A new multimedia project, in duet
Collaboration is to be the next step in my multimedia
journey.
It’s a natural progression, and a welcome one. The past year of learning has at times been
a lonely process. But it’s been
necessary. It’s hard to work with
someone else, when you don’t know how the process works. It’s one reason I took a Flash course. I’m not a designer, but it helps to
understand how it all works. Reporters who don't at least understand the basics of audio and video, hoping the photo department will pick it up, is destined to frustrate some photographers and videographers.
Last week, photographer Jaime Oppenheimer and I worked on
the drug court story. This week, we got
more ambitious and embarked on our new project. We’re still putting the details together, and I’ll post it here
once we finish. But I thought I’d share
the process as we go.
We went to prison.
It was a guided tour, but the state officials were gracious and pretty
much left us alone to do our reporting.
We spent hours, and Jaime left her still camera in the car. She shot everything with a Sony HD cam, and
she’ll pull stills off the video. She
hooked up a shotgun mic to the camera, and lugged a heavy tripod along.
I took along my Edirol09 and a pair of earphones to collect
some natural sound, interviews and pick up some parts that might augment
Jaime’s video.
I was stoked with the information and images and stories we
collected in those hours. Jaime, however, felt a little overwhelmed.
It reminded me of the different roles we’d played in the
past and how they’re converging in a world of online, multimedia delivery. As a reporter, I can never get too much
information. I can pick out the best of
the best. I had collected interviews
and documents for months. This was just
the color to trim out and dress up the other information.
Jaime had all the images and sounds swimming through her
head. She’d filled up two hours of video cards. How were we going to sort it all out?
Other aspects overwhelm me, such as the thought of actually
editing the video. To me, that’s the
hard part. No problem, said Jaime. That doesn’t bother her.
That’s where collaboration begins. On the long drive home we talked about what we remembered about
the visit. We listed the images that
stood out in our minds, the sounds, the quotes. We made a list. Then from
there, we asked ourselves, what would be better told in video? In stills?
What audio stood out? What
anecdotes would be better detailed in narrative text?
Soon, we had outlined a short video, numbering the scenes in
order and the audio bed that would go underneath it. I don’t think either one of us had actually scripted a video
before. It at least gave us a starting
point.
Jaime has the day off today. I’m going to try to edit some audio tracks, and then give them to
Jaime to pick out some images for another video or a slide show.
When I write the story, that will further cut down our
material, because we’ve decided we want the multimedia to add layers and depth,
not repeat what’s in the story.
Next week, we’ll begin
putting it all together. I'm excited at the prspects I think I'm going to like this role of co-producer.