Now that I’ve been operating much more in the nonprofit world and much less in the journalism world, it’s rare that I find myself chasing down those random video stories that cross my path.

But, I’ve been in the mood to commit random acts of journalism lately. I’m currently in Madison, WI conducting a 3-day “Multimedia Journalism Bootcamp” for the faculty of the Madison Area Technical College’s journalism program. I was out and about the state capital when I came across some street performers slinging fire around on chains and couldn’t help myself. I was compelled to shoot video and ask them to tell me a little about their art and themselves.

That’s the nature of a really good story, I think—it begs to be told, to be explored.

So many reporters at so many newspapers and television stations have been battered by the constant drum of doom and gloom in the industry, or the demanding focus on learning news skills, new technology and new ways of doing things that it can be easy to neglect our sense of curiosity. The news stories or video projects that get us excited and the ones that perplex us, yet compel us to get to bottom of things can often get lost.

Heaven forbid such a story should fall outside our work hours, say at 9:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night in a park square in Madison, WI. I could have been inside watching a movie and eating pizza, but I happened to be out exploring a new city. That’s when I met Sean, a construction worker by day who liked to go to raves and learned to swing balls of fire in a dizzying display of skill and dexterity. I met Paul, a student who sports a mohawk and dropped out of school, but aspires to return to study horticulture or engineering. He’s also hoping he can make a little cash swinging fire, which he does with flair and expertise.

It wasn’t a long video and it tells only a small part of their story, but it represents the potential of curiosity satisfied. The final product is an engaging video that inspires even more curiosity. It’s one of the things I just remembered that I love about journalism.

The Apple iPad is ideal for your photography or videography business and is available from Apple starting at $499.

I stopped by the Apple Store this evening to check out the iPad. The ultimate gadget geek that I am, I just had to pick one up and play around. And, being the gadget geek I am, my mind churned over all the possible reasons I needed one. Those of you with your own photography or videography business know the drill, another piece of equipment your heart yearns for, so you desperately begin searching for a reason, any reason, to expense it.

Alas, I didn’t come up with a significant justification for buying one to actually fork out the money. (Wife would have killed me anyway) But, I did get a better understanding of how it would benefit me, particularly as a photographer and videographer.

*Thanks to Michael Sherlock for the video demo.

Salesperson’s best friend

The iPad, with its convenient size and shape would be a great sales tool. The display and touch interface make it fantastic for flipping through photo portfolios, zooming in and out with a pinch. I can’t imagine a bride or commercial client that wouldn’t have fun flicking through your best work with this tablet in hand. I met so many of my brides, along with the fiancees and mothers, at local coffee shops. This tablet PC would be perfect for looking through proofs and sampling my best wedding videos. The 9.7 inch (diagonal) display is a perfect compromise between portability and a comfortable viewing experience. The iPad also features speakers, though in a noisy environment you’ll need headphones.

Photographer’s caddy

Apple's iPad Camera Connection Kit goes for $29

You can download photos directly to the iPad from your camera using the iPad camera connection kit ($29). The iPad supports standard picture formats including .jpg and RAW. This would make it ideal for proofing photos on the go and sharing them with friends, clients or fellow photographers.

On the job

I figure the iPad would serve as a great digital notepad on photo shoots, video projects and wedding days. I could back up photos to the iPad, maintain the wedding day schedule, lists of photos a bride wants me to shoot, find directions to and from the shoot site or wedding ceremony and reception (using the great maps app which displays nicely for glancing, not gawking at, on the road), and display my portfolio or business website at the reception site along with a set of my business cards.

Misc.

I can also imagine reading e-books about photography and videography on the iPad with ease and comfort. I never even considered buying a Kindle, but the iPad would be an even better e-book reader plus all the trimmings mentioned above. Email would also be convenient on the iPad, as would surfing the web.

Drawbacks

Apple's iPad Keyboard Dock goes for $69.

