Bad news, good graphics.

A project I produced. While the panel didn't have any good news about the state of the Illinois budget, I think the graphics turned out OK.

http://lwvoprf.org/Cuts.html

A year ago...

A year ago I was clocking 30 hours of OT, and spent two weeks feeling like I was living in a "Green Zone."

Today I have grease under my finger nails from working on my car so I don't have to spend more money at the shop.

What a difference a year makes.

NPPA style nat-pack

Since the last post was all about the non-NPPA traditional style nat-pack, I figured that I'd post a more typical NPPA style nat-pack.

This is something I shot & edited a couple months ago for the Chicago Headline Club's 32nd Annual Peter Lisagor Awards for Exemplary Journalism.

Olympic 2016 - Blue Carpet

Edited.



Current NPPA styles & trends is to have nat pops (natural sound), more nat pops, quick cuts, nats, EXTREME close ups and a bunch more nats.

What happened here?

As I was going through the nearly 240min of footage from August 12th I had every intention of doing the standard NPPA nat-pack. But after going through the Blue Carpet interviews I found something missing. My desire to use cutaways.

B-roll is the best part of editing. It is when you get to be creative. When you can break away from a talking head and show the cool shots. I love editing b-roll. B-roll is the best part of editing...

It was a strange thing, I felt no desire for adding nats, close ups, more nats, cut-aways, or anything else.

Just the SOTs, the "Sound-On-Tape" cut together. To me it was raw, it was pure and it worked.



Re-edit for the official version which went live on YouTube included graphics, quick opening montage & music. With out an anchor at a desk to introduce the video, the video needs to introduce itself, so I think the additions are needed, but when I want to re-watch the "editor's cut" I can watch my first cut a cappella.

iPhone 3Gs, better than any other video camera EVER

I have seen in a few places now about how the new iPhone 3Gs is a great replacement for those "clunky" big professional cameras, and I thought I would hop on the band wagon with a few thoughts of my own...

XLR audio inputs are stupid, a 1/8" mini mic input is the GREATEST thing EVER. The whole self-locking thing on XLRs is just extra hassle. Anyone who warns that a 1/8" input can easily fail if it is accidentally pulled out of place, are the same people who say "Duck and Cover" won't save you from a nuclear bomb.

Two separate audio tracks? Who thought that was a good idea? Out in the field I want mono everything. Mix that wireless and camera mic together! Two person interview is of no concern because every human being on the planet speaks at the same level. Mayor at the podium? I think I should hear the camera guy next to me breathing just as much as I hear the Mayor. And if you don't like it, I'll just use the "remove Mono" filter in the audio effects, it is right between the "remove echo" and "make better" filters in Final Cut.

While we're talking about audio, why even bother with professional mics? Heck I'll just use the on iPhone mic, if I can't hear the Mayor at the podium I will just give running commentary, or fix it in post. It is always much easier to fix things in post anyways.

Now timecode? Man I have always hated that thing. Completely useless.

Setting TC to time-of-day is just something I would say to confuse the intern. We faked that whole reporter being able to take notes by just looking at the clock instead of asking me what the TC was.

Whats next... video quality? Yes video quality. The picture quality of 3CCDs on a HPX3000 or 3MOS on a HPX300 (and nearly any other Panny, Sony, Canon, JVC, Ikegami, etc.) always bugged me. I really like it when there is more movement from jello than from the objects in the frame moving.

I want my ENTIRE newscast's picture to be floating around like we are about to go into a dream sequence on a bad TV show!

Manual white balance? See above & fix it in post.

Batteries? Get rid of that "S." Purchasing extra batteries was just a scam. I am sure that I will be fine and never miss a shot with one (and only one) internal battery that will stay charged for 24 hours if unused, and drained in under 24 minutes if I use two of the built in features.


If I want have any control on my lens I'll just attach the iPhone to a Letus. That will be a piece of cake since those adapters are much easier to use than just having glass that attaches directly to the camera.

Ejecting media? Such a thing of the past. I have always hated tapes & flash cards, and being able to record for hours & hours by just replacing media in a matter of seconds. I don't want to hand off my raw footage to a reporter, editor or producer in tape or card form, when it comes time to log & edit, I want to completely lock up my camera from being able to be used as a camera.

Wait a second! Why have I bothered to edit video all of these years? Boy have I been a fool.

Now that I'm empowered by the iPhone, I will NEVER edit anything again. Raw video is always more interesting to watch. Voice over, cut aways, etc... forget about it, I'm uploading my raw video directly to YouTube, and since it is on YouTube, people will know it is better than "Gone with the Wind" and billions of people will watch it, and I will become famous and YouTube will pay me tons of money for just how great I am.

Man, this iPhone is totally a game changer.

Using Your Tools or Obama Time Lapse

Obama Election Night Time-Lapse HD.

When you are a photojournalist, what is better than having a camera at a major event? Having 2 cameras!



November 3rd 2008 I sacrificed a couple hours sleep because I knew the next day would be historic. Win or lose, Obama was in my home town and I had a press pass.

I had read up on the Canon Hacker's Development Kit (CHDK), but had been unsuccessful in the past trying to play around with it.

That night I had better luck. In only a couple hours I was able to turn my Canon A460 PhD (Press-here-Dummy) into a powerfully customizable camera in an unassuming package.

Pretty much after you get CHDK working, you're camera will turn to you and say "I know Kung-Fu."

I installed an intervalometer script onto my camera and set it to snap a picture about every 15sec. I then attached the camera first to the tripod while setting up our riser space. A short while later I moved the camera on top of our main camera. While the second placement of the camera gave a better view, it also meant that whenever we panned or tilted the DVCPro HD camera, the Canon camera also panned or tilted.

A couple days later after recovering from the election madness I put the gigabytes of photos together to form the time lapse video. I added George Winston's "New Hope Blues" off his "Ballads And Blues 1972: The Early Recordings" album, uploaded the video and e-mailed it out to a few friends and family members.

While this video never made it into any HDNews newscasts, it was a good field test of using a consumer product as a professional tool.

Sending Bad Communication

I filed my taxes on April 15th.


I know many people out there would call it procrastination. Personally I blame it on the years of a journalistic Vince Lombardi binary view of a deadline. You either meet your deadline or you don't.

I meet the deadline for my taxes. (Without much help from USPS.com)

The graphic on USPS.com was telling me to "Rest Easy." Rest easy, post offices will be open late. Rest easy, all you need is the postmark from today. Rest easy with the USPS.

The problem I had with resting easy was that the USPS was disseminating bad information. I rest easy when I can click one link and see what post offices are open late. I rest easy when I don't see a crowd of confused people looking at the locked doors of my local post office. I rest easy when I get better information from an official release than from a note taped a door. I will rest easy when I stop thinking about how I live in a city of millions and could only find one post office open late for tax day 2009.

All this not resting easy made me think about how easy it is to communicate badly even with the easiest of things. Even more it reminded me about how you feel when you make your slot.

I met my deadline, I'll rest easy.