We’ll look at any last short docs as well as your portfolio sites with reels, and I will collect your equipment returns.
One last thing… please fill out your course evaluation!
We’ll look at any last short docs as well as your portfolio sites with reels, and I will collect your equipment returns.
One last thing… please fill out your course evaluation!
Today we’ll begin screening the final cuts of your short docs. I expect this will take more than one class, so we’ll resume on Monday as well.
Your portfolio websites with reels are due by class time next Wednesday, May 15, a week from today. Guidelines for this assignment can be found in this blog post.
Please return your camera and tripod and any other outstanding accessories or equipment as soon as you can, ideally on Monday so I don’t receive them all at once on our last day.
Today we’ll be debriefing about the eclipse and looking at some of your breaking news assignments.
Reminders and Upcoming Dates
Important update: I’m getting the sense that most people could use a little more time. I’m going to be changing the due date of your rough cuts of the 5-7 minute documentary from Monday to Wednesday next week.
This means that class on Monday, April 15 will be devoted to editing and production. This class is not mandatory, but I will be here for anyone who needs help with editing/structure, last-minute topic changed, etc. If that time can be better spent out in the world filming, that is totally fine.
Your rough cuts should be posted to the blog by class time on Wednesday, April 17, our last class before we break for spring recess.
When we return from spring break on Wednesday, May 1, we will have a mandatory check-in and production class. This will be followed by a non-mandatory production day on Monday, May 6.
Final cuts of your docs will be due by class time on Wednesday, May 8.
Your portfolio websites and reels will be due by class time on Wednesday, May 15.
Announcements/Upcoming Dates
Guest Speaker
On Wednesday this week (April 3), we will be joined by guest speaker Ed Ou, an award-winning photojournalist and documentary filmmaker. We watched part of one of his documentary films recently, about fatherhood at the intersection of George Floyd Square. For homework for next class, please watch this film as well (it’s one of the shorter ones) and come prepared to ask Ed some questions.
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Breaking News Assignment
Monday next week, April 8, we don’t have class as normal because it’s the day you’ll be shooting your breaking news assignments about the eclipse. Also by next class, please write a short paragraph (even a few lines) letting me know what your plan is for covering it. We won’t have a pitch workshop for this, but make sure you have an idea of where you’re going to go, who you’re going to interview, etc. Are you going to an event? A watch party? A great viewing location? What angle do you have in mind?
Remember that your video file and dopesheet should be submitted to me by midnight that same day. I recommend using WeTransfer for this.
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 to the grid and three Stories updates before you leave the scene. Please save them and submit them to me along with your other materials so I know which posts belong to which person. Password: studioh160
What makes a good (or fun) journalistic Instagram post and an informative series of Story updates?
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Rough Cut
The rough cut of your 5-7 minute doc will be due Monday, April 15 so that you can get feedback before we break for spring recess.
Audio/Interview Practice Exercises
We’ll take some time today to look at your practice assignments with the microphones and make sure everyone is comfortable using them, not running into any issues, etc.
As you begin shooting your short docs and breaking news assignments, I wanted to dedicate a class to best practices when it comes to interviewing and audio.
In all of your camera kits, you have a wired lavalier microphone that clips onto your interview subject’s collar and plugs directly into the camera. This is a low-budget but pretty efficient option that is incredibly useful when you’re doing interviews on the fly: MOS (man on the street-style interviews) at protests, parades, other events that require you to be able to pack up and move around quickly. And because they feed directly into the camera, you don’t have to worry about syncing the audio later—although it does compress the audio as it feeds it in, meaning you won’t be getting a high-quality WAV file.
There are a couple more pitfalls of using these mics: you can’t monitor the audio as you’re recording. You have no idea what the levels are and you can’t adjust the gain. Is the mic hot? Does the person’s voice sounds off-mic? You’ll find out after the fact, when you upload your footage and watch it back. Not ideal, especially if you find out that you plugged it into the camera’s input only partway, which means that not only did the mic not feed into the camera, it deactivated the camera’s internal mic, meaning you don’t even have backup audio of the interview.
