Left Behind - The Mercury News

I've long been a fan of some of the multimedia work being done at the Mercury News. They stretch the boundry of what most of us consider the usual faire. Today I found a great piece by Dai Sugano on poverty in India. Great work told in images not a reporter commentary. As you know by reading this blog I'm not a fan of the reporter telling the story. If you don't get it watching this video you never will. The images are so powerful, the music so appropriate, and the titling just right that you can't help but wonder how people exist under such conditions.

Click Here to See the Video

Portland Press Herald

It' s fun to look up papers from your old college days and the Press Herald is one of those papers I read in college so I thought I would drop by their site and take a look. After looking around their multimedia site for a bit and seeing some nice audio slide shows and a good video on the plight of lobstering in Maine I came upon a comprehensive piece on high school football. So I am highlighting it here. The photography is great as I would expect from veterans like John Ewing and Derek Davis. The video on the Chain Gang was good by Greg Rec but with some over modulation audio clipping evident in places. The only issues I really had were audio issues, over modulation clipping or wind noise. There were strange things going on with some of the images in the last slide show as well, some were stretched for some reason. Great stuff take a look.

Click Here to View the Project

Brief Overview of Freep's New Documentary

I had an awful time with my cable connection tonight so viewing this outstanding project has been a chore. I was having buffering problems while viewing the first two videos so I gave up after seeing those two. Hopefully I will be able to look at the other three tomorrow.

From what I can tell this project is a combination of video and stills throughout but it is so seamless and appropriate that I never felt distracted. Music is put in at the right place through the whole piece to give some mood and feeling. The mix of short video interviews with outstanding animated stills is really well done. In one place several still frames of a kid jumping up and down in a hall way and then a three way split screen animation of still was super.

I hope to have more to add to this post tomorrow. So far I am really impressed.

The Freep does it again

Do you remember your childhood? Were they pleasant memories? For the boys at Christ Child House in Detroit their memories of childhood are varied. This well done documentary by the Free Press tells their story in photos, video, and the written word - extensive and well done. Check back here for a more comprehensive overview.

Click Here to View the Documentary

Santa at the LA Times

This is a great video of the surfing Santa that I found at the LA Times site. Nice photography, pretty good audio (except for to much water gurgling at times), some good b-roll and an excellent ending shot. But overall it told the story. Some of the b-roll was shot from the water as well - nice. I think you will enjoy it. 

Click here to see the video

Down South - The Miami Herald

During this time of year photojournalists cover the same mundane subjects over and over again. So I thought I would look for one of these subjects and see how the coverage came out. Miami Herald photographer Jose A. Iglesias has done a great job of covering something I'm sure he has done more than a few times. Great sound, good b-roll, and more than one interview helps move this piece along. This short video is packed with info and you come away with just enough to understand what the Mission does around this time of year. 

Click on the player below to view the video

                                   

Season's Greetings

Merry Christmas everyone! 

The Washington Post

Many years ago I did some free-lance work for The Post and was impressed with everyone there. Back in the mid 1980's the photographic story telling was truly outstanding. Things have not changed. Michael Williamson and others are still cranking out really nice work. I decided to wander on over to the Post's web site to see what they have been doing in the multimedia arena. I came across a project called "The Healing Fields". Really well done. It's presented in a Flash module with video's by Alexandra Garcia and Whitney Shefte, photo gallery by Williamson, and story by Mary Otto all done for the Washington Post Magazine which comes out weekly.

This piece tackles the problem of health care for the residents of Appalachia and how this one health care mission handles over 2,000 people in two days - a remarkble feat. The audio was perfect, the video was good not great but with plenty of good b-roll to keep you interested and of course Williamson's photos were well done. Otto has done a wonderful job giving the reader a mental picture of the people and feel of what is happening in Wise County Virginia every year.

Click Here to View "The Healing Fields"

The Dallas Morning News

This paper has always provided really good story telling with their images. With their video that same high quality is evident. This story of a four year old girl with Leukemia who wants to be a princess is wonderful, the images and audio do a great job of telling the story. I do have one issue though. The little girl has a HUGE lav mic attached to her. The windscreen on it looks like a giant bug. It's really distracting along with the wireless unit hanging off her back. The other downside is the other journalists crowded around when she receives her princess dress, I would have thought they could edit out the other photogs. Don't get me wrong, good story, well done except for the issues I have mentioned. Have a look - Click on the photo to see the video

The Freep

Today I went over to Freep.com to check out some of their latest videos and came away with a good impression of what they are doing. I am still dismayed at the way some of these larger papers want to look like TV. They had a nice little piece on a place called the Fridge which is a frozen toboggan run - but the reporter kept getting in the way of the story. If she let the people tell the story more, my feeling is that it would have been better. In my opinion let the photography staff do their job, tell stories with pictures and audio. 

They did have a nice little weather story that started out great but ended kind of weak. Good b-roll interesting audio (some nasty over modulation of the radio audio), and some split screen for some of the b-roll (I'm not a big fan of this). Some nice focus racking also thrown in. The shots were nice, steady, and well composed and overall it came off great and told the story of snow in Detroit. Click the link below for the Freep video page for Snow Scenes. 

