Author: EJohnson

Upcoming/Revised Dates

• Tuesday, April 7. Remember to sign up for a script editing session for Tuesday here.
• Thursday, April 9. We won’t have class next Thursday because it’s spring break. You are all, however, welcome to text me for editing assistance outside of class hours and I’ll be happy to hop on a call or a one-on-one Zoom meeting and help you troubleshoot.
• Tuesday April 14. This is the first day we will “meet” again after the shortened spring break, and the final version of the radio story will be due by class time. This gives you a week to voice, edit, and submit it. Please upload it to Soundcloud and post it to the blog by class time that afternoon along with a headline/title and your final script copied and pasted into the blog post. As a reminder, you are no longer required to submit a photo along with the story, although you are welcome to do so if you were able to find one, and you are no longer required to rewrite the script to make it readable for the web.
• Thursday, April 16. Pitches will be due for your final project, a 2-3 minute video news story, so start thinking now about story ideas—again, you’ll need to think creatively about video stories you can do under the circumstances. We will workshop your ideas as a class this day so have your pitches posted on the blog by class time.
• Tuesday, May 5. The rough cut of your video will be due by class time.
• Thursday, May 14. Last day of class: The final cut of your video assignment will be due by class time.

Intro to Video Journalism

With video, we build on the compositional techniques of photography and the structural, storytelling aspects of audio with one obvious additional element: Motion.

How does video storytelling for the web and mobile differ from TV and film?

• Need to be CLOSER to your subject. Web videos are smaller and more compressed.
• 20 percent of online viewers bail on a video within 10 seconds. So you don’t have a lot of time to grab your viewers and make sure they stick around.

How important is audio?

• Good audio is of paramount importance. If you have low-quality video and good audio, the video will still be watchable. If you have gorgeous visuals but terrible audio, it will not.

When is narration necessary?

Sometimes, you can let the subjects of your video tell the story all on their own — as long as you edit with care, presenting what they’ve told you in a way that makes narrative sense. One benefit of non-narrated videos is that they can feel more organic. There’s no disembodied voice stepping in to tell the story, which keeps the focus on the characters in the story.

But sometimes, for clarity’s sake or for stylistic reasons, narration is necessary, or text.

Narrated videos

Text-Narrated videos

These are more and more popular thanks to social media distribution because they automatically start playing as you scroll through your feed and they can be watched without sound.

Non-Narrated videos

Shooting Your Video

There are two main components to any video: your interviews and your B-roll. The rules of composition we learned for photography (thirds, colors, patterns, symmetry, etc.) all apply here, but you also need to keep an eye out for motion. Tracking shots involve following the action with your camera, while static shots involve keeping your camera still, but that doesn’t mean there’s no motion involved; you might just be letting the action go in and out of the frame.

What is B-roll? And what difference does it make?

A big difference.

Things to keep in mind while you’re shooting B-roll:

1. Shoot more than you think you’ll need.
2. Get a variety of shots. Close-up, medium, wide, detail shots, static shots, tracking shots.
3. Use a tripod whenever possible. If you don’t have one or you’re shooting in a mobile, chaotic situation, be resourceful about stabilizing your shots.
4. Think about your interviews and let them inform your B-roll shooting decisions. Look for shots that illustrate what the person is talking about.
5. Hold your shot longer than you think you need to. A good rule of thumb is to hold it for at least 10 seconds (AFTER it’s already steady).

Things to keep in mind when you’re shooting your interviews:

1. Frame the shot with your subject on one of the thirds, angled so that they’re looking slightly INTO the frame. Have them look at you, not at the camera, so be mindful of where you are sitting. It’s a bit intense when someone looks directly into the camera.

2.  If you’re working with a translator, be mindful that the subject will want to look at them, so make sure they are positioned in the ideal place to draw the person’s gaze.
3.  Prioritize good audio.
4.  Make sure their face is lit, but not too harshly.
5. Think about composing the shot in a way that allows for some negative space where the Lower Third will eventually go.

