10 quick hits to make your videos better right now
It’s an inevitable frustration when a film you’ve spent days, weeks or months working on hits the internet only to come off looking amateurish. It’s accepted the cat flushing the toilet will always get more views, but it sucks doubly when toilet-cat actually is better.
The storytelling and journalism aside, it’s often down to mistakes that could be corrected in an instant. I do a lot of video training and lecturing and I’ve noticed that these mistakes are often technical ones: video is a complicated medium and the language of codecs, bit rates and colour correction put people off.
No more! Here are ten things you can do right away that will have a near instant improvement on your videos.
A quick caveat: implementing all of these won’t rescue poor storytelling – that always rules supreme. If you want to get good at storytelling, make sure you know about this new book project.
.01 Use a tripod
A really common mistake for beginner filmmakers make is to ignore the tripod. Seriously, there is no quicker way to turn an amateur shot into a professional one than putting the camera on some sticks. As VJ expert Michael Rosenblum says: DNMTFC! Handheld has its place of course, either for effect or out of necessity, but as cameras get smaller & lighter they get more prone to shake. In my experience, anything from a DSLR down to an iPhone needs proper stabilisation.
Right away: Buy a cheap tripod (don’t worry about fluid head ones if you’re a beginner) and take it everywhere.
.02 Shoot closer
The other big mistake committed during the shooting process is to shoot too wide. Shots meander from a wide shot to a mid shot and then back out to a wide shot. Yawn.
The real interest for viewers is in the detail, so get close to your subjects and shoot lots of closeups.
Closeups have an added advantage of getting you out of continuity errors in the edit. But the real reason for more closeups than anything is this: online, most of your audience will be watching on Youtube or Vimeo – through a window about 640 pixels wide. At this size even a medium-close-up (the standard framing for interviews) is too wide for us to see the details we need to see.
Never be afraid to get close to your subject. Here I used a macro lens adaptor to get the shot I needed.
Right away: whenever you’re filming from now on look for closeups and get at least 5 from each scene.
.03 Start strong
I’ve written before about the importance of the first 10 seconds of your video. Audiences will leave if you haven’t hooked them by then. So put a lot of effort into a strong opening for your film when you’re editing.
If you’re stuck for inspiration, use your best shot – the shot that tells the story – and your strongest piece of audio.
Right away: Consciously look for the telling shot, the image that sums up the whole story, or the most explosive or intriguing image to start the piece, and use that at the start.
.04 Control the thumbnail
This one is so simple, it makes me sad to see it overlooked. The thumbnail is the still frame that displays when your video is first loaded (and before you click play). Sometimes it’s referred to as a poster frame and it is effectively an advertisement for your video: so make it good. I see so many videos where the author has just left the default picture up. If it’s on Youtube, that’ll be the frame right in the middle of the video.
As well as potentially being boring, blurry or out of focus, the thumbnail often catches people mid-blink, or with their mouth gawping open. Vimeo also gives you the option to upload your own image, so there’s great potential to create a distinctive and enticing poster-frame for your video.
Vimeo offers more control over your video thumbnails
Right away: if you’re using Youtube, go to the Video Manager, click ‘edit’ on the video you’re changing, and scroll down to ‘Video Thumbnail’ to select the best one. If you’re on Vimeo, you’ll have a wider selection in the ‘Settings’ tab, and the opportunity to upload your own.
.05 Get Vimeo Plus
Speaking of Vimeo, if you use the service regularly, and take your video seriously, then I think upgrading to a Vimeo Plus account is a worthwhile investment. It’s roughly $70 plus a bit of tax depending on where you live for an annual membership. The benefits are impressive: you 3x more uploading space a week, and all of them can be in HD (as opposed to just one). You also get more detailed analytics, and you can control how your video appears on other websites.
I don’t know a serious online video creator who doesn’t have one.
Right away: (only if you can afford it, and create high definition video on a regular basis) Log into Vimeo and upgrade to the Plus account.
.06 Meta data
Another silly mistake made all over the web – often by companies, newspapers or magazines – is to forget the meta data. The laziest uploaders barely bother to change the title from ‘Final_version.mov’ and ignore description, categories and tags.
Why does this matter? You’ve probably heard video described as a ‘black hole’ on the web. This is because Google’s spiders can’t crawl video files to work out what’s in them. Until HTML5 and cool projects like Popcorn.js becomes more widespread, a video file is virtually invisible in search engine results. So the description, tags and categories matter – they’re the only thing that identifies your video.
