Delivering on Change, an Inside Look

So, the year is wrapping up and we haven't been posting much on here, but I came across this slideshow of  some of Pete Souza's images from Obama's First 100 Days. The photos are beautiful and really personal. Just thought I'd share. 

Public Housing Wrap Up

For the Public Housing pieces, I need:

• A headline
  
• A three sentence summation/excerpt/teaser on your piece
  
• A three to four sentence bio on you
  
• A pithy quote on what this project has meant to you
  

By email, to me, by Wednesday morning. 

Even More Assignment Deadlines

Friday, April 10: Resubmits of the public housing stories on server by 5 p.m.; CD with TIFF or Photoshop files from those who were doing audio slideshows.

Tuesday, April 14: Resubmits of rural health on server by 7 p.m.
 

Friday, April 17: Video for 24@UGA shot.

Tuesday, April 21: Audio slide shows for 24@UGA on server by 2 p.m. 

Thursday, April 23: Video stories for 24@UGA on server by 2 p.m.

Upcoming Deadlines

Upcoming deadlines and schedules:

March 31: Public Housing stories due. Audio slide shows should be on the server, videos should be edited - we’ll add titles/graphics and export in class.

April 3: Rural Health stories due. Audio slide shows and videos (exported and with graphics) due on server by close of lab at 5 p.m.

April 1-7: Shoot your 24@UGA audio slide show profile, record audio.

April 8-14: Shoot your video for 24@UGA. Produce your audio slide show, due in class on April 14.

April 15-21: Produce your video for 24@UGA, due in class April 21.

March Madness

In honor of March Madness and college basketball, check out the NYTimes video "N.C.A.A. Tournament Tipoff."

I have to say I was a little disappointed in the quality of the video. Why Connor Ennis and Pete Thamel are standing in an office rather than sitting at a desk is beyond me... The information is good for filling out your March Madness brackets, but I wouldn't take many tips from the actual video quality.

Notice that the video cuts off one of the guys heads when he is talking. Also, the t.v. playing in the background it very distracting. The telephone going off in the middle of the video is almost comical... seriously? This is a New York Times video?

I really like the basketball pictures included in the video though: the one of Marquette player 2 is very strong.

Good luck with your brackets!

Malnutrition in India

Here is a great example of an audio slideshow by the New York Times. It explains a disturbingly high rate of child malnutrition in India; much higher than China or other major countries.

OIL

Today, during our visit to Hall County, Autumn and I heard a clicking noise from her engine. While we both tried to suppress our laughter (since Autumn was making a very important phone call) the clicking noise began to get louder and louder esp. when she pressed the gas. We called all the self proclaimed mechanics on our contact lists. Only reaching her brother. I proceeded to hold the phone up to the car engine in the middle of a gas station parking lot while the taxi man who pulled in beside us stared in amusement instead of asking if we needed help. The noise stopped, so naturally her brother heard nothing. We continued until Autumn's mom gave her a call back to tell her the engine was going to lock up and we would be helpless.

So today Autumn and I experienced our first time extensively examining an engine. 3 quarts of oil topped out her car's thirst for oil... And like a good photojournalist we documented it.

Rocky Mountain News

I'm sure a lot of you all have already seen this. We watched it in 3510, but if anyone hasn't seen it you need to. Not the most uplifting of videos, but I think it's an incredible use of multimedia and very interesting to hear them tell their own story. Rocky Mountain News was the paper that did The Final Salute, so these guys obviously know what they're doing when it comes to multimedia. It's sad to see them go, but a great video nonetheless. I think it's also interesting, albeit incredibly depressing, to see what's happening to journalism out in the real world. Also, Mark you'll be happy to know that Autumn and I were sitting next to each other in class when we watched this and while everyone else was getting sappy about the story line, we were critiquing the matched action. You have gotten in our heads, congratulations. 

Carnival

OOO! Carnival!

If you have never been to a Carnival parade you should go.....

Child Caregivers

Here's an interesting New York Times piece about child caregivers. It talks about a training and support group for kids who have to take care of sick or elderly family members. I thought it was a neat concept. The video flows pretty smoothly--lots of really good natural sound and matched action.

Not exaclty photos

I just found this website. It's association to the subject matter of our class is loose, I suppose, but I think it's a neat idea. Enjoy.

Midnight pictures

I wanted to take pictures last night after the rain, so I did. This is just an intersection outside my apartment complex. I was tempted to submit one of these as a pattern today but I decided to just post them here instead. Most of these are at 30" shutter speed. Here are some of the better ones. Pause and click to see them big.

