Size does matter!
March 30, 2007
This is my largest post ever, lots of goodness here, enjoy!
p.s. can you tell I'm on vacation?
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Shooting War a graphic online novel. It's no DMZ but not bad if you're into this kinda stuff.
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A liitle inspiration called irregular flow. can be viewed below:[note: there is about tens seconds of blank screen-time before the video starts.
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Ode to the masters. Audio Podcast of Diane Arbus.
Gary Winogrand video poor audio quality.
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Color Theory made easy. As a multimedia producer this is my weak point, and with this tool it just became a non-issue, thank you Kuler.
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I couldn't agree moore with this list from Smashing Magazine.
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Most creative use of Soundslides. Gardian Unlimited. Tnxs Laura.
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I'm a sucker for time-lapse. The Star.
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Great use of audio and Soundslides. Roanoke.com.
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Latest from Media Storm via National Geographic.
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You have extra money and time? This workshop could be for you.
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Steady now! Anybody use this "steadicam" from Anton/Bauer yet?
I'm using this one from the 'source' The Steadicam Merlin. Expensive but worth every penny. This rocks! I'd beg your DOP to get one for the 'pool' at least.
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The official NPPA Multimedia PODCAST and a nice article from Keith W. Jenkins of the Washington Post over at the Poynter site.
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KILL THE MESSENGERS!!!! The evil duo, Leeson and me, pictured here, are to blame if your executive editor comes back from the ASNE conference this week and hands you a video camera, sorry! You can read a story about the "evils" we preached, here.
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Exploring Antarctica (washingtonpost.com)
March 27, 2007
Exploring Antarctica (washingtonpost.com)
White City Stories
March 27, 2007
Homeless photographers and their gear.
March 27, 2007
Two newspapers recently launched websites for their photographer's efforts in the multimedia world. I know that both of these efforts were spear-headed by passionate photographers themselves. Way to go! Let's keep an eye on them and draw more inspiration from the fact that if you fight hard enough and the 'cards' go your way, you too can have a home for your multimedia.
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THINKTANK
Designers Doug Murdoch and Mike Sturm have been working overtime. They are announcing the release of 23 new camera bags and straps. All of the gear is highlighted on thier home page at www.thinktankphoto.com.
In addition, they have started a fundraising effort in support of Reporters Without Borders. They will send the organization a percentage of sales generated by their Urban Disguise (http://www.thinktankphoto.com/UrbnDsgs.php) shoulder bags — The Urban Disguise shoulder bags allow photographers to travel in style and protect their valuable equipment without attracting undue attention.
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enjoy,
-r
An inside job
March 25, 2007
Spring Glow by Dai Sugano/Mercury News is a new benchmark in fashion multimedia. IMO. For this year's Spring Fashion shoot, Dai said he wanted to work with staffer Susanna Frohman who was shooting the stills for the paper, but he would do a video from the shoot. Here are the results. A stunning edit, fantastic visuals and he even produced the sound track, which is just as much art as the piece itself. Yes, this is from my 'shop' but I try hard not to 'pimp' our stuff too much, but this is a must see.
enjoy,
-r
MEG LOUCKS IS TOPS @ NEWSVIDEO WORKSHOP
March 24, 2007
“It’s all about storytelling” is the workshop slogan — and it was!
I just served on the faculty of the the NPPA NewsVideo workshop last week in Norman, OK — WOW! what an experience. Having been to and taught at some great workshops in the past, this one was pretty amazing.
All of you who think that television shooters are not the same storytellers as newspaper still folks are totally wrong. I have to say these folks in TV know their stuff. I can only strive to do good content like they do and I recommend any and all of you attend this workshop next year.
Now — to top it all off — Kudos to Meg Loucks, from The Houston Chronicle — Meg is the Multimedia Journalist there and she picked up the best video shooter award at this typically TV oriented workshop. WOW — what an honor for Meg!
Check out some of her work projects, Our Lady of Guadalupe Day, Holiday Pageant, Street Dancing, and Hip hop church
Other websites that sent staffers to this workshop were The Star Ledger, The Denver Post, The Miami Herald, The Chicago Tribune, The Tulsa World, MSNBC, The Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, The Dallas Morning News and Newsday.
