Author: EJohnson

Final project screenings, equipment return, and evaluations:

http://baruch.cuny.edu/EVALS

Reminders

Starting next week (Monday April 23 and Wednesday April 25), classes will be devoted to editing/production, so bring in whatever footage you have so you can get started on your rough cuts.

Your rough cuts will be due by class time on April 30. Class that day is not optional. We’ll be screening the rough cuts together and giving everyone feedback.

Your final cuts will be due along with your published portfolio websites on May 14, the last day of class.

I’ve only received breaking news stories from a small handful of you, so if you have not yet done yours, please check in with me ASAP with your plan for that assignment.

Discussion: Moving toward longer-form filmmaking

Benefits/costs of working alone vs. with a team?

DP (director of photography), B camera, lighting, producers, etc.

Feature-length documentary shot by one woman: First to Fall

Interview with filmmaker Rachel Beth Anderson

A documentary funded by Kickstarter: Luchadora

Example of verite short documentary: Extremis

An interview with the director

Exploring the limits and conventions of the art form:

The future of 360 Video and VR

Why you’re going to want a 360 camera

10 things I wish I knew before shooting 360 video

The NYT’s Daily 360

The New York Times made waves with its award-winning VR short doc series “The Displaced.” Now Huffington Post, The Guardian, TIME and CNN all have their own VR production teams.

Using 360 video as part of a big video feature story:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/magazine/100000005005806/the-displaced.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/magazine/the-displaced-introduction.html

https://www.nytimes.com/video/magazine/100000004980989/we-who-remain.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/14/magazine/fight-for-falluja-vr.html

VR at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival:

https://www.tribecafilm.com/immersive

What are the challenges of storytelling in 360? What are the benefits? In what ways are these videos really utilizing the potential of the format? Are they missing any opportunities? What kinds of assignments would 360 work best for, and where would it be ineffective?

Another big trend in online video these days: live video

Using live video and Instagram stories to promote a story/give a behind the scenes look into what went into making it.

And combining the two, naturally, now there’s Live 360 video: https://facebook360.fb.com/live360/

Reminders:

Starting next week (Monday April 23 and Wednesday April 25), classes will be devoted to production, so bring in whatever footage you have so you can get started editing your rough cuts.

Your rough cuts will be due by class time on April 30. Class that day is not optional. We’ll be screening the rough cuts together and giving everyone feedback.

Your final cuts will be due along with your published portfolio websites on May 14, the last day of class.

I’ve only received breaking news stories from a small handful of you, so if you have not yet done yours, please email me before Wednesday’s class with your plan for that assignment.

—

Discussion: Making a great portfolio website

http://www.amandamustard.com/

http://emilyjreports.com/

http://www.edouphoto.com/

http://kaylehope.com/

Home

A few popular website builder options:

WordPress

Adobe Portfolio

Weebly

Wix

Squarespace

Jimdo

Buying a website domain:

Domain.com

GoDaddy.com

Things to consider:

What medium (or media) are you going to be featuring prominently? Keep that in mind when choosing a template.

A portfolio website is basically an online resume. You’re selling yourself, so make sure you’re putting your best foot forward. Link to your various social media profiles, Vimeo/YouTube accounts, etc. You can even post your resume on there if your like. And write a good bio for your About page.

Requirements for Final Portfolio

You need at least two main pages on your site in addition to an optional Home landing page that showcases your best work: a Video page where we can view your projects and an About page, where you describe yourself and your work (names/sections can vary, but that’s the general idea). Those of you who have work they’d like to showcase from other classes or personal projects are welcome to create a Photography or Audio page… or organize it entirely differently if there’s another system that works for you.

You might want to consider getting a nice professional-looking headshot taken for your bio page as long as you have your cameras. And make sure you proofread! I want to see a sentence or short paragraph introducing each of your projects, on the portfolio site if the template allows space for it as well as on the Vimeo page where the video is hosted.

It is recommended but not required for you to link the website to your own domain name. Most of the site builders listed above have basic options that will allow you to host your site for free if you have a ____.wordpress.com or a ____.weebly.com address; often your site will show up with advertisements unless you upgrade (the monthly fee varies). It’s up to you whether or not it’s worth it at this stage to pay for the more polished, professional-looking website that a personalized domain will give you. A domain name will usually run you about $10 a year and it’s fairly simple to link your portfolio site to it by going into the settings and making a few changes. Let me know if you run into any difficulty here and I’ll be happy to help you.