Poor in Illinois

This one's from the Chicago Tribune. It's shot nicely, but I can't decide how I feel about it on the whole. I know I don't like the way the segments are broken up by statistics that scream at you in big, bold caps. There's one spot at about 2:40 where the woman's child's voice comes in and says something indistinguishable that I would have kept at a lower volume since it doesn't appear to be of importance.

What do you guys think? Is the broad focus of this piece appropriate for what they seem to be trying to do, which is raise some awareness of the problem of poverty in the area? Or should this have been narrowed down to one or two folks who could tell the story in a more personal way?

ASSIGNMENT: Patterns

A three to five photo package on the theme of patterns, on the server by 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19.

Also, please watch the rest of the San Jose Mercury News' Flicks package. 

Hungry

Maise Crow won Multimedia Piece of the Year from the Southern Short Course for this audio/video slideshow, and watching it was without a doubt the highlight of the weekend for me, absolutely a must see. Wonderful storytelling at work here, and one could certainly take a lot of insipiration from the various techniques Crow uses. The text of the story itself is really long (although in my opinion still worth reading all the way through), but the multimedia piece is where the heart of the story lies. So even if you don't read the whole thing, at least watch the multimedia.

Moon over...

So I know this isn't exactly journalism-related, but I have a suggestion to make...

I was looking at my calendar this past weekend and noticed that we are going to have a full moon tomorrow night. The moon has been really bright and pretty the past few days, so this week would be a great opportunity to get out and make some pretty pictures of it. :-)

Who knows, maybe we can tie it in to something of journalistic value--or even compile some photos for a nice "Moon over Athens" package just for fun??

Just a suggestion...

NY Times Halted electronics store audio slideshow

Here is a great little audio slideshow from The New York Times about the famous Halted electronics store in Silicon Valley. Once known as the cheap place to shop for budding start-ups, it now caters mainly to enthusiasts due to the exodus of American businesses to Asia.

Eclectic Gallery of News Photos

This is a really nice group of photos, with some really awesome and interesting compositions. There's some great color in the first one, a really interesting mood in the 2nd, and really awesome compositions in the 6th one.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7872510.stm

A Valentines Day Treat!

I really need to apologize upfront for choosing to blog about Mr. and Mrs. McGarry, but with Valentine’s Day approaching, I could not help myself—who doesn’t love hearing/watching a love story?

I like the initial picture of Mrs. McGarry in her wedding dress petting the dog, but I absolutely dislike the transition type chosen between it and the video of her being interviewed. The away-flipping-picture-transition (yes, I just made that term up) looks very tacky to me. I also really do not like when the video zooms in on photographs.

The b-roll at the restaurant where the couple met (between 32 and 34 seconds) is really good.

I like the overall storyline—Mrs. McGarry has a great personality. I think she is the one who really makes this piece work. I love the way Mr. McGarry describes her as a “Southern Princess with a Yankee Waspy Connecticut drawl.”

Black Market Trade in Asia

I found this rather stunning, 6-part piece on the black market of animal trade in Asia. The photos are all in black and white, which I feel works well for this particular story.

The photographer, Patrick Brown, was able to work on the story for five years, and becuse of that, had a chance to photograph a bile farm, the arrest of poachers, and a governmental raid on millions of dollars worth of animals. There's also a sad bit about an innocent woman who got caught up in the middle of an illegal trade and is immediately given the death penalty.

The photos, along with the music and the way the photos are lined up to it, plus his intervies, all add up to a pretty powerful piece.

The story definitely dampened my day, but one of my favorite parts is when Brown emphasizes that while the trade is already occuring, and he can't stop it on his own, he needs to document it so that a large audience sees it and is hopefully inspired to act. That's one of the things about photojournalism that I, personally, have to be reminded of when I see difficult situations, and I appreciate his emphasis. He's obviously passionate about this cause, and it shows.


Oh, and by the way, bile is fluid secreted in the liver and stored in the gall bladder. I'll admit, I had no idea. Had to look it up. Yummy.

ASSIGNMENT: First Video Package

For Tuesday, February 3, you need to shoot a short package. Choose someone who does some sort of repetitive action, interview them, look for cover/b-roll shots and matched action. Plan on this being a very short piece - 30 seconds or so. You'll need 5-10 different shots for this. Think about audio - both the interview itself and some natural sound. 

Video Logging Sheet

Here it is - clean and simple. Have also stuck a link in the upper right corner of the blog for future use. 

