WORKSHOPS:
Two-Week Documentary Workshop - Mississippi Delta
Start Date: February 14th, 2010
This 2-week HDV workshop is designed for photojournalists who are looking to make the move to videojournalism and the web, new documentary filmmakers who want to launch their careers in web and television documentaries and for those with experience in some aspects of film making that are looking to expand their skill, understanding and mastery of the whole process. Producers, cinematographers, editors and writers with narrative experience who are considering working in non-fiction film making are also encouraged to enroll.
Students will learn all aspects of the process including the importance of the still image, HDV camera, compact lighting methods, field sound, field editing and how to weave the story. To view an extended version of the course description, visit our website at barefootworkshops.org
This is one of many workshops that Barefoot will be running in 2009. In addition to the Mississippi Delta, check out our website to learn more about our workshops in Africa and how you can participate.
Homepage: barefootworkshops.org
Contact: chandler@barefootworkshops.org
Tuition: $2,350.00 (includes tuition, housing and food)
Instructors: Chandler Griffin, Julie Winokur, Teddy Symes and Yoni Brook
Past Equipment Sponsors: Apple, Canon, Tekserve, B&H, Bogen, Gitzo, Kata, Tiffen, Sennheiser, Glyph, G-Tech, Litepanels, Anton Bauer, Lowel, D&M Professional
Barefoot Workshops is a New York City-based not-for-profit 501(c)3, founded by Chandler Griffin in 2004, that offers short, intensive workshops around the world in narrative and documentary filmmaking. We assist organizations and individuals to use media, music and the arts, to accelerate progress and program goals in areas such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, conflict resolution, resettlement, youth empowerment, civil rights, and democracy building. We have worked with partners as diverse as UNESCO, Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, The U.S. State Department and The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), to pioneer new formats and “media templates” that reinforce citizen-led, community-owned solutions to these challenges.
The main goal of Barefoot Workshops is to equip students with the knowledge and confidence to use sophisticated equipment while having a foundation that allows a person to create beautiful images regardless of the tools. At Barefoot, growing and learning as a filmmaker means growing and learning as an individual
You have an item you want to mention in this spot? Email me at richardkocihernandez@gmail.com
30 Responses
At times during my internship at the St. Cloud Times this summer, they sent me to do video on a subject that I didn’t find that … video friendly. But that was usually because what they envisioned ahead of time was not what I encountered.
Every now and then though, they would do this.
I agree, what the heck were they thinking? This is the problem I think many people are facing, management that didn’t understand photojournalism before video, and really doesn’t understand the what multimedia storytelling can really do. This is the video equivalent of someone yelling out to go get a weather picture. Hopefully these two argued their case beforehand.
My guess is that these videos were tagged to a reporter’s online story. Just one more thing that the photo departments will have to deal with until reporters are trained to shoot these video tags themselves. These videos on there own don’t have much to say, but placed in the context of a written story they might give the viewer some added value. Is it what I want to shoot? Hell no.
I had an editor from this paper tell me that video was less about photojournalists reporting a story and more about it being a supplement to the reporter’s words. That type of thinking is already archaic. Videojournalists from the photo ranks are beginning to show leadership in the newsroom. We must continue to set the bar high.
It’s really refreshing to see someone with the courage and the moxie to stand up for good video journalism. Please go to my site and help me determine what’s crap. I give you the badge and name you my video policeman. Tell me how much I suck and bring all of us down with my crappy work. I can take it. I have lots of confidence in how much crap I can take.
I would love the same public Internet floggings you gave the above journalist. Only difference….I asked for it.
Way to stick it to them.
I find the tone of the posting extremely passive aggressive at the photographers and it irks me.
It says – “No disrespect to the photographers” but in the same breath it’s mentioned – “Please defend yourselves.”
I would encourage you to check with the photographer first to have an understanding of why they had to do this instead of splashing it out there without understanding the context and bringing negative energy on their name.
I know Jason well, and he does excellent still and video work. However, the posting cut him short by making a the quick and easy condemnation before asking him the reason he had to do it in the first place.
it should read editors defend yourself. I’ve been In the business long enough to know this is beyond photogs. But when you work at a place that uses these pieces as examples of why we ahould be producing five staff videos a day, i feel the need to speak out and say no. This is not the kind of video journalism we should settle for. All eyes are on us as an industry and we have a responsibility to speak up. We should be fighting and talking about this kind of thing to death. I know i didnt become a photojournalist to be told to go shoot video of grass growing. Maybe its time for me to get out of newspapers. And, as for me splashing this out there….well dont forget any jerk with a blog can say what they want.
i think the time to always be nice is over. Its time for some tough love. Dont get too worked up about the spreading of negativity there is always a bad apple in the bunch, but because it looks so ugly and moldy and smells bad it makes the rest of the apples look good.