DSLR Audio Workshop

DSLR cameras shoot gorgeous video, but they are pretty terrible when it comes to audio. They’re not built for capturing high-quality audio; even when you capture it with a decent mic and feed it directly into the camera, it will be compressed and not nearly as good as audio recorded separately on a Zoom, or some other sort of handheld mic, or with a lavalier mic. Which creates a whole other set of issues when it comes to syncing the audio in post. Fun times! Fortunately, there are a lot of creative solutions out there available at not TOO high of a price.

The Rode Videomic

One thing to be aware of with the Rode Videomic is that most Canon DSLRs with video capability register a pretty audible hiss if you use them with an external microphone in Auto and with the default settings in a quiet environment. This is because the camera has an automatic feature that increases the audio gain in a quiet setting because it’s essentially looking for sound.

With the Videomic Pro, there are recommended settings you can change manually to eliminate this hiss. Unfortunately, we have the Videomic Go, so this doesn’t apply to our equipment, but I still mention it because the Pro is an affordable and very common mic for videographers who are starting out.

By setting the Rode Videomic Pro’s dB switch to +20 and adjusting the manual sound level setting on the camera to about 20%, you can achieve a virtually hiss-free recording if you’re recording in Manual.

Still, don’t worry about the hiss too much. It’s great for low-fuss recording in situations where there might be a low level of background noise (outside with birds chirping, etc., on a street with a bit of traffic noise, etc.) and if you’re in a totally silent environment there’s a good chance you’re in a controlled environment like an office where it’ll be easier to use the lav mic anyway.

Using the Tascam

The Tascam allows you to record audio from multiple mics/sources at once. You can record that audio separately to be synced later or feed it directly into your camera to avoid having to sync it. There are good reasons why you may or may not want to do that.

If you’re feeding audio from multiple mics into the Tascam, it will record them separately which can help you in editing later, but when you’re monitoring it on your headphones each mono (single-channel) track will be combined into a stereo (multichannel) sound. The same goes for how the sound will appear in your camera if you feed it directly into the camera (and at a lower, more compressed quality to boot) meaning you will lose the ability to mix those multiple sources separately in post.

It will, however, allow you to avoid the often time-consuming process of syncing your high-quality audio with the clips filmed on your camera that are paired with the low-quality built-in audio.

You can sync audio within Premiere Pro using the Merge Clips feature (demonstrated below) which is a lot easier than trying to do it manually.

But even still, it can be a pain, especially when you consider that DSLR interviews are by necessity often broken into shorter clips than you might find with other video cameras (they can only record for about 12 minutes before they will stop recording automatically and you will need to begin a new clip).

So whether or not you decide to input the Tascam audio into the camera will depend on your individual needs for your project.

In-class exercise

Pick a partner and set up your cameras for an interview with the lavalier mic. Take turns interviewing each other about what you did on your snow day, recording on the Tascam while also feeding the audio into the camera. It only needs to be a minute or two. Upload your footage and your audio into a new Premiere Pro project, export it and submit it to me, either with Vimeo or via WeTransfer.

Remember to ask questions in a way that invites answers with complete sentences. The classic way to frame your talking heads is to place them on one of the thirds, angled so they’re slightly looking into frame but not directly at the camera (you can accomplish this by sitting/standing directly next to the camera and instructing them to look at you). Try for a background with some depth or visual interest to it, and make sure there’s some separation between the subject and the background.

Sometimes, though, filmmakers are breaking with that usual format for more stylized interviews, with the subject centered and looking directly into the camera, or some other creative framing. This is the sort of thing that should only be done if you have a very specific vision in mind and there are good reasons for it. Maybe the subject is an activist and is addressing viewers directly.

Remember that when you edit your interviews into a finished short doc, we should only see footage of the person speaking a fraction of the time. The rest of the time, there will be B-roll layered over their voice. The only times we need to actually see this talking head shot are 1) after they first start to speak, to establish who they are and what they look like, 2) any moments where the subject is being especially human: poignant, funny, tearful, and 3) if it’s been awhile (in video terms) since we’ve seen them and viewers are at risk of being unclear about who is speaking.