Obviously, you will be a bit limited in the types of video stories you are able to do at the moment. So here are some suggestions:

• ​Aim to find stories you can report at home or close to home. Interview people you are already in close contact with. There are also a ton of internet/social media stories right now because so much human interaction and creativity is unfolding virtually, so consider finding ways to report on this visually via screen recording tools.
•  Ask your sources to record video on their phones and send it to you. Make sure they orient their phones horizontally. This can include interviews you conduct over the phone or B-roll/video diaries done in the moment while your source is handing out free lunches at an NYC public school, teaching their child from home while struggling to work full-time from home, working a hospital shift, etc.
• Use the Screen Recording feature on your phones to record video from your phone screen, or select “New Screen Recording” in Quicktime to record video off your laptop screen. Use KeepVid to grab videos off of YouTube, if relevant to your story. (Make sure to attribute any videos you grab this way and make sure you only use short clips to stay on the right side of Fair Use.)
• Go out and film only if it’s filming you can do outside by going for a solitary walk or bike ride and from a distance of greater than six feet. Don’t use your wired lav mics to interview people in these situations. Under the circumstances, it’s okay if the audio isn’t perfect. Ask the person to speak up.

Discussion: The Power of Voices and Speech Patterns

When we hear someone speak, what are the different things we pick up on? What are the things we assume about them?

“NPR Voice”

During a recent long car ride whose soundtrack was a medley of NPR podcasts, I noticed a verbal mannerism during scripted segments that appeared on just about every show. I’ve heard the same tic in countless speeches, TED talks and Moth StorySLAMS — anywhere that features semi-informal first-person narration.

If I could attempt to transcribe it, it sounds kind of like, y’know … this.

That is, in addition to looser language, the speaker generously employs pauses and, particularly at the end of sentences, emphatic inflection. (This is a separate issue from upspeak, the tendency to conclude statements with question marks?) A result is the suggestion of spontaneous speech and unadulterated emotion. The irony is that such presentations are highly rehearsed, with each caesura calculated and every syllable stressed in advance.

In literary circles, the practice of poets reciting verse in singsong registers and unnatural cadences is known, derogatorily, as “poet voice.” I propose calling this phenomenon “NPR voice” (which is distinct from the supple baritones we normally associate with radio voices).

It took me YEARS to start WRITING how I actually SPOKE in real life. #pubradiovoice

— Sam Sanders (@samsanders) January 29, 2015

“He was hinting at the difficult balancing act reporters face in developing their on-air voice. It isn’t just a challenge of performance — and it’s not as simple as channeling some “authentic” voice into a microphone. It requires grappling with your identity and your writing process, along with history of your institution.”

Decoding identity on the air

Here’s an actual intro by Ira Glass: sound similar?

Challenging the Whiteness of Public Radio

Podcast: ‘White voice’ and hearing whiteness as difference, not the standard

Does public radio sound too white? NPR itself tries to find out.

The reason the sound of your own voice makes you cringe

Why your voice IS a “podcast voice”

On accent bias in the industry, by Baruch’s own Gisele Regetao:

The Many Voices of Journalism

Podcast: Gisele Regatao on NPR’s accent bias

Common speech patterns in today’s world that everyone (men, too!) use all the time:

Upspeak

Vocal fry

“Like”

According to Ira Glass:

“…listeners have always complained about young women reporting on our show. They used to complain about reporters using the word “like” and about upspeak… But we don’t get many emails like that anymore. People who don’t like listening to young women on the radio have moved on to vocal fry.”

Why old men find young women’s voices so annoying

99% Invisible podcast responds to criticism about women’s voices

So all of this leads us to the question: How can we be intentional about how we use our voices to tell the best stories as effectively as possible?

Luckily, in radio/podcasting, speaking naturally is what we actually WANT. No one wants to listen to a robot, or someone who sounds like they’re reading.

How I learned to stop worrying and love my voice

Update: The new additional instructional recess, updated spring break dates, and what that means for this class.

• We won’t “meet” again until next Thursday. If you feel you don’t have the right computer equipment/reliable internet at home to complete the documentary and portfolio website assignments, please let me know so we can get you set up in this interim period.
• Now that the dates for spring break have been changed, I’m changing the due date on your scripts to Tuesday, April 7. The sign-up sheet for edits still applies, it’ll just be on a different day.
• Considering how much this is putting us behind, I’m simplifying the final project to just a video rather than a whole multimedia project with different elements. The logistics are just too complicated and with the constantly moving goalposts of the last couple of weeks, you won’t have as much time to complete it as you’d need.