Click Here to View the Video

The Changing Camera World

Recently, Canon introduced a new version of it's EOS 5D model the 5D MKll. A number of pros have tried it out not only for it's great image quality but for it's video capability. The first was done by Vincent LaForet and can be seen here. Since that first attempt a number of folks have taken a stab at it and have come away with different opinions. David Stephenson (of the Lexington, KY Herald - Leader) has put together a nice piece on a young boxer which shows the sound quality using a Sennheiser MK400 mini boom and a Sennheiser wireless lav mic setup. As expected from the previous attempts with this camera the video quality is stunning and the frame grabs awesome. David does a great job of explaining what he did and how the camera helped, hindered, etc. what he was trying to do. You can see his post on this here. Really stunning quality video.

 While I was visiting his site, mophojo.com I came across an audio slide show that he did on the Santa Train which runs through three states. Exceptional work and worthy of highlighting here. 

The Santa Train - David Stephenson.

The Day - New London CT

 I have always been a fan of the New London Day in CT. Yesterday I was tipped off to the new JW video viewer and flash setup over on their web site so I cruised by to take a look and was really impressed with what Peter Huoppi has done. It looks very much like the Brightcove viewer that we are used to on the large newspaper sites but I believe that Huoppi has customized the flash interface himself. Well done. My only thought was that I would like to see more of a galley between the thumbnails and the playing video, probably not an easy coding task.

While there I saw some great stuff. Tim Cook's storm video was appropriate for today's post so I highlight here. Great b-roll, nice sound with even a little music thrown in. The interviews were good although I'm not sure who the guy waiting for the bus is, great quote though "I'm lovin it". A nice short newspaper piece by Cook - show us people out and about in the storm. That's what community journalism is all about.  

Click on the picture below to see the video.

Interactive Multimedia - Roanoke Times

I finally was able to pull up and look at some of Gitner and staff's work at the Roanoke Times. I really like what they have done with this project. The interactive map of the Appalachian Trail as it winds through the Roanoke area has hotspots in it that when rolled over show the multimedia offered. A really cool way of presenting the piece. My only criticism is that the only embeded video is overly compressed and appears blocky. Now this could be old technology since this project was done in 2006. Things have really changed in the last two years. But since my bandwidth this morning was really slow I could not look at much else. I'll come back to this site again and look at the really cool stuff they have done lately. 

Click here to see the Interactive Appalachian Trail Project by the Roanoke Times.

2008 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography

Today I look at a very powerful piece done by Preston Gannaway of the Concord Monitor. The Monitor has long been a paper that has bred great photographers. They have always had a forward looking mind set toward the photography in their paper. They have gone the extra mile with series both in print and online with their flash presentation. Both my parents passed away from cancer so this piece brought me to tears and I know it will affect most the same way. Truly outstanding. 

Click on the picture below to view the presentation.

Winter Wonderland

This morning - some of us are getting a little snow so I thought about Marc Lester up there in Alaska and checked out another one of his "Excursions". A winter wonderland awaits the viewer as Lester takes you through one of his early morning ski tours. Nice photos and commentary by Lester and even some underlying audio. A nice easy to watch audio slide show.

Click on the photo below to check out Lester's audio slide show.

San Jose Mercury News - Nice

Today I look at a piece by Patrick Tehan at the Mercury News. First off I really like the bagpipe playing to draw you into the story, really well done. Tehan introduces three families affected by the fire and uses stills and video together very well. Technically a nice job, good use of B&W at times to give some mood to the piece. I'm usually not a big fan of using a mix of color and B&W but here I think it helps. Some great emotion throughout, overall a very good piece of work.

A Visit to the NY Times

Do you remember Maya Lin? I know I don't. She designed the Vietnam Memorial Wall in DC. So what has this somewhat unknown architect been up to for the past twenty years? The Times has done a very well done five min. video on her latest project "Wave Field". There are some well done cut scenes at the begining that make you think about what is about to be explored. Some nice music and some light commentary add quite a bit to understanding Maya Lin. The photography is ok, not stellar, but tells the story. The sound is well done and keeps you into the story. However, it does seem like a split story with two seperate sections. One part on the Wave Project and one part on Lin and her work. 

One whole story could have been done on Lin and what she has been doing for the past 20 years and another on just the Wave Project. Each one not longer than three minutes. Take a look though, it's worth five minutes of your time. 

Maya Lin and her "Wave Field Project"

A couple of issues with the Times - it was hard to find photo staff work amongst all the reporter voice over stuff and does everything have to be such a huge project? This video had a number of people credited, you have got to be kidding me. With all that help it should have been worthy of an Emmy.

Let's get started

I will look over one site a day and pull some of the more interesting pieces. 

A ran across this piece on the auto industry along the Automile in Mass. done by old friend Bill Greene. He tells a great story in stills or video. 

What I see here is a great use of b-roll. Greene has plucked out some great images of an empty showroom to go along with the audio of the finance manager. He has also pulled some stills to add to the b-roll and animated them slightly (Ken Burns effect). Great use of music added to the whole feel of the down economy. 

Currently the Globe has it's photogs rotate on a two week basis with the video camera. Some of the staff love it, others hate it. But that seems to be where most newspaper staffs are at these days. They use the Brightcove flash viewer which makes the video look great.

I come from the old print school and have always loved the printed page. I now find myself as a multimedia editor and have charged in head first and find I really like it.