-r
As a Web producer for mid-sized group of papers, I’m all for tiered video on the Web. By this I mean having a mix of well produced video packages that can stand alone from a written story and short clips packaged with text, graphics and photos that certainly can’t stand alone very well.
Granted, those short clips should somehow enhance the story. And a reporter could just as easily shoot it as a photog.
But, the fact of the matter is that sending photographers out on extended video assignments doesn’t make much sense on deadline either. A photo is arguably easier to produce and it can be used in multiple media (the paper, the Web, cell phones, etc.), whereas video takes generally more time to create and can really only exist on the Web right now; Unless you have some kind of deal with a TV station, that video has a smaller audience than a series of photos. So it makes since to spend more time on photos than video, thus producing more short clips and saving produced video packages for weekend centerpiece stories.
My argument extends further to text and photos. Why not put the “crap” on the Web, too? Storage and distribution costs may as well be zero and everything on the Web finds an audience regardless of how you perceive the quality. Write briefs about the little league game that will never make the paper, add those photos you don’t have space for in the paper, or that you think are unworthy of print. SOMEONE wants to see it.
This is the beauty of the Web, the crap and the masterpieces are the same value when it comes to serving up advertisements; two eyeballs equals on ad, regardless of what those eye are seeing. There isn’t the problem of limited space and time, like we have with newspapers and TV respectively.
The “archaic” line of thinking is that you only distribute what you think is the best content. You don’t speak for everybody in your audience.
I think it’s time for newspaper and TV people (I’ve worked in both areas) to start understanding the Long Tail of the Web. Google it.
That is all.
you seem to be coming from the money, ads, and eyeballs point of view. I understand that. But i hate to see my fellow artists and storytellers lose their collective voice because of the long tail, youtube and google. I think we have a better argument than this to the management at our papers, so that talented journalists don’t have to go out and make videos of paint drying. We have better and more important stories to tell. And I’ve never claimed to speak for anyone other than myself.
No, you should have talked to the photgs first, checked it out from their point of view. You should of investigated the the issues around the videos. I’d suggest you could call the N&O editors and give them a chance to state their video policies.
A few weeks ago you asked and posted a poll asking where you should go with this blog. It sounded, with the tone of the message; you needed encouragement with the hard work of compiling the info contained on the site. None of the replies suggested this direction.
I hope you get yourself out of this because I see this site as a hub of motivation and enlightenment. Not a source of ridicule and blame……
Randall Hill
I’ll defend Richard’s post because I’ve done a lot of these types of posts as well.
The Internet is a public place. When you put something up, you can’t control what happens to it or who says what. Trying to say that Richard shouldn’t talk about these issues reminds me of a time when a fireman tried to bar an Express-News photographer from photographing the victim of a car crash. It was a public street, and the reporting on the crash was for the public interest. It may be difficult for these two photographers to hear criticism of their videos, but their videos were in the public space and this discussion is important. Now is the time to protest these types of assignments!
Richard’s site is for learning. He usually highlights amazing samples of work. But you can’t learn everything that way. You’ve also got to see and recognize examples of things that didn’t quite work out. I’m sure the two journalists who produced these videos KNEW it wasn’t the best thing they’ve ever done … Not everything that we do can deserve a Pulitzer.
This is the right time and the right forum to have discussions about things like this.
Do we want to be wasting talented photojournalists’ time to produce pieces of crap like this? I feel like I wasted time in my life watching that … Luckily it wasn’t too long.
I agree with what Colin said. When the reporters are trained to shoot their own complimentary videos, then the photographers can focus on creating compelling visual stories that are worth peoples’ time. I actually wrote something a little similar earlier this week.
angela and others seemed to have got my point. and i beg to differ, with randall “Not a source of ridicule and blame” where’s the ridicule or blame, i justed asked WHY? I NEVER commented on the QUALITY of the videos or the talents of the photogs. and it was never meant with any malice.
Richard, I appreciate the reply.
