10 common video storytelling mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Five years after Youtube’s birth there’s probably not a newsroom in the land that isn’t trying to do video journalism in some way or another.

I say ‘trying’ because, as you’ll probably have seen, the vast amount of online video produced just doesn’t cut it. It’s long, boring, technically poor – and amateurish. This is a big shame because online video – done well – has the power to be an art form, to touch people, to make them understand something, to make them care.

As well as training journalists all over Europe in how to do video storytelling, and watching a helluva lot of video stories, I’ve also been teaching student journalists at Kingston University how to do video for more than two years. And in that time I’ve seen all the classic mistakes made. Here’s my run down – as always, if I’ve missed one off, stick it in the comments.

10 common video mistakes (and how to avoid them)

.01 you don’t prioritise sound

I’m actually gonna stick this one at the top because it’s probably the most common mistake. I’ve seen far too many video stories where the interview is practically inaudible, drowned out by traffic, air conditioning or something else. The cause? Not using an external microphone.

Audiences seem quite happy to tolerate poor quality pictures – they don’t mind mobile phone footage for example; but they will not tolerate crappy sound. End of. Invest in a good quality clip microphone for interviews and a Rodemic or similar for on board sound.

.02 you get too caught up in kit

We’ve all met one of these guys before: a ‘depth-of-field-Dave’ who’s more interested in whether you’re shooting on a prime lens than what the story is. They’re the sort of folk who make those music montages on Vimeo where everything looks very pretty and is out of focus, but expresses no meaning.

Kit matters – to an extent – but I believe a good story is a good story whether you shot it on the iPhone 4S or a Canon 5D MkII. At the same time, a poor story is not rescued by a shallow depth-of-field…in fact, it looks just that: shallow.

(NOTE: you’ll almost certainly be able to trawl back through the archives of this blog and find posts where I rave about depth-of-field: let’s just say I’ve grown as a film maker!)

Image: Francois Schnell on Flickr

.03 you don’t use a tripod

What’s the quickest way to ensure professional looking footage in any situation? Don’t move the camera!

It’s that simple. Flip cams, iPhones and DSLR cameras are the most susceptible to looking amateurish when hand-held, because they’re so light. Invest in a light set of Manfrotto sticks and use them for everything. Of course, handheld footage is powerful, and necessary, in certain situations – but more often I see it used as a technique through laziness rather than intention.

[Update: Video journalism advocate Michael Rosenblum argues that tripods are unnecessary: have a look and see what you think]

.04 you don’t shoot in sequences

This one is the bane of anyone who has to teach video to fresh faces: I personally invest hours of class time in explaining, demonstrating and showing examples of sequences in action – and when they don’t appear in finished pieces it’s exasperating.

Sequences – put simply – are a series of shots, showing a single action, creating the illusion of continuous movement. They are the hallmark of cinema, television news and now online video. What’s the difference between amateurs and professionals? Pros shoot sequences.

.05 you parachute into stories

One great advantage of online video journalism over television news is the absence of such tight deadlines. Online, journalists in the future are likely to work inside niches, and therefore will have time to build up contacts, develop relationships and explore stories before taking out the camera.

I can’t underestimate the importance of spending time with your subject/character before filming. Photojournalists have always done this very well, and the photogs who’ve moved to video have brought with them their investment in character. Those moving from television tend to do things the TV way: a quick pre-interview on the phone, then turn up, get the shots and get out.

Which one do you think works better?

.06 you try to copy television

On a similar theme, another big mistake new video journalists make is trying to copy what they see on CNN. Let me be clear: television news is highly formulaic, and it’s a formula designed to work within the tough day-to-day rigour of turning a story round in 3 hours. It works great for TV and that’s good for them.

But to see that formula infect this new genre of online video is heartbreaking in someways – partly because it is so young, and the potential so great. So switch off your TV – and if you have to seek inspiration from anywhere, try your local cinema.

Image credit: Dave Kellman on Flickr

.07 your stories are too long

It’s a well worn (although difficult to back up) belief that online attention spans are short and therefore video should be equally short too. Whether this is true or not, video should always be as short as it could possibly be. As Orwell said, ‘never use a long word when a short one will do.’

