N&O: Ian’s Peace

In August Koci chastised the Raleigh News and Observer photo staff on this blog for a video that was just . . . well  . . .  under his par.

I have to say the staff more than makes up for that video with Ian’s Peace - a well paced, beautifully shot video.

Nice job to all of those involved including Travis Long, Takaaki Iwabu, Ethan Hyman and Juli Leonard.

A must watch for all.

Big money for VJ!

The Concentra Award 2008 is now open for entries. This year we have expanded the award criteria and have added a second award. For the first time, we are accepting entries from around the world. Friends and colleagues from outside Europe can now compete for the world’s largest videojournalism prize of 10.000 euro. Secondly, the jury will now consider videojournalism from news websites, newspaper sites and IPTV news stations along with traditional news broadcasts. Thirdly, news piece entries can now be up to a maximum of ten minutes. On top of the above changes, we are also adding an additional award for breaking news. Stories which are shot, edited and broadcast in one day and last up to five minutes will be considered for The Breaking News Award. Breaking news pieces are now eligible for both The Concentra Award and have a chance of gaining extra acknowledgement for the fastest type of videojournalism with The Breaking News Award.

www.theconcentra.org

Multimedia journalism + Data journalism = Multimedata journalism?

Multimedia and data are huge buzzwords right now in the j-blogosphere and newsrooms around the country. This week, two big dogs released notable projects that combined both multimedia interviews and data-style content:

The NY Times – “Exonerated, Freed, and What Happened Then”
This is a mix of audio interviews, statistical data and traditional narrative reporting examining the cases of 137 prisoners exonerated by DNA evidence since 1989. Very interesting piece.

The Star Tribune - “13 Seconds in August”
Regina McCombs and the Masters of the Universe at the Strib are kicking off a new project looking back on the I35 bridge collapse, with nice intro segment, video, photos, data, and traditional narrative profiles. And they’re should be more stories coming:

This is a living document, and we encourage you to send us your reactions and thoughts, and help us fill in the missing pieces.

(Fyi: After the intro, there’s navigation buttons in the left photo… it took me a while to figure that out but I’m not a very smart man and it’s 3 a.m.)

- Will “Not William Robert, unless you’re Mama Sully scolding me” Sullivan

Inspirational and futuristic user experience design

 

Smashing Magazine did a cool piece today about the “User Experience Of The Future”:

“We’ve got used to a number of things. To traditional mouse-keyboard user interaction, to 2D windows-based user interface and to a rather unspectacular user’s workflow which enables one user interact with only one application at a time. For instance, while you’re browsing in your web browser you can’t scale your text and resize your window simultaneously — unless you are a keyboard-shortcut-master.

Good news: it can be different. Below we present some of the outstanding recent developments in the field of user experience design. Most techniques may seem very futuristic, but they are reality. And in fact, they are extremely impressive. Keep in mind: they can become ubiquitous over the next years.”

Check it out, there’s lots of sci-fi inspired stuff here that could be used as inspiration for multimedia project interfaces or general brain exploding.

- Will “This is cool, but where’s my flying car?” Sullivan

The Panoramist

Gary O’Brien a picture editor/photographer from The Charlotte Observer has started a new blog called the Panoramist. You might have heard Gary recently speak on the topic of photojournalistic panoramas at the recent Flying Short Course stop in D.C. He was also a multimedia coach and speaker at the NPPA Multimedia Immersion and Summit last summer in Portland.

Check out the blog, Gary is very helpful and eager to get photojournalists cranking with QTVR panoramas — heck he even helped me find my “nodal” point.

New Faces!!!

Just a little more proof to me that no one reads bylines. There are some new faces posting here:

• Brent Foster
• Chris Jordan
• William Robert Sullivan
• Chip Oglesby
• Shaminder Dulai

Let’s welcome them. They’ve already made some fantastic contributions.

Others who have access but haven’t posted in a while, hint, hint, are:

• Zach Wise
• Chuck Fadely
• Seth Gitner

Want in on the action? Know Wordpress, and have a pulse on the multimedia world?

drop me a line richardkocihernandez(at)gmail.com and I’ll get you a set of keys.

enjoy

-r

First in Line

If you’re working at a newspaper around the Thanksgiving holidays then it’s a guarantee that at some point you’ll be sent out to cover Black Friday, (edit: oh wait, Will already said that, damn you Will!) the annual post T-day holiday marked by long lines, shivering toes and AP video of grandmas being trampled in the aisles of some big box store as they mad dash for that last bagel sized wide slot toaster with the chrome accents that they’ll later take home and eventually gift away when they can’t figure out why they even bought it in the first place… I mean, I love commercialism.

Evelio Contreras of The Roanoke Times created a piece on a group of high school kids waiting in line at a Best Buy (They say there’s nothing better to do in Roanoke, makes sense to me!) that’s entertaining and shows that there are stories to be found everywhere. It’s the best Black Friday multimedia I’ve this year, perhaps ever. (Edit: Sorry Dai, I disqualified you since we’re friends… and Will beat me to it, yeah that’s the ticket.)

Steven Hutto, Andrew Tuck and Daniel Sarver, all students who know each other from Hidden Valley High School, played badminton, flew kites and sang songs to pass the time in order to be among the first in line when Best Buy opened early on Friday, Nov. 23.

