. If they do decide to click, you better get your story across quick before their bosses walk by the doorway and see their employees wasting work time.

But what does a poor producer do? It's true that some stories deserve to be long. I've seen a nice solution to the problem with "chaptered" multimedia stories. For example, the Dallas Morning News story about a girl abducted from Mexico and sexually abused. I also tried it with my story about a soldier recovering from wounds in Iraq.

OJR picks the brain of Brian Storm. Lots of interesting stuff.

I hope this is just one example of the kind of company that is going to say that it's time to take journalism back. I know I'm not going to make a pot of money with MediaStorm. I'm not going to. I'm just continuing to do stories that I believe in.

You know that's that whole living a rich lifestyle thing. You know making money is a necessary evil to stay in business but it's not our focus. It's not like any of us got into journalism to make tons of money. We got into journalism because of the experiences—the rich lifestyle.

Amazing opportunity

The expenses-paid workshops run for six days and provide intense hands-on instruction on how to do multimedia stories for the Web. Topics covered include using digital video cameras, photo cameras and audio recorders; doing storyboards, stand-ups, voiceovers and other broadcast techniques; digital video, audio and photo editing using Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro and Photoshop; creating photo slide shows with Flash; Web page creation using Dreamweaver, and multimedia Web site design.

Want to learn this stuff for free?

Link via MultimediaShooter.

Music you can use

My coworkers and I have been searching for sources of royalty free music. I think I'll use this collection of royalty-free music links posted on howardowens.com.

UPDATE: MultimediaShooter has a usable music list too.

I feel sorry if they really needed this advice

Per cyberjournalist, Rob Curley in an interview gave some advice to an Italian newspaper. I feel like that paper is in a very sorry state if they really needed this advice about multimedia:

# Multimedia. Using video, audio, Flash animations, etc…, should be a key part of a “new” newspaper’s toolbelt. Youtube.com and iTunes are successful for a reason — multimedia is now a hugely important part of the Internet. If your publisher hasn’t heard of youtube or iTunes, get your resume ready.

DUH!

Home from Iraq: A family fights to recover #2

Check out the second installment of a story about the Edwards family, which is working together to recover from the husband and father Chris Edwards, an Army staff sergeant, being seriously wounded in Iraq.

In my opinion, my shooting and editing skills have improved a lot since the first installment.

Kick ass finale

This video about people sledding in Austin during last week's freeze has the best ending! It totally makes me wish I had been there.

Fun video

My coworker Kin Man Hui produced a fun video about a bunco tournament. The link for the video is under "Express-News multimedia" within the story.

Starts off with a good image and nat sound. Then a source narrates the video, providing interesting information. The narration is covered with b-roll. Then it goes to more nat sound and images that provide a feel for the event.

NPPA individual videos

This one about football players competing in rodeo activities was entertaining. I wished the narration would have started a little sooner. There wasn't much substance to the story, but it was fun to watch the action.

I really wanted to see this story of a soldier recovering from a traumatic brain injury, but it won't play for me. I'm writing it here to remind myself to try from work later. (Actually, none of the Mercury News videos will play for me. Why do they have to try to make them so HUGE? That excludes a lot of people from watching).

This video about some creative ladies working for the salvation army was very entertaining. The narration was great. I liked it that they used b-roll instead of showing the talking head for too long; I thought it could have skipped continuously cutting back to the talking head. Some more close-up details and sequence edits would have also improved it. But I still enjoyed the video a lot!

From the same news org, this video about Survivor tryouts was pretty good. They're purposely breaking some rules of video editing. The whole thing is a series of quick jump cuts; it's funny. Reminds me of the video I produced Wednesday of people talking about the freeze.

This month the Washington Post entered a couple stories that are nothing but images with music. They both worked. I liked this video about a drum line. After about half of it, I kind of felt like I got the point and I was itching for something new to happen...maybe some narration. But I still watched to the end.

I'm very proud of my entry in this category, a three-video package about an Iraq war veteran recovering from burns over 79 percent of his body. It's a three-part series, and the second part is coming out this Monday. It's better than the first.

This cement truck covered with Christmas lights is pretty amazing. I wish I could have seen less broll from inside the truck, and more from the outside of the truck driving by.

It's fun to watch these guys snowboarding down the steps of the Colorado Capitol.

Again, I haven't decided how I'll vote, but I will pick from the options above.

Links via NPPA Individual Videos contest.

NPPA team videos

Such impeccable shooting and editing in this piece about an amazing Christmas light display. I'm impressed.

This story about a girl abducted from Mexico and brought to America, where she was sexually abused, is broken down into seven chapters. I think this is the best way to tell a long story. Each chapter is very short, so it's easy to watch to the end.

