Story

3 things to consider about shots

Story

Another semester passes and that means it’s escape from weird b-roll. Like the shot of a cat in a story about a chimney company. Or the inexplicable shot of a college-age woman vomiting in an alley in a story about the elderly.

Thus, today’s mild rant about the concept of intentionality: the idea that every shot that goes into an edit should have a point and propel the narrative forward.

You might want to think about what you’re shooting in these terms:
1) What is the purpose of this particular shot within the narrative? Video is just another kind of sentence and every shot should have a purpose that moves the sentence/story forward. We can’t just throw shots onto the floor and see what the cat licks up. 
2) What is my intention with this shot? Is it to show the location of a pizza place? Is it to show character? Then hew to that intention. 
3) Does this move/shot make the audience conscious that it’s being made? Viewing audiences don’t like to be reminded that they’re watching something that’s being made. They are also fickle and are looking for any reason to go on to something else. You want to avoid those movements that could knock them out of the narrative by reminding them that they’re watching something.

How Modern Baseball uses dolly-outs to create two senses of place

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I’m deep, deep into the weeds of what each shot communicates. So deep, in fact, that I’m going to use the best video about being in a friend zone ever to demonstrate a concept.  That’s right, we’re going to use now-defunct Maryland pop punk band Modern Baseball’s “Your Graduation” video. It has it all: Shots with personality, a drummer screaming into a microphone while it precipitates around him, an opening shot of a pudgy guy laying in a bed.

Before we get into that — especially that last part — let’s talk about the role of a shot within a sequence. Or let’s start with the sequence. The sequence — a connection of linked shots, usually around an action — is a visual sentence.  In teaching video editing, we talk about five-shot sequences and we talk about three-shot sequences. I teach them as some combination of wides (which create context), tights (which drive the narrative and create character) and mediums (which combine context and character). But each shot serves its own purpose and I’ve been thinking more about that lately. For basic newscutting, we teach keeping motion in shots to a minimum: Only move when the shot needs to move. But as we get more advanced, it’s possible to use those shots to show character and setting — and to change both — with a little bit of movement.

Every time director Kyle Thrash introduces a new scene, it starts with a tight on our friend-zoned protagonist. He uses a simple enough shot, the dolly-out (a shot where the camera smoothly backs away), to create a sense of scene and character. It’s a combo shot. The tight at the beginning gives us character and the widening perspective of the dolly-out to a medium provides context.

If we divide the video into two stylistic choices — narrative and band shots — the narrative sections look like this:

  1. Tight on guy in bed. Camera dolly-out to show girl talking to him, though not sitting there.
  2. Tight on guy in car. Dolly-out to show girl talking to him in a car.
  3. Tight on guy at party on couch. Dolly-out to show girl talking to him on couch as couple makes out next to him.
  4. Tight on guy sitting on a swing. Dolly-out to show girl talking to him on adjoining swing.
  5. Tight on guy sitting on stairs at a Halloween party, dolly-out to girl talking to him.
  6. Tight on guy laying on snow. Dolly-out to girl laying next to him, then getting up.
  7. Tight on girl sitting on bench in graduation gown. Dolly-out to guy getting up and leaving.

The visual sentencing is so distinct and so structured in the video that you can’t avoid the symbolism of the switch at the end. But from a storytelling perspective, that dolly-out gives us the clues in every scene to understand the narrative.

How a story gets found

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I teach three classes or four classes a semester and story-finding seems to bedevil my students. I never had a problem finding stories as a reporter. What little natural talent I had was in that area, but I think most of it is just recognizing the elements that make for a successful story, rather than just a topic. I broke down two stories — one I found a few weeks ago but didn’t write because I’m busy and the other one a needle-in-a-hay-stack story I wrote awhile ago. Maybe the process will help someone.

The story I found but didn’t write: Microsoft announces it will stop supporting anything but Windows 10 sooner than planned, throws institutional computer users into a tizzy

How I found it: My neighbor is a support engineer for a computer component manufacturer. I ran into him and he looked glum. I said “What’s wrong?” He said “Microsoft announced yesterday that they’re only going to support Windows 10 after [insert some date next year that I’ve forgotten]. Most of our clients aren’t on Windows 10 and they’re going crazy.”

I asked “Why?”

His response: “Because our clients are all huge — 2,000 to 20,000 workstations. They can’t turn on a dime. They need time to plan, time to budget for the new licenses and time to do all the testing to make sure it works. They don’t have that time.”