Possible Idea To Do In A Day

Stupidest Bike Lanes. 

Check out my multimedia page on some DJs

<http://media.www.redandblack.com/media/storage/paper871/news/2009/01/27/Variety/Tnt-Ready.To.Explode-3599214.shtml>

The video is almost impossible to do any matched action on because of the fast and intricate movements DJ's quite often make. So the video is one continuous flow, although we will not be using that technique for class I wanted to mix up the video. Anyway I wanted to let you guys know that its there if you want to check it out. And also it is not shot on a high definition camera, so our video quality will look much better.

Well, since Mark suggested it and since I'd never really done it before, I went out and shot some in the fog around my apartment complex. It was essentially a series of experiments in contrasting light sources, white balance, my balance (lots of long shutter speeds), etc. The pictures aren't magazine-quality (and some are more fog-centric than others), but I figured I'd post them here being as that's the blog's purpose.
That's a link to the slide show of the album, and you can click on any picture to view it bigger.

ASSIGNMENT: Video Starter

For Thursday, January 29, you need to find someone doing a repetitive action and shoot four different angles of them doing it. You'll need at least one long, medium and close-up. Two of the shots need to be editable into a matched-action sequence. One of them will need to be a cut-away/b-roll/cover shot to get you from one moment to the next, so think about a detail shot of some sort.

Remember to check the following:

• Focus - zoom in, focus, zoom back out for composition
  
• Exposure - use your histogram
  
• White Balance - set it manually
  
• Audio - get your mic in close, get some detail and natural sounds (no need for an interview)
  

As an example of the matched action, look at this:



Now add a long and medium shot and you're set.

Great video and touching story...

I found this video on the New York Times' website by accident the other day...

Apart from just being a good example of video, the story is interesting and heart warming--good example of a human interest story and very unique. The video is about a 17-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh named Harunur Rashid. He has had a long and trying journey to get to where he now is with his life in the U.S.--this video tells his story.

I'm sure there are some things that could be improved--mainly small technical aspects. For example, there are a few frames that are zoomed in around Rashid's teacher a little too close. In a still frame, we would say that the crop "scalped" her. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but I don't think I like it. The volume is on different levels in some frames as well which kind of bothered me--I'd like to hear the volume for different frames close to the same level.

I do, however, love the story and the way that it's told. It's similar to the video we watched the other day in class about New Orleans shrimping in that the photographer uses different narrators to tell the story, successfully. If it were Rashid or his guardian telling the entire story it may take the whole piece down a few notches because they are difficult to understand.

Just thought y'all would enjoy this...Hope you like it!

A well-done audioslideshow on Time.com

While I was in Washington, I found myself feeling really overwhelmed at times by everything going on around me. How could I capture it all, do it justice? How could I use sound and images to narrate such a momentous gathering-together of people? It's something I can't say I did especially well.

But, in a story about a pilgrimage to a river in India for Time.com this guy does!

For one thing, he simply narrates the story himself - if you want to tell the story of so many people, you don't want to find just one participant and let them do the talking for everyone. By doing the talking, Panjiar keeps the scope of his story broad. He uses a few images in which individuals are highlighted, but for the most part, his shots are of crowds, large groups. Lots of long shots. His captions don't include people's names, which I think communicates in some small way what it feels like to be surrounded by so many strangers. He did what I wanted to do at the inauguration, only better.

A Documentary Piece on NY Times

<http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/sports/1194811622289/index.html>

This piece tells a story very well, about surfer-dudes. But really, there is the use of a lot of good B-roll and good videography in general.

I enjoyed watching the whole piece, which runs 6 minutes. The only problem with a piece when it runs so long (at least in my opinion) is that there are too many voices, and speakers to pay attention to. It is all useful but it seems to become a cluster. Not only is there multiple people being pictured during interviews, but there is also a commentator.

The story flows very nicely and makes the piece work.

Also, the same way you like to bring in a story while writing and concluding it by wrapping back around- this multimedia piece has a conclusion that brings everything back. (i.e. the sunsetting)

Not Journalism-Night of the Hunter

Night of the Hunter

This would go more in the telecom department, but I think it's still useful to look at. The use of light here is really beautiful, and simply on the level of aesthetics, I think makes this clip very valuable. This entire film really is a wonderful example of an amazing use of light, and how something so simple can make it so visually interesting. There are a number of shots I would die to have the chance to take as a still (the opening shot, at 20 seconds, at 30 seconds, at 51 seconds, and at 1:25.) Yes all the lights are staged, but I don't think that makes the shots any less beautiful, and to me it serves as a sort of goal, to find natural light that's doing the sort of things the staged lights are doing here. There's also some really good b-roll from 1:49 to 2:02. I'm disappointed however that instead of using that as a transition, the film cuts back to the woman talking, and then uses a crossfade to get to the children, rather than using the natural transition of the b-roll.