I have a limited number of Audio-Technica microphones that are a bit higher quality, which will allow you to plug in a pair of studio monitor headphones so that you can listen to the audio quality while you record, which allows you to adjust the mic’s location, direction, distance from subject’s mouth, etc. as needed to make sure the interview audio sounds as clean as possible.
Your in-class assignment today is to pair off with a classmate, head to a quiet location somewhere on campus, and take turns interviewing each other about what you will be doing over spring break. The interviews can be quite brief, only a few minutes. Start by asking the person’s name and how it’s spelled. Practice asking open-ended questions. Instead of “Are you looking forward to spring break?” which leads to a yes or no response, ask something like “So, can you tell me about what you’ll be doing over spring break?” This invites a more complete thought as a response, something you’re much more likely to be able to use as a sound bite.
Before class is over, come back to the classroom to upload your footage to the classroom computer and play it back to check how it looks, along with the audio quality. Pull out one short clip/soundbite in Premiere (no more than 30 seconds) and upload it to YouTube or Vimeo and post here on the class site.
This exercise requires you to think not just about audio quality, it demands that you think about how to frame the interview. Will you use the more classic broadcast news package framing, where the subject is on one of the thirds, angled slightly toward the negative space, looking past the camera, NOT directly at it?
Or will you choose the more confrontational, direct eye contact with the camera, centered framing that is popular with many docu-series these days?
What is in the background of your talking head shot? Are you filming the person in their element? Could an artful framing that includes these details tell us something about the person like the classroom shot above? What about filming the person in a way that shows us many telling details about their office or their home?
Are you allowing some negative space where you might later put a lower third identifying your subject?
Other things you’ll need to keep in mind:
Setting the height of the tripod/camera correctly so that it is basically eye level with the person.
Making sure their face is in focus during the interview. Remember that if you are going to be using a lower f-stop to achieve a dramatically shallow depth of field (common in low-light situations or if you’re framing the shot very cinematically) then if the person moves forward or backward AT ALL while they are speaking, they may suddenly move out of the focus you have carefully calibrated. If you are shooting them close-up, at a very low aperture you will see a difference in focus between their eyes and the tip of their nose. So it tends to be a safer bet to go for a more moderate aperture. A good way to make certain your focus is accurate is to zoom all the way in, set the focus, and then zoom back out to your desired framing.
If you have the Image Stabilization function on your lens turned on, the lens can make a quiet grinding sound that is audible on your camera’s internal mic. It shouldn’t affect the microphone audio, but it’s worth being aware.
Reminders and Upcoming Dates
Treatments for your 5-7 minute doc are due today.
No class on Monday, April 8 so that you can shoot your breaking news assignment, due by midnight the same night. You have the option of pitching me an alternative breaking news story (must be completed by the end of the semester). There’s a solar eclipse group viewing party at the BBG: check out the event here.
The rough cut of your 5-7 minute doc will be due Monday, April 15 so that you can get feedback before we break for spring recess.
Visual Poems
We’ll finish screening the last of the visual poems.
Treatments
Separate into groups of three and read each other’s doc treatments. We’ll take about 15 minutes during which you can give each other feedback, ask critical questions, offer suggestions, etc.
For Wednesday’s class:
We will be doing an audio exercise with your microphones on Wednesday, so please make sure to bring your cameras and tripods to class.
Portfolio Websites and Reels
If you want to make headway in this industry when you leave Baruch, the single most useful thing you can have is a professional-looking portfolio website. Editors aren’t going to ask to see your transcript or your resume—they’ll want to see your work, and the most efficient way of doing that is to send them a link. It’ll show that you take yourself seriously
Discussion: Making a great portfolio website
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 post your resume on there if you like. Write a good bio for your About page, and ideally include some sort of headshot photo.
Some people choose to adopt a more formal tone, while others let a bit of their personality show through. Think about how you want to brand yourself.
