17 Video Tips, Learned on the Fly

My friend Sue Robinson, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, took a two-and-a-half-day video training course preceding the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. While she was telling me how much she had learned, I asked her to write a guest blog post about it. Here’s her account:

We spend a lot of time in our educational system learning how to tell a story with words. That’s to our deficit now. To be effective in the new digital world, we need to tell stories using audio and visuals.

So went the premise of the AEJMC pre-conference video workshop, coordinated by Larry Dailey of the University of Nevada at Reno, Brian K. Johnson of the University of Illinois, and Edgar Huang of Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis.

It’s been a week, and I’m only now able to process all that we learned in the two and a half days. The students — mostly educators and some journalists — paired up and spent all day Monday (Aug. 4) shooting video in downtown Chicago, and then editing Monday night and Tuesday. A Canon rep provided video cameras (XH A1 HDV) and an Apple rep lent the laptops (MacBook Pro) and Final Cut Pro Studio 2.

The result? Thirty seconds to nearly 5 minutes on everything from the American Girl craze to Hot Diggity Dog, a local hot dog stand among the skyscrapers.

Here are some of the gems to come from the three days:

• “Spraying video” (when you take a camera out and just record everything, cutting it together with voiceovers) is not smart storytelling.
• Video involves compressing time in pictures.
• As with still photos, composition matters (i.e., rule of thirds, aesthetics).
• If you are going to tell a story in 90 seconds, you cannot have a huge cast of characters.
• Close-ups, close-ups, close-ups.
• Always use headphones so you know if your audio is taking.
• SHOOT TO EDIT (in other words, always remember to turn off your camera after every shot so capturing the video and working with it will be easier).
• STORY MATTERS.
• Long shots set the scene.
• Let the camera run long, before and after the shot, so that you have handles of time for editing.
• You’re gonna need 10-12 shots per one minute of finished video.
• Watch out for your camera reflection in windows, and for background audio such as traffic.

And here are five tricks my partner and I learned the hard way:

• People are more reticent to be on camera than they are to talk for a written story (in other words, get the hot dog owner on camera for the interview BEFORE she flees the scene for two hours, promising to come back in 10 minutes).
• Make sure you untangle all the cords before you get to the scene (which … err … Brian told us to do and which we … um … didn’t). At the scene, we found ourselves frantically trying to unknot the largest nest of cording ever to exist before the rain fell and the shot was ruined.
• Use a tripod, even a small one or a mono one, even if you are positive that holding it makes you a more spontaneous reporter; the shaking from all the caffeine WILL show.
• You have to white balance your camera ALL THE TIME, after every new setting, even if that setting is only a few feet away but under different light (otherwise, your hot dog stand owner’s white shirt looks blue).
• Even if you think you are hearing Nacho the Hot Dog Flipper reveal the Secrets of the Best Hot Dog Ever, the camera is only picking up the sizzling. Use an external mic. Always.

Thanks, Sue! I heard the workshop sold out fast this year. We can hope for a repeat next year!