I expect and hope that many more will attend it next year. This is the workshop not to miss.
Pre-mature Podcastulation
March 24, 2007
Check back for a podcast from the NPPA judges in the multimedia division held at the Poynter Institute last week. Also check the NPPA site for results as they are posted, congrats to all in the still and multimedia categories.
The judges for multimedia this year were:
- Regina McCombs is a multimedia producer/photographer for startribune.com
- Web designer, JPG magazine co-founder and the communtiy manager of flickr Heather Champ
- Andrew DeVigal the Multimedia Editor for NYTIMES Digital.
- Josh Meltzer, multimedia photojournalist at The Roanoke Time.
- me
- Keith W. Jenkins is the Picture Editor at The Washington Post
-r
Magnum Photos - guantanamo
March 24, 2007
Magnum Photos - War Status Iraq
March 24, 2007
Magnum Photos - War Status Iraq
NPPA multimedia contest PODCAST/republished
March 23, 2007
This is the RAW discussion that went on after finishing the judging today. After a week of watching this year's best multimedia, here are the judges impressions. This is worth the 90MB file and one hour of your time. This is a great discussion with the brightest in the biz.
- Regina McCombs is a multimedia producer/photographer for startribune.com
- Web designer, JPG magazine co-founder and the communtiy manager of flickr Heather Champ
- Andrew DeVigal the Multimedia Editor for NYTIMES Digital.
- Josh Meltzer, multimedia photojournalist at The Roanoke Time.
- me
- Keith W. Jenkins is the Picture Editor at The Washington Post
Topics include:
- Audio story telling
- Soundslides GOOD or EVIL?
- The future of the competition
- Video
and more……
enjoy,
Results posted here: http://bop.nppa.org/2007/
-r
The Champ Reels Vlogs
March 21, 2007
One extreme pleasure about being here to judge the NPPA multimedia contest is meeting some really great new people, re-connecting with a few old ones and learning more than I ever expected. Fellow judge heather powazak champ has this great site with 10 seconds 'narratives' that are a great inspiration to me both visually and a great reminder aboout hw lng 'time' can be and how important tight editing can be. No, it's not 'journalism,' but it is inspirational, and you should know me by now, I believe we can find inspiration for our visual journalism in many 'non-traditional' places.
Something I learned from heather during the judging and promised to pass on:
Five fonts that make people cry:
- Brush Script (there's no such thing as "retro" high tech)
- Comic Sans (never ever ever ever ever ever!)
- Papyrus (not even for your trip to Greece)
- Pixie (nothing is that fun)
- Zapfino (it will never look like flowing handwriting, even if animated)
-heather powazek champ
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JPG magazine-The Magazine of Brave New Photography is worth a look and a subscription.
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A blog with video work from Mike De Sisti, a photojournalist at The Post-Crescent in Appleton, Wis. In addition to covering daily assignments for the newspaper, he produces short video essays and slideshows for the Web. A site to explore (especially the archives) and learn from, De Sisti is a solid, consistent, funny and sometimes risky video journalist.
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Useful tool of the month, the Aspect Ratio Calculator tnxs, mediagrunt
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VIDEO BLOGGING WORKFLOW: YOU + WEB 2.0 TOOLS = FREE VIDEO BLOG
Want to VIDEO BLOG? Download this tutorial chart from hummingcrow
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enjoy,
-r
NPPA multimedia contest WINNERS!
March 19, 2007
Made you look!
Now that I have your attention, it's time give the site a little update from Poynter, where the NPPA multimedia contest judging is taking place. If you're looking for results, wrong place. But, if you're looking for a judges (mine) notes and impressions, and a quick tutorial on HOW TO WIN A MULTIMEDIA CONTEST then you've come to the right place. Of course there are no guarantees you'll win any contest, but I think it might help push your entries to the top of the pile.
MORE TO COME….enjoy,
-r
What the Magnum?
