Week 5

From left, Alison Tucker, 10, John Jackson, 17, and Gary Miley 17, swim in the wave pool at Raging Waters in San Jose on June 21, 2006. (LiPo Ching/San Jose Mercury News) [hot summer weather for the 1A centerpiece]

FIELD NOTES

Editing shifts on Monday 6/19/06, Sunday 6/25/06, and Monday 6/26/06. Shooting shifts on Wednesday 6/21/06 and Thursday 6/22/06. So far, the shooting and editing shifts seem to be going smoothly. When it comes to photo editing, I find the designers and editors very helpful – sometimes they seem to know what works better than I do, so it’s a good learning experience. I was also assigned the hot weather 1A centerpiece… as one of the classic assignment photographers have to deal with.

This was a slower week for multimedia with only 4 postings, but the news that dominated the week was San Jose’s Mayor Ron Gonzales was charged with felony bribery and fraud charges in a garbage contract scandal. The same day he was arrested a staff slideshow was posted in a reverse timeline that featured key people related to the story (including several pictures I shot). The following day Karen Borchers shot video at the press conference given by the Supervising Deputy District Attorney Julius Finkelstein. She also caught Gonzales leaving City Hall in the morning where he tried to conduct business as usual.

Slideshow:
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/22/indicted-mayor/
Video:
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/23/prosecutor-accuses-mayor-aide/

For the DA’s press conference, Karen also shot stills. The video camera was mounted on a tripod and recorded without an operator and a separate audio recorder was taped to the podium and recorded without an operator where the DA was speaking. Karen ended up with 40:00 minutes of video, which was cut into a 2:12 piece. Again, Geri basically let Karen edit the piece herself, suggesting that Karen use an intro.

There were some audio issues from the video – the camera was too far away from the subject resulting in poor audio quality, so the audio from the audio recorder was used. Karen decided to use video of the DA speaking even though it didn’t sync with the audio she used. I appreciate the experimentation, though I'm not quite sure that it worked. I assume there were two factors for it's use:
1) The Time/Deadline Factor -- it's a lot of work and she just didn’t have time to try to sync
2) iMovie is too basic to easily perform that function
In retrospect, it might have helped to stylize that footage so that people wouldn’t think the lost sync was a mistake.

The other issue is that Mercury News online linked to streaming video of the event:

EMAIL: re. Karen Borchers shooting the Press conference on DV

From: Keith, Randall
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 8:48 AM
To: Keith, Randall; BA EDIT
Cc: METRO EDITORS; PHOTO EDS
Subject: RE: norcal stories upcoming...

in addition....we think channel 11 will stream the press conference
live...we don't like to do it, but we should link to that stream.

katharine is getting the link from our channel 11 friends...

Randall Keith
Online Editorial Director
San Jose Mercury News
750 Ridder Park Drive
San Jose, CA 95190
408-271-3747
www.mercurynews.com

So while this may not have been a great example of, or situation for, using video, I think it illustrates that the photo department is very open to experimenting and letting photographers practice with little pressure -- which is a great policy. Since Karen also used her still camera for this, I think the focus was getting the still photo and video was considered a bonus if it was used. I think it’s going to be interesting to follow Karen’s work in video – she’s done some very good work and seems to be really passionate about doing as much as she can.

Richard was at the NPPA Summit, so the staff here had to compress and post the video themselves. Apparently, the 2-minute video was compressed to 6 MB and had excellent quality without Sorensen Squeeze, which surprised Richard, who is trying to duplicate that workflow. As the most prolific videographer, Karen was given a copy of Squeeze after this piece.

MERCURY NEWS AT THE NPPA SUMMIT

Richard Koci-Hernandez led 1 workshop in audio and 2 workshops in video for the still photojournalism program at the NPPA 60th Anniversary Photojournalism Summit, June 23 – June 25, 2006.

From the NPPA website:
Richard Koci-Hernandez, San Jose Mercury News
Koci-Hernandez made the switch from newspaper still shooter to full time web-based videographer. He will lead a workshop on embracing the change, what to expect, and the new tools for the job.

Richard said the workshops ran more like a discussion – what the Mercury News is doing with audio and video for the web. He emphasized that he wasn’t an expert, but that he could share his experience of what he learned in the past year.

Attendees for the video workshops were from Midwest to East Coast and participants included: Roanoke, Charlotte News & Observer, Naples, Washington Post, NY Times, Dallas Morning News and other Texas Papers, and Apple Computer (which might feature the Mercury News as a pro user on their website). Journalism schools also wanted to know what to teach for the new industry trends.

Many of the participants have already shot video for web. Some have been contracting out to video cameramen. But they’re not shooting HD yet. They were primarily interested in the Mercury News experience of using High Definition (HD) video to pull printable stills, which also lets and/or encourages the still photojournalists shoot video. Many of the Directors of Photography wanted detailed information about the workflow and what the commitment in staff and money – what they would need to buy and what are the costs.

Richard stressed that they needed a commitment to give their staff the time and leeway to complete the pieces. He also noted that it’s worth exploring even if its just one person on the staff wants to shoot video. It’s better to get as much experience as you can now so that you can retain more control when video becomes a “mandate” from the publishers.

Interestingly, he noted that many participants don’t want to do video, audio or slideshows - that there seemed to be a lot of resistance. They said they didn’t come into the business to do TV and seemed a little bit afraid.

What Richard stressed was that HDV was a new tool that can build upon the strengths they have as still shooters. Richard approaches video the same way he would shoot stills - stand in the same place, shoot at the same angles, looking for the same light. What’s most important is still capturing the moment.

“It was horrible when I had to shoot still, Video (DV) and Audio” – he felt it was too hard to juggle all three. With HDV, you have all these tools in one piece of equipment.

Richard noted that new technology has always made shooting stills easier:
1) In sporting events, motor drives are a necessity: photographers now routinely use 5fps, 10 fps. If 30fps was available they would use it… which is essentially the frame rate of video.
2) Autofocus was considered cheating – that the sports shooter was valued for ability to focus. Autofocus has made it easier for many photographers to shoot sports.
3) Even roll film might have been considered cheating at the time by the single film sheet shooters.

The bottom line for the professional journalist is to find a way to make Dot Com and Print happy, and HDV seems to offer a practical solution. It’s currently the golden age of what’s possible and there’s an opportunity to merge (or converge) knowledge in broadcast and print – the Web equalizes us and we should come together & share approaches. Space for storytelling in print is gone but there’s unlimited space on the web to tell stories. Some of the issues to pursue would be broadcast ethics and how to get money, people, and training to make the most of the opportunities available.

What started this HD evolution for Richard was when David Leeson, of the Dallas Morning News, held up an HD camera at the APME conference in October 2005 said that this is the future (after shooting video in Iraq?). Since then Leeson shot Katrina stories with HD video and used Genuine Fractals software to turn 6 MB stills into 75 MB files for a coffee table book. In 2006 Richard might speak at that same conference to talk about the Mercury News experience of Leeson’s statement.

Meanwhile, Richard has been getting many calls from people (such as PDN) wanting to see more examples of stills pulled from HDV. More of the staff are becoming interested in video (mostly because it’s a talented and competitive (in a supportive way) group of people) and starting to train themselves. It’ll be interesting to see what gets produced as the Summer progresses.