I just have one question, what were they waiting for and did they get it? Other than that, awesome.

Oh and be sure to keep at look out for your next American Idols at the 6 p.m. mark.

-Shaminder “Happy Thanksgiving” Dulai

Out of Town

It’s the holiday weekend and that can only mean one thing, it’s time to get Out of Town (ok, two if you’re working at a paper: that you’re working at a paper).

While Out of Town is not affiliated with any newspaper, that doesn’t stop this web series from delivering short and sweet feature-y community news.

My favorite is the trip to a Wisconsin amusement park, good times. There are six installments up so far from the first stop in the series and there are promises for more from the second leg in Pennsylvania to launch in February.

The site itself, designed by the man behind the world’s first internet fire, is a shmorgusboard of visual beeps and boops.

A very clean and well thought out presentation of a new take on covering local oddities. And if you think having a host in front of the camera is not in keeping with journalism, really it’s nothing new, it’s just the weekly columnist in multimedia form, and boy is it fun to watch.

-Shaminder

Beating boring TV-style video on Black Friday

Everyone and their freaking brother and their brother’s brother-in-law has to cover Black Friday. It’s written in journalism 101 textbooks, next to the definition of nutgraphs.

Dai Sugano at The Merc did the best job that I’ve seen today covering this in a creative manner that the local TV station wouldn’t have.

Here’s to taking a boring assignment and making it interesting!

-Will “Just Lost His Multimedia Shooter Posting Viginity” Sullivan

Raven and Jason

Raven and Jason is a powerful, simple story about a couple living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

-Brent

Interactive Image Interfaces and two interviews

A great blog post about interactive image interfaces has several links that may help inspire some of the designers and developers who visit multimediashooter. I’ll highlight a few to save people some time.

10×10 is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10×10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10×10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.

The Flickr related tag browser is an awesome way to waste time, I mean explore the web . For Thanksgiving fun try a search for “turkey.”

Check out the post to see some more.

Now for the two videos. First, this video interview with Harlan Ellison has been getting quite a bit of play lately. It’s definitely worth watching and is chalk full of wisdom for any aspiring freelancers out there. Second, here is a funny interview with May, the turkey pardoned by the White House from the Washington Post’s onBeing.

Happy Thanksgiving -

Chris

Abuse Aware

Photographer Donna Ferrato, Red Design, and MediaStorm have put together a powerful site featuring Ferrato’s work. Video production via MediaStorm.
“AbuseAware.com is the first domestic violence website to visually prove how devastating all forms of abuse are for everyone. By confronting the public with documentation of real faces and true stories, photographer Donna Ferrato shoots to wake up society through the media, domestic violence organizations, exhibitions, lectures, slideshows, campaigns, and events. We must recognize and take action against this epidemic. This website seeks justice and support through an interactive DV web community where anyone can relate their experiences through video, photographs, and blog entries 24/7. We encourage you to be a part of this cause, not only to help others, but to heal yourself or those you love. You express. We expose.”

-Brent

Heroes of HIV

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and The Palm Beach Post got together to create a very in depth exploration of an HIV/AIDS epidemic in our backyard, or should I say playground.

The Caribbean islands, a popular American vacation destination, has the highest rate of infection in the western hemisphere, with rates rivaling that of Africa.

Two hours from South Florida shores the island of Hispaniola has the highest rates in this hemisphere.

There, in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, heroes have fought the epidemic with little but conviction and courage – some with new help now from U.S. money, some continuing without, but all with optimism.

Heroes of HIV approaches the stories from a very classical documentary approach and doesn’t get too fancy with its multimedia, but you don’t need it when some of the pieces can have you on the verge of tears and rage at the same time.

Sideshows, articles, video, historical analysis, external links to additional information– there’s so much to explore, and still more on the way.

Also the piece moves beyond good journalism by including PDfs for the major statistics and a section for teachers, with handouts and everything an educator would need for the classroom.

Social documentary in a new media age done right.

-Shaminder

Diamond Road

“An interactive documentary that learns from your choices and grows with the community”

-Brent

The original OG is BACK!

The site that launched my career in multimedia and this site for that matter, is coming back. I really can’t wait to see what they cooked-up. Three cheers!

-r

Chris Jordan with the assist

Interactive collage

I’ve been working with VUVOX on creating this interactive collage on a local neighborhood in San Jose. It’s fun, fast and easy to create using VUVOX. They haven’t released the collage feature to the public yet…. but soon, I’m told. You should really get familiar with what tools VUVOX is offering now, cuz it’s way cool.

enjoy,

-r

Feels like fall

It looks like Laurie Skrivan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch decided to try something different in painting a picture of the changing season in her corner of Missouri.

Experience the colors, sounds and feelings of fall in this esoteric look at the season. Marked by football, rain, the falling of the leaves, corn mazes and beautiful sunsets, Missouri’s fall is distinct.

This is the type of moody pieces I personally love, and it’s another good example of new-wave vignetting. Who says everything has to be big, grand and monumental? Sometimes it good just to focus on the little things and stop to smell the pumpkins.

-Shaminder

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