If you can tell your story in 90 seconds, why bulk it out to 3 minutes? You’re just wasting everyone’s time. This requires a certain ruthlessness – but if you can train yourself to ‘kill your babies’ as the saying goes, you’ll be a better journalist for it.

.08 you don’t understand storytelling

There are too many journalists who call themselves ‘multimedia storytellers’ or ‘digital storytellers’ or ‘visual storytellers’ but who have never read Robert McKee’s Story or The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (NB: affiliate links).

Storytelling is an ancient art, a craft, that survives human generations because it is without doubt the best way to help people comprehend the world around them. If you care about storytelling at all, you’ll try to master its secrets.

.09 you tell and don’t show

I remember the first video story I did while training at City University some years ago. We felt pretty proud of ourselves: we had a good story and what we made looked like a proper TV news package. But our lecturer wasn’t impressed: ‘you’ve just made radio with some pictures over the top’.

Image: mac_ivan on Flickr

And she was right: our film was laden with long rambling voice over scripts, dull soundbites and the pictures were wallpaper that didn’t add to the story. I’ve always remembered that lesson, and now remember the importance of using pictures to show the story happening and not to describe it.

.10 you don’t play to video’s strengths

Finally, video today is used because it can be, and not because it should be. There is too much video coverage of conferences, long interviews with boring people, and attempts to use video to cover council politics.

Video is good at some things: emotion, action, movement, detail, processes. It is terrible at other things: numbers, meetings, politics, court cases, and anything that doesn’t happen on camera.

The solution? Use video for its strengths – and keep the camera in your bag for the rest.

Some of these are one-step quick actions which will instantly improve your video storytelling; the rest are mindsets and attitudes that take longer to change. But until we get past those, online video storytelling will not improve.

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myNewsBiz 2011: what does it tell us about entrepreneurship?

So the winners of myNewsBiz have been announced and that wraps up the pilot of our entrepreneurial journalism competition for this year.

The two winning ideas reflected the breadth of entries we received. The winner, Visualist, an idea by City University students Nick Petrie and Ben Whitelaw (of Wannabe Hacks fame) aims to provide journalists in smaller newsrooms with the skills and tools to do data journalism. The judges felt it brought something new to journalism, and targeted a very popular area in journalism today.

The runner up idea was a great idea for a magazine, called Relish, submitted by four students at Kingston University, London. The judges loved the name, but also the fact that it targeted a clear, new and gadget hungry audience – men who like cooking.

Read more about the entries and the judges’ comments here. And there’s more coverage on journalism.co.uk.

What did we learn?

All that’s left to do is give the two winners their £1000 and £500 respectively to spend getting their business ideas off the ground. We announced the competition last November and we wanted to achieve two things (as well as give out cash to good business ideas):

• we wanted to get more journalism students actively thinking about how business/enterprise works
• and I personally wanted a snapshot of how the next generation of journalists perceive entrepreneurship, after lots of talk on both sides of the Atlantic.

We achieved the first measure, and then some. As well as a series of online training videos, I visited lots of universities to talk about entrepreneurial journalism and promote the competition. Even those who did not win benefitted from the process of idea generation and asking themselves important business questions, like what is their USP and what are their revenue streams.

And there were some excellent ideas submitted, with a variety of products and services. Among those that the judges highly commended were:

• a magazine aimed at students
• Plastik magazine, already doing well in South Wales
• a magazine for young lesbians
• an online CV service for journalists

Many of the entries though (understandably!) showed little or no knowledge of what makes a good business idea. Those that scored badly did not have a clear target market identified, or any concept of how or where revenue would be made. Only a small handful of entries had really considered the figures, and were able to say “we’d need to sell 5,000 copies to break even.”

Interestingly (from my perspective, anyway) none of the entries really investigated the potential of launching an intentionally small company with low overheads and exploiting lots of free tools; the majority of entries pitched mainstream-style products (printed magazines) despite the high costs and risks associated with that. Similarly, all but two ideas were for products (even though the idea the judges liked best is a service business).

Five big mistakes lots of first-time entrepreneurs made:

.01 no clear market: lots of entries did not really know who they were trying to target with their idea; great businesses (including publishers) work when they help a specific – easily identifiable – group of people with a specific problem.

.02 choosing a market with little money: those that did know who their audience were had chosen markets where not much money flows – so there was limited chance to sell products, events or services to your audience. By contrast, the judge’s second-favourite entry has a gadget hungry market who are interested in buying.

