Back at WTKR...

Posts : 11 Join date : 2012-02-19

My old TV station (WTKR, NewsChannel 3), asked me to freelance for them since they are short a couple photojournalists right now. I've been back with them since Friday. This is a story I did Tuesday. This was for the six o'clock news, and these bikers didn't show up until 2:45pm. We only had about 30 minutes to grab a couple interviews and shoot some B-roll before the bikers were off again. The reporter didn't have a lot of time to write the script, and I only had about 30 minutes to edit this.

News is a different animal than filmmaking since you don't always have time to make it flashy:
http://wtkr.com/2012/05/08/riding-to-remember-fallen-officers/

Subject: Re: Back at WTKR... Thu May 10, 2012 11:02 am

Thats nuts! Clicking on the link now....

Subject: Re: Back at WTKR... Thu May 10, 2012 11:18 am

That was great! It looked awesome, crazy that you got all of that done in a short amount of time. Man everything was so smooth! Very Happy

Seems like photojournalism is like guerrilla film-making, like extreme film-making. Seems cool but stressful, shooting, editing and submitting in very limited time and that it will be seen by tons of viewers. Cool though, very cool.

They talked about how the one officer died on his first day wow that's terrible.

I'm happy for you that you can do the news thing again!

Posts : 11 Join date : 2012-02-19

Thanks. The first interview was handheld, but I was able to put my camera on the tripod for the next two. Even in a fast-paced environment like this, I always give myself padding at the beginning and end of my shots to get clean shots.

Posts : 34 Join date : 2012-01-26 Age : 40

Yeah, the footage looks great! Who chooses the shots that are to be taken? I always wondered if it was the camera crew who decides where the interviews happen or if it's the reporter.

Posts : 11 Join date : 2012-02-19

Ulitimately, the cameraman is responsible for all video, especially with B-roll. Occasionally, reporters may notice something visually interesting to shoot or ask the cameraman to specifically shoot some video they will write to later. A lot of times there is little to no plan on what to shoot before arriving at a scene. The captured video is spontaneous. For interviews, there is more collaboration between reporter and cameraman about what will aesthetically look nice in the background. It's beneficial to have the background visually comment on the interview or what the story is about. Other times, you may not have time to set up something aesthetically pleasing, and you just need to shoot and just try to make it work compositionally. But, any problems with video always falls on the cameraman.

Subject: Re: Back at WTKR... Wed May 16, 2012 3:44 pm

Awesome. I think I would like to do that sort of thing...well with more experience first of course

Posts : 34 Join date : 2012-01-26 Age : 40

Yeah, Hooper. I don't envy you the amount of responsibility you've got. But I can tell you've got a good eye for what kind of footage to get. Remind me again what specifically B-roll is please? I can guess what it is, but then it's just my guess and not confirmed definition.

Posts : 11 Join date : 2012-02-19

If you want to think of interviews as your main video, B-roll (also called cutaway footage) is the complementary video to accompany it. It illustrates what the video package is about and fills in over the reporter's track.

Jeremy: if there ever was time to become a photojournalist, it's now. It seems like there are a lot of openings right now for that position. Sometimes people with little or no experience get hired.

Posts : 11 Join date : 2012-02-19

http://wtkr.com/2012/05/18/some-erb-sailors-say-they-have-to-move-to-find-jobs/

Here is another package I did. A lot of the B-roll was pulled from existing packages already. I shot the interviews and the cutaway footage of the women. I only had about 30 minutes to cut this 2-minute package.

Posts : 34 Join date : 2012-01-26 Age : 40

What!? 30 minutes for that edit job is AMAZING! I worked for a solid three days to edit a music video that wasn't much longer than that package and the news job looks WAY nicer! I love the angles you got with the camera on a lot of the interview shots. It makes it look really dynamic.

Posts : 11 Join date : 2012-02-19

I appreciate it, but I didn't make it as clean an edit as I would have liked. News is a different animal than what we do in 208. It's more important to get it on the air than make it perfect.

Posts : 11 Join date : 2012-02-19

http://wtkr.com/2012/05/22/teen-hurt-during-hurricane-irene-makes-strides-toward-success/

Another video package. I only had about 40 minutes to edit it before it went on the air. Some of the footage was from a video package in December about the girl, so I had to borrow some footage from there.

I didn't make as a clean an edit throughout as I would have liked, and I needed to add way more dissolves than I like to use, but I was trying to soften the fact I was not maintaining screen direction with the girls running.

Posts : 11 Join date : 2012-02-19

http://wtkr.com/2012/05/31/drivers-give-vdot-bad-reviews-on-511-system-changes/

We did two different video packages of this story. I was hoping this was the one they didn't post on the website because the other one looked a lot better. I had less than half an hour to edit this one.

Posts : 11 Join date : 2012-02-19

http://wtkr.com/2012/07/03/tapit-water-programs-hits-hampton-roads/

Haven't posted one for some time.

Subject: Re: Back at WTKR... Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:01 pm

Sweet!