One of the biggest initial drawbacks I noticed, and this is because I do a ton of writing in my professional life, is that the keyboard is very clumsy. I’m sure with some practice I could get better at typing on it, but I’d rather spend the $70 for the Apple wireless keyboard or special iPad keyboard dock to do any type of typing on the iPad.

Then of course there’s the price. It’s cheap if you consider this a replacement for your computer (which I don’t recommend). But, it’s pricey if this is just a sales tool. You may have justified buying the MacBook Pro, the iPhone and an iPod for your photography or videography business, but it’s pretty tough to justify the $499-$699 you’d need to fork out for the iPad. I’m hoping the price comes down in a year or two the way the prices did for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Well, that’s my take on it. So, are you sold? If you’re using the iPad for your photography or videography business or work, let me know how that’s working out.

So, what’s a videographer to do?

The obvious answer is royalty-free music which can be purchased at a reasonable cost ($30-$400) and used in your projects. A frequent criticism of royalty-free music sites is the lack of sophistication in the music. It’s often too cheezy for most of my projects and lyrical royalty-free songs are hard to come by for romantic wedding videos and such. I have found one royalty free music site that I recommend over all others: Premiumbeat.com. They’re got a nice selection and some really great sounding tracks. Check ‘em out.

Another option I want to recommend is contacting a local recording studio to see if you might work out an exchange. The smaller, local recording studios might have some talented, but otherwise unknown artists recording songs you could get permission to use in your videos in exchange for credit and a hyperlink to the artist and studio websites. That’s what I did with C-Sharp Productions here in Minneapolis. I met with producer Chad Sharp for lunch and we worked out a deal. I can’t speak for Chad, but it’s worked out great for me and helped me add some great vocals and modern music to my wedding videos that won’t land me in court.

Another opiton is to seek out music schools or friends who might be recording something in a home studio to see if they’d be interested in getting their music featured in a project of yours.

The final option I recommend is creating something yourself in Garageband or Soundtrack Studio Pro. Both programs have various loops and instrumentation that make it easy, even for non-musicians, to create some basic mood music.

So, get out there and find music the right way and you’ll find your videos will sound even more original than your competition!

I’ve gotten some great response to my advanced shooting techniques posts about the D300s lately, so I thought I’d take the time to post some more useful techniques I’ve picked up shooting video on my favorite Nikon. This time it’s “gain” control on the D300s for shooting HD video in extremely low light conditions. When you’ve pushed the D300s iris control to it’s lowest setting, here are some tips for squeezing out just a little more visibility from your camera without getting too much grain or color loss.

Aperture is everything

The way you boost your low light viability with the Nikon series of HD video DSLRs is by manipulating the aperture, so the faster the lens, the better. Of course, you’ll run into depth of field issues if you go too low, so be aware of this when setting up your scene. Do not bother changing the ISO, keep it set on something reasonable like 200 or 400 so when you go back to shooting stills, you’re shooting at a standard ISO. I’ve found that manual ISO changes do not translate into real changes in the video capture mode. (It does seem, however, that the ISO adjusts automatically as graininess becomes a factor in low light conditions, whereas in regular lighting conditions there is no graininess.)

So, first, select aperture control mode (or manual if you prefer) and shoot in this mode so you can control the aperture. If you’re not able to push your aperture below f5.6, you’re sure to get a grainy picture. So, try to use lenses that allow you to go to something like f1.8, f2, etc.

Be sure to exit “Live View” mode after making any aperture changes or they won’t take effect. I’ve even found it useful to turn the camera on/off to make sure the changes take effect.

Monitor the video

Lastly, you’ll want to properly monitor the video image you’re capturing to make sure you’re not getting a grainy picture. I find that boosting the screen contrast temporarily while shooting video helps you accurately read the picture.

And, that’s it. Hope this helps.

Poking fun at those TV journalists is too much fun! This courtesy of Charlie Brooker. Funny stuff!