.03 pitching a product with little value: another common problem was to pitch something that the world doesn’t need. This included blogs, podcasts or magazines that talked about general areas like music, film or sport but didn’t offer anything useful. You have to make peoples’ lives better if they (or advertisers) will part with their cash.

.04 spending money badly: most people did not have a good idea of how they would spend the £1,000 if they won it, often wanting to spend large chunks on posters, clothing or stationary. This can happen to experienced entrepreneurs too though!

.05 their idea doesn’t replicate or scale: finally, the judges were most keen on business ideas that had the potential to grow, or be replicated elsewhere. Too many of the pitches were reliant on the passion/work of one person.

Some interesting early reflections then, which I will delve into in more detail as part of research I am carrying out for Kingston University this year. Clearly, interest in entrepreneurship is yet to grow beyond a small number; the vast majority of student journalists & graduates would rather pursue the traditional path to work.

I believe though that competitions like this are vital if more students are to equip themselves with entrepreneurial skills. I’m undecided about running it again next year, although if we did, we would look for sponsors to get involved. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, then please do get in touch. 

Would you hire you?

Imagine you’re an editor at an event, and a plucky young journalism student introduces themselves. 

After a little bit of chat, they hand you this card. Would you hire them?

Obviously it would be cool to have someone called Don Draper working in your newsroom (assuming you had a lax ‘No Smoking’ policy); but that aside it’s not a very grabbing advertisement. Yet I see countless student journalists who refer to themselves on their own websites, twitter feeds or blogs as an “aspiring journalist”.

When I trained at City University in London, one of the first things we were told by the then head of department Adrian Monck was that we were, from that moment on, journalists, and were to start thinking like journalists.

Now repeat the scenario, and this time, imagine they hand you this card:

Would you call them in for an interview now? And what about if they handed you this card?

All three cards belong to the same person, except now they’re selling their skills and experience a lot better. They’ve also got rid of their hotmail account, learned some basics of design & typography, and forked out for professional domain name.

The point is, no-one knows how good you are unless you tell them.  Boldly, and with confidence.

Journalism is not law or medicine: you won’t get hauled before a council for saying you’re a journalist without the right qualifications to back you up. I once saw Peaches Geldof introduce herself as a journalist, so really, anyone can do it.

As the exams and coursework deadlines come and go, don’t undermine all that hard work and training by selling yourself short. 

Greenslade is right: I *am* saying what ought to happen

Thanks to all of you who left so many interesting and diverse comments on ‘Hold the Front Page, I haven’t got a clue‘. It’s had more than a thousand page views in 24 hours which is awesome.

British journalism commentator Roy Greenslade has also stepped into the debate, in support of Ed Caeser’s article, and dismissing myself, Adam Tinworth and Claire Wardle who disagreed with it (you can read Adam’s response here and Claire’s here).

Roy Greenslade’s criticism comes down to this:

…the difference between them and Caesar (and me) is between “is” and “ought.”

Caesar and his interviewees are telling like it is. His critics are saying what ought to happen.

And he gets it spot on: I am saying what ought to happen. I really believe journalism needs to change and should change for the benefit of everyone.

That’s why I quit my nice job in the mainstream media eight months ago. That’s why I’ve written three ebooks to help people to do things differently and better. That’s why I write thousands of words a week about it on this blog, at Duckrabbit and on journalism.co.uk. That’s why I set up the Future of News Meetups, so journalists who want to create the future can meet and come up with new ideas.

What’s the point in saying it how it is? Or fantasizing about how it was? Surely the most productive thing is to fantasize about how it could be…and then make it happen.

Greenslade ends by quoting one of his students at City University*, dismayed at the prospect of having to be entrepreneurial online. “That’s all very well” she tells him, “but I came here to get on to a newspaper.” A valid point – we must remember alternative ways of doing things aren’t for everyone (although Greenslade neglects to mention her ambitions may be because that’s what the City University brochure promised her before she paid £7,900 to do the course).

Of course, many young journalist will still want to work on a national. Thousands of them will want nothing more than to be presenting the BBC 10 bulletin in 20 years time. That was my dream when I trained.