And there is the essence of the story: Microsoft made a sudden move that’s going to cause customers pain — and money. This is a story that can be pursued in virtually any place where there’s companies that are going to have to upgrade. It can be sliced and diced in a couple easy different ways: How is the local university with 15,000 computers to support going to handle this/pay for this? How are small- to mid-size businesses going to deal with it?

This has all the elements that we’d look for in a successful story: A large condition we can apply to a relevant population, a cost (financial and otherwise) and clear conflicts (between companies and Microsoft, between institutions and their budgets and their competing needs, etc.). Characters are easy to find since a large group is being affected.

 

The story I ended up writing: Illegal immigrant kids are wildly successful in high school sports but have no path to a better life through scholarships (which you can see here).

It was 2006 and immigration was a big deal. Most of the cities in the American southwest had both pro- and anti-immigration marches. The news was filled with stories. The country’s leaders were trying to figure out what to do about the U.S.-Mexico border and the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country.

An editor I worked with at ESPN:The Magazine and I were talking and he said “You’re down in the center of it. You should figure out someway to connect immigration to sports.” I got to thinking about it. College teams were going to be tough — too much paperwork with documentation has to happen for scholarships and enrollment. And if I found just one person, it wasn’t much of a story. I wanted a number that made for a critical mass. So I shifted my sights to high schools. But how could I find them?

I had done some border reporting before. But I could also look at a map. I had a much better chance of finding a cluster of high-school-sports-playing undocumented immigrants in border states than I did in, say, Ohio. So I called the information offices for high school athletic associations in border states that had historically high immigrant populations: Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. I explained what I was looking for.  Texas was no help. California gave me a few leads that petered out. Arizona didn’t have anything. But the information officer in New Mexico said “Actually, last spring we had a soccer team that was full of illegal immigrants play for the state championship against a rich school from Albuquerque.”

That sentence was everything I was looking for: It had all the story elements that I wanted (a critical mass, a team) and the bonus element of a strong social class contrast). I found out the town and called the school superintendent there. He confirmed the story and gave me more details that strengthened the story.

This was an example of taking a large issue and having an idea to scale it down. As a colleague of mine says “We don’t need to eat the whole cow, we just want a steak.” Scaling it down to “immigration in sports” and then further scaling it down to high school sports helped me focus my reporting and find the story that I thought I was looking for.

 

Work produced on mobile devices

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A couple examples of work produced entirely on mobile devices.

 

First up, the Pancake Man. Steve Rice shot this on his iPhone 5s with an iPro lens package on it and an iRig Pro attached to a LectraSonic wireless mic, then AirDropped it to my iPad 3, where I edited it in Pinnacle Studio.

 

Next up, a feature on clydesdales. This was shot entirely on iPad 3 by me  and an iPad Mini by Ryan Famuliner. Ryan AirDropped his footage (it’s all the in-action stuff) to me and I edited it in Pinnacle Studio. This was the first large piece we created entirely on mobile devices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How a really good story was told using just an iPhone

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Rob Finighan (@robfinighan), a British freelance TV producer and director, was in Nigeria with the African Story Project, a Gates Foundation-funded initiative to improve journalism in Africa. He was teaching and he sent the students out on an assignment. And he decided to do a little shooting on his own — using only his iPhone. The product below says a lot about the state of the iPhone as a reporting device.

The Q&A I did with him over the weekend says a bit more. Rob, by the way, is anything but an amateur videographer; he’s a former BBC staffer and regularly teaches at Al Jazeera. Here’s the video (it’s only 1:16 and worth every second) and Rob’s gracious answers to my questions are down below.

 

 

 

Q: First, how did you find yourself there?

I was in Nigeria for the second round of a journalism competition called The African Story Challenge.  Funded by the Gates Foundation, it aims to increase the amount, and improve the quality of serious journalism in Africa. This was a week long boot camp for the 22 finalists.  I was there to give them some basic advice on shooting video but they also had lectures in data journalism, safety and interviewing techniques. The trip to the floating slum was a field exercise mainly for the print journalists, so I was really there as a ‘tourist’ at that point.

Q: What app did you use for camera work? Editing?

I have an iphone 5S and I just opened the inbuilt camera,switched from ‘photo’ to ‘video’ and began filming.  I edited it on Final Cut ProX on my Macbook Pro 13″  though I have now downloaded imovie onto the phone to see if I can master that.

Q: Did you notice any limitations shooting with the inbuilt camera and software? Anything that surprised you?