Requirements for Final Portfolio and Reel
You’ll need at least three main pages on your site: a Video or Home page where we can view your projects, a Reel page, and an About page where you describe yourself and your work (names/sections can vary, but that’s the general idea). Some people put their contact info on this page, while others choose to have an entirely separate Contact page. Those of you who have work you’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’ll want a nice professional-looking headshot taken for your bio page, or a shot of you in action reporting. I recommend taking advantage of having your school cameras to do this. And please 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, because I don’t want to require any of you to pay a website subscription. Most of the site builders listed below 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 $12-$15 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.
Bearing in mind that since most of you don’t have a huge amount of material yet to work with, your reel doesn’t need to be very long. One minute long is plenty, and you should keep it under two minutes—basically you’re just taking your absolute best shots from everything you’ve ever filmed and cutting them together with music. Feel free to use this as an opportunity to showcase clips from old projects from past semesters as well.
Deadline: This assignment will be due on the very last day of class.
Some examples of multimedia journalist websites:
https://www.keithlanephotography.com/
A few popular website builder options:
Adobe Portfolio (free if you subscribe to an Adobe programs)
Squarespace (does not have a free version)
Buying a website domain:
Even if you don’t want to pay to subscribe to a site builder, it might be worth buying your preferred domain name sooner rather than later just to lock it down. (Depends on how common your name is.) Years ago it was somewhat more common to have some kind of creative website name, but that’s rare these days. I recommend using some version of your own name dot com because it will look the cleanest and most professional.
The process of linking a domain to a website varies slightly based on which ones you’re using, but if you are planning on doing this and having trouble following the instructions most sites provide on this, let me know and I can help walk you through it.
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. You’ll need to file something called a dopesheet along with your video material. The dopesheet is basically a summary of what you’re sending them so they can see it all at a glance.
Here is an actual dopesheet I filed on a breaking news assignment; feel free to use it as a template. The trick with dopesheets is not only to transcribe your soundbites accurately; it’s to distill the main takeaway of the story, because the news outlets that subscribe to your wire need to know at a glance what the point of it is, why they should care, and why it’s worth them deciding to run it. So it does come back down to good writing. Think about what your nut graph would be in a print story.
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:
Assignment:
You will cover a spot/breaking news story. You will file a video with at least three sound bites (from at least two different interviews) and 45 seconds of sequenced B-roll (3-5 seconds per shot) with accompanying dopesheet. The trick is that you must file it by midnight on the same day you filmed it.
I will not be holding class as usual on Monday, April 8 so that anyone who wants to cover the eclipse as a breaking news story may do so. However, you are welcome to propose an alternative breaking news story if there is something else you’d prefer to report on. The Phagwah Parade in Richmond Hill is on Sunday April 7 this year; that’s always fun to cover. But if you do, make sure you securely wrap your camera first to protect it!
Announcements
Next up is Roz Day. I will offer extra credit to any student who participates in this field reporting day. If your schedule will only permit you to attend the morning part OR the afternoon part of the itinerary, that’s fine, you’ll still get credit for going—just let me know. Please RSVP to Prof. Haller by Tuesday the 19th and copy me. Details below:
Journalism students,
We would like to invite you to join us for our Roslyn Bernstein Reporting Day on Tues., March 26. We will be covering the East Village in Manhattan, exploring how the neighborhood is responding two major international stories playing out in its midst.
The morning will focus on the Russia-Ukraine war, while the afternoon will be devoted to the current migrant situation.
The goals of these field trips are to help you develop story ideas for different classes, expose you to an area of the city you might not know a lot about, and also allow you to spend a day with other Baruch students.
Please find the itinerary below. You are welcome to join us for some, or all of it.
If you plan on coming, please email Prof. Vera Haller at vera.haller@baruch.cuny.edu by Tues., March 19. (Lunch is Baruch’s treat) Please indicate in your email which portions of the itinerary you will be joining.
East Village trip itinerary
11am-12:15pm
St. George’s Ukrainian Catholic School
30 East 7th St., NY, NY 10003 (between Second and Third avenues)
Interviews with the principal and Ukrainian students who have fled the war to continue their education in New York City. The school says it has 70 Ukrainian students who are attending on special visas because of the war.
