More reporting from video boot camp
Day 2 of video boot camp: We began with a lecture about visual storytelling, then heard a talk from one of the Travel Channel’s executive producers, David Gerber. He described his career and what he does in his daily job. He introduced us to a new word (for me): “preditor.” That’s someone whose job combines producer and editor roles.
Gerber said that nowadays no one, including advertisers, wants to hear a pitch for anything that’s a TV show alone. Other, associated platforms have to be part of the pitch.
Here’s a summary of Rosenblum’s lecture:
When you go out and shoot, you “acquire” events, as they happen. In the editing, you rearrange the order of those events in a way that works for your story.
After you’ve got the events in an order that works well, choose the sound bites that go with them. In other words, do not build your story about the sound bites. Fit them in at the end, after you have constructed the visual story.
Finally, write narration that provides whatever else the viewer needs to understand the story.
“It’s complete bullshit to do a story without narration,” Rosenblum said.
The old style of TV is to first write the script from beginning to end and then “cover it with pictures,” he said.
The first shot in your story should be the most compelling visual you have. If it’s irresistible, then no one will turn it off.
With that first shot, you raise a question (e.g., “What is that?” or “Why is that happening?”). Then you have to answer it.
“It’s not a script. It’s a dialogue,” Rosenblum said. “It’s like a magic trick.”
The best movies do this, he said, offering “The Usual Suspects” as a good example.
The other thing you’ve got to do at the very beginning: Make it clear what is going on. Rosenblum’s example was a joke that begins, “A pirate walks into a bar.” The rest of the joke is simple, but without that opening line, it would make no sense at all.
You can use a sound bite for the opening, but it’s rare that you’ll have a sound bite that works well this way. If you do have one, by all means, use it.
After lunch today, I spent about six hours learning Final Cut Pro, editing my 11 minutes of raw video into a 90-second non-story, and writing and recording narration. I was reasonably pleased with the result, even though it’s not a proper story; it’s certainly not very interesting, and I wouldn’t show it in public except that I know you’re all wondering about it!
Final Cut was a pleasure to use, and my shots cut together so easily, thanks to the shooting method we were taught on Thursday.
When everyone had finished editing and outputting the finished product to tape, we screened every single video — twice. Just like yesterday’s screening, this was valuable, but it was late and I felt fried. We left about 9:30 p.m. (We started the day at 9 a.m.)
This sounds like a “stock package” course for TV rather than journalism. Releases are the first red flag. Editorial uses require no releases, only entertainment and commercial use.
If the goal is to make money shooting stock (and/or fiction) for cable voiceovers, it makes sense. If the goal is to tell journalistic stories, it doesn’t sound appealing.
I need to see the final results.
July 21, 2007 at 12:46 amHi, Mark. I had trouble posting my first bad little video last night (WordPress and Flash). I will keep trying.
The business about releases is important because the Travel Channel is the ostensible outlet for future work by the participants. A lot of them are big fans of the show “5 Takes.” I know what you mean — we wouldn’t go around getting signed releases or real journalism, unless we were shooting children.
I always make my students get signed releases from parents for photos of kids under 16.
We’ve also been lectured about rights for music, which is a big deal even in pure journalism. My colleagues in our documentary video program wrestle with those issues all the time, and their work is very journalistic.
July 21, 2007 at 7:24 amMindy,
If you want to point to a video in Brightcove, then you need a Wordpress plugin to handle that. Wordpress does not handle javascript or flash in posts well.
URL type links work fine, but they take the user away from your site. You can see the plugin implementation on my site, marysturges.com.
If you google wordpress brightcove plugin, you’ll see at least two plugins for video. I’m using the one specifically for brightcove, but there is another that handles other formats too.
Sites hosted by wordpress.com do not appear to support any of this right now.
Looking forward to seeing your video.
Husband to a Travel Journalist, trained right there on one of those laptops (look for the one with the Bevis sticker - she’s Mary, not Bevis but she liked the sticker) you can see her tonight on the Travel Channel at 10pm (right when you get back from class
).
Jim
July 21, 2007 at 12:01 pmFor the record,
This is the only episode of 5 Takes Latin America that TJ Mary will get to see as it is shown. Watch out if you get a travel job! You’ll have to see all your shows on the DVR.
July 21, 2007 at 12:17 pm[...] More reporting from video boot camp. Mindy MacAdams continues to share the wealth from her time at the (very expensive) Travel Channel Boot Camp. [...]
July 21, 2007 at 1:46 pmSooo… if a 12-year-old is shooting at cops (or vice versa) in a city park, do your students still need signed releases before selling to CNN? ;-}
July 21, 2007 at 7:58 pmI think even CNN is a *little* different from the Travel Channel. In fact, I was pondering the implications of reality TV. No one would call THAT journalism (at least, I hope not). So you might say that some of the Travel Channel’s material is reality TV and some of it is closer to documentary. And most documentary is journalism. But I bet Michael Moore gets signed releases — otherwise he might have to face a lot of annoyance lawsuits.
July 22, 2007 at 8:06 amJim: I was hoping to use SWFObject, as that is the best way to put Flash on a Web page. There is a plug-in (Kimili Flash Embed for Wordpress), but the first time I tried it, it did not work. I will mess around with it more, later.
I’m really annoyed that I can’t code a normal DIV into a WP post.
P.S. No Travel Channel in my hotel room! How ironic!
July 22, 2007 at 8:09 amMichael Moore produces commercial entertainment. If the product itself generates income, it’s entertainment. If the product is factual and requires advertising to finance it, it’s probably editorial. If the product is fiction, inserts product placements and is entertainment, it’s “reality TV.”
July 22, 2007 at 3:55 pm[...] McAdams summarizes a video lesson she learned at the Travel Channel video journalist boot camp. Powered by Gregarious (42) Share [...]
July 23, 2007 at 8:12 am