Your video assignment (phase one)

Now that you’ve been introduced to the idea of shooting and editing Web-based news video, you’re going to have a chance to do it yourself. For phase one, you are simply going to do some shooting. I realize that some of you are way ahead of the rest of us (including me), whereas some of you have never done anything like this before (that would have been me a few months ago).

It is important that you follow every step so that we may have a successful class on Monday and Wednesday, which will be entirely hands-on.

1. Shoot five or six video clips that you will edit into a story of your choosing.

It could be as simple as what I demonstrated in class — interviews of a minute or less in which people answer one question. If you’re using a camera with a built-in microphone, as you probably are, be sure to get close enough to pick up the audio clearly. Have each interview subject give her or his name, including spelling.

You might go to an event and cover that instead — a protest, an outdoor concert, whatever. In that case, you might shoot three or four interviews and two or three clips of what’s going on.

Additionally, your partner should shoot one clip of you doing a stand-up, introducing your piece.

2. Shoot two or three clips of B-roll.

B-roll is footage that you will splice into your video to provide some visual interest while someone is talking. As Steve Garfield showed us with his video on car technology yesterday, he interviewed an engineer, and then went back and shot some of the car features they had been discussing.

The other purpose of B-roll is to capture some background sound, which you can strip out of the video clip and use elsewhere. You can also shoot some still photos, which can also be used as B-roll. As I showed you in the news video I did on the Associated Press and copyright law, stills can be animated using iMovie’s built-in “Ken Burns effect.”

3. Working with your partner.

Each of you has a partner. If each of you has a camera, I’ve paired you up simply for convenience — you can shoot each other’s stand-up. But that is not necessary. You can get someone else to do it if you prefer.

It gets a little more complicated if only one of you has a camera. I want you to shoot five or six clips apiece. In other words, you will have recorded 10 or 12 video clips. This is not a team assignment — it’s an individual assignment. You may each cover the same story, but you will do it yourself.

In its most simple form, you can do the one-question assignment, taking turns with the camera, but each asking a different question.

If you do not have a camera and your partner disappears, you will need to contact me as quickly as possible.

4. What you’ll need on Monday.

Please pay careful attention to this. Class could be very difficult if even one or two of you shows up unprepared. You will need the following:

• The camera you used, with a decent amount of battery power.
• The USB cable you ordinarily use to transfer photos and videos to your computer. Don’t assume you can borrow one, because the plug on the camera end differs from model to model.
• If you plan to use your own laptop, bring it. Those of you who use the Macs in the lab will be editing with iMovie 7, but you are not required to do that — if you prefer iMovie 6 or Windows Movie Maker, that’s fine.
• Earphones or earbuds so that you can edit audio without everyone being able to hear it.

I did some testing on one of the student computers in the Mac lab, and the transfer worked — I was able to get my video into iPhoto and then import it into iMovie. So I’m very hopeful that we will be able to move into editing very quickly on Monday.

Now, please, go back and re-read what I’m asking for. There are a lot of steps, but all of it is pretty simple and not very time-consuming. Keep in mind that we’ll eat up huge amounts of time if any of you shows up on Monday unprepared.

My goal is for us to have finished videos by the end of class on Wednesday. We will then upload them to YouTube and republish them on our blogs. I’m looking forward to this, and I hope you are, too.

WBUR social-networking event

Next Thursday, Oct. 30, WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) will host a social-media gathering starting at 6:30 p.m. Here are the details. We’ll get a tour of the station and some discussion about public radio’s ventures into new media. We’ll meet Robin Lubbock again, as well as Ken George, who writes ’BUR’s ConverStation blog.

Depending on how much interest there is, I can drive over with you or tell you how to get there. I can drive you back as well, but be forewarned that I will probably take them up on their offer to “repair to a local establishment to partake of drinks and eats following the proceedings.” So it would be after that.

WBUR may be the most interesting news operation in Boston right now given its experimentation with various forms of new media.

Steve Garfield on video blogging

Steve Garfield, video blogger extraordinaire, visited our class yesterday and did a demonstration on one-person citizen journalism. Steve’s video is much better than the one I was trying to shoot, so here it is.

He shot this with his Nokia N95 cell phone, the sort of high-end mobile tool that enables journalists to go out into the field and transmit text, video, still photos and sound. He then uploaded it to his page at Qik, where we saw it stream live.

I really enjoyed Steve’s presentation, and I hope you did, too. Please write a blog post on his appearance. I’m looking for the usual length of roughly 350 words. Write about three examples of his video journalism, which you can easily find on his Web site, SteveGarfield.com.

Please post by the end of Friday.

Getting to know iMovie ’08

Today begins our two-week crash course in shooting and editing low-end news videos. By “low end” I don’t mean we’re aiming for something bad. Rather, we are going to use low-cost cameras and a free video-editing program to produce the sort of video that is typically posted on newspaper Web sites.

The program most of us will be using is Apple’s iMovie ’08 — which, weirdly enough, is also known as iMovie 7. It’s already available on the Macs in our lab. Here is a link (PDF) to the online manual.

The reason I say “most of us” is that some of you may already be using something else:

• Until recently, most Mac users were editing their videos with iMovie 6, which is actually a completely different program from iMovie ’08, and, in some respects, more sophisticated. If you’re one of those people, you will want to bring your Mac laptop to class. I know the program a bit, and can provide some help.
• If you have a Windows laptop, you may prefer to use Windows Movie Maker, which is roughly the equivalent of iMovie. If you think you want to work on your video outside of class, be sure to bring your laptop to class so that you can get started. Unfortunately, I can offer you no help with Movie Maker.

