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Thursday
28Jan2010

Maine Media Workshops

Storytelling has many forms. You can write, shoot or record. What if you did all three? And what if you were the producer, editor, photographer and writer?

In June I will have the pleasure of teaching a weeklong multimedia reporting class at the Maine Media Workshops. The class is entitled "One Man Band" and will explore the modern backpack journalist.

We will focus on reporting stories with video, audio and even a little bit of writing to create a multimedia experience for the viewer/reader. We'll use traditional video cameras and the Canon 5D Mark II and edit in Final Cut Pro.

The 2010 catalog is now online and more information on the workshops are there too. My class is June 6-12. Tuition is $1,025.

Maine Media has a boatload of workshops for every facet of photography, multimedia and filmmaking. If you want to learn from the best, check them out.

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Thursday
21Jan2010

Photojournalists in Haiti

Pack Clif Bars, learn a half-dozen methods to sterilize drinking water and charge lots and lots of batteries are three foundational tips for working in a disaster environment in a third world country.

The topic on This Week in Photography is Haiti and how photojournalists are coping with the conditions there.

The group gives advice on the podcast that is basic, but would be helpful to anyone traveling to a second- or third-world country to shoot.

Also discussed is: when to put the camera down and help. I remember listening to a talk given by Los Angeles Times photographer Rick Loomis last year at the Mountain Workshops where he showed video of the U.S. military unit he was traveling with taking heavy fire in Iraq. Loomis said at one point he stopped shooting and helped other troops carry a wounded American soldier out of the firestorm. In that situation, he said, your instinct tells you to drop the camera and do what's right.

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Thursday
31Dec2009

Filmfellas

The latest webisode of Filmfellas was posted this week and features the conclusion of a conversation between four cinematographers -- Jens Bogehegn, Robert Primes ASC, Trent Opaloch and Philip Bloom.

This is one of two web shows Zacuto produces, along with Critics, and offers great roundtable discussions on all aspects of filmmaking, from shooting weddings to major motion pictures. It’s well produced and the topics and guests are usually fascinating if you’re interested in cinematography. 

FilmFellas Cast 6: "Cinematography" Webisode 27 ~ Cultivating Trust
The round table of DPs (Jens Bogehegn, Robert Primes ASC, Trent Opaloch and Philip Bloom), discuss the DP/Director relationship. They elaborate on ways to handle a problem director, the art of collaboration and staying true to your craft. Next, they exchange views on artistic vision and bonding with the director on a more personal level to build trust.

FilmFellas Cast 6 Filmmakers:
Jens Bogehegn zacuto.com
Robert Primes, ASC http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0697543/
Trent Opaloch http://www.trentwashere.com
Philip Bloom http://philipbloom.co.uk/

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Tuesday
15Dec2009

Canon 5D Mark II video workflow and you

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickwheeleroz/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0The Canon 5D Mark II is a year old and many newspapers have adopted this DSLR as their video camera of choice.

The 1080p high definition video is stunning. Throw a fast lens on it, like a 50mm 1.4, and the short depth of field make you think you're shooting on an outrageously expensive film camera. All for US$2,799.

A lot of people have been asking me how it fits into our post-production workflow at The Courier-Journal in Louisville.

While serving on the faculty at the Mountain Workshops inOctober I solicited the help of video gurus Chad Stevens and Bob Sacha, who produce work for MediaStorm. I adopted MediaStorm's workflow at our shop and came up with our own streamlined process from captured 5D Mark II footage to Final Cut Pro export.

INGEST: First I dump all of the video files into one folder on a hard drive. 

29.97: Since the Mark II shoots in 30 fps I convert the files to 29.97 fps. (Philip Bloom has said a future firmware upgrade might take care of this.) But for now I must convert because QuickTime interprets the files as 29.97 fps. To do this I use Final Cut's Cinema Tools and after a few clicks the files are converted: First, open the application and click Create New Database from the pop up. Cancel out the dialogue box that opens and go to File>Batch Conform. Next, I pick one video file from that last ingest. Select 29.97 from the drop down menu and Cinema Tools will conform every video file within that folder to the proper spec. It should only take a few seconds.

CONVERT: While newer MacBook Pro's have on-board h.264 decompression built into their video cards, Apple's big bad Mac Pro tower machines do not. At our newspaper we're working on those towers, so viewing the gorgeous 1080p h.264 files that the 5D Mark II captures is a struggle. I convert from 1080p to 720p h.264 and Final Cut Pro on those Mac Pro's seems to handle them OK. Another method is to convert to ProRes 422. (Vincent Laforet outlines how to do that with either MPEG StreamClip or Final Cut's Compressor here. Since ProRes codec decompresses the h.264 files, a lot more storage space is needed for those video files.)

When I use Compressor I have a custom conversion method setup to scale the files down to 720p and keep the 29.97 framerate. It works for us and our online video player created by the people at Brightcove.

Once the files are converted they can be dropped into Final Cut.

To check out MediaStorm's full workflow head over to their submissions page.

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