With my big camera, I like to mess around with the depth of field and get some nice textures by manipulating the focus – I’m assuming that’s impossible on the iphone. If I had wanted to interview someone I’d have been in trouble because the microphone would be facing me holding the camera rather than the person I was trying to film. It seemed to deal with the harsh African sunlight and contrasting light situations very well.

Q: You’re a TV director. Did you go in thinking ‘I’m going to shoot and cut for an audience,’ or was it more spontaneous?

I was shooting it for my kids I suppose, and maybe Facebook for my friends.  It was very spontaneous, in fact I had very little battery left on the phone and I knew it before I left the hotel so that shows I had no intention of shooting that afternoon.  As a film maker, I very rarely feel like filming when I don’t have to (we have very few photos of family holidays!) but this place was so striking and atmospheric I decided I needed to do something.

Q: Did you have shots in mind when you started?

The first shots I did were the ‘tracking shots’ in the boat looking sideways.  The movement of the boat was a gift to a cameraman.  Can you imagine the amount of gear and people you would need to get that sort of smooth track on land? It was the success of those shots that spurred me on to do the rest – I got really angry with myself for not recharging my phone before I left because I knew my time was limited.   The ‘piece to camera’ was an experiment.  Like a lot of people in TV, I fancy myself as a bit of a star (my brother is a news anchor for Al Jazeera and I’m very jealous!), but also I noticed on my iphone, which I haven’t had for very long, that you could film yourself by flipping to a camera on the front.  I was messing about really. There is one shot that is not mine by the way – did anyone spot it? (It’s the shot of the boy waving – done on a Sony stills camera by one of the finalists – different ratio, poorer quality but I stole it anyway!

 Q: You said you were limited due to battery issues. Did that mean you just shot shorter clips or were you more selective in what you filmed (essentially doing in-camera editing)?

I always shoot lean. Programme budgets are tight and so time is usually against me rather than battery power.  Also, when you are editing your own stuff, you do tend to mentally edit as you shoot.

Q: Why shoot exclusively on the iPhone?

In this case – it was all I had to hand.  I had no choice!

Q: Would you have preferred your commercial kit?

I have thought about this a lot. Before making this little film I would never have considered filming a sequence without my ‘big’ broadcast camera. I have used a ‘gopro’ to get impossible shots and very occasionally a camcorder (shooting in a car, for example).  But now I am beginning to think that the phone would have been the best option here whatever kit I had to hand. It was a fairly dangerous place and we were told not to draw too much attention to ourselves. Many people tried to demand money to be photographed so you can imagine how demanding they would have been with a professional looking crew.  We also had to move quickly and footwork was also problematic as some of the walkways were very precarious.  I felt free to film, which I don’t think I would have with my big camera.

Q: It didn’t look like there was any picture degradation from zooming. Did you shoot it all at the default length or was there some clean up in post?

No grade at all on the pics.  I am astounded by the quality myself – along with the relative anonymity, it’s the quality that has made me really interested in the phone as a shooting tool.

Q: I saw just a little bit of wobble in one long shot and I was surprised there was so little given that you were on a bobbing boat. Did you either image stabilize in post or use a tripod or monopod?

No tripod or monopod.  I assume there is some sort of stabilizer built into the iphone.  To be honest the boat didn’t bob much at all – the water was thick with sewage! When I was on land I just held it as steady as I could with both hands. 

Q: Did you use elbows against you to brace? Thumb on bottom/forefinger on top? Or some other kind of secret ninja filmmaker technique?

The thumbs and forefingers I assume.  I wasn’t really conscious of the exact grip to be honest.  Pretty sure that my elbows weren’t against me – more like a steadycam, I extended my arms hoping they absorbed any shocks that came through my body!

Q: The shot selection,  pacing and soundbed were all excellent and polished, but that has nothing to do with the camera. You’re a professional. Has the technology in the phone/apps now reached the point where, in the hands of a professional, you can create equal quality to professional equipment?

I surprised myself but I hope it came off so well at least partly because I was able to transfer the skills I have learned as a ‘traditional’ film maker to this new (to me) piece of kit.  I’m really excited about exploring what’s out there to make filming with a phone a rewarding experience. At the very least – the phone in my pocket has just become a new tool in my box of tricks.

Q: How far can an amateur go with a mobile platform towards creating a professional quality finished piece?

I think there are some basic skills that you need as a film maker/cameraman, whatever device you are using to capture pictures. What I did, even with some experience, was to keep it simple. I just tried to keep the camera steady with very few fancy moves.  And that has always been my advice to any budding shooters – keep it simple, keep it steady.