Right away: make sure all your videos have really detailed descriptions (transcripts if necessary), lots of tags, and are categorised in someway. Make sure your tags are semantic and properly identify who, what and where is featured in the video itself.
.07 Get your audio straight
A common problem on videos when they’re uploaded is drifting audio. It might be in sync when you filmed and edited it, but that disappears when you watch it online. I’m not 100% sure of the cause of this myself (if you know for certain, please enlighten me in the comments) but through experience and some research I think it’s to do with the sample rate of the audio itself. Audio commonly is played at either 44.1kHz or 48kHz, and the drift happens when you switch from one to the other.
Vimeo & Youtube can only support 44.1kHz, so if your camera or audio device records at 48kHz that might be the cause of the problem.
Right away: if you’re having trouble with audio, then investigate what sample rate you record & edit in.
.08 Basic colour correction
Another quick hit is to do some very basic colour correction to your footage. Cameras have different colour temperatures, and often pictures come out over saturated, too red, or too flat.
I would recommend two changes that improve almost every shot. Firstly, adjust the contrast of your image, to make the dark parts darker and the bright parts a little brighter. Play it by eye, and make sure nothing is blown out when you do it. Secondly, pull back on the saturation of the image – not much, just a little to give it a cooler, washed out look. I used both of these regularly when I started out, even though I wasn’t using industry standard software.
Right away: if you’re using a popular edit software (Final Cut, Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas etc) find out how to adjust these settings. If your edit platform doesn’t allow these changes, then you can now edit them after uploading them, using Youtube’s Video Manager (see below).
Before & After: using Youtube's video manager to adjust the contrast and saturation of video
.09 Compress for the web
One of the biggest problems video uploaders struggle with are the technical details of video. I often see videos that were shot in HD that look pixellated once online. This is usually because they’ve been compressed in the wrong way.
There are lots of different file formats and codecs for video and I’ll spare you the class. However, for publishing on the web, the variations are quite simple. Firstly, for most videos, in my opinion, it’s worth exporting at 1280×720 (72op), even though it’s not the largest size. This is because Vimeo & Youtube convert videos to this size anyway, so you might as well upload it that way, to save on file size.
For the web there are a variety of file types: .mp4, .mov, .avi, and .flv to name a few. The first three are good because they all use the h.264 codec – this is the one that takes big HD files and has an almost loss-less compression (high quality but a low file size).
Right away: if you’re shooting in HD, stick to 720p and be sure to compress your video into either a .mp4, .mov or .avi file using h.264 before uploading.
.10 Get the right bit-rate
Finally, there’s one other thing that affects how good video looks when it’s uploaded, and that is the data rate or bit-rate of the compression. I’m no expert, but pretty much the rule is the more bits, the high quality the video will be (again, if you can offer more clarity in the comments, please do!)
That said, Youtube & Vimeo put limits on the bitrate for their videos – to around 5000kbps for HD video. So if you’re using compression software like MpegStreamclip, Apple Compressor or Handbrake, you can make your file size smaller by limiting data rates to this level too.
Right away: learn how to use Compressor or MediaEncoder if you have it. If not, download MpegStreamclip or Handbrake (they’re free) and learn how to use them.
As always, I’d love to hear more ideas for your own quick hits that make video better. Like I say, it won’t repair poor storytelling, but at the same time, it’s a shame to see a good story lose out because of things that can be fixed so easily.
The multimedia journalist’s Christmas list
What to buy a multimedia journalist for Christmas?
On Monday I published a book list of great titles for any journalist, producer or publishing entrepreneur. If you’re still looking for festive ideas, here are ten gadgets and gifts perfect for any next generation journalist. Enjoy!
Field Notes Set: ($9.95/£7) Moleskins are so last year. These days, the chic journalist jots their thoughts down in a Field Notes book, currently on sale in handy three-pack sets. If you don’t already, always carry a notebook with you, and always write everything down!
Redhead windscreen: ($35/£22) a quirky essential for any multimedia producer recording audio in the field. These hand made windshields are designed specifically for the Zoom and Tascam audio recorders and if the video on the website’s anything to go by, they do an amazing job of ensuring crisp audio in windy conditions. Added bonus: your audio recorder will look like a robot troll.
Adobe After Effects: ($1,320/£850) The ability to design and animate motion graphics is becoming a popular extra string to any multimedia journalists bow. The most popular (but not necessarily the best) suite is Adobe’s After Effects. Get this with a good guide book, and you’ll be creating knockout animations in months.