There's also a nice pan/zoom, which I know we're never supposed to do, but I think this is one example where it does work nicely (34 seconds to 42 seconds.)

The audio is also really beautiful, specifically the crickets in the background. They're so subtle, but I think without them, this clip loses an important depth.

Skatistan

This is a super cool piece about an Australian man who basically started a skateboarding school for children in Afghanistan: Skateistan

The audio in this is awesome. Who doesn't love the sound of kids and skateboards? I noticed a lot of b-roll in this. For example, at 2:20 there is shot of blood on the ground. At 3:26 seconds there is a shot of a girl's hands holding a skateboard, and at 4:06 there is a shot of the skate park.

My favorite part of the video is at 2:10. A man is holding beads and twisting them around in his hands, and you can see in front of him the girls skating (since they haven't been veiled yet). I would definitely scroll to this part of the video to see what I am talking about. It reminded me a lot of still photography.

Oh and of course you can't end a video without a cute kid smiling at the end :-D!

Testing Grounds

This piece from the St. Petersburg Times is a still and video mix. The photos are beautiful, and I love the way it all came together. It's a little longer than many of the pieces we tend to watch, but it is definitely worth the time to see the different mediums used to tell this story.

Will.i.am: a new WAY

Check out this video on cnn.com. I'm assuming this Will.i.am character (who was also privileged enough for CNN to hologram him into their studio on election night '08) made this video himself with a little help from CNN. While I question the journalistic integrity of this video, I was completely taken in by it. I think this is a great example of what good audio can do for a video. Towards the end (1:45ish) you see some pretty good still shots, but the video doesn't exactly do it for me. Some of it looks like it could have been taken with Will.i.am's video phone while he gets bumped around by the crowd, but the bad shots don't lose me because the audio is great and keeps me interested. He also does something I think is pretty cool at 1:01 where he mixes the voice over with audio from the video itself. I think it works pretty nicely for him. Overall it's an overly corny piece with not too much journalistic value, but it ends up working pretty well because of the audio.

Mimi Chakarova documentary photographer

Mimi Chakarova is a photography professor at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, and has two amazing multimedia pieces on her website. Definitely check each piece out here and here. Chakarova uses music and background noises instead of interviews for audio, and allows the pictures and interspersed quotations to tell the story.

I think it works, but I'm not sure about the ethics of music selection. Is it ethical to choose music to intentionally set mood and effect, or should the photos speak for themselves?

1,474 MP picture of the Inauguration

Over 220 images stitched together. Wow.

I wonder how big this would be printed out 1:1

This is NOT journalism.

Every time we talk about matched action and how it makes pictures into a "flipbook" of sorts I remember this little video I made over a year ago. It's about 400+ pictures or so playing around 3-5 frames per second. This is obviously not journalism. This is just for fun ;-) Thought I'd share. 

Life in a Magazine from Patricia Andrews on Vimeo.

AP Videos???

So I'm not sure I like the AP multimedia videos. They're turning it into TV newscasts. I don't know, from the videos we saw today in class, it just seems like a far better way to tell a story than what the AP is doing. Who decided to make the videos like this, and are they that popular? What do ya'll think? Are they wanting to go the newscast route? Is that effective? My answer is no. I like the more poignant stories where the subject gets to be a co-facilitator and have his/her own voice....that's just me.....the AP version could be more unbiased...ya'll tell me 

Lab Hours for the Spring Semester

We may adjust as the semester goes on, but these will start today:

Tuesday: 12:30-2:00, 4:45-7:00
Thursday: 12:30-2:00, 4:45-7:00
Friday: 12:15- 5:00

Photos from the moment Obama took the oath

I loved this AP interactive photo gallery with photos from around the U.S. and the world at the exact moment Obama was sworn in to office. It's pretty darn nifty, and the photo quality is just what you'd expect from the AP.

Some of my favorites:

• Watching on TV's on the treadmill in Foster City, CA
• Not-so-much watching from a casino in Vegas
• Jubilant crowds in Nairobi, Kenya
• A few Iraqi dudes watching from a cafe in Baghdad

It's really pretty cool. Enjoy!

Double Dipping...