There’s nothing wrong with holding on to that dream. The future of news still has the BBC, Sky, CNN, The Guardian, the New York Times and the Sun in it. Still doing what they do. Still hiring.

But there is this other opportunity that exists now right now that we would be plain stupid to pass up. An opportunity to diversify the news ecosystem, let new species emerge. To do something more than make coffee and rewrite press releases for five years. To not only do sort of journalism you love and get paid for it, but to go down as a pioneer and an innovator.

Oh, and there’s plenty o’ money to be made too if that’s what motivates you. The Video Journalism pioneer Michael Rosenblum says it best in a comment on this very blog:

There is an absolute fortune to be made in the journalism business today and for the next decade. The whole apple cart of our industry has been turned upside-down and that means we are undergoing a massive reorganization of our industry…there are several billion pounds laying on the table just waiting to be scooped up by any aggressive enough to go after them. And the path to that is most certainly not taking a job as a reporter at a newspaper.

Of course money isn’t everything  (although it’s what motivated the newspaper pioneers of the 19th century).

I’m going to end there, because these blogger debates tend to eventually descend into ‘you misinterpreted the tense of what I said’ pedantry. But it’s important we thrash out these issues now because, in some sense, the future of the industry relies on it.

If we let the naysayers, the doom-mongers and the sceptics win out, we risk paralysing the young innovators upon whose shoulders it falls to reinvent journalism.

They need ideas, encouragement, support and motivation – something they certainly won’t get from the Sunday Times or the Media Guardian.

A quick timeline in case you need to catch up:

• Ed Caeser writes this
• Claire Wardle tweets this
• Adam Tinworth blogs this
• I blog this
• Roy Greenslade blogs this

*I also trained, and had Greenslade lectures, at City University in 2006-7

What Simon Cowell can teach you about the future of news

Wanna big life? A big successful career? Wanna create something that makes a difference in the world? Maybe reinvent news?

The answer, we’re all told, is to think big.

“Your vision of who or where you want to be is your greatest asset” wrote Paul Arden, himself a successful advertising guru. For proof, look no further than two sheets of paper published by the Guardian newspaper today.

Named “the scribbled note that changed TV“, it is the result of a meeting between three people in 2001: TV executive Alan Boyd, and two music producers, Simon Cowell and Simon Fuller. Over an hour they discussed an idea for a new TV show, initially called Your Idol.

It’s a fascinating document for those of us who’ve followed Your Idol, into what became Pop Idol, American Idol, and now X-Factor. But it’s more interesting because it teaches us something about the power of thinking big.

Look at some of their notes:

“Gone With The Wind…never before have 50,000 people been auditioned”

“Arena, big space…multi camera”

“Nation’s No. 1 show”

These guys could have just pitched another reality show to be made in the style of Come Dine With Me or Celebrity Masterchef; and it would have had all the cultural resonance of those forgettable formats.

But they had an ambitious dream to create a product so big, it rivaled Gone With The Wind.

Their success shows the power of having an almost overwhelming dream to change the world. I once sat in on a talk with Alan Boyd in 2006 at City University: he claimed American Idol had introduced the concept of text messaging to the entire US, who until then just phoned each other.

When you have goals and a positive outlook, you have something to aim for. Having goals which get your heart racing is key to building momentum – because then you can’t imagine not achieving it…and you’ll do whatever it takes to get there. Cowell & Fuller had not met Boyd before this session, but somehow they got themselves in front of him.

So, as much as I’m loathed to hand something to him, take a leaf out of Simon Cowell’s book. Think big.

With the future of news & journalism still uncertain, this attitude is so vital in making sure we create an exciting future for it. I like to think someone reading this blog might have just the idea which will blaze the trail for the next 50-100 years: if that’s you, don’t settle for second best. Aim high!

Journalism’s “fame academy” gets blogging

It’s good to see a whole raft of postgraduate journalism students at City University now with their own blogs.

City – or the “fame academy of journalism” as it was once described – is  recognised as Britain’s leading school of journalism, a nudge ahead of  Cardiff, Westminster and Leeds Trinity All Saints.

It’s got top names, like Adrian Monck, Stewart Purvis and Roy Greenslade on its books, and more household names in its alumni than you can mention here.