I wasn't terribly impressed with any others in this category.

Links via NPPA team video contest.

Good idea, or no?

Howard Owens made a suggestion that news orgs should post their videos on YouTube. I've been thinking for a while that this is a good idea too.

I anticipate some negative feedback, so I haven't broached the subject yet.

What do you think? Good idea, or no?

NPPA judging time again

I'm checking out the December entries for team audio slideshows. It seems like each one I click on, the audio levels are different. Sometimes within one slideshow different clips will greatly vary in volume. This makes me think that some producers may not know that after audio editing, they must equalize the volume before they export to mp3. The volume of all clips should peak around -12 db.

That said, this time around I'm going to just mention those entries that really stuck out as being good.

I enjoyed this story about soldiers coming home for holiday leave. The photos change rapidly, and so does the speaker. The audio is edited together nicely.

I've written before about how much I like audio slideshows with dominant pictures and complementary audio. So of course this story about a classical music program in the barrio caught my attention.

On the flip side, this story about rodeo school has extremely compelling images, but the audio doesn't take a back seat in any sense. But they work together well. Disclosure: my coworker, Lisa Krantz, produced this piece.

The design of this audio slideshow package about India is beautiful. I watched the slideshow about feeding the children, and it was good, but I felt I didn't have time for all the others.

This Year in Photos set to music is really nice. Such powerful images, and the music simply enhances them. Runs too long though.

At first I thought I wasn't going to like this story about a kid getting surgery to repair a rare birth defect. I almost closed it, but stopped myself. Then, past a certain point, I couldn't stop watching; I had to find out what happened. Warning: very grusome surgery images.

This story about a mother dealing with an emotionally disturbed child held my attention the whole time too.

I was moved by this slideshow about a soldier's funeral. The photos are driving; the audio takes a powerful backseat.

I'm not sure which ones I'll vote on yet; but I'll pick from among these. Which ones would you vote on, and why?

Links via NPPA Team Audio Slideshow contest.

Breakin' the law

In one of the training workshops I've attended at work, the teaching videographer told us you have to know the rules to break the rules. I took that advice to heart with a video yesterday of people talking about the ice storm. To view the video, go to our multimedia page, and click the link for "Arctic blast, Day 2" under the picture of the frozen stop sign.

Usually, you are not supposed to cut from shot-to-shot if they're similar scenes. If you do, you see a weird "jump" effect. But in this video, we made use of jump cuts for comic effect.

Stuff's frozen: go crazy

Well, San Antonio is experiencing it's first freeze of the season. Since this rarely happens in Texas, people go crazy. I decided to join in. My coworker Kin Man Hui, respected photographer, helped me out.

Check out this animated sequence of pictures.

No need for gym

Go to the gym? Why do that when I'm literally running around for two hours in freezing weather at work?

It was a reality yesterday when me and a coworker, Gloria Ferniz, teamed up to cover the MLK March in San Antonio. To view our video, clickthe link, "Express-News video: MLK march," under More Coverage.

It was 35 degrees outside, and the march route was three miles. I started off in the middle, but wanted to stop and shoot so I got to be near the end. I kept running ahead to get more people, then would stop and shoot, then run again, etc. My legs are so sore today! But I think the video turned out nicely.

Trash

I thought this video about trash bins had some amazing sequences and images in the beginning. Very cinematic. But the video breaks down when the guy starts talking. Instead of saying why I think so, I'm going to risk asking a question and possibly getting no anwsers:

What would you have done to improve this video?

SOMEONE STOLE MY CAT

I laughed my head off when I saw this video about a nursing home cat. It looks EXACTLY like Calla, my parents' cat at home, right down to the gray marking over the right eye. And Calla has the same temperament....You go near and it's like she's going to scratch your head off.

On another note, this video really reminds me of something that I'd see on YouTube. It's not necessarily the technical quality of the video. It's the content. When the old lady is sitting there holding the cat and talking to it, I swear it could have come right off YouTube.

I sent the link to my parents, brother and sister. Man, this is a riot!

UPDATE: After reading this again, I realize it may seem like I'm applauding the video's similarity to YouTube. Thinking about it again, I'm not sure if I like that or not. On one hand, I see how this could be a nice human interest story. So it seems to deserve a journalistic story. On the other hand, the way it's edited seems more entertaining...it doesn't seem like a journalistic video. Is that good or bad? It's good to make news entertaining, I guess, but it almost seems like making fun of the old lady.

Web documentaries

MultimediaShooter points to a site for documentary web video. It looks so promising! I watched this video about an Iraq war veteran. The audio is edited into such a seamless and poignant story.