Also, here’s that episode of The Daily I mentioned that relies on lots of recorded online audio.

Today’s class:

Pitch Workshop

Updated due dates: 

Your scripts for your new radio stories will now be due on Thursday, April 2, our last official day of class before spring break begins. (We have no class on Tuesday April 7 because classes follow a Wednesday schedule.)

On that day when your scripts are due, instead of having a normal remote class over Zoom, I’ll be doing phone edits with everybody individually where I give you feedback on your script—make sure you don’t record your narration before this edit session, because the script will probably change and you’ll just need to do it over.

Here’s the sign-up sheet for editing times for next Thursday. It’s first come, first served. If for some reason none of these times work for you—I know some of you are in different time zones—please reply to this email so we can work something out.

The final version of the radio story will now be due April 21, the first day we will “meet” again after spring break. Please also start thinking about story ideas for your video assignment—and again, you’ll need to think creatively about video stories you can do under the circumstances.

Here are the guidelines our department has discussed for reporting during this time:

• ​Do your reporting over the phone or online.

• Conduct interviews over the phone and record them.​
• If your subject is willing and has access to a landline or a borrowed phone, ask them to record a “tape sync” for you by recording their end of the call with their Voice Memos app (or equivalent) and then sending you the file along with at least 90 seconds of room tone. Make sure they know where the phone mic is located (on iPhones, it’s on the bottom of the phone.) Make sure you record the call from your end, too, as a backup.
• To record a call from your end, there are a few options. 1. Google Voice is free to use: create a number, route it to your phone and press “4” during any call to start recording. 2. TapeACall is also a great app which lots of professionals use, but it’s not free. 3. Put the phone on speaker and record it with your audio recorder or a borrowed phone.
• Download Audio Hijack, which allows you to record the system audio from your computer for up to ten minutes. This will allow you to grab audio from press conferences, YouTube or Instagram videos, etc., depending on what you’re covering.
• Record natural sound only if it’s something you can do at home or by going for a solitary walk or bike ride outside and from a distance of greater than six feet.
• Record your narration in an improvised at-home “studio.” Aim to record in a space that absorbs sound: a room with carpeting, curtains, bedding, etc. Some tried-and-true methods that radio journalists use in a pinch is to go in their closet or simply to throw a blanket over their head. Take a look at the way some WNYC journalists are setting themselves up at home for inspiration: https://twitter.com/WNYC/status/1239896211903086592
• Download Audacity, a free program, for audio editing.

• ​Aim to find stories you can report at home. Interview people you are already in close contact with. There are also a ton of internet/social media stories right now because so much human interaction and creativity is unfolding virtually, so consider finding ways to report on this visually via screen recording tools.
•  Ask your sources to record video on their phones and send it to you. Make sure they orient their phones horizontally. This can inclue interviews you conduct over the phone or B-roll/video diaries done in the moment while your source is handing out free lunches at an NYC public school, teaching their child from home while struggling to work full-time from home, working a hospital shift, etc.
• Use the Screen Recording feature on your phones to record video from your phone screen, or select “New Screen Recording” in Quicktime to record video off your laptop screen. Use KeepVid to grab videos off of YouTube, if relevant to your story. (Make sure to attribute any videos you grab this way and make sure you only use short clips to stay on the right side of Fair Use.)
• Go out and film only if it’s filming you can do outside by going for a solitary walk or bike ride and from a distance of greater than six feet. Don’t use your wired lav mics to interview people; only use the mounted shotgun mic so you can stay far enough away. Under the circumstances, it’s okay if the audio isn’t perfect. Ask the person to speak up.

Audio Editing Workshop

Audacity shortcuts to know:

Play/pause: space bar
Split track: Command I
Zoom in: Command 1
Zoom out: Command 3

In the tool bar, this is the selection tool that allows you to click and highlight and delete sections of track or select a spot where you want to split it:

And this is the tool that allows you to move sections of track:


And this is the one that lets you adjust the volume, basically the same way the pen tool works in Premiere:

You’ll need to export the finished sound file before you can upload it anywhere.

In Audacity, it’s File –> Export Audio –> select “WAV” from dropdown menu and give the file a name and location, then hit “Save” and “OK.”

