Go to video

I know. I know.  I've really blown this blog thing lately.  But coming to D.C. to the SPJ National Conference has fired me up again.

There's some multimedia training going on, but it's also great to talk to journalists around the country, who all seem to have the same enthusiasm for new ways of storytelling, while experiencing the same struggles and frustrations.

More about those later.

Thursday, I attended a solid workshop on "Working with a Videographer" featuring Gannett News Service journalists Ledge King and Maria Fowler. Ledge is a national education reporter; Maria is a multimedia journalist.  While they work as a team, they tailored their program with the understanding that many of us working for daily.coms are going solo.  Their training covered the basics and also had some helpful tips to those of us who have been learning for a while.

Among the tips I found most helpful involved working on projects.

Ledge said he did his print-style reporting first, doing the longer, more detailed interviews traditionally, with notebook and pen in hand.  That way, he gets a better grasp of the story, and he doesn't end up wading through hours of video footage in editing.  Then he and Maria go back to just shoot for video.  They do shorter interviews, about 10 minutes, collect their b-rolls and other images and put it all together.  They believe videos should be able to stand alone.

Maria also recommended newcomers try what she called the "one-take" videos.  This works best on an explanatory piece, where you have a source who can also demonstrate a process.  Shoot it in one take, slowly zooming to detail and back out to the person talking.

Repeat, slowly.

"The key to making this look professional is moving the camera slowly and keeping your zooming slow and deliberate," she said. "I wouldn't kick anyone out of the room for bringing this kind of video to me."

UPDATE: Here's a good example of a one-take video from WashingtonPost.com and reporter Rick Atkinson.

The session did was it aimed to do:  making multimedia seem less intimidating.

Later today:  "Be All That You Can Be: The Backpack Journalist" by John Strauss, news and multimedia editor of IndyStar.com in Indianapolis.