“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 [...]
“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.
7 Responses
tnxs for this seth!
Hey Seth, glad you had a good time, and that’s great about Meg Loucks! There are a lot of good people on their faculty, including the legendary Darrell Barton.
Seems they have come a long way toward supporting newspaper video shooters. I went through the first Platypus workshop there in 1999…the first week of the Platypus was independent of the NPPA TV News Workshop, and the second week we joined in with them. The first couple of years were a success for Platypus people there in Norman, and folks like David Leeson attended there. It lasted for a couple of years, and then the TV folks decided after 2001 that they wanted to have nothing to do with newspaper still shooters moving to video.
It looks like they now realize that they were missing the boat, so they changed their name to News Video Workshop and dropped the TV part, to attract still photographers. After treating Dirck Halstead like crap and ridiculing his ideas the TV leaders of the NPPA have moved to capitalize on what he started.
You could read comments from TV shooters in News Photographer magazine over the last couple of years, as they began to admit that Dirck was right and they were full of it. One guy even said how he thought the sight of still photographers walking around with XL-1 cameras looked ridiculous compared to their ‘manly’ Betacams. Incidentally, the first class of the Platypus had three Pulitzer winners and two World Press photo winners.
The majority of TV folks do not take still photogs moving toward video seriously, for the most part, unless you learn to shoot ‘NPPA TV style’. That is a fact.
Most still photogs learning video can pick up a lot from good TV shooters, and there are a lot of great folks among them. But we have to find our own way.
boy Roger you sure do have a lot of pent up anger toward TV folks.
We need to help tear down the walls with the us and them mentality between TV and Still.
Things are changing. The NPPA is reacting to the change in the industry. I have known your work for years — and you know mine — but I take great insult that you do not see the pros to what the NPPA is trying to do here, what I am, trying to do to help the industry.
> the TV leaders of the NPPA have moved to >capitalize on what he (dirck) started.
no you’re wrong here. I met the workshop leader last summer and we had a long talk at last years summit — she invited me “the volunteer and still guy” to the workshop while at the same time — she and I worked closely to figure out out how the NPPA as a national organization can help to train newspaper shooters who are changing to video.
– it is about how we as an organization, the NPPA can help. To start we took out the TV from the name and I want to say that I take partial credit for making that happen.
As the Multimedia Chairman for The NPPA I am trying my best to get as many folks both still and TV trained in multimedia storytelling techniques.
This is not a war between mediums — it is an exchange of thought about how to tell great stories and to build audiences on the web through great visual storytelling.
Realize that this is is a new beginning. As a member of the faculty of the NewsVideo workshop — my role is to help the organizers figure out how to tailor some of the content toward still shooters only doing web video.
Like I said it’s all about storytelling.
We know there is a huge demand for multimedia training — as professionals we need to respond, to assist and to help our photojournalist brethren.
The NPPA as an organization includes TV, Still and Multimedia members we are all joining to make the future of visual storytelling the best it can be.
Seth, you misunderstand, perhaps I was not clear. I have no anger toward TV folks. As a matter of fact, I was mostly trained by one of the best in the business, Rolf Behrens, my partner on a documentary film project, and the same guy who taught Gail Fisher and also partnered with her on her ground-breaking ABC Nightline episodes.
I began doing video over ten years ago. I have seen how this entire movement toward video has evolved over the years for still photographers.
The NPPA TV people were in the beginning quite supportive, but then began to consider the whole Platypus concept an attempt to undermine their profession. They did not see, as Dirck Halstead did way back when, that the evolving technology would change the way everyone worked. Wishing it away would not work. Economic realities have made it that many TV stations are moving toward the VJ model, and that is not being greeted with happiness in the TV world, often with good reason because of how it is being implemented.
There is no war between mediums. Everything I stated in my previous post is factual. Except for the fact that TV and newspaper videojournalists use video cameras and seek to create truthful, powerful work, they are completely different cultures. They do things we would never do as newspaper people.