External hard drive: ($290/£180) Just like no-one is disappointed to receive some Amazon vouchers for Christmas, some extra terabytes always come in handy. This 2TB beast from G-Tech is both reliable and lovely lookin’.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaccson: ($18/£12) this is on everyone’s Christmas list this year, and if it’s anything like the man’s speeches, talks and writing, it’ll be full of wisdom on creativity and business. Not to mention an insight into what it takes to revolutionise an industry.
Kindle Fire: ($199 US Only) People who have upgraded their original Kindle are raving about the Kindle Fire. The new one comes in colour and allows more iPad style user experience, but without the iPad price tag.
Plug bug: ($34.99 – US Only) A downside of all this 21st century gadgetry is it tends to hog all the plug sockets in the house. Well, TwelveSouth have come up with a neat solution: ‘one plug, two chargers, tres cool’.
Vimeo Plus subscription: ($59.99/£38) A year long subscription to Vimeo’s plus service gives you unlimited HD uploads, better viewing stats and a pass to the front of the encoding queue. Well worth it for any serious online video producer.
Glidetrack MobiSlider: ($129/£99 opening offer, December 2011) Yes, the inevitable has happened – someone’s brought out a camera slider specifically for iPhones and other small HD cameras. If you can get past the garish neon green design, this the most affordable way to add some elegant tracking to your smartphone footage.
Camera Table Dolly: ($90/£58 via PhotoJojo) But if wheels are more your thing, then why not try this new Table Camera Dolly – smooth camera moves with a greater variety of angles – a cheap option for any DSLR film-maker.
Holstee Manifesto: ($25/£16) This modest little poster has hit the internet like wildfire in 2011. I’ve had a copy on my wall for more than a year and it makes an inspiring reminder to go do epic shit. If you’re a freelancer or entrepreneur, this is good piece of decoration.
The gift of knowledge
Cheesy I know, but if you’d rather give someone’s brain a present for 2012, then here are three unrelentingly practical ideas guaranteed to make the recipients life better.
A good book: Easy to wrap as well! Here are 10 ideas from my other blog post this week.
Lynda.com ($25/£16 per month) There’s Google of course, but then there’s Lynda.com – the best online tutorial place I can think of. If you want to learn InDesign, Final Cut Pro, even HTML then Lynda’s got it all. A month’s subscription (enough to pick up a new skill) is in that perfect price range too.
RosettaStone ($240/£150+) Want a sure-fire way to beat the competition in a job interview? Knowing your Bună dimineaţa from your Guten Morgen is a sure fire way. Personally I’m trying to improve my French, but Rosetta Stone offers a range of languages to learn at home.
The “big reveal” and why it makes your stories better
Watch these two videos I have picked out of the video .fu library of awesome video storytelling:
They’re both quite memorable vignettes, one about loss, the other about finding someone. But they both have something in common: what you could call the big reveal – and it’s a potent storytelling tool.
The big reveal is about setting up a moment in your film where you surprise your audience by revealing a crucial part of your story: the answer to the mystery, the ‘will they live happily ever after?’ type question – or sometimes just something as simple as ‘what’s in the box?’.
To do this, however, requires going against an important rule in journalism: it requires you to hold something back from your audience.
Traditionally journalists structure stories in the classic inverted pyramid: most important stuff at the top, then adding less vital information as the story goes down. In broadcast, journalists often use a ‘figure-of-eight’ pattern to achieve the same effect. Both of these formulas are about giving the audience the big facts right at the top.
But the two films above do the opposite. They hold back information for as long as possible.
In Wait For Me, there are two reveals: firstly a short one at the beginning: revealing what’s inside the box; and then right at the end, revealing the details of her son’s disappearance.
In the Guardian’s Soulmates story, the fact this is an online dating story isn’t revealed until a minute in; then there is a lovely visual reveal, when we discover the person she is painting is her partner.
The big reveal is a good storytelling tool because by setting up a mystery, by holding information back – even for just a minute – you pique your audiences’ attention: they want to know what’s in the box, and will hang on to find out – in other words, they’re more likely to watch your story all the way through.
The narrative arc of the “Heros Quest” guide to storytelling is so successful because it begins by setting up a big question: will Luke Skywalker kill Darth Vader? Will the Man on the Wire make it across the Twin Towers? And it gives the audience an opportunity to figure things out for themselves, and feel the reward that comes with it.
The US screenwriter Billy Wilder said it best (the quote, at least, is often attributed to him):
“If you give the audience two plus two, and you let them add it up to it equals four, they’ll love you forever.”