Fun, innovative package

I just checked out a truly interactive package about capoeira, the Brazilian dance, from roanoke.com. Seth Gitner produced it.

This is unusual for me, but I love the short animated song/dance intro. It's a short series of photos with a cartoon-ish effect, set to a few bars of capoeira music. It was attention-grabbing and short (it didn't have time to wear on my nerves).

It's so innovative to cut out the guy's figure in video and have him kind of "floating" on the Flash background. I've never seen that; I want to learn! Unfortunately, the video wasn't playing smoothly for me, and I stopped it. It could be my computer or connection.

The reason I called this "truly interactive" is the little tutorials where you can learn capoeira. If a person were really interested in knowing all that, I think they'd really enjoy it. I personally was more interested in seeing the meat of the story, and I had to click through four sections to finally find what I wanted: "The club@Roanoke." I wish it would have been the first button.

The club@Roanoke is a video story. I thought it made a good video...Lots of action, and entertaining until the end. More visual variety would have made it even better. All I'm seeing are wide and medium shots. Many of the shots stay up for too long. There are a bunch of jump cuts since it's cutting from wide to wide shot.

With an assignment like this, which includes tons and tons of action that is repeated over and over, here's a good shooting strategy:
*A tripod is mandatory
*Set up for a wide shot of your scene, shoot 10 seconds, stop. From same location, set up a medium shot and repeat. Then a close-up.
*Move your camera 60 degrees. Repeat your wide, medium, close shots.
*Keep moving by 60 degrees until you've circled the subject.
*Repeat the whole process, but set up your tripod as low to the ground as possible.
*Repeat the whole process, but set up your tripod as high up as possible.

The idea is to collect a great visual variety of shots. While editing, you'll be able to cut every three seconds, which will really keep the viewer's attention. And you'll be able to build wonderful sequences of action that will really show the viewer what it was like. Close-up shots of details and people's faces are key.

Nice list!

MultimediaShooter has a cool list of software and plugins.

I think the most interesting are:
flashloaded Flash Components (Don't have use for these right now, but I may come up with things now that I know they exist!)
verticalmoon.com (funny they're charging for a software that makes preloaders...The script for that is so easy)

He suggests Sorenson Squeeze for encoding video. If your goal is to make Flash video, I'm wondering why not just use the flash video encoder, which can use the sorenson and ON2VP6 codecs? Squeeze will allow you to export in other formats too...But Final Cut also allows me to export in most of those formats. There may be something I'm missing...If you know, fill me in.

Another source for multimedia design critique

I'll be keeping my eyes on a new column on Online Journalism Review that may include critiques on multimedia package design.

How the success of these experimentations and evolutions are being measured is still an issue. Page views, time spent on the page, where people enter in from and where they go after can all be measured. But what do we know about how these news features and forms change attitude toward the news product, or how effective the form is at informing, or if a new design is a more effective way to get people to engage fully with the carefully constructed package?

Link via CyberJournalist.

Just shut up, Angela

This is what I'd say to myself over and over when I first started shooting, and editing, video. I really relate to this post about the necessity of shutting up. I'd be laying down the audio for a story, and in the middle of the perfect soundbyte, you'd hear my voice: "Yep. Uh-huh." Or worse, I'd interrupt a person right when it sounded like they were about to say the perfect thing.

Now I've gotten really good at using facial expressions to ask questions or express understanding.

Making mistakes is the best way to learn. When you have to deal with those mistakes, and you just feel like kicking yourself in the ass, that's the best way to ensure you don't make them anymore.

UPDATE: I think the reporter in this St. Petersberg Times piece about camel jockeys could have benefitted from this advice.

Cheap cameras aren't the biggest issue

Mindy McAdams continues another post in line with the quality-quantity debate. She asked people to check out video from bakersfield.com, where they've given all reporters consumer-grade video equipment and they pump out tons of videos every day.

A post from an online editor at bakersfield.com started the discussion.

Imagine all the great moments you could capture with 50 cameras in the field every day, capturing up to 50 hours of footage. You’re bound to find many of those unique, exhilarating moments that drive people to online video sites.

I do think it's cool that they can produce so many videos every day. I also think it's a great idea to give reporters equipment just in case they're present when big news happens.

At the same time, I'd argue that these videos are NOT showing me "great moments." There are serious problems with the videos that these reporters are shooting. I don't think the worst problems stem from the cheap video equipment, although some of the videos do have unacceptable audio quality.

Here's the real issue: In most of these videos, the "story" goes like this: some person standing there talking. A couple videos, thank god, had a little bit of broll: one earthquake-ish wide or medium shot.