I recommend uploading to Soundcloud rather than hosting it on the blog. It’s free to create an account. Please post the link on the class blog when you’re finished (by class time next Thursday at the latest).

—

Script

Host intro: With CUNY schools transitioning to online learning this week amid the coronavirus outbreak, professors across New York City are getting creative. Emily Johnson spoke to one CUNY adjunct about what it’s like trying to teach during a pandemic.

AMBI: Nat sounds of tea kettle boiling (FADE DOWN AS TRACK BEGINS)

AMBI: Room tone (LAYER UNDER TRACK)

TRACK: I’m here with Anna Ficek in her Brooklyn apartment, watching her make tea while she works from home. She’s a PhD student at the CUNY Grad Center and when she’s not working on her dissertation she teaches art history at Baruch College and Borough of Manhattan Community College, or BMCC.

ACT: ANNA: When I found out that everything was getting shut down and especially CUNY I felt extremely sad. Because CUNY is such a big part of my lie, such a great community that it was hard to feel that kind of dissipating.

TRACK: She says teaching from home has been a real challenge because of the way she runs her classes.

ACT: ANNA: It’s been very difficult to adapt to teaching remotely just because I really value the discussion I have with my students.

TRACK: Still, she’s trying to see this as an opportunity.

ACT: ANNA: What I’m hoping to get out of this is more time to really focus on what’s important both in terms of teaching and my own dissertation and my own research and trying to figure out creative problem solving ways to deal with these new issues that are going to come around like libraries being closed and inaccessibility to archives and how myself as an academic and as a researcher can get around that. So challenges, but also good challenges!

TRACK: CUNY schools will continue with distance learning for at least the remainder of the spring semester. For Baruch College, I’m Emily Johnson.

For next class:

Please have a revised pitch for your radio assignment ready to discuss by class time on Tuesday. To restate from my email:

Reminder on Upcoming Dates:

Scripts for the radio piece will be due Tuesday, March 24, when instead of class as usual I will have everyone sign up for an in-person script editing session (or over the phone in the event that school is closed at that time).

Final produced radio story will be due Thursday, April 2.

In-Class Exercise:

Pair up with a classmate and spread out to find a good interview spot. Take turns interviewing each other about how the coronavirus has impacted them so far and/or how they feel about it. Remember to ask open-ended questions. Interviews should be about five minutes long. Make sure you also record 90 seconds to two minutes of room tone before or after the interview. Make sure you also record some natural sounds that tell you something about the environment: street noise outside making it clear we’re in NYC, or the sounds of student voices showing we’re in a college, etc.

When you’re finished, come back, save your sound files to the computer and make them accessible to yourself remotely, whether by email or Google Drive or WeTransfer. Transcribe your interview. Pick out your top three sound bites and write a short script following this format:

—

Host intro: (Here, the host will give background info on coronavirus and introduce you, the reporter. You can have a classmate or friend/family member record this voiceover.)

AMBI1: (This is where your scene-setting natural sound will go, and it will fade down under your track.)

AMBI2: (As the nats fade down, this is where your room tone will come in. You’ll keep it at a normal volume behind all of your narration.)

TRACK: (Describe where you are and introduce the person you’re interviewing.)

ACT: (Sound bite #1.)

TRACK: (More background info, set up next sound bite.)

ACT: (Sound bite #2.)

TRACK: (More background info, set up next sound bite.)

ACT: (Sound bite #3.)

TRACK: (Use your narration to wrap things up, often by looking towards the future in some way, and then sign off. “For Baruch College, this is __ ___ in New York City.”)

Post your script to the class blog at the end of class (you may continue updating it any time before Thursday’s class). We will use them for reference when it comes time to edit this practice radio story that day. If you plan on working on your own computer, please download Audacity before class.

Refresher on Zoom Settings:

Set it to XY. Bring backup AA batteries if you’re not conducting the interview in a place where you can plug it in. Hold it 1-2 feet from the interviewee’s mouth. Don’t let them hold it. Use the handle to reduce handling noise. Highly recommended to you use your own headphones to monitor sound levels while you’re recording. Please format the card before you return it. MENU –> SD CARD –> FORMAT

I highly recommend that you check equipment out sooner rather than later in case campus is closed.

Today: Pitch Workshop 

We’ll discuss your pitches for your radio stories.