This will be fun. I guarantee it.

Your blogs featured by WBUR

Ken George, who writes WBUR’s excellent ConverStation blog, has highlighted a few of your posts regarding Robin Lubbock’s recent talk to our class. Please have a look.

Here, by the way, is how Wikipedia explains “millennial.”

Flickr photography/reporting assignment

For your next assignment, you are going to be a mobile, multitasking journalist. I want you to find a story to tell. It could be anything, as long as it has some journalistic value. Some examples:

• A woman dismantling her garden for the winter at the Fenway Victory Gardens.
• Fans hanging around on Yawkey Way before tomorrow’s Red Sox-Rays game.
• A panel discussion. For instance: On Thursday from 3 to 4:25 p.m., Professors Steve Burgard, Michael Dukakis and William Miles will speak on “Religion at the Ballot Box” in 320 Shillman.
• A concert or other public performance.

Your job is to conduct some interviews, take notes and write up a short (300 to 350 words) story for your blog — and to take six to 10 usable photos to accompany your story. Upload the photos to your Flickr account. Make sure you edit and crop them for maximum impact. Create a set, putting the pictures in the order that you think makes the most sense. Choose one photo to represent the set. Write titles, cutlines and tags for each photo. You don’t have to identify every single person in your photos, but if you have a picture of someone who’s in your story, you should definitely put her or his name in the cutline.

You should use the best photo with your blog post, and link it to your Flickr set.

Deadline: Before class on Monday, Oct. 20.

Link journalism, minus the links

The New York Times does something odd today: It publishes a story on link journalism, but doesn’t include a single outside link.

Blogging about online radio

I’ve been pondering what issues I’d like you to think about as you write a blog item on the talk given to us yesterday by Robin Lubbock of WBUR. One thought that I think we need to wrestle with is the idea that the current distribution model — over-the-air broadcast radio — is working very well.

Unlike newspapers, whose readers are fleeing to the Internet, public radio stations are thriving, mainly because tens of millions of commuters want to listen to high-quality news while sitting in their cars. Given that, how will experiments of the sort that WBUR is trying pay off?

Of course, the power of time-shifting can’t be denied. For example, National Public Radio’s “On the Media,” a weekly program, is broadcast by WBUR in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday or Sunday — I forget which. I literally have never heard the show via broadcast. Every week, though, I download the podcast via iTunes and listen to it sometime over the next few days.

But what about all of WBUR’s other projects involving Twitter, listener-submitted photos, multimedia and the like? Are these keys to radio’s future? Or are they marginalia?

Consider, too, that the most popular programming on any public radio station, including WBUR, is the national content provided by NPR. What happens to local radio stations such as WBUR when NPR can reach listeners directly through satellite radio (as is already happening) or, in a few years, via a wireless, ubiquitous next-generation Internet? How do local stations protect themselves from becoming obsolete?

I’d like you to use Lubbock’s talk as an inspiration and jumping-off point for a blog post (again, about 350 words) on radio and the Internet. Explore some of the links I sent you in my earlier post. Seek out other sources of information — I’d like to see at least two links to things we haven’t talked about. Other than that, I urge you to be as creative and thoughtful as you can.

I want to take advantage of the holiday to catch up on your blogs in a comprehensive way. By the end of Monday, please bring your blogs up to date with this post and anything else you have not yet done. And have a good Columbus Day.

Photo assignment for Wednesday

Pride Week in the Krentzman Quad

By now you have already created pages for yourselves at Wired Journalists. I hope you will find it to be a useful tool as you explore the technologies that are changing our work as journalists. We are all learning, and Wired Journalists is a great place to share.

Here is what I would like you to do before class on Wednesday. Take some photos that have perhaps at least some news value — they could be taken at an event, they could be features, whatever. I am not looking for breaking news. (Although if you find some, by all means start shooting.)

Choose your three best photos. Do whatever editing and cropping you think is needed. Because I have a Mac, I use iPhoto for simple photo editing. But there are other tools, including free online programs such as Snipshot and Photoshop Express that you can experiment with. Shrink your photos so they don’t take up too much space — maybe 400 pixels across for a horizontal, 300 for a veritical.

Once you’re done, upload your three photos to Wired Journalists. Be sure to add some description and some tags so people will know what they’re looking at.

Finally, I want you to write a post about Wired Journalists on your blog. Your post should include the following:

• One of your three photos, along with a link to your photos on Wired Journalists. I’ve done it here, so this post may help you as a guide. (Note that you can also build a link in to a photo.)
• A description of your experience in taking photos and uploading them to Wired Journalists. Was it easy? Was it hard? How might you do it differently the next time?
• Your overall take on Wired Journalists. Please join at least one group in addition to the Northeastern University group, explore a little bit, and explain why you joined it and what you hope to learn.

This is the first step in learning about digital photography and social networking.

A final thought: You will get out of Wired Journalists what you put into it. I’d love to see some of you spending some serious time there. Although I am not requiring it, I recommend that you upload a headshot and really establish a presence there. Among other things, as you will see, this is a job-networking site. Jobs are good.

Robin Lubbock of WBUR

Our next guest speaker, Robin Lubbock, will be visiting us this Wednesday. Lubbock is director of new media (scroll down for bio) at WBUR Radio (90.9 FM), which is doing some innovative things with social networking and online in general.

Take a look at The ConverStation, a blog by Ken George, who’s also a WBUR new-media guru, as well as this list of WBUR social-media projects. Please try to be up to speed in time for Lubbock’s presentation.