12:30-1pm
Razom for Ukraine
140 Second Ave., NY NY 10003 (corner of East 11th Street)
Briefing with representatives of this non-profit which organizes aid for Ukraine.
1-2 pm
Lunch at Veselka
144 Second Ave., NY, NY 10003 (corner of East 11th Street)
This longtime neighborhood restaurant is the heart of the East Village’s Ukrainian community. Join us to try some Ukrainian cuisine (pierogis, potato pancakes and more)
2-2:30pm
Walk through Tompkins Square Park to the former St. Brigid School, now a city-run “re-ticketing center” for recently arrived migrants.
Starting at Veselka and walking to Avenue B and East 7th Street.
2:30-3:15pm
East Village Loves NYC
Sixth Street Community Center
638 East 6th St. NY, NY 10009 (Between Avenues B and C)
Briefing with representatives of this non-profit, mutual aid organization that has been organizing meals and clothing donations for migrants gathered near the city office at the former St. Brigid school
Upcoming Dates
Final cuts of your visual poems are due next class, on Monday March 18th. Please have them posted to the site by class time.
Your treatments for your short docs will be due Wednesday March 20.
Your breaking news assignments will take place on Monday, April 8.
Rough cuts for your short docs will be due Monday, April 15.
Documentary Treatments
(The reporters who pitched this ended up going in a different direction and doing a multimedia piece rather than a documentary.)
You can refer back to this sample as a sort of template for your own treatments. But let’s break down what each one ought to include:
Pitch: What’s the story, and why is it news?
Characters: Who are they? Why should we care about them? Why is this person the right subject to convey this story?
Shooting Plan: Where will you shoot? What will you shoot? What visuals/scenes do you aim to capture? What is the visual style you’re going for?
Shooting Timeline: When will you begin shooting? When will you wrap shooting? What specific events do you plan to be present for?
Storytelling plan: What is the structure of the story? What is the beginning, middle and end?
Theme: Is there a larger truth or point this story aims to convey? If so, what?
The Art of Text and Typeface in Video
What are some things to consider when using text in videos?
Timing
Does your title come at the beginning of the film? Or dramatically at the end, as a sort of reveal? Perhaps it’s inserted after an opening scene for emphasis, essentially breaking the story up into sections?
Composition
It’s often helpful to think about what your title shot might be when out shooting, so that you can leave some negative space for the words. Likewise with your talking head/interview shots, you might consider leaving some contrast down where the lower third will go.
Tone
What sort of story are you telling in your video? Is it somber or playful? Does it have to do with history, news, or technology? All of these things might drive whether you reach for a handwriting font, a clean and modern font, or a more classic serif font.
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/text-graphics-in-video/#Text-graphics-Definitions-and-applications
A Baruch doc (published on D&S) that uses typeface in an interesting way:
Short Doc Assignment Details
This is still a ways out, but I’m introducing this assignment early because the best documentaries often take time, and I want to give you all the opportunity to start developing an idea and begin shooting sooner rather than later, if you have the capacity and inclination to do so.
Your documentary should be somewhere between five to seven minutes long, give or take a minute in either direction based on how densely edited and tightly paced it is.
Pitches for the documentary assignment will be due Monday, March 11. As before, we will workshop your ideas together in class. Please post your pitches here on the site by class time.
It can be narrated, whether you would like to appear as an onscreen correspondent or feel that the narrative merits a voiceover (often a consideration if the story requires a lot of background and exposition). It can also be non-narrated, which tends to lend itself to a more character-driven, organic, verité-style story.
Narrated, newsy, complicated story with voiceover:
On-camera correspondent:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=euTsHmasdsA%3Ffeature%3Doembed
Non-narrated:
The Art of Typeface in Documentaries
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/text-graphics-in-video/#Text-graphics-Definitions-and-applications
https://venngage.com/blog/font-psychology/embed/#?secret=tECdNLraee
A Baruch doc (published on D&S) that uses typeface in an interesting way: