The Great Video Gold Rush -- a reality check.

The publishers have sighted gold in them thar video player hills.

All the newspaper people have piled into the wagons and are heading west toward Video, in the hopes of striking it rich. Imagine! Those pre-roll ads get higher rates than banners! Let's do video!!!! The rush is on!

Someone on the internet said you can do video with a point and shoot! Let's give our staffers the cheapest video cameras we can buy and send 'em out. We'll be rich!

Well, folks, circle the wagons around the campfire here and lets have a little chat.

This video stuff ain't easy nor cheap. No matter how many well-intentioned bloggers tell you all you need is a $89 camera and the will to do it, the reality is far different.

It takes good audio gear, reasonable video gear, modern computers, and most of all, time, to produce intelligible video for the web.

So many papers have staffers struggling along with antideluvian computers and too many assignments to ever cover in a day.... and now corporate says they have to do video, too! I feel for you, brothers....

Since newspaper people have apoplexy at the thought of TV budgets, where a camera costs $25,000 - not including lens or battery -- I'll try to make an analogy with something most newspapers are familiar with: photos.

Most newspapers have photographers with pro Canon or Nikon gear to shoot the majority of their display pictures. Sure, even the big papers use the reporter's point-n-shoot mug shots when necessary. And when the plane crashes into the shopping mall, I guarantee the picture you'll use will probably be some amateur's coolpix shot -- because they were there, and your photog was in south county for the garden league meeting.

But no respectable paper intentionally makes a habit of putting crappy pictures on their section fronts. They have staff photographers with $15,000 worth of still gear to go make an image out of something that's news but not really visual. That's a staff photographer's job: make something visually interesting from nothing. You're paying them to see things you don't.

And the reason you pay them weekly weakly, is that readers value good images. Pictures rule. They're what readers look at first. Photographers, for all their A.D.D. and dyslexic faults, draw readers. They're worth it.

After decades of experience with photo departments and visual professionals, here's the strange place we've landed:

The internet audience is growing and you want your staff -- from the janitor all the way up to the M.E. -- to contribute to the web product. Video! Let's do lots of video! There was some guy at the publisher's association meeting who said all you need is a point-n-shoot; let's get 'em for everyone. How 'bout the photogs? Nahhh, they care about silly quality.... we won't ask them about doing video... We'll get the web people and reporters to do video.

So the reporters start doing video. All of a sudden the story they used to be able to write blindfolded, in five minutes while doing the office football pool, takes 'em six hours of work to get the video into their computers, figure out why Movie Maker keeps crashing -- I've got 128 megs of ram, fer krissake! -- and finally re-compress the file into the right size on the third try.

And the web people? Well, they don't have a problem figuring out Movie Maker, but gee, maybe that video they just finished should have said something about the three dead or maybe included someone besides Crazy Joe who likes to pretend to be the mayor. Oh, wait, that was the managing editor's video? Oh, no problem then....

A few months of this and the landscape starts to change at papers. Gee, why don't our videos get as many hits as LonelyGirl15?

All of a sudden you're moving someone over to edit video because it takes so long and gosh, the publisher says he can't understand a word in any of those videos... maybe we need a better mic. But some corporate flunky type who was at the ANPA meeting with the boss has decided what gear you're getting... after all, his cousin does dog show videos.

Sheesh, people, get a clue!

Ok, cowboys and cowgirls, here comes the sermon:

VIDEO IS MAGIC! It's the most f'ing wonderful thing on the internet. YouTube feeds millions of videos per day to your former readers. Video is an emotional medium that grabs the viewers by the throat and makes 'em weep, laugh, and scream. Video appeals to an audience way beyond your literate readers in the 65+ demographic. The boss did say we need to capture younger readers, right?

Does your reporter video fit into that "magic" category? Does your 'random' video make you weep? (It makes me weep, but not because of the story...)

If you haven't reached this point yet with your video program, here's the important stuff you need to know:

Video storytelling is technically difficult; extremely time-consuming, and takes talented people and expensive gear. A good video story can appeal to a huge audience. And will keep appealing over time.

Video clips, on the other hand, can be done by almost anyone with a point-n-shoot. We're talking the video equivalent of a page 4B traffic accident brief. A video clip appeals to the 17 people who were affected by the wreck (unless it's a porn starlet).

Remember way up above when I was talking about your photogs doing the section front pictures while you used the reporter mug shots on page 6B? That's a concept you should be able to wrap your minds around. Hey, maybe the same philosphy applies to video.... maybe you should have a core group of video pros to do the display stories and let the reporters and citizen journalists do the potholes and car wrecks.

Here's the bottom line: to get good narrative video, with clean audio, that is engaging to the viewer, requires a full time video person, who has spent a year learning all the technical stuff about audio, cameras, and video editing programs. It takes about $10,000 in video and audio gear and another $10k in computer and software. And it takes a willingness to display that video far and wide over an extended period of time to get hits that build over time. Oh, and the technology is not stable, so you'll need to replace everything before the depreciation's done.

Who makes a good videographer? You've probably got a couple on staff. Great story-tellers with the timing of a comedian who are technically savvy, visually literate, and quick learners. Invest in them, they're worth it.

And why should you go to all this expense and trouble? Because video is magic. Oh, and also because the local TV station is finally figuring out that you're eating their lunch. They're gonna kick your butt in video soon, along with 3,472 other outlets on the web who want to come steal your local advertisers from you. You better figure this video stuff out soon.




(A bit of video magic by Candace Barbot and Ricardo Lopez / the Miami Herald)

Change is in the air

Bill Gates in the Seattle PI:
"On television: "This is a subject I think about a lot, because it was actually about a little over 10 years ago that Microsoft first got involved in this idea of changing TV from being a simply broadcast medium to being a targeted medium (through its IPTV initiative). ... In order to have this be targeted, you cannot send it over the airwaves. There's just not enough capacity to broadcast thousands and thousands of different video feeds. And that's where the Internet comes in. The Internet is now cheap enough that the idea of having every household in America watching a different video feed has become practical. There's some infrastructure improvement that that implies. Actually, that's very much under way. ... It's a dramatic change in TV. ... Broadcast infrastructure over these next five years will not be viewed as competitive. The end-user experience and the creativity, the new content that will emerge using the capabilities of this environment will be so much dramatically better that broadcast TV will not be competitive. And in this environment, the ads will be targeted, not just targeted to the neighborhood level, but targeted to the viewer. ... We'll actually not just know the household that that viewing is taking place in, we'll actually know who the viewers of that show are, and so it's a very rich environment."
Seattle PI: Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog

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I lived through the linotype-to-typesetter revolution in newspapers. I watched the paste-up artists walk out the door the last time. That entire floor of our building, once an incredible beehive of frenzied activity, is still like a tomb, 20 years later -- because the computer rooms that replaced hundreds of jobs are sealed off and refrigerated like the morgue.

That kind of paradigm change is happening again with video. As you TV guys argue big camera vs. small, professionalism vs amateur, penny pinching vs. quality, the world is bypassing you. YouTube is feeding 200 million videos a day. That's 2 with eight zeros after it.

As we speak, probably a thousand photographers and reporters at newspapers across the country are figuring out how to use a video camera. Already newspapers outpace television in online video revenue.

But both newspapers and local tv depend on local advertising -- and that revenue model is shifting even faster than camera technology. It ain't about mass market anymore. It's about targeted publication. And small targeted advertising to niche audiences won't support my newsroom nor yours. Everything will change.

The question is, how fast?

News from NAB

I didn't make it to NAB, the huge broadcast trade show, but am eagerly following the announcements from there.

Perhaps the biggest news for us online video folk were the competing announcements from Microsoft and Adobe. Microsoft is introducing a new media player, Silverlight, and Adobe is announcing the Adobe Media Player. Both are for web video and both will change our world.

From StreamingMedia.com, "Major announcements this morning at NAB 2007 from both Adobe and Microsoft find each one vying the lead in the ever-more-lucrative online video market. Adobe announced its Adobe Media Player, a standalone video player that gives Flash Video DRM for the first time, while Microsoft introduced Silverlight, a cross-platform, cross-browser media and application delivery plug-in."

Also announced at NAB, the Associated Press Online Video Network, with the ability to upload local content to the AP player, is no longer a beta product. From their press release, via LostRemote.com,: "With its initial year growth reaching 45
million unduplicated unique visitors, AP has completed beta testing and
today announced the next phase of its Online Video Network (OVN), which is
based on MSN technology. The release of the local contribution module
enables AP OVN affiliates to leverage AP breaking news video and national
advertising sales managed by Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions. In
addition, affiliates can add local video and generate revenue from local
advertisers."

And from the Radio Television News Directors Association panel on News 2.0, Michael Rosenblum says to burn down the television stations:


If you're a masochist, the whole 64 minute panel discussion, including Amanda Congdon, is on Blip.tv

The other big news is from Apple: Final Cut Studio 2.0. Mix formats on a single timeline. Pro color grading. Flash files output from Compressor. It's awesome. So's their trailer:

Stunt Journalism

I'm off on a blogging adventure. Check out Unlikely Passage .

The video on the blog is mostly from a Canon S3is which makes great pictures but produces really unuseable sound. This trip is a test of technology -- I'm testing a Sprint Rev A USB modem which works great for sending video.

Good Newspaper Web Video

"Where's the good newspaper web video?" I'm asked.

Some of the best newspaper video is not just video but a mix of video, stills, graphics and words. Some of the best is narrative; some not. Here's are links to some cool stuff:

The Dallas News is doing some great work and is well along in converting all its still shooters into video shooters. They do good stuff almost every day. But their Katrina anniversary package is very moving: A Year after the Heartbreak shows that David Leeson understands that video - even when done with stills - is an emotional medium. Also check out Yolanda's Crossing . Dallas' Leeson has some of their good stuff on iTunes podcasts: Best Of, which includes Moments 2006, which is still on their site along with Leeson's blog, which lists a bunch of good video. Whew!

Tom Van Dyke at the Chicago Tribune did this weather feature on one of his first outings with a new video camera - and instead of trying to do TV, he found a great character:


(And why can't I embed video from any newspaper sites?)

Everyone knows about Travis Fox at the Washington Post, but they've got some other great talent: Drumline by Preston Keres has the rhythm. And Justin's Got Game is a good hoops story by Pierre Kattar.

Stephen Crowley at the New York Times (who's only been at it a year) has done some cool stuff with reporter Charlie LeDuff on their series American Album .

Roger Richards at the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot edited and produced My Favorite Child, a moving story about the lasting effects of institutionalizing a child with Down Syndrome.

And some newspaper video doesn't have a frame of video in it: Train Jumping from Gary Coronado and writer Christine Evans at the Palm Beach Post isn't video but has nat-sound driven narrative.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Richard Koci Hernandez and Dai Sugano and the rest of the staff over at the San Jose Mercury News are pushing the envelope with their interpretive video, and though there are sometimes rough edges it's always fresh: Friday Night: 7 Bamboo, a karaoke bar story by Dai Sugano is very different from what we're used to and Richard's solo production of Red Hot Rails, a Flash/video/still examination of the explosion of railroad traffic due to increasing imports, is great. And The Extreme Southwest is art, as is Richard's essay on the the Seasons.

Lest we forget our friends up north, the National Post produced Eastside Blues as their very first attempt at video. The Toronto Star's Bernard Weil has a little more experience and has a good Skating video.

UPDATE:
The Detroit Free Press is also doing some good work covering the military and Iraq: The Christmas from Fallujah video by Dave Gilkey . And the first Michigan Band of Brothers video of their training in the Mojave Desert before their deployment to Iraq. They also covered a Marine funeral, covered by two shooters (in the same video) in Iraq and Michigan. (Needs Firefox on a Mac.)

Sonya Doctorian at the Rocky Mountain News has done a lot of good stuff, including A Sister's Gift .



Please, dive into the comments and add some more!

What standards should newspaper video have?

The judges' decision to withhold awards from some web video categories in the NPPA Best of TV Photojournalism contest has caused a lot of discussion about what we're doing in the industry and what standards we should have.

Looking beyond the abrasive tone (TV photog/blogger 'Lenslinger' and new media guru Howard Owens are having a Jerry Springer moment over on Howard's blog ) the point that Stewart Lenslinger Pittman is making is not that TV and still SHOOTERS are different, but rather that video and still SHOOTING is different.

The actual points that Lenslinger brings up are valid: He says that the contest judges' decision to withhold awards in some online categories "seeks to establish a standard of visual storytelling that transcends outlet, medium or format.... (consumers) don't want to struggle to understand anything - not in a 500 channel, infinite website world." And he says "With fewer time restrictions and a ubiquitous delivery method, the newspaper industry can indeed rewrite the book on video news. No one's demanding your fare be as slick (and vapid) as what we churn out on the evening news, but it must be clear, clean and easy to follow." Howard Owens generally argues that video can be used as a facet of a story -- and it doesn't have be THE story. Once you edit out the vitriol, both sides are perfectly reasonable positions.

Contests always represent lofty ideals. The contest winners, still or video, are what we should aspire to. Reality is always different. No one can produce contest-winning work on every assignment if they're doing it daily.

Very few people at newspapers have a grasp of how vastly different narrative video is from what they're used to doing. Good video storytelling is emotional and temporal. Newspaper editors try to avoid emotion and seek to capture information at a particular point in time. Newspapers' stock-in-trade is providing facts and figures -- something video is ill-suited to provide.

The web is a great publishing platform because story telling can take almost any form. Words, graphics, tables and charts, videos, stills, and who knows what else. But most newspapers have not yet learned how to choose which format to use with which stories. Video is new and novel for newspapers. But stock market tables, after-the-fact police blotter items, and check-passing banquets shouldn't be covered in video. We shouldn't be focusing on doing the video equivalents of 1/2-column mugshots.

There is plenty of room on our websites for both narrative storytelling video and for ten-second clips that show what something looks like. The problem comes when we turn what should have been a ten-second clip into a two-minute story. We need to develop an institutional knowledge of what stories make good video. Contests can point us toward that goal.

Who says web video has to be short?

Ya gotta love the internet.

On Google Video, a minute :43 of Anna Nicole being sleazy is trailing in page views to conspiracy theories at an hour and 49 minutes.

Of course the anti-immigration folks have 14 minutes of numbers.

All three have over a million and half views.

And here I thought 90 seconds was the key to web video.....

That any of these three are in the "most popular" category is scary. Notably absent from any of the video popularity lists is anything resembling journalism.

Of course, they're way behind the five million views of another conspiracy video that's an hour and a half long. (This one disturbingly opens with a notice that the material in the video is stolen ("contains unlicensed footage.."))

But really, we're in a hurry after all: witness the six and half million views of a 13-second panda sneeze: I guess there's some virtue to brevity.



Of course, while we're on the subject of long videos, you can learn a lot about editing from watching eight minutes of crazy Russian climbers:

Pay attention to the transitions here -- how they get from one scene to another. No, not the stupid pixelation thing, I'm talking about the way they let the action go out of the frame. This one's got over 11 million views.

And finally, the sports video category is filled with long, half-hour plus videos.

So what's better? Long or short?