I don’t think that long tail economics means that you’re going to lose your “voice.” Trust me, I’d rather see what I think is good video than what I think is bad video. And I’m sure there’s a very large audience out there for good video.
I guess what I’m saying is that these short clips, taken out of context don’t make for good storytelling. But in the context of the written text, other photos, etc., they make sense and compliment the story in a way that doesn’t take too much of a photographer’s time away from producing content for other stories.
I am coming at it from an eyeballs and ads standpoint, because that’s my job in this business. But the fact remains that we’re not just creating for one medium, we’re creating for multiple media.
We have to maximize our efforts. And sometimes that means producing crap video when it’s pulled out of the context of the package. Talk to your Web developers and tell them to make sure that clips like this aren’t found on the site out of their original context.
“”Why not put the “crap” on the Web”" – The answer is simple – there is already a ton of ‘crap’ on the web, why is someone gonna come look at your crap as opposed to someone else’s crap.
If we just start posting everything then the good stuff gets lost. It all becomes white noise.
That’s not true, Jeff. If it were, then Google wouldn’t be worth billions.
There’s two things here that you’re talking about, though. First let’s get “white noise” out of the way.
We’re in the business of creating content. There’s myriad ways to find content online, and you’re probably familiar with all of them or else you and I wouldn’t be at this site.
You’d never be able to comprehend the Internet today if it weren’t for search technology.
The long tail works because filters work. If your Web site isn’t doing a good job at giving users tools to filter the news or break it down into specific pieces of content (most newspaper sites and almost all TV sites are horrible at this), then that’s why it’s “white noise.”
You can never have too much content. And arguing against it seems counter-intuitive to those who wish to keep their jobs in the newsroom.
This is the perfect argument for creating more jobs.
Now for the “why is someone gonna come look at your crap” argument. Because if you’re the only place writing about the little league game in Devils Lake, N.D., there’s no place else to get it. So people will find it at your site.
The real question is why do newspapers continue to put national news (usually AP) on their sites when THAT can be found anywhere on the Web.
Ah, the age-old quality vs. quantity debate..
I propose an equilibrium,
instead of having a little bit of good-shit
or a lotta bit if crap,
why not just have a lot of good shit?
For this to work,
it may mean having
a) Enough people working who are qualified,
are paid what they’re worth
and given enough time to pursue quality
and
b) An economic model is in place which isn’t 100% advertising.
Let’s change economics of news..
Money is made on advertising. Not on storytelling.
The sales from subscriptions usually only count towards
the printing and delivery costs of the paper/magazine.
Thus,
money is seldom made on the content.
Imagine for a moment,
making more money on content than on advertising..
Sell extended cuts of video-stories through services like iTunes Music Store.
Say you go out and do a story;
you make a 2-3 minute cut of it available for free online
and you also make a 5-6 minute extended cut
that is exclusively available through your paper’s online store
for $0.99-$1.99 per downloadable copy.
Imagine selling 10,000 copies of a high-quality extended story
for $1.99 each, grossing $19,900.
Assuming that iTunes (or whomever) and taxes take 30-50%,
you’ve effectively made a net profit on one video for almost $10,000-14,000.
Assume your paper gives you at least 50% of all net profits from the stories you sell,
you’ve made $5,000-7,000 dollars in your pocket on one video.
Us journalists are perhaps accustomed to making a set salary
which is mandated by ‘the market.’
A corporate outlet might only pay a low set salary-rate
regardless of how good the given hired journalist is.
Because we are not rewarded financially based on merit,
where is our incentive to put in that extra ten percent?
To make that story the best it can be? Not in the paycheck.
Now,
imagine a merit-based payment model
where your income is supplemented by sales of your videos downloaded.
Better produced stories will receive more downloads,
so you are perhaps more directly motivated to produce better videos.
Imagine paying people based on the merit and quality of their work
and giving them more incentive to learn and perfect their job skills.
The stories that sell, in theory, won’t be the mediocre dailies or the quickly produced pieces.
They will have to be stories of high production-value
that have historical or literary significance.
Long-term, as opposed to short-term, value.
Instead of making the newspaper product a glorified bulletin board for advertisers
(that masquerades around as a news outlet)
why not make your product the actual news?
Stories that matter,
stories that change or impact the way people think. Stories that help people.
Stories that educate people, help them to understand, or enrich their perspective.