I do believe that the NPPA TV folks believe that they should be the ones to dictate the standards of what is good Web video storytelling. There is an ‘NPPA TV style’, and anything that does not fit this form could be rejected.
On the other hand, the best TV photographers produce work that I would be happy to call my own, and I have a lot of admiration for them (Darrell Barton, as I mentioned before, is one of my faves).
I believe it is good that you are trying to bridge the gap, and wish you good luck. You and your colleagues have been doing great, innovative things with multimedia there in Roanoke.
I think it’s interesting that the same NPPA group at Norman that put Dirck Halstead down for the Platypus Boot Camp concept years ago and eventually told him not to return is now teaching and embracing the same concept – including the Boot Camp part.
There’s no anger towards TV folks – maybe it’s towards the NPPA geniuses in Norman who didn’t want the Platypus back. I guess when a bunch of the NPPA shooters came over to our workshop to check out the small cameras & Final Cut Pro, that was too much!
Anyway, The Platypus Workshop is now on in both California and Maine and continues to grow.
Good Luck in Okalahoma,
PF Bentley
Documentary Filmmaker &
Platypus Instructor
Hi All!
What an interesting conversation! I’ve been at The Workshop since 1983, the Director since 2002 and I was in on the initial conversations with Dirck and David Snyder regarding bringing Platypus to Norman. It was always agreed that Platypus would start in Norman, eventually spinning off on its own. The two groups worked very well the years they were together and Dirck and I still support each other in our individual efforts. And while he was there we ALL enjoyed hearing from the pros on the still side…the Dali Lama piece by one of the Turnleys will forever be a strong impression in my mind. We had a blast working together, there was NO problem on site. And management of BOTH workshops agreed it was short term. I can go into more detail but it is insignificant at this point…
To the best of my knowledge, Dirck decided on his own to spin off of NPPA all together, allowing himself to profit while the industry profits from his talents…a good business decision. I’d be anxious to know why people think we treated him “like crap” when that was never part of the business deal. If there was bad blood between Dirck and previous workshop management it is long over. And it certainly isn’t worth holding a grudge and assuming all NPPA “TV” people have bad feelings towards “them” because it simply isn’t true. We work side by side daily. We have to maintain the integrity of storytelling that includes moving pictures, compelling sound and intreging subjects. We need to hold this high standard together…it is fading in local news. We have a chance to revive it on the web. That will force local news to get better or go away…wherever there is video storytelling, it needs to be solid. That is my goal as the NPPA Multimedia Workshop Director. I don’t care who you work for, what audience your aiming to please…just want it done with class!!!!!!!!!!
Please feel free to approach me with any concerns you have about integrating other photojournalists into The Workshop. Bad blood in the past is costing everyone a great education.
Sharon Levy
Director
NPPA Multimedia NewsVideo Workshop
slevyfreed@msn.com
I wonder who started this bit of paranoia. Whomever the culprit, he is just dead wrong when he accuses the “TV People” of treating still shooters like crap and putting down the Platypus workshop. I have been a faculty member of the workshop since 1973. The Bootcamp method has been a part of the workshop for as long as I can remember. It certainly was in 1969 when I attended as a student. I watched with great interest the Platypus program develop alongside the workshop program. I never saw nor heard of any animosity toward the still shooters. In fact I saw the opposite. I saw lots of TV guys attending the Platypus sessions seeking to learn more about them. I understood that Dirck wanted to take his project outside the NPPA so he could profit from it and that is why the Platypus left the workshop. Dirck wasn’t kicked out. It is too bad that our view of the “facts” concerning those events differ so greatly with Mr. Richards. I find it disheartening that some still guys are actively working to drive a wedge between us when no rift exists. I just completed the best workshop I have ever attended and it was largely because of having photographers like Seth Gitner, Richard Pruitt, Lyn Alweis, and especially Meg Loucks attending and participating. I am very high on the future of the workshop and of the relationship between still and TV shooters whose work is becoming one.