It comes at the expense of direct, clear information – what news is supposed to be about. So it’s not something for the 6 o’clock news to adopt.
But of course, we’re not the 6 o’clock news – we’re the new generation of online video storytellers. Let’s experiment with the formula a little bit.
The end of ‘television’
Image credit: espensorvik on Flickr (cc)
I
Ask someone who works in television what they do, they’ll tell you they do just that.
“I work in television” they’ll say. Same with folks in radio too. And newspapers and magazines.
But skip down the road five years, and what happens when we’re all watching IPTV, internet streamed through a television set? It’s a pertinent question because when Hybrid-IPTV (as we can call it, to avoid a comments row about semantics) does arrive on the mass market, we will effectively have iTunes on our remote controls.
Never mind another dose of bland reality fodder from BBC One, or NBC – what about a niche documentary shot and uploaded by someone in Mexico? Or the latest interview by online video wunderkind Jamal Edwards on SBTV? They’re both yours for $2.99, or perhaps less, all streamed straight to your living room.
Or perhaps even a sci-fi action movie, complete with top of the range special effects, made entirely independently from the Hollywood systems, for just a few thousand dollars? Gareth Edwards has already proven, with great finesse, that it can be done.
When we can get the internet and all its varied signal and noise through our TV sets, what will “working in television” mean? People talk about it as if it is a craft and a career – but actually a television is no different to Youtube, Twitter or Flickr: it is a platform.
II
Thing is, from an advertiser’s point of view, it is becoming a disproportionately expensive one. Why pay £10,000 for a 30-second slot after Coronation Street, when you could sponsor an independent drama series, or a magazine show on iTunes – aimed at your target customer – for far less?
BBC TV Centre | Image credit: strollerdos on Flickr (cc)
And from a viewer’s point of view, why watch something at a time decreed by a scheduler, when you can watch it at your leisure? (A friend of mine who works at the BBC commented on Facebook today how people complained last night because Antiques Roadshow was cancelled to accomodate the late-running F1 grand prix.)
I’m not dismissing TV’s past or present, nor the people or work that goes into it. Television as we know it has a future, and it is a future making some extraordinary, live changing shows.
But like newspapers before it, it will fight a difficult battle with its own legacy costs. Television is still eye-wateringly expensive to produce. Studio television is some of the most expensive, and that’s declined so much, the BBC are now selling off their studio complex in West London.
III
We’ll have to redefine what we call things a little bit. Jamal Edwards wouldn’t say he “works in Youtube” just because that’s his platform. He probably says he’s a film-maker – or even just a content creator. This (or something like it) might be the job-title of the future. And of course there’ll be issues of quality, copyright, and too much noise – all things we’ve already proven we can solve together.
So if I was young and wanted to “work in television” I wouldn’t bother competing with thousands of others for work experience at the BBC, or spend three years doing the Pret runs at an Indie, just so I could have my shot at pitching segments for Gordon Ramsey’s Strictly Come Cash In The Attic SOS: the celebrity special.
No sir, I would pick up a camera and start making something instead.
Out there, on the internet already, “content creators”: ordinary people, small businesses and independent film makers, are proving that remarkable, popular video can be made with little or no money. Its limitation is that viewers have to peer at our work in a small box on their laptops…but one day soon, hybrid-IPTV will project our films onto 45-inch plasma TVs.
And when that happens, “working in television” won’t mean anything at all.
5 ways join in with the future of news
A quick post today, sandwiched in between some pretty hefty ones. Here’s five quick ways to make sure you don’t miss a trick with the Future of News.
.01 subscribe to this blog – just put your email address in the box to the right of this page for more ideas and advice on online video & enterprise.
.02 join the Future of News Group on Facebook – click here: more than 250 people have already joined!
.03 follow me on Twitter – I’m @AdamWestbrook
.04 read this post – and stick the recommended blogs into your Google Reader
.05 if you’re on Vimeo, subscribe to the video .fu channel, a growing collection of the best online video in the world
Sit back, relax, and let the future of journalism come to you!
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Meet the online video heroes of 2010
I’ve got a really good feeling about 2011: online video is going to be huge.
This last year’s been ramping up to that realisation. In the past few months I’ve been approached by journalists, online magazines, charities, corporations and even individuals seeing the enormous potential of online video and wanting to commission films, consulting or training.
Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you’re a director. Everything after that you’re just negotiating your budget and your fee.