Imagine having a week to do a story with your employer knowing full-well
that it is economically and commercially feasible to do so.
Because, afterall, if you strike gold with your story,
you may have produced in one week,
what will continue to make you and your paper money
(from perpetual sales of internet downloads)
for upwards of, say, 30+ years.
There is often too much filler in newspapers.
Much of the content is often unnecessary.
But if you have, a 50/50 news content-to-advertising ratio,
and you have 100 pages of ads,
then you are required to produce 100 pages of news content
probably without enough journalists on staff who even have enough time to do so.
The more assignments you have to do a day, with the less time per assignment,
the more mediocre your work is going to be.
How can anybody be expected
to produce something of significance when they are living
in a constant state of work-related stress and financial insecurity?
No wonder morale is low,
no wonder the soul of journalism has been sucked dry and lifeless
by the economics of the news industry.
Here’s another crazy idea.
Why limit ourselves to just journalism?
Why can’t our news sites deliver different kinds of media than just news?
Imagine,
having a one-stop shop for news, documentary, art, music, and entertainment?
Imagine being able to experiment, produce, and sell all kinds of narratives
through your paper’s site?
There’s more to life and communication than just journalism..
what about editorial or creative non-fiction?
Isn’t there value in that too?
Journalism doesn’t always do the trick,
sometimes you need a little bit of poetry or artistic expression in the mix
to really communicate what it is that needs to be communicated.
As long as you present your journalism as journalism,
your fiction as fiction, and your biased-propaganda as ‘editorial’
then you are probably being ethical.
The problem arises when you present your editorial as journalism,
or your fiction as non-fiction, et cetera.
There is a financial incentive for news publications to allow for this.
Your creative non-fiction or editorial video-compositions
might end up selling more downloads online than your journalism.
You can’t fit a talented journalist into a box of mediocrity
and many of the good ones are forced to go into Public Relations
just to get paid more close to what they’re worth.
If the current market trends continue in journalism at their current pace,
there will no longer be such a thing as journalism as we know it in ten more years.
It will all become public relations, and quite frankly, it almost already is.
To rescue journalism we must change the economics of journalism.
Albert Einstein said that the way of the world
is the product of how we think,
and to change the world,
we must change the way we think.
The economics of journalism are a product
of how business and marketing-people think;
to change the economics of journalism,
we must change the way business and marketing-people think about journalism.
-p.money
I was checking out the News Observer site and was impressed to see that their photo staff has seven different photo columns. You can see some of staff photog Chris Seward’s photo columns here: http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/family_community/view/
Also, there is an nice video by photog Jason Arthurs about quadriplegic rugby here. — http://www.newsobserver.com/1241/story/497771.html
Here is a link to their multimedia section. I only see three videos but there are a lot of good audio-slideshows. . — http://www.newsobserver.com/gallery/index.html
A lot of us probably take pride in being able to make nice photos out situations where the odds were against us. Video isn’t like that. If it’s not there, it’s really not there. Editors are going to have to start understanding what makes a good video and what doesn’t. It’s up to us to pass around good work to our word counterparts and show them where the bar is being set.
The public is watching photogs learn on the job and they are watching newspapers experiment with new ways of using multimedia to see what works. It looks to me like the videos in the first post were an attempt at video wild art. Judging by their web site which has a bunch of slideshows, audio-slide shows, and Flash pieces they are using a bunch of multimedia formats. They are trying to flush out what works for them, as we all are. I do understand Richards concerns. When all the experimenting and trials are done, I hope good story telling wins out. The good news for all of us is that great online journalism requires great visuals and online is making photographers even more relevant because we supply much of what people are looking at when they visit our newspaper’s sites. For me, video and multimedia has really given me a lot of freedom to do stories on my own.
Pat
Zac,
I can’t disagree with you enough.
We are not in the business of creating content. We are in the business of telling stories about our communities, to our communities.
We should never forget that.
If you just think of your job as creating content your will wind up with content for content’s sake. The result is too much content. Yes, TOO MUCH CONTENT.
That is not counter-intuitive at all. Its an argument for good work
If you have a few good stories and a ton of crap who is gonna see the good stuff? and why would they want to come back?
you answered the question about “why is someone gonna come look at your crap” argument. By saying “Because if you’re the only place writing about the little league game in Devils Lake, N.D., there’s no place else to get it. So people will find it at your site.”
I don’t buy that argument. you are saying its ok to do crap if as long as you don’t have competition.