I was writing a post for my JOUR3510 Creative Writing Blog, and I thought I would share something I commented on...

In “Obama inauguration: Words of history... crafted by 27-year-old in Starbucks” by Ed Pilkington in The Guardian from Tuesday, January 20, 2009 there is a disconnect between the headline and the photograph placed underneath.

I am surprised an editor would have chosen a photo of Favreau stepping off of what seems to be an airplane when the obvious choice would have been to use one of him working on a computer in Starbucks. I found a photograph that I think would have been much more appropriate (even though it is not in a Starbucks, and I am not a fan of the scalping of Favreau's head): http://www.donkeydish.com/tags/jon-favreau/

ASSIGNMENT: Technical Reading

For Thursday, please read the first 67 pages of the manual for the Sony video camera. (Link is to a PDF of the manual.)

I know, it's arcane, but you need to have some sort of background before we hand you the camera.

One in 8 Million

I came across this collection of stories by the New York Times, and I really liked the simple idea. Each week, I guess, they will have a new story--told through an audio slide show--about one person in NY, from the corner druggist (my favorite) to a woman who miraculously survived several stomach surgeries. Anyway, each piece is about 2 min. long and dives right into his/her story--a story of a common, yet not-so-common person living in NY, a city known for its diversity. Check it out.

No class today?

I have it written down in my planner that we don't have class today, but I always like to second-guess myself on these sorts of things...

Anybody want to give me some validation?

ASSIGNMENT: MLK Volunteer Day or Inauguration

Shoot and record a 30 second story on either MLK volunteer day or the inauguration.

You’ll have 45 minutes at start of Tuesday’s class to produce.

That’s it – 45 minutes.

You need eight photos.

You need one matched action.

You need two locations.

You need cover shots.

This will go on Grady Journal during class.

Matched Action in Giving Fish a Bath

I can't get a link directly to the video either but go to the National Geographic video website, then click on the environment category, then click on Environmental News, then click on the Giving Fish a Bath video (which should be the 4th one).

I found this video on National Geographic's website in their collection of videos concerning environmental news. I know we're not supposed to be paying attention to the subject of the video but more of the usage of the video, but it's very interesting...basically marine biologists are having to wash the parasites off of fish....but anyways....

The matched action in this video first occurs at the 26 second mark with the two biologists pouring water into a bucket, with a more close up shot following and finishing up at about the 32 second mark. This shot is ineffective because 1) it's not a very interesting thing that they're doing, 2) it is even more uninteresting because most of what they are doing and the things around them are obscured because of the close position of the camera and even more so when the camera closes in for a more close up shot, 3) all we see is their backs at first an it takes me a second to figure out what they're doing and then figure out what is happening on in the matched sequence shot when they zoom in. Grade: C-

The second matched action occurs immediately after the first. A vast improvement. Actually I think if they would have just edited the first video out it would be fine. Anyways, in this shot occurs at 33 seconds to about 37 seconds. It is a great shot because we see one of the biologists looking into his microscope at the little parasites and the next frame is a view of what the biologist is looking at in the microscope, complete with focusing action. Grade: A+

However, in the case of this matched action shot, does the cameraperson not have to man the microscope himself? And would this disqualify the sequence from being matched action?

The third (questionable) happens at 53 seconds and ends at about 1 minute 16. but it is broken up by a zoom out effect. Does this still count?

Matched Action - Snowboarding

Found this little snippet on the Washington Post site. It's a small piece about a Washington Post sports reporter going snowboarding for the first time. There are a few attempts at matched action--most of which don't work that well and just come off as random video strung together--but the best example is from around 1:10 - 1:20 in the video of her just kind of sliding along on the snowboard with the help of her instructor. That particular example works alright with the matched action, but overall I don't think it's very effective in this video. Plus, where are the shots of her actually going down the slope? Waiting on it the whole time. : (

Matched-Action

This video is about new technologies that are still in the design process for green cars. The link takes you to the NYT video collection, and the video is entitled "Designers Create Green Vehicles" which can be found in the scroll-down column on the right. ( I wasn't able to figure out how to obtain the url to the video itself). The video opens up with matched action (0:00-0:28), and ends with it (3:03-3:09), and shows the designers working on models of their designs. I'm not sure that opening up with these shots was the best way to start the video, because it took me a few seconds to figure out what's going on, but it leads in well to the finished product.

Matched Actions - CNN

There are several examples of matched action throughout. The first is of one person doing one action, but there's also a sequence that seems to be following the material from process to process as the fake wood is being made, but these are obviously more likely different pieces arranged to simulate following one piece. (But as that would not suggest multiple cameras, is it still matched action?)