This month’s issue of the Society of Professional Journalists magazine, Quill, is all about the changes affecting news photographers in the digital age. I also happen to have a column in this month’s issue.

The column in which I make my Quill editorial debut is the digital media toolbox, a spot available to the committee members on SPJ’s National Digital Media Committee. (Lucky us) Each issue, we try to share tips, tricks and tidbits about multimedia journalism. (You can also read a plethora of these tips and tricks on our blog—NetWorked)

When asked to draft up something for this issue, I wanted to address newspaper photographers who have yet to make a foray into news videography with those fancy new DSLRs that shoot HD video. I was also asked to create a tutorial video to accompany the online version of the magazine. You can check out the article here and watch the video above.

If you’re a news photographer, be sure to check out Digital Quill online.

I enjoyed presenting a session at the Jan. 27-28 Minnesota Newspaper Association annual convention in Bloomington, Minn. on news web video. The discussion was broad and I appreciated the interaction from attendees. There seems to be a lot of experimentation going on at smaller community newspapers in Minnesota in regards to video. However, there’s still quite a bit of skepticism and curiosity about what really works. I laid out the main types of news web videos that I generally see:

• Feature videos
• Sports videos
• Breaking news videos
• Newscasts
• Interview videos

Mark Plenke, a communication instructor at Normandale Community College, brought to my attention a style of video that the Washington Post is doing called “onBeing“. (You GOTTA watch Gio’s video!). This is just people talking about being people. A great series and something community journalists could really capitalize on around Minnesota.

Many journalists were also wondering about doing video on a budget. For them, I had some recommendations. (Download my recommendations and cheat sheets for iMovie/Final Cut Express/Adobe Premeire here)

Many were also curious about managing time spent on a video project. I recommend approaching any feature video project (or otherwise highly involved project) as it’s one story, and not as an additional project you take on on top of your regular weekly story list. I know many newspapers are shrinking due to losses in advertising. That means the news hole is smaller and fewer stories fit. So, instead of filing 6-7 print stories per week (as many weekly newspaper journalists are accustomed) I suggest 4-5 print stories and 1-2 multimedia projects. Similar workload as before, but more in line with types of story forms today’s journalists need to be producing.

In cases where news breaks and video requires little or no editing, reporters can approach video as “added value” on print stories, teasing to the exclusive or “web-only” content of video to compliment their stories.

Overall, it was a rewarding conference experience and I hope to be invited back next year.

The bad news is I’ve left professional journalism, but the great news is I’m still doing lots of multimedia work and am excited about this new position in the nonprofit sector. My new job title is “interactive media strategist” and I’m working for two nonprofit community foundations: Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation. The thing about community foundations is they do lots of exciting work that’s hard to sum up in one paragraph. Essentially, community foundations are:

…independent registered philanthropic institutions serving geographically defined territory, typically a city or administrative area (county, region and the like). The six main characteristics of the CFs are:

• Act as grant-making foundations – e.g. give grants to support development projects
• Their mission broadly defined (e.g. to improve quality of life in a community)
• Serve geographically defined communities – a city, state, region, district or province
• Are supported by a broad range of private as well as public donors and seek philanthropic contributions primarily from inside the community
• Are governed by multi-sectoral local boards reflecting the community
• Build capital endowment, which is an important element of sustainability

(Source: Wikipedia)

I’ll be guiding the two Foundations social media efforts, managing its newsletter and other print publication projects, and producing videos for them.

I’ll also be working for an offshoot of the Minnesota Community Foundation called GiveMN.org.

GiveMN.org has a very cool story. (Read the Minneapolis Star Tribune story here). Essentially, the Minnesota Community Foundation decided to forge new territory in the nonprofit world and create this online philanthropic web site where nonprofits from around Minnesota could set up a home page, take donations and connect with donors. Individual donors can now visit one web site to do all their local giving. In a special promotion shortly after the site launched, GiveMN.org raised over $14 million for local nonprofits on “Give to the Max Day” Nov. 17. You can read about it here.