I’m saying you publish stories and photos that you wouldn’t otherwise put in the paper. That’s what I mean by “crap.” I guess I need to define “crap” as information that you normally wouldn’t let see the “light of day” as per Richard’s origninal post. It’s still valuable to someone, even if you consider it sub par work.
It’s just as valuable to your reader and your advertiser.
from somewhere inside the N&O, a quote for Randall and Ross,
“outside vindication soothes a troubled soul. cheers!”
Shit flows downstream…
i don’t even know what that means, because everything flows downstream…… and use you real name, please.
I never said I didn’t want to talk about the issues or I wanted the blogger to muzzle his words. This is a free speech country and forum.
I just wanted you to think about the remark. “Please defend yourselves.”
And you did.
This is good news, not for just these photogs but for all of us out there who sometimes are not given the choice of what we shoot. I have to eat and pay my bills.
Last week I shot and edited 6 videos of high school football previews. This on top of the daily still images for the paper. These videos, although not crap, are not ones I would like to see in this context and with those words. Not after the long shifts I worked last week.
I say before you do, “Come and walk in my shoes partner.”
Richard, I don’t know you but I have seen your work and it has inspired me. Thank you for this forum. I’m very grateful.
I’m sorry if my remarks “ridcule” and “blame” were hurtful.
Randall Hill
not at all, you have to have a thick skin to put yourself ‘out there’, as i’m sure you know. i’ve only been doing this for 13 years but i’ve had plenty of those days you’ve described.
I sort of saw these as moving pictures… like the pictures in the newspapers of the Harry Potter movies (or books, which I prefer much more). I could see someone thinking it might be an interesting idea…
Videos like these won’t save newspapers.
We as journalisits have an obligation to both our employers and mankind. Almost always, it is possible to serve both.
But it takes a lot of willpower, politics, and hard work to still serve mankind when an editor tells you to shoot videos like these. We have an obligation to do stories that matter.
Everyone has a story. Find it. Don’t roll over and play dead.
Joe Elbert has a great rule of thumb for photos – which I am going to butcher as I don’t have the handout in front of me.
Three types of photography:
1) Informative
2) Graphic
3) Emotional
Emotional, of course, is the highest level, denoting an image that includes elements of the first two categories, but goes a step further.
Is there a reason newspaper video should not follow that basic guideline? Does every video we do need to be a 1:30 masterpiece? Isn’t there room for videos (like the two linked above) that, within a larger context, simply show the scene?
One of the most popular videos we had this year was 90 seconds of water rushing under a bridge during a destructive flood. It was shot on a p/s and required no editing. It barely qualified as journalism – except it gave readers a view that few of them could see in person but which affected all of their lives directly.
There are plenty of great stories out there – and we need to focus on telling them well. That being said it is patently unrealistic and unfair to argue that we as photojournalists are too good to spend our time shooting anything other than ‘the best’ video.
Video is no different than anything else in this biz: we should do great work and take our time on the stories that matter. And, in other cases we should grab a p/s and get 30 second clip of the big fire downtown so we can add some value to the 2 inch breaking news update on the site.
Why not have just shot a photo? Video was the wrong ‘brush’ for this ‘painting’ IMO it seemed like video ‘because we can’ kind of choice from the newspaper and that’s what I’m against. I never meant the debate to be about if it was good or not, hell we put up our share of crap too.
i’m with richard on video being the wrong tool for these stories.
for the lake story, i think the most effective way to show readers the extent of the drought would be to pair a full lake photo with a drought lake photo taken from the same vantage point. this shows readers the extent of the problem and saves the paper time, money and bandwith.
as for the second video, almost half of it is footage of a water bottle being filled. i’m no genius, but i have to imagine that there is a lot more important shit going on in town than that water bottle being filled. maybe damon can answer this, what is either, informative, graphic or emotional about that video. once again i think one picture, maybe a well-composed, decisive-moment, hot-weather feature, which a ultra-talented photographer like chris seward can do in his sleep, would do a better job of telling the story, serving the reader and using the resources of the paper.
p.s. chris’ work on the n&o’s photo column “the view” is outstanding – here are a few links
http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/family_community/view/image_media/651511.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/family_community/view/image_media/596639.html
chris
[...] August Koci chastised the Raleigh News and Observer photo staff on this blog for a video that was just . . . well . . [...]
What happened to the videos?