March 15, 2007
Magnum Photos Invites Newspapers To Participate In 60th Anniversary
Not multimedia, exactly, but an intersting idea, I wonder how many US newspapers will participate in this great idea. Wait! I just found this new post over a MagnumInMotion. 
Another eyebrow raiser called Women's Day. I LOVED it. I really love what they are doing. I am gonna email a contact I have over there and ask them how they get away with using all that copyrighted sound.
Click more button below to continue reading the press release… Read more
Check out that Fox!
March 15, 2007
"Washington Post video journalist Travis Fox just got back from Darfur. And he brought back some great work. Let's watch and learn."
Crisis in Darfur Expands washingtonpost.com
and a nice catch from reader Mike Moore. Tnxs
Thursday Edition: Learning From an Expert in Online Video by Al Tompkins
And while we're on the Post how about checking out a post called 10 Questions by Terry L. Heaton an interview with Tom Kennedy, the managing editor for multimedia at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.
CBBC Newsround | Specials | 2006 | The Wrong Trainers
March 14, 2007
CBBC Newsround | Specials | 2006 | The Wrong Trainers
Large heterogeneous mixture
March 14, 2007
Personal:
First, I am headed to Poynter this week to help judge NPPA's BOP/multimedia division. I'm honored and excited. I'll do my best to keep you posted about results and inspiration from the contest. I'm also hoping to record a few podcasts with the other judges, so stay tuned. Speaking of NPPA, You shouldn't miss this, Photojournalism Summit and Multimedia Immersion Program in Portland, OR, on May 20 through June 1, 2007. What a line-up of multimedia folks, all in one place, not to be missed.
New Tools:
Quicktime Helper billed as the swiss army knife for Quicktime.
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Video Player from FlashLoaded [I love this place] flvPlayerPRO is a fully skinnable and customizable set of 3 Flash video player components.
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Multimedia Lite:
I was lucky enough to be invited to the 'mother ship' or as the common folks know it, Apple, for a workshop called Rich-Media Storytelling. It was a chance to be in the presence of the 'pros' and get tips on the Apple Pro applications. It was fun to learn that the Apple Pro profile of the Washington Post was created by just two guys with a still camera and an audio recorder. This reminded me about getting back to basics. So I left the Z1U at home and I ditched my Canon Mark II long ago, so I went to work with only my R-09 Audio recorder and my Canon SD500. Here's a link to the daily piece I produced, nothing special, but fun. I also just found this fun piece buy one of my favorite SJSU students, Daniel Sato, check it out, here. And before you go all 'Ed Kashi' on me, I'll have you know, for the record, he did not invent the 'flipbook' style. I never figured out why it, as a 'style' got so much attention. Also, for the record, Dai Sugano and I have been doing this for years. And people have been doing it before us and so on and so on……nothing's really 'new.'
Help!:
Anybody care to share their video recording to hard drive in HD workflow on a Mac? Tnxs in advance. Speaking of help, Ijust read this unconfirmed rumor over at SportsShooter.com that David J. Leeson's "Voodoo Tool (an algorithm written by his son DL II that creates great still captures from video) will be made available within the next month or two on the digital journalist. "
http://www.digitaljournalist.org. Stay Tuned. I'm gonna see David at the end of the month, I'll get the scoop.
I've gotten emails about people asking how to get good HD frame grabs. Here's my quick advice, Please add yours:
- Increase your shutter speed
- Lower the gain setting, too much noise makes for bad frames
- Be still. You don't always need to be on sticks, oh my gosh, i just used a TV term! But it helps increase the number of sharp frames yu have to choose from.
- Manual focus, or pay extra attention to the focus. In auto focus mode, rack the lens to ensure focus.
- Shoot in progressive or what Canon calls 24F mode. Only if you yu have one of the newer Sony V1U or Canon HX A1. If you have an older camera the progessive mode is prob 720p, my experience says, in that case to shoot 1080i and deinterlace in Photoshop.
- Deinterlace in Photoshop
- Learn what bicubic smoothing is and how to use it in Photoshop.
More on Seth:
Major props to Bryan over at collegemediainnovation.org for the hook-up on this.
Atacama Stories 2006
March 11, 2007