No action sequencing. No multiple shots. No different angles. No changing focal lengths. No shot/reverse shot. No matched action. Each video I watched was an AWEFUL visual story. What is VIDEO if it's not VISUAL?

I think the omission must be blamed on one of two things: either the reporters aren't trained in how to properly shoot and edit a visual video story; or they're in such a rush to produce both their print story and the video that they don't have time to do it right.

Maybe it's true, like others have already said, that newspapers just have to start somewhere. Also, here at the Express-News, we are about to make cheap cameras available to reporters. I'm sure we'll be putting up stuff like this.

I just hope that reporters with cheap equipment don't take over the world of online news video. People need to recognize the due place of properly-trained, properly-equipped videographers as well. Hopefully when editors decide that a story is important enough to get a professional product, they'll be able to send in some pros to produce it.

Fun rollovers

This package about teens losing weight has pretty cool rollovers. I spent a good amount of time on them alone.

Link via Interactive Narratives.

00:03:28 on Media Storm!

There's an audio slideshow on Media Storm that only lasts 3:28 min. I watched the whole thing! It's about people who make tequila in Mexico.

What do you think?

A couple times I've noticed a new variety of "audio slideshow" on MSNBC. A recent one, Remembering the fallen, is an example. Instead of one audio track with multiple photos, there are multiple audio tracks that each have one photo.

Looking up contests

I've been meaning to do this for a while. I'm doing a little research to find out about the multimedia contests out there. The only one I'm currently competing in is the NPPA Multimedia Contest, but I'd like to change that in 2007.

Edgie Awards (annual)
"The Newspaper Association of America’s Digital Edge Awards were founded in 1996 to recognize creative, engaging work in multimedia journalism." There are several categories, but I'm most interested in "Most Innovative Multimedia Storytelling." I already wrote about the 2007 finalists.

EPpy Awards
It seems like these awards are more for entire sites, not individual multimedia stories. But there is a category called "Best Special Feature in an Internet Serv" and the 2006 winners of the category seem like they were individual multimedia stories.

National Press Foundation Online Journalism Award
"The intent of the award is to recognize achievement in the rapidly changing field of internet journalism, and encourage others through the example of the winners. The winner receives $2,500. The award can be made to a site, or an individual, or a specific project."

NPPA Multimedia Contest
"Many photojournalists are being asked (or told) to add video to their storytelling arsenals. In the midst of all this change, it became clear to many that a contest was needed to http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifshowcase this new work being produced by NPPA members. More importantly, I believe this multimedia contest will become a great learning tool for our members. Being able to see and judge everyone else’s entries will hopefully spur innovation and inspiration."

UPDATE: NPPA Best of Photojournalism contest now includes a News Video category.

Online Journalism Awards
The Online News Association's OJA awards include a lot of categories, but I'm most interested in this one: "8. Outstanding use of multiple media: This category honors achievement by a site in the use digital techniques, including design, navigation, multimedia, interactivity and community to tell a story and serve a community. Emphasis will be placed on visitor experience as well as on innovative use of technology. You may submit two entries for a single entry fee, each of which consists of a single story, a series, a package or an information application."

Pulitzer Prizes for online journalism
"With its new rules for online submissions, the Pulitzer Board will require each online element to be a single, discretely designated presentation, such as a database, blog, interactive graphic, slide show, or video presentation. Each designated element will count as one item in the total number of items, print or online, that are permitted in an entry."

SND.ies Multimedia Competition
The Society of News Design's "Best of New Media Design Competition." Here's a presentation of 2006 winners.

Am I missing any?

UPDATE 1/7:
Mindy McAdams left info on another contest in the comments for this post. Thanks, Mindy!

NPPA winners announced

Have you checked out the multimedia contest winners for December?

Interesting swap of roles

Usually when I get daily assignments, it's to create a quick, easy video to complement a print story. Yesterday a cool role swap happened...The reporter came back and watched my raw video so he could add some information into his story that would complement my video.

He was doing a story about the first New Year's baby in San Antonio. I wanted to do that story too, but it was impossible to get the access I needed to do a good video. Reporters and TV crews from all the media outlets in town were swamping that family.

So we thought, hey, let's do the second baby born (link for video is embedded in the story). It'll be a "just missed it" story. The second baby, born just 90 seconds after the first, and her family were in solitude...Just mom, dad and baby. That made for a much more natural and relaxed setting, and a better video.

Here's my "list"

I was very amused yesterday reading Paul Conley's mandatory list of 2006.

I'm sure a lot of us really were working on New Year's list-like stories. Well, here's my list. You can watch 30-second clips of New Year's partiers remembering things that happened in 2006. You can also take short quizzes to see what you remember.