Matched Action

Mountain Dew Tour press release video of the womens slope snowboarding.

The matched action begins at 36 seconds.

With the women making multiple runs down the slope it is possible to get footage of a entire run with one camera and some good matched action. Matched action can be possible because competitors work on certain tricks for each specific part of the slope.

Matched action: Parkour!

Okay, here's a YouTube video demonstrating the relatively new art of Parkour, featuring one of the most influential founding fathers, David Belle.

0:07: I think you could say that this is the first case of matched action. It's a little off, definitely a jump from a different spot, but works in a more abstract way.

0:13: Definitely matched action, but this might actually be two cameras...

0:19: This one's pretty good.

0:25: Totally different place & time, but yet the timing is done well.

0:29: Very good transition.

1:13-1:15: This one's the best. I don't think they used more than one or two cameras that time though it's possible.

Matched Action

http://video.on.nytimes.com/
The video is about 3/4 down the list- called "Waiting for Asylum." The matched action starts at 2:48.
I found this video, and the specified clip seems like matched action. There are two or three very short segments of video for each person that walks by, and the cars in the background are a basis for comparison. Whether it is technically matched action or not, I'm not totally sure, but it does work. Because Njoya is stationary, the splicing of the separate segments creates a surreal sense of speed of the world around him.

Matched Action

I found this video on NTY.com: Riders Through the Snow. It is about the Iditarod Trail Invitational, in which racers bicycle, ski and walk on foot for miles in the Alaska wilderness. I found three Matched Actions: 1:15-1:20, 2:12-2:17 and 2:19-2:22 minutes.

The first matched action is two guys making sure their bike is prepared for the race. I thought this worked nicely because it showed the one guy putting his weight on the bike while the other checked the bike's air. The second matched action is a close up of a racer getting dressed and then a long shot of him, which added a little visual variety. The third matched action showed a racer cooking, first providing a close up of the food and then a long shot of the man cooking. Overall, I thought the piece was interesting and the video was decently edited.

Matched Action-Fish for the Future

I found two examples of matched action in this video from Spokesmanreview.com. I think it's a pretty good video outlining the process of restocking a lake in Washington with more fish. The video is narrated by the photographer at the beginning. Dave Welton, an employee of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, narrates the remainder.

I found two matched actions: 0:27-0:32 and 0:44-0:56.

The first involves two different views of Welton attaching a long pipe to his truck: a long view and then a close up. I'm not possitive, but I think the close up is more than just a zoomed in view: it appears to be shot at a slightly different angle than the long view. Though this is a rather simple example, I thought it worked out well sequentially.

The second involves Welton making some adjustments on the top of his truck: two different views of him walking on the top of the truck and then a close up of the actual adjustments. This is a stronger example of matched action. It is more clear in this example that the three different views given are actually from different view points. I think you'll see what I mean...

Overall, I thought the video was quite interesting. I wasn't crazy about how the photographer narrated the piece at the beginning--his tone of voice doesn't really go along with the tone of the rest of the piece...but at least gives the viewer all of the background information needed. The rest of the piece was edited well.

Matched Action - Sole Man

I found this video that opens, almost immediately (0:14-0:15), with matched action. It then has two more examples throughout the piece (1:23-1:24, 1:55-1:56). I thought that it was used with the strongest impact at the beginning, but the next two times are work as well, showing different views of the same process. The first two uses are nearly identical, so it would have been nice to see a third angle worked in as well. 

The story is of a shoe shiner, a dying trade in New Orleans, and his view on the importance and charm of what he does. I really enjoyed it, matched action or not, and you should check it out--a good example of covering interesting, everyday people in the community.

Assignment: Blog Post, Matched Action

Part One: Fine an online video with a matched action sequence and post a link to it here, including how far in the match is. Give us a few sentences on whether you think it works or not.

Deadline: 7 p.m. on Sunday

Part Two: Shoot a series of three photos - from different angles and with different compositions - as if you were doing a three-shot matched action sequence in video. We'll download and sequence them in SoundSlides on Tuesday in class.

Workshop - What to Expect

A sample of what to expect from the weekend workshop ...


Click to play

Syllabus, Day One

The syllabus has been posted, time to start reading it, folks. 

Assignment 1: Three questions about the syllabus, written down, for the start of class on Thursday. 

Almost There

Doc Photo will go active again on Jan. 8. Stay tuned.