So, basically, I’m working for some really cool folks with a great mission. Here are some of the main bullet points of my job description:

• Produce testimonials about extraordinary nonprofit organizations to feature on the Foundations’ website.
• Promote the featured nonprofits through social media and other strategies.
• Identify high-performing nonprofit and public sector leaders who are having transformative impact in their communities and create profiles to feature on the Foundations’ website.
• Serve as the primary social media voice and manage the Foundations’ presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and other social media outlets.
• Track key on-line communications in Foundation interest areas and ensure we are participating appropriately.
• Manage content and production for the Foundations’ MNSights and Grant-a-Wish publications.
• Manage contracting for and relationships with outside communications suppliers and vendors.
• Work with the Executive Director of GiveMN.org to provide strategic and operational leadership for GiveMN to launch and grow into the best place-based giving platform in the country.
• Build and manage all content partnerships for GiveMN portal.
• Manage production of issue spotlights, working with partners to develop and disseminate great analysis of critical issues facing Minnesota.
• Work with corporate and other sponsors to plan and execute giving promotions such as matching days, challenge grants to individual organizations, and giveaways.
• Lead media strategies and outreach for GiveMN.
• Develop a GiveMN YouTube channel with donor-generated video content integrated into the GiveMN site.

The cool part is I really feel I’m in one of those “jobs of the future”. I mean, this has got to be one of the newest job descriptions out there. In a way, it’s kind of like a metamorphasis from a traditional communication professional job description. No longer is marketing, public relations or journalism about writing for a given medium. Today, any given communication team, be they part of a newsroom or a PR firm, needs to have a social media and video strategy. Online video and social networks have grown in popularity and participation to the point that organizations must employ folks with a grasp of the new online interaction reality. (How I stumbled into this expertise area, I’m not quite sure, but I feel like one of the lucky ones…)

Over the holiday break I read a post by Adam Westbrook (10 Trends in journalism in 2010), a British multimedia journalist and blogger [I love how the Brits say "mobile'], that hit home. His #2 prediction for trends in journalism for 2010 was that journalists will move to the NGO market, or Non-governmental Organization market. (Read nonprofits). Cool, I’m living that prediction!

But seriously, the nonprofit sector seems a great refuge for multimedia journalists who may want to “wait out” all the turbulent changes in the journalism industry. Since journalism is replete with lay-offs, pay cuts and freezes, and a reputation for poor salaries, many high-mined, idealists in the field may find themselves a great fit for nonprofits who wish to share their stories. I certainly hope to make my contributions at the Minnesota Community Foundation, The Saint Paul Foundation and GiveMN.org.

The evolution of new media continues and implications for journalism abound.

I found this web site a few months back when judging some college newspaper web sites. It’s called Issuu.com and was being used, at least on the journalism sites, to post widgets on the news sites of the .pdf, page-turnable document versions of their college publications. I’ve since uploaded a few .pdfs of my own and found the process an easy and efficient way to publish your print publications. Readers can easily read the documents online, embed them on their own sites or print the .pdfs out and read them in paper form. And, did I mention? Issuu.com is free.

Now, Issuu.com is launching apps for the Google Android and Apple iPhone/iTouch phones. Again, technology is enhancing the reading experience for any digital publication on a hand-held device in a way that should make the distributors of the Amazon Kindle (and other e-reader devices) nervous. It should also serve as yet another red flag to newspaper publishers that their days of pushing out news on dead trees are numbered. Anyone holding on hopelessly to the idea that newspapers will be around in 10 years is dreaming.

The good news is publishers, editors, copy desks and reporters will have jobs (at least of few of us will) in this new media ecosystem. Take a look at the pagination of some of these digital editions and you’ll see that page design, typography, editing and quality reporting and writing are going to be necessary and valued skills in the years to come.