Q: You mention basic skills that any shooter needs to know. Which ones are you thinking of?

Aha! I teach a basic shooting and editing course at Al Jazeera in Doha that lasts 15 days so its very difficult to summarise but, basically, people need to have developed good enough motor skills to make the camera do what they want it to do (e.gg hold it steady), know how to frame a shot, and have a clear understanding of what and how much they need to shoot to tell a story properly.

Outlining a broadcast script using Scrivener

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Someone asked about Scrivener the other day, which is one of my favorite programs. They wanted to know if it was good to use for longform news articles. And it is.

But it got me thinking that the program – which is heavy-duty story outlining and structuring software – can be used for shorter stories, including audio and visual scripts. I went back into my files and found a story I worked with students on where we built a script using Scrivener.

First: Scrivener is a powerful outlining and compilation program. You can use it to organize a novel, a magazine article, a legal brief.  It’s so powerful that I don’t think most people scratch the surface of what it does; they use it to form chapters, move stuff around and write.  Every student that I’ve shown it to as an organizational tool thinks it’s amazing.  It’s especially useful if you think in stories in terms of modules.

The story here is on the emerald ash borer coming to Columbia, Mo. The borer is an ugly pest that drives into ash trees and causes them to die. From a structural perspective, it’s pretty straight forward: Bug comes to trees –> Bug kills trees –> Here’s the story of the war.

But after reporting, the team found itself with a mess of notes of an ideas. I used two functions in Scrivener in make some sense out of it: the corkboard and the compile function. Corkboard allows you move ideas around like notecards to see what works best (it works really well with storyboxing, by the way). Compile lets you take separate sections and turn them into a single Word doc.

We started the corkboard with the basic things we knew had to be in the story: An intro, a toss and an anchor tag (translation: a set up to the story, a push from the set up into the story and an exit from the story).

The first two story sections on the Scrivener corkboard.

The first two story sections on the Scrivener corkboard.

They’re pretty broad and not detailed at all. We haven’t written anything much except for broad notions since we’re just interested in the structure at this point. For the intro, we’ve written down “Ash borer coming to Columbia.” For the toss, we’ve written “Here’s what Columbia is doing about it.” Neither of them are very descriptive, and we could be descriptive, but we don’t want to get too mired in the details right now.

Then we start filling out the story. We know that our first read in the story needs to set up the conflict in more detail than the intro will. And we know that we need interview sound, a SOT (Sound On Tape) that supports the conflict. So we found the right SOT and inserted it into the next slot. In this case, we wrote out the full SOT into the card, so we could move it easily if we needed to. We wrote in another read and then the next SOT.

The second row of notecards in the Scrivener outline

The second row of notecards in the Scrivener outline

 

It went on like that for a few more rows — three cards to the row, each card identifying a specific concept, fact or piece of interview sound. Here’s the next couple rows.

Reads and SOTs in the Scrivener corkboard outline

Reads and SOTs in the Scrivener corkboard outline

Scrivener presents a secondary visual outline in the screen sidebar.

Scrivener presents a secondary visual outline in the screen sidebar.

In the case of SOT 5 (at the right end of the second line), it was originally SOT 4. But it seemed to work better as a transition. So it was a simple click-and-drag to a new location. That’s really the strength of Scrivener; it allows you to move stuff around more easily. Like storyboarding, you can make your mistakes on paper and not in your editing timeline.

We had a couple more rows in there and were done with the basic structure. This was a case where used concepts and facts in the reads, but it was the SOTs that really gave the pieces structure. The students were able to backward-engineer the reads to create strong linkages between SOTs.

One of the things I like most about Scrivener is that you can go from outline to writing in one click and it stays in the right place. Scrivener treats each notecard as a separate section and displays it over on the side.  With one click into that section, it brings up a word processor screen to write in.

By the time we finished outlining where the facts could go and where the sound would go, it became an easy exercise to drop the facts in.  Scrivener’s word processor function is bare bones. You type, it shows up. It’s not so much with the formatting, beyond the basic stuff. And that’s OK.

Once the content was written in — the intro, the toss, the reads and the anchor tag — we used Scrivener’s other most powerful function: Compile. The software takes each section (as seen in the sidebar menu or the corkboard) and puts into a single contiguous Word document. It’s ready for final formatting.

Here’s the full corkboard:

The ash borer's full corkboard outline in Scrivener.

The ash borer’s full corkboard outline in Scrivener.

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