Zoom tutorial.

Set it to XY. Bring backup AA batteries if you’re not conducting the interview in a place where you can plug it in. Hold it 1-2 feet from the interviewee’s mouth. Don’t let them hold it. Use the handle to reduce handling noise. Highly recommended to you use your own headphones to monitor sound levels while you’re recording. Please format the card before you return it. MENU –> SD CARD –> FORMAT

Upcoming Dates:

Scripts for the radio piece will be due Tuesday, March 24, when instead of class as usual I will have everyone sign up for an in-person script editing session.

Final produced radio story will be due Thursday, April 2.

Reminder:

Assignment #2 will be a 5-minute news radio feature (a “wrap”). A wrap is a scripted radio piece that weaves together natural sounds, interview clips (known as “actualities”), and reporter narration to tell a story.

These are the components you are required to submit for the final draft:

1. A good headline/title.
2. Your final 4-5 minute edited audio file, posted to Soundcloud and embedded on the blog or on Exposure.
3. At least one photo.
4. A slightly reworked version of the script that reads like a normal news story, similar to the above examples.

Discussion

Debrief about Tuesday’s Bronx Documentary Center visit. What did you all think? Was it useful?

Check in 

How are your photo essays coming? Is anyone running into any issues?

Upcoming dates

Next week will be a production week, with both classes devoted to working on your photo essays. You’re welcome to use that time to go out and photograph, or come in and use the computer lab for editing images in Lightroom—it’s up to you how to best use your time. I will also be available for 1:1 coaching on caption writing and technical stuff.

Your photo essays will be due by class time on Tuesday, March 3. We will look at them together as a class that day and give feedback. You’ll have a week from that day to make any revisions and re-submit a final draft.

Intro to Radio Reporting

For your radio stories, you’ll be creating something called a wrap: a scripted feature with narration, natural sounds, and sound bites all woven together.

Sample wrap.

Sample radio script.

Here are some basics you’ll want to keep in mind as you set out to collect sound:

Choose your environment wisely. Be aware of your surroundings. If you interview someone under a subway track, your recording will be impossible to understand. Pick a relatively quiet space. A little background noise is fine and adds atmosphere – except for music. Music makes editing difficult, so avoid it if possible.

Check your batteries beforehand. It’s a real bummer when you start interviewing someone and realize you only have ten minutes of life left on your recorder or phone. Bring backups!

Cell phones off. Yours and theirs. If you’re using your phone to record, make sure it’s set to silent.

Don’t forget your nats. Natural sound is a crucial element of any audio piece. Think about what sounds will most effectively place your listener in the scene. Footsteps, dishes clinking, phones ringing. Don’t be afraid to get in there and get close. Music is fine to use as a nat sound, but not as background to an interview. It will mess up your ability to edit.

Don’t forget your ambi. “Ambi” refers to ambient sound, also known as room tone. Basically, this is the background noise from wherever you happen to conduct your interviews. Even if you record in a very quiet place, nothing still usually sounds like something because of how the acoustics vary in different rooms. Before or after every interview, always record 90 seconds to two minutes of ambi. This will go under your narration to make the story feel seamless.

Ask open-ended questions. Yes or no questions won’t give you good long responses filled with usable quotes.

Get close, but not too close. Putting a mic right up against someone’s mouth can result in popping and crackling sounds on the recording. Make sure to test your equipment so you know roughly where to hold your recorder for optimal sound quality.

Ask your question, then shut up. Active listening is a fantastic skill for a journalist to have, but if you keep murmuring “Uh-huh,” “Yeah,” and “Sure,” while they’re answering your questions, you won’t be able to use the material. Stick with smiling and nodding.

Using an audio recorder. Always monitor your sound with headphones while recording, if possible. Hold the mic 1-2 feet from the interviewee’s mouth. Never let the person you’re interviewing hold it. Use the handle to reduce handling noise.

A couple more radio stories:

Example of a clever host intro: Scottish town wants its witch bones back

A small town in Italy offers houses for sale for less than an espresso

Upcoming dates

Thursday, March 5: Pitches due for radio stories. During this class, I’ll give a quick tutorial on using the Zoom audio recorders and then we’ll workshop your pitches.

Scripts for the radio piece will be due Tuesday, March 24.