But when I was there just two years ago, there was just one student blogging: me.  In fact the internet – although recognised as a valuable research tool – was somewhat sidelined in the curriculum.

Instead we focussed on getting the skills and the art of traditional TV and radio nailed.

But over the road at Westminster, almost every student was blogging, and under the tuition of David Dunkley-Gyimah producing TV and radio content online. Learning how to produce a single story three ways, not to mention the valuable art of Video Journalism.

Now I don’t think any students in my year suffered from that, but you couldn’t help but feel City might suddenly find itself out of date.

However, the numbers of student blogs of this years intake, including:  Shona Ghosh, Ali Plumb, Beth Mellor (all of whom I’ve met in various places), Abigail Edge, Claire Dickinson, James Bray, Lara King, Tommy Stubbington…suggests the internet has moved up the agenda in EC1. And rightly so.

I’d be interested to know what any of the above, or any other current City hacks think about the courses online credentials: get in touch!

Money, money, money

I spent a large proportion of today standing in the cold outside a fish packaging factory in Grimsby.

Yes, it’s only the highlife journalism for me! Why? Well because 500 people could be made redundant there – after the company’s Icelandic owner struggles with the credit crunch. It could be a massive blow to the region’s economy, and people.

Oh there it goes again.

The. Credit. Crunch.

If you’ve read this week’s Weekly Radio magazine, my former tutor at City University’s Broadcast Journalism course in London, Jan Whyatt has made some interesting points about coverage of the financial crisis so far.

“In my experience, a lot of journalists are not all that numerate. They don’t really feel feel comfortable with financial news. The people that recognise and accredit journalism training should strongly consider making it an absolute requirement to pass an exam demonstrating numeracy.”

I totally agree. I think the media has largely failed to analyse the crisis, other than with graphics of downward graphs and (the BBC’s favourite) a statistic slowly getting larger in the centre of the screen. Peston’s always good quality of course, but unfortunately he’s not available for every market. Radio meanwhile has struggled with its brevity.

I don’t just think our journalists should be armed with better knowledge; I wrote ages ago I think we ALL should!

All quiet on the Westbrook front

Been wanting to use that line for a long time…

Yes it’s been pretty quiet round here for a while..ever so sorry n all, it’s been proper crazy don’tcha know.

I usually don’t bother talking about myself on here – no-one’s interested in that – but it’s been a month of change which is probably worth scribbling down.

First things first, I’m not a student any more. And I’m now a proper journalist and everything.

I finished my exams 8 days ago and started my new job just 7 ago, which was a streak of luck, not half because I’ve also run out of money.

I’ve taken up a reporting job in Warwickshire with Touch FM, owned by the CN Radio Group. It’s a brilliant job which gets out and about lots and doing the whole reporter thing and the station’s got a good rep in the area.

So I’ve said goodbye to sunny Clapham and moved back to the Midlands and more specifically to Leamington Spa which’ll be my home for a good few years I expect.

It’s proper mad busy like, but fear not: I’ll still be keeping the blog torch alive within the contractual bounds of my job, hopefully adding some insight on life on the very greasiest bottom rung of the UK media ladder.

Oh, and another little milestone: this blog’s been visited more than 10,000 times since it started in September. Well, it looks good on the side don’t it…I’ll sum all that up shortly.

Pirates ahoy!

Is there a battle raging in our airwaves?
A study by the UK media regulator Ofcom published yesterday showed that there are as many as two hundred pirate radio stations in Britain; half of them are based in London.

But the survey of three London boroughs – Hackney, Haringey and Lambeth  – shows that they’re becoming increasingly popular: around a quarter of people in those areas regularly tune into illegal stations:

• 25% of these listeners tune in for the non-english programming
• 16% tune in for the unique music

Last month I produced a short radio package on pirate radio in London for my coursework at City University, speaking to Ofcom, LBC and ex-pirate station Voice of Africa Radio.

It’s available online – click here.

Cabin fever

What happens when TV journalists spend seven hours in an edit suite with barely a break?

This does.

Discrimination in the media: it’s not race – it’s money

Is radio racist?

That was the question asked at a Radio Academy event I went to last week. Arguments went round in a circles a little bit, with nobody actually producing even anecdotal evidence of any prejudice or discrimination in the line of their work.

