Video for still photographers
Most people who make great video work at television stations, in the film industry, or independently. Traditionally, few of them work at newspapers, but this is changing as newspapers embrace broadband media as an alternative to paper.
Even fewer newspaper employees have been working with video for nearly twenty years as I have. You may think the transition from film to digital was a big deal: I’ve transitioned from tube to chip cameras, from luggable decks to dockable decks to camcorders, from tape-to-tape editing to modern nonlinear editing systems, and from analog to digital tapes. Of course, having worked with obsolete technology is not what helps me make great video. But in nearly twenty years, the fundamentals of video production have pretty much remained the same.
If you work at a mainstream media outlet, it’s your job to make sure your work is excellent. For every one of you that has been asked to do video with only a modicum of training, there are easily a hundred or so people in your market who studied video or film for four or more years, and opted to do something more lucrative. These are the people who will be subconsciously picking apart your work, or even telling their friends how good or bad your work is, or even volunteering to do a better job once in a while.
(To be fair, I didn’t come to call myself a still photographer until December of 2006. I went the other way. So while I have a bit to learn on the still side, I still have a lot to share on the video side.)
I’ve started to blog about this because I have been meaning to write a book for at least a decade, but never got around to it. And now that more and more still photographers are being asked to do video, I figure that it’s time for me to share some knowledge.
Jason Whong
May 10, 2007
Table of Contents
In case I forget to update this table of contents, you can always view all the posts in the “Video for still photogs” category. The articles will appear in reverse chronological order, but that’s life…
- Jason’s motto of video production - posted May 10, 2007
- Pre-production: Planning like a producer - posted May 10, 2007
- Production: Shooting like an editor - posted May 10, 2007
- Post-production: Editing like a director posted May 10, 2007
- Respect the medium posted May 15, 2007
- Redefine the medium posted May 17, 2007
- Be better than the competition posted May 17, 2007
- Details: It’s my report posted June 17, 2007
- Details: Provide some value posted June 17, 2007
Technorati Tags: video production, journalism, newspaper, media, msm, video
Video has changed so much with the times. Even camcorders have changed. Better compare prices though on the new digital camcorders because new video devices can be expensive.