Final produced radio story will be due Thursday, April 2.

Guidelines for radio pitches

Assignment #2 will be a 5-minute news radio feature (a “wrap”). A wrap is a scripted radio piece that weaves together natural sounds, interview clips (known as “actualities”), and reporter narration to tell a story.

These are the components you are required to submit for the final draft:

1. A good headline/title.
2. Your final 4-5 minute edited audio file, posted to Soundcloud and embedded on the blog or on Exposure.
3. At least one photo.
4. A slightly reworked version of the script that reads like a normal news story, similar to the above examples.

• Photo editing workshop 

Using Lightroom to edit photos

Using Exposure to create your photo essays

1. Select “Create your first story.”
2. Give it a title and subtitle.
3. Upload a cover photo.
4. Start adding photos and text. I recommend adding your captions AS text, not with a “caption” option.
5. If you leave “Group Title (Optional)” empty, it will disappear when you publish.
6. Add any links if relevant.

Caption writing

Just because photojournalism is a visual medium, it doesn’t mean you get to be any less thorough when it comes to names, facts, dates, etc. You need to always make sure you get the names, locations, professions, ages (if relevant) to include in your captions. The Who/What/Where/When/Why.

Washington Post guidelines:

Freelance Image Metadata Fields

“A caption should briefly and clearly describe in a complete sentence what is happening in the picture, including an active verb (‘someone does something’). This will allow our internal systems to take sections of the sentence and automatically create keywords. In many cases, a single sentence will suffice. A second sentence is acceptable if it adds additional information, follows the required formula and does not editorialize.”

Caption example:

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – JANUARY 11: Actress Kate Winslet holds her award at the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards on January 11, 2009 in Beverly Hills, California. Winslet won the Golden Globe for best supporting actress for her role in “The Reader,” as Hollywood set aside labor strife and a recession to honor the year’s best performances. (Photo by Rich Lipski for The Washington Post)

Notice how the first sentence is in present tense, describing what is literally happening in the photo, and the following sentence is in the past tense, giving background and context. 

In a photo essay, the captions play the additional role of shaping a narrative. So while wire photos and breaking news photos might all include similar captions because most likely they’ll only be used one at a time, your captions in a photo essay will need to follow a somewhat more narrative shape. Meaning, the first one will include a lot of that 5W’s stuff, while the additional captions might fill in the blanks some more.

Announcement:

Roz Reporting Day next week (Tuesday, Feb. 18) in the Bronx. Our class will be meeting at 3pm at the Bronx Documentary Center. You have the option of attending the entire day of reporting in the Bronx if your schedule permits. (Includes 9:05 or 10am at location TDB, followed by Bronx Defenders at 11:30 and 1pm lunch at Xochimilco.)

Wrap Up Pitch Workshop:

Finish workshopping last few pitches.

Photo Scavenger Hunt:

We’ll look at photos together from your in-class assignment. You’ll also use these for some practice photo editing and using Exposure.

Reminder:

Photo essays will be due by class time on Tuesday, March 3.

Hands-On Workshop: Using your DSLR camera

• Turning it on and off
• Where to find the memory card and battery
• Image size (large)
• How to adjust ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and white balance
• Focusing the lens by tapping the shutter (auto) and manually

In-Class Assignment: Photo Scavenger Hunt

Take one of the school cameras and pair up in teams of two or three. Go out within a reasonable radius of campus and start taking photos, looking for at least 10 strongly-composed images that capture some of the following elements of composition (some of these will inevitably contain multiple elements, and that’s fine—ideal, even). Please make sure everyone in the group gets  roughly equal time with the camera.

Contrasting colors
Monochromatic colors
Symmetry
Pattern
Rule of thirds
Close-up detail shot
Shallow depth of field
Portrait
Dramatic/beautiful/interesting use of light
Slow shutter speed
Internal framing
Movement
Decisive moment
Layers telling a story
Unusual perspective

Make sure you leave enough time to come back and load the photos onto your computer and pack up the cameras by the end of class time; we’ll work on editing the images in Lightroom at a later date. I recommend also saving them in the cloud or sending them to yourself via WeTransfer (which expires after about a week!) or email.

Remember that your pitches for your photo essays are due the day after tomorrow, on Thursday Feb. 6!