James Cameron
The real heroes are the people out there already making video. They’re not asking if it’ll make money before picking up their camera.They’re just getting off their arse and creating content. The online videos heroes I’ve chosen have done more than made a pretty film: they’ve used online video in a new way, for journalism, art or even business.
The list is pretty arbitrary though: if you know other, better online video heroes, add them to the list via the comments!
my online video heroes of 2010
1. Phos Pictures
Heading up the list is a group of three young American filmmakers who are showing the rest of us how online documentary ought to be done. They blew me away back in March with Last Minutes With Oden a short about one man and his dog, a piece so good, it was recognised as Vimeo’s documentary of the year. It’s clocked up 1.3million page views at last count. They followed it quickly with Pennies HEART and most recently with The KINGDOM.
I interviewed filmmaker Lukas Korver about the production of their films for blog.fu earlier this year – check it out here.
2. Yoodoo
Coming in from a different line is the UK enterprise Yoodoo.biz, founded by Nick Saalfield and Tony Heywood. I met them both when I invited them to speak at the UK Future of News Meetup back in the spring.
Yoodoo is an online training course for entrepreneurs and new businesses. It is content which could be delivered through text and pictures. Any other producers would probably do just that. But Nick and Tony saw the potential of online video earlier than many, and the free course is delivered through short video interviews.
Disclaimer: I write occasionally for Yoodoo.
3. Food Curated
“What you need to know about me is pretty simple. I love food. And I love telling a good story.”
That’s how Liza Mosquito de Guia describes the founding of Food Curated: an online video blog all about food. Throughout the year Liza’s been out shooting and editing (she’s a one-man-band) short films in all sorts of food establishments.
Each film is unique and she does a good job of keeping herself out of it, and letting the subjects tell their own story. Her site was nominated for a James Beard Award this year, for best Video Webcast.
4. The Scout
If there’s one thing American new media producers can do better than European ones (in this reporter’s humble opinion) it is designing online magazines that look insanely stylish. Dwell, for example, has an elegant aesthetic which outclasses the Darth Vader-esque front page of Britain’s Monocle.
Another stylish number is The Scout, a food culture and design blogazine from the US. They’re on this list for commissioning several short films about inspiring creatives which leave you drooling. They’re the work of director Brennan Stasiewicz who I interviewed back in the summer. His piece on eccentric chocolatiers the Mast Brothers has been shared very widely, but his film on architects Roman and Williams is also superb.
Hat-tips for dedication to similar online video content this year has to go to The Monocle and Vice’s VBC TV.
5. Honda
Yes, it pains me too. But one of this years online video heroes has to be Honda, for their surprising Live Every Litre campaign.
They hired top director Claudio Von Planta to tell a series of powerful short stories, on the premise of a journey taken while driving a Honda Civic. The vehicles and any Honda promotion takes a back seat to the stories however, which is what makes this campaign quite unique in 2010. In particular, check out this short about a D-Day veteran and his daughter which gives many history documentaries a run for their money.
6.Vimeo
Many of the best online video of the year wouldn’t be possible without Vimeo, the classier alternative to Youtube. But that’s not why they’re on the list. The video sharing site was a late entry, with the release, just last week, of their online video school.
It’s something they’ve been working on all year, according to the site’s blog, and it’s a comprehensive, stylish and fun introduction to shooting video. They even brought in Philip Bloom to teach us how to use our DLSR cameras properly. Again, some training Vimeo could have been tempted to deliver in text or even in paid face-to-face courses.
But they chose to harness the power of online video and create something of far more value instead.
7. Witney TV
OK, straight-up, Witney TV ain’t pretty. They’ve actually chosen the ‘broadcast news’ theme from Garageband for their opening titles, which themselves, look like they’ve been done in Microsoft Paint. There isn’t a huge amount of care taken to making pretty video.
But – Witney TV is one of the first, sustained attempts at online video serving a local audience. And, it’s incredibly popular. Some episodes I’ve seen have 150,000+ views and scoops with Jeremy Clarkson and David Cameron have had them mentioned in the national press. I grew up in Witney, and family members tell me it’s also huge in Japan. Who knew?
They’re showing the rest of the hyperlocal world how it should be done. If you choose to follow in their footsteps, just don’t use Garageband.
8. Tim Johns
BBC radio producer Tim Johns (Disclaimer: he’s a friend) is on the list to represent all the people who’ve picked up a camera and got creative with it this year, again without any desire for reward.
Online video is an unrivalled platform for original drama and comedy, and with a flipcam costing less than £100 it’s possible for anyone to join the party. But how many do? And how many get scared away?
Tim isn’t one of those. He’s just started making films for the hell of it, and for a radio producer, he shows a startling aptitude for visual comedy & storytelling.
.09 VJ Movement
Another online video hero this year is the Dutch social enterprise VJ Movement.
It launched back in 2009 amid some hype (among video journalists, at least) and since then has got down to the business of building a network of VJs from across the globe. After a recent rebrand this autumn, the VJ Movement have focussed on developing larger scale projects and commissioning films for that project from all over the world.
Personally, I think it’s yet to find its real voice and distinctive style, but this will come with time. For the time being, it is one of the only fully independent platforms commissioning in-depth journalism from outside mainstream circles, and long may that continue.
Disclaimer: I occasionally produce films for the VJ Movement
Lifetime achievement award: TED
And finally, a lifetime achievement award is deserving of one organisation who clearly ‘got’ online video when Youtube was still in nappies.
TED lectures have been around for sometime, but it was only when they started uploading them to Youtube and making them freely available that the organisation’s remarkable talks really started to take off.
They’ve collectively been watched more than 600 million times, and spurred future speakers to up their game, a concept TED boss Chris Anderson called Crowd Accelerated Innovation. In this TED lecture, he predicts online video will have a profound affect on our future. Which begs the question: if you’re not getting in on the fun now, why not?
10 trends in journalism in 2010
It’s that time of year again…
After a turbulent year in the industry, I’ve had a good think and put together my top 10 trends for journalism for 2010, wrapped in a big shiny positive outlook. But rather than roll out another list, I thought I’d be a bit different and crack out some video. Enjoy!
And is there anything I’ve missed? Add it in the comments box!
Great free apps for multimedia journalists
The great thing about multimedia journalism is that it provides so much choice for treating stories. Do I write a straight article? Upload an mp3 interview? Produce a video package? An audio slideshow? An interactive map? Even a timeline?
I’ve been experimenting with most of the above for both work and in my own time, and discovered there are more and more free web based applications which let you do many of these without too much technical know-how.
Here then is a list of great free resources for multimedia journo’s hoping to get things done on the cheap. It’s by no means comprehensive…if you know of a better one, then stick it in the comments box!
Great apps for multimedia journalists
AUDIO
Soundcloud is what’s been inexplicably missing for a long time: an audio version of Youtube. Quick uploads allow you to embed a very attractive audio player into any webpage. Best of all, the player is customisable, and means, for example, my radio station Viking FM can embed it in branded colours. The people at Soundcloud are very helpful too.
Cost: free (or paid subscription)
Downsides: the free subscription only allows 5 uploads a month.
Lots of noise about this 4iP funded startup, which allows you to upload audio from your iPhone direct to the Audioboo server and thus any website you chose. Has the benefits for a multimedia journalist in that you can upload audio from location, as Guardian journalists did during the G20 protests.
Cost: free (registration required)
Downsides: no iPhone, no boo.
Still in beta, this is yet to be available to everyone, but looks like a more speech orientated alternative to Soundcloud.
Cost: free
Downsides: not yet in operation
Jamendo was a very happy find for me: a copyright free music site – where the music is actually quality! Record producers should be hunting Jamendo’s ripe jungle for new talent: it’s all unsigned artists (mostly electronic, and mostly French) who put up their music for free use under the Creative Commons Licence.
Cost: free (registration required)
Downside: it’ll take some time to find the perfect soundtrack to your piece.
VIDEO/PICTURES
This is the film makers Youtube. It allows HD uploading, has a smart player and quick streaming. A big benefit is an excellent web 2.0 set up and talented community. Your video might get more passing views on Youtube, but it’ll get less “fuk dis shit innit rofl lol” comments. In fact, almost all the comments I have had have been useful, constructive criticism of the technicalities of the piece.
Cost: basic registration is free. You have to pay for Vimeo Plus HD uploads.
Downsides: smaller audience, but as a video host to embed, it’s fine.
Already leading the charge from traditional media, Al-Jazeera has broken new ground by putting stock footage available for download under the creative commons licence. It’s so called ‘repository’ currently holds plentiful (and harrowing) footage of December’s conflict in Gaza. A useful practice tool, if anything, in the art of knowing what distressing images to include and what to leave out.
Cost: free, with CC restrictions, although it does allow it’s content to be used for commercial purposes (see comments, below)
Downsides: until Al-Jazeera expand the repository it just contains Gaza content.
Here’s a little gem: a flickr library, searchable by colour. You choose up to 10 colours from a palette and it automatically brings up all photos containing those colours. 
It’s fantastic for finding generic images to match the design of your website (you’ll see a few on this site). All images are released under creative commons.
Cost: free to use
Downsides: you can’t search for the subject of images; frustrating when you want a black and white image of that something.
SLIDESHOWS
Soundslide seems to be the market leader in creating professional audio slide shows at a low cost. It allows greater control and manipulation of images, captioning and music/narration control. On the other hand though, it doesn’t finish in an easy flash window for you to embed. Oh and it’s not free.
Cost: $69.95 (~£50.00)
Downsides: The finished slideshow is turned into several files which you then need to upload to your own webspace. A bit cumbersome.
TIMELINES
This is one I’ve been getting to know a little recently, in an overly ambitious attempt to create an interactive timeline of every Hull FC v Hull KR match since 1899. Sadly the sheer number matches put paid to that. And that’s a difficulty with X-timeline. You can input events individually if there aren’t many. Or you can use an excel spreadsheet, and upload it as a .csv file. Despite this it is still the most user friendly way to create and embed timelines I’ve found yet.
Cost: free
Downsides: the timeline design is un modifiable. No matter the design of your site, you’re stuck with an odd camouflage green colour.
MAPS
I’m yet to use this, but from the outset it appears to be a pretty easy to use platform, with a slick final product. You can create global maps on any subject and highlight stats by colour.
Cost: Free
Downside: limited to world maps.
SOURCING/DATA
There’s nothing to say about Twitter which hasn’t already been said in 140 characters or less. Except to say it’s a great free tool for both finding contacts and stories and publicising your own work, and building a community of followers.
Ditto.
Responding to the rise in homemade mashups and APIs, the Guardian recently opened a site publishing statistical data on various subjects. The rather nice idea being they put the leg work in and give you the stats for free. Great to plug into applications of all kinds. Such as…
A very clever way of collecting information from all sorts of sources and publishing it in allsorts of ways. The cleverest thing has to be the user interface, which has you dragging a coloured pipe from one thing to another like a digital playdo set. With a bit of practice, this could be a great way to present detailed information, or even several newsfeeds through one aggregated embed.
Links to all these sites, and others not featured here, have now appeared in the Multimedia Tools links section to the right hand side of this site. If you have any better suggestions, suggest them!
Concentra VJ award: the winner
The annual Concentra Video Journalism Awards were held this week. The winner: Alexandra Garcia, a VJ with the Washington Post, for her piece about about a free medical clinic in the US.
So what’s good about it?
- Well clearly it’s a great story, and it’s got an abundance of great characters. Alexandra gives them time to breathe and doesn’t talk all over them.
- In true VJ style it has great access to the story, and often just shows action happening
- It doesn’t follow any of the rules or styles of traditional TV news packaging
- She introduces the story with a voice over at the beginning but then we hardly hear her; she lets the subjects tell the story
- It’s an example of ‘solution journalism‘, showing an answer to a problem, rather than just reporting the flaws of the US healthcare system
- It’s not too long
- And technically it’s very sound, right down to the short f-stop in the final shot which blurs out the background.
What do you like about it?
History of the internet
I’m amazed mainstream broadcasters haven’t developed a documentary looking at the history of the internet – it is afterall the most important tool since, I dunno, electricity probably.
Until they do, there’s a few decent shorts online – including this one I just discovered on Vimeo.
Could do with a bit more humour, but the graphics are nice and I learnt the idea of networking computers goes back to 1957, not the 1970s as I always thought.
Check it out!
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My TV manifesto
I’ve been working in broadcast news for two years now, and I’ve been following it, I guess for five. And well, I think I’m just a bit tired with it all. With the formats, with the delivery, with the writing, with the style, with the editorial choices.
Surely there must be something different?
Here’s thing: I don’t think there is. We all know radio is in a state, and as for TV? Well I could write a long diatribe, but it’s been done already, far more succintly and wittily, and then put on television by Charlie Brooker:
Watch part one here:
Then part two here
And part three here:
Whether you like it or not, or whether you think it’s the way it’s always going to be or not, I am convinced there is room for something different.
Something aimed at a younger audience; with a journalistic transparency, a complete fluid harmony with digital and web technology, delivered differently, cheaply, eco-friendily, telling different stories, off the agenda, breaking the rules, offering something new.