At some point you may be fortunate enough to be working on a crew with lighting technicians, but for now, focus on finding natural light to illuminate your subject.

Schedule updates

Next class (Monday, March 12), we will be welcoming guest speaker Ed Kashi.

Final cuts of your first videos will be due by midnight Wednesday, March 14. We will devote class that day to editing/production.

The following Monday, March 19, please bring your cameras in for our in-class audio workshop. We will practice using the lavalier mics and Tascams as we gear up for your second major video assignment of the semester.

Pitches will be due Wednesday March 21 for assignment #2, a three-to-four-minute doc.

Examples of some previous student projects and other great short docs.

What do you need when shooting a short documentary like this?

Here’s some of Ed’s work so you can be prepared to ask him questions on Monday:

In-class production/editing.

Upcoming due dates:

Have your rough cut uploaded to Vimeo and posted on the blog by class time on Monday. We will screen them together and you’ll get feedback.

Your final cuts will be due the following Wednesday, March 14.

https://freesound.org

http://soundbible.com

https://www.audioblocks.com

http://freemusicarchive.org

https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music

http://dig.ccmixter.org​

Breaking news in video

Most of the work we’ll be doing this semester is slower-paced video where you’ll have the ability to take your time to put together a thoughtful, carefully edited final product. But you might one day find yourself in a spot news or breaking news situation where you’re filing material throughout the day as you get it.

If you are working or stringing for a wire service, they will have a system for filing footage and still images. When sending in photos, you have to enter a lot of information in the metadata fields of your editing program.

Freelance Image Metadata Fields

With video, you’ll need to file something called a dopesheet along with your footage. The dopesheet is basically a summary of what you’re sending them so they can see it all at a glance.

Information Document for AFP TV

Here is an actual dopesheet I filed on a breaking news assignment; feel free to use it as a template:

Chiromo dopesheet

The actual video file you’ll send them (I usually use WeTransfer, although some places may have another system in place, often via FTP) will be minimally edited, but the trick is that you have to work fast. You pull out soundbites, transcribe them, and cut together a sequence of your best B-roll. Then you put it all in one video project (sound bites first, then B-roll), export, and send. It will look something like this:

Discuss: What are some of the practical considerations you might want to keep in mind when covering a breaking news event?

Assignment:

At some point during the semester, you must cover one breaking news event. You will file a video with at least two sound bites (from different interviews) and 45 seconds of sequenced B-roll, with accompanying dopesheet. The trick is that you must file it within 3 hours of wrapping your filming.

It’s up to you what you want to cover: the Queens St. Patrick’s Day Parade on the first Saturday of March (I highly recommend this one over the big official parade in Manhattan; I covered it once and I don’t want to be responsible for any of you quitting journalism), the March for Our Lives on March 24 (this should be a really good one to cover), the Phagwah/Holi parade in Richmond Hill on April 24, the Cherry Blossom Festival on April 28-29, etc. Just make sure you pick something that takes place at least two weeks before final projects are due so you’re not scrambling to get them both done at the same time.

In addition to the material you film with the school cameras, you will cover the story on social media. I’ve set up an Instagram account for our class where you will post at least one photo and three Stories updates before you leave the scene.

What makes a good journalistic Instagram post and a good Story update?

Kerri MacDonald, @nytimes photo editor, talks about her job.

Reminder: Bring your footage to class on Monday! We will be devoting both classes next week to in-class editing/production.

Today we’ll be workshopping your pitches and getting everyone set up with equipment.

Reminders

Upcoming due dates:

A rough cut of your visual poem will be due by midnight on Wednesday, Feb. 28. This means that for both classes that week (Monday Feb. 26 and Wednesday, Feb. 28) we will be doing in-class editing and production. This further means that you will need to have footage to work with by that Monday. PLAN ON DOING YOUR SHOOTING THIS WEEK AND NEXT WEEK.

Announcement/Reminder

School is closed on Monday, meaning pitches are due on the blog by class time on Wednesday Feb. 14 

Class activity: Edit your footage into a 10-shot sequence, upload it to your Vimeo account, and then post it to the blog. We’ll look at them together.

ScreenUp NYC event tonight sponsored by Storyhunter if you’re interested in checking it out. Must be 21+