Then my friend Jimmy, who works at the Radio Centre, produced some yet-to-be-published statistics from Skillset, which poured a bit more fuel on the fire:

• Averaged out, about 6% of the UK population are non-white.
• 10.9% of the BBC’s staff are non-white
• 3.1% of staff in the commercial radio sector are non-white.

A bit embarassing for commercial radio really, but you do have to mention that the majority of local radio staff work in regions and small towns. Compare that to the Beeb’s mainly London based staff. And in London nearer 30% of people are from ethnic minority backgrounds.

My own personal conclusion was (in regards to employment) the media industry is possibly the least racist industry there is. But it does discriminate still – against people, of all races, without money.

Greasy poles and NUJ polls

Take my course for example. To train to be a journalist at City University will set you back £5,995. Its equivalent at Westminster is £4,700 and £5,391 at Cardiff.

And on top of that we, plus anyone wanting to go into any branch of the industry, usually do at least a couple of months worth of unpaid work experience. And on rare occasions we get our travel expenses paid. That’s happened to me once.

I’m not for one second trying to moan about this or get above my station. I know I’m one of thousands clambering at the bottom of a great whopping dirty greasy pole; if I didn’t work for free, there are hundreds behind me who will. It’s part of the process.
But it’s worried the National Union of Journalists who today handed a survey to Her Majesty’s Custom and Exise highlighting the exploitation of people on work experience by certain companies. An early day motion’s also been tabled in parliament to discuss the NUJ’s findings.

They say some companies are bringing in unpaid students on work experience to fill HR gaps and sick leave. Here’s one example from the NUJ’s survey:

“At my local paper – I was given several by-lines including a front page exclusive and was not even offered payment for my travel expenses.”

Money, money, money

Again, I’m not here to moan, and a lot of the case studies in the NUJ survey seem to be just general “I didn’t get to do anything” rants. One person even complains “I really had to push to get work and used my own initiative to get stuff on air”…well done mate – that’s how it works.

But they do raise a good point about the cost of going into this industry. And if you’re doing the work that a freelancer could be brought in to do, then by rights you should be paid the rates.

It’s a hugely rewarding industry when you get in and – I dearly hope – my six grand will have more than paid for itself this time next year.

But it’s cold and wet on the outside looking in. Is it surprising that people get turned off from the media when they have to sacrifice so much to get in? You need extraordinary amounts of money to get started, and it’s sad fact that most of the people who can’t afford fees or unpaid work happen to be from BME backgrounds.

But that’s a socio-economic problem for Britain as a whole – it’s not something the media industry (as powerful as it is) is not equipped to deal with.

Keep it simple!

Training to be a broadcast journalist is a bit like being taught a new language. When it comes to writing, you have to ignore all those rules you learned at school and university and the result is something between C++ and poetry.

One of the golden rules hammered into us is to keep things simple. And keep. Your sentences. Short.  Listeners and viewers can only take in a news report once. Even in the impending “on-demand” world, they’ll only want to take it in once.

So if you turn on the TV and radio you usually hear short sharp conversational sentences with all the fluff removed.

Usually.

Admittedly, Channel 4 News tries to be different. It aims to be a bit more creative, but from what I gathered from chief writer Felicity Spector when she came into City a few weeks ago, it still has to be concise.

So, what on earth is this all about?

It’s a report on the Chinese president’s visit to Africa this week, by the usually excellent Faisal Islam: ex City student and Channel 4 News‘ business correspondent. It’s an interesting piece, but check out Faisal’s first line (watch it here):

“The Chinese presidents twelve day tour takes in eight nations including Sudan the most controversial of the host countries where Chinas unconditional aid policy has angered western governments many of whom say Beijing should use its economic weight to end hostilities in Darfur.”

Say what?

It’s 43 words long. That’s nearly twice the recommended length of any sentence for broadcast.  It could be broken down into no less than four separate sentences:

“It’s a breakneck tour for China’s president: eight countries in a dozen days.

But Hu Jintao’s been criticised for visiting Sudan.

Western leaders want Beijing to use its economic muscle to end violence in Darfur.

Instead in its eagerness for ties with Africa China’s giving aid freely.”

Admittedly that’s not great either. But I think it’s easier to understand, and a bit more conversational.

But it goes to show that even with the best journos working for the best stations, the basic rules sometimes still get broken.