To avoid sounding like the Alistair Darling when he gave his speech about how to fix the economy the other week (and didn’t actually announce anything), here is – for what its worth – my own TV news manifesto. Just some ideas; debate them, slate them!
a new news manifesto
This is my own idea for an online based alternative news platform. At its heart is a daily studio news programme, uploaded to the website and to Youtube. It is of no fixed length – only dictated by the content.
Content
Ignore the stories of the mainstream media. That means crime stories are out. Court stories with no lasting impact are out. Surveys, unless by major bodies are out, so is the sort of PR pollster rubbish that fills the airwaves. If people want that they have no end of sources. This will be different.
Solution journalism?
Rather than just reporting on a problem and ending with the cliche “whether this problem will be solved is yet to be seen” there’s a good argument for solution journalism. Jake Lynch and Anna McGoldrick suggest it as part of their own ideas on Peace Journalism (could it be adapted to non-conflict reporting?) Reports which examine how a problem might be solved rather than just reminding us there’s a problem.
A younger audience; a digital existence
A programme for the ‘web 2.0 generation’. That’s the people who blog, use facebook and myspace and exist in a digital online world. It’ll be up front and direct, but not patronising like Newsbeat‘s “something bad has happened in a place called abroad” style. VJ pieces will be created for web use not to mimic TV styles.
Video Journalism
At its heart will be the ethos of video journalism. David Dunkley-Gyimah laid out his own manifesto on this here. As well as staffing young creative VJs for firefighting stories and assignments, this brand would tap from a huge source of international freelance sources as well as other existing solutions like Demotix and Vimeo. Stylistically it would take its cues from already successful projects like Current TV. Packages are edited fast and with attitude -they know the rules of conventional film, but aren’t afraid to break them.
Focus
It would have an international focus, remembering the unreported stories. It believes the phrase “if your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”. It would focus on unreported issues and people with the story tellers getting right into the story. Creativity is the norm, and the packages do not try to emulate TV news in content or form.
But what about the main agenda?
This wouldn’t be ignored – but would be wrapped in each show in a “newsbelt” form – “the stories the other shows are talking about” It would need to feel connected to the national agenda but not neccessarily following it.
Transparent
A key element to this type of journalism would be transparency in reporting and editing. Packages would be VJ produced – from the root to the fruit – and VJ led. In other words the viewer follows the VJ as they investigate and tell the story. If it’s from a press release the audience deserves to know that. There would also be an openness in editing with misleading cutaways, noddies and GVs removed, and edits to interviews clearly signposted (for example through a flash wipe). Agency footage labelled as such so viewers know it’s not inhouse. Images of reporters can appear on screen as they cover the story.
Delivery
The platform is digital – through an accessible, well designed fluid website. Viewers can watch whole shows or individual reports. Each show would have no time requirements as broadcasters do. It would need to host an online community of viewers who watch, comment, submit and review. They are reflected in the content. The people at 4iP lay it out quite nicely right here.
Attitude
The journalism would have attitude, and would be not afraid to take risks. At its heart is good story telling and brilliant writing. Creative treatments would set the standard mainstream broadcasters will adopt months later.
Cheap and green
The video journalism model is cheap and green. One man bands on assignment, sourcing, shooting and cutting themselves. No need for live satellite link ups or expensive foreign trips housing 5 people in big hotels (what’s wrong with a hostel?) The central programme itself would be studio based but avoiding the “absurdist cathedrals of light” preferred by the mainstream. Solar powered lighting? Light cameras on light peds?
Presentation
The central programme is relaxed, young and doesn’t appear to be trying too hard. The team have the mind set of the Daily Buzz and create great moments even when they’re not trying too. Stylistically the presentation takes its cues from a more fluid version of C4 News in the UK, with almost constant (but not distracting) camera movements.
This news platform doesn’t need to report the mainstream stores – because there is a plethora of media to do that already. It avoids the distorting pressures of the other networks, like the need for live pictures from the scene, uninformed 2-ways and time pressures. It focusses on bringing something new, but allowing analysis too. It’s VJ packages are well produced – but do not try to emulate the style of TV news.
That’s pretty much all I got. As i mentioned I strongly feel there is a demand for a new way of doing things-we just don’t know what that is yet.
And just a quick disclaimer: I’m just a young broadcast journalist with only 2 years under my belt. I certainly don’t suggest this any good a solution, or that I should have anything to do with it. But for what it’s worth I thought it was worth jotting down.
You might agree, or you might disagree…stick your thoughts in the comments box!
Adam Westbrook // ideas on digital storytelling and publishing 
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