Shooting 101: Video for Writers

In little over 60 minutes, Christie Nicholson and Eric Olson delivered a crash course on video reporting for beginners.

They passed around a sample starter kit (a $112 Kodak Zi6 pocket video camera, a tripod, and an ear mic) and got down to business by offering tips via video example. It’s the do’s and don’ts of news clips – here they are:

1. Keep it short. News videos should last about 2 minutes. And you’ve got about 20 seconds before your audience goes South, warned Nicholson, a freelance contributor to Scientific American.

2. Attract the viewer. Aim for visually pleasing scenes (i.e. not a researcher in his chair.) As for audio, don’t shy away from sounds and music. And regarding the script, remember humor. By example, Olson, an audio-video editor at Nature, showed us one of his videos, in which he begins a story by asking why anyone would smash rabbit bones.

3. Stop the tape. Don’t be afraid to turn off the camera to ask your source to repeat something that didn’t come out quite right. If an ambulance zooms by, stop and start again. If it’s windy, relocate.

4. Divide composition space into thirds. Nicholson and Olson illustrated this lesson by projecting live videos onto a screen with a 3-by-3 grid overlain. The subject does not sit front and center, but rather fills up two of the columns – eyes line up with the bottom of the top row. NASW attendees tried it out for themselves by composing mock interviews. In the video posted here, Nancy Huddleston of the National Academy of Sciences does a nice job of lining up her mock-interviewee, Mel Berkowitz of Interon Productions in Jamaica, New York.

5. Record footage beyond the interview. In the film world, that’s called B-roll. To demonstrate, Olson shot a mock-video of Nicholson counting money.

6. Use a tripod. And avoid moving the camera around, zooming in or panning out.

7. Interview tips: Ask three questions before your serious questions begin to warm-up the interviewee. And then for nice color, ask people to talk about themselves.

Taking Down Britney Spears: How Science Writers Can Fight for a Spot in the Media

The conflict between new media and old media or bloggers and journalists may seem like the hot topic these days, but at least one panelist this afternoon believes that such thinking is out of vogue. What is more important is talking about innovative ways to get science stories to people who don’t know it can be fun, even if that means mixing science in with news of Britney Spears, said panelist Bora Zivkovic at today’s session on “Rebooting science journalism: Adapting to the new media landscape.”

Bora, a newly minted blog editor at Scientific American, doesn’t see organizations such as his or Discover, Seed and Nature competing with each other in the new media landscape; rather he feels they are collaborators with a common mission. The real competitor, he says, is Britney Spears.

“We are all in this together now,” said Bora. “We are all in the same business of promoting science and pushing science literacy. I think if we figure out ways to collaborate, we can fight for our piece of the media pie and show people that science is fun, interesting and important.”

Fellow panelist Emily Bell left her post at The Guardian a few months ago to direct the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism. She said her new role as a “hackademic” is giving her the time to think about how to crack very hard problems in journalism today. She admitted that she didn’t have the answer on how to keep our jobs – and not surprisingly none of the panelists could impart such wisdom – but she did convey one key mantra: nothing is ever going to stay the same.

And she happily gave a number of tips on how we as journalists could evolve to survive in the current climes. (1) Adapt your mindset to the fact that journalism is always going to be changing. (2) Realize that the content and the platform go hand in hand, and that you have to innovate both at the same time. (3) Differentiate yourself as a writer and a brand, developing a deep expertise or niche. (4) Understand the process, recognizing all the elements that go into a great story, whether it is the BP oil spill or the midterm elections.

Emily, who is creating a new program that combines computer science and journalism, emphasized that science journalists of the future are going to need a different skill set and a different way of thinking. She doesn’t see blogging and journalism as all that different, quoting that 35 percent of bloggers were or are currently employed as journalists.

“There is this snarky debate that the web creates bad journalism, and I just don’t agree with that,” explained Emily. “There is no dead air time on the internet, absolutely none. There is no set inventory to fill like in other venues – the stories are never finished, and they can continually be commented on.”

Blogging became a popular topic in the session – how to tell blog from a news article, how to tell a good blog from a bad blog, how to use blogging to get into writing. Bora, who was the first NASW member to be accepted on the basis of blog posts alone, recognized that blogging may be a new and frightening thing for a number of veteran writers. But he explained that for those who want to explore blogs, there are a number of science blogging networks that provide a stamp of approval on their content that is unparalleled in other subject matter such as politics or knitting. The moderator warned Bora not to antagonize knitting bloggers.

Bora’s reply: “I wouldn’t do that, they are powerful and they have needles.”

Telling stories with video

Science writers aren’t just learning to write anymore; in these digital times they want to learn about Web video.

Confession: I stole that lead. It’s the opening narration for a short video produced and directed by volunteers who attended the NASW workshop “Producing video, on camera and off.” Instructors Christie Nicholson, freelancer and online contributor at Scientific American; and Eric R. Olson, audio-video editor at the Nature Publishing Group; walked us through the process of composing and shooting several quick interviews. Then they showed us how to organize the shots and add narration. “It’s not rocket science,” Nicholson reassured us.

Olson passed around a surprisingly small equipment kit, used for making Web videos at Scientific American, which contained a Kodak camera and microphone. (A Flip camera is an alternative to the Kodak model.) The other two essentials: a tripod and editing software such as Final Cut Pro or iMovie. Price for everything: only about $200.

We looked at some examples of videos that worked well, such as Carl Zimmer’s cuttlefish-bites-man story [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW4PbW893ik]. The most important elements of a good video story, the instructors explained, are action and engaging characters.

So where is the amazingly cool video that my classmates and I produced? Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for the other two crash courses we need to become full-fledged video producer/directors: doing an actual shoot of a real event, and editing our material in post-production, but those would make great sessions for ScienceWriters 2011.

Image: Nicholson (left) and Olson with the video reporting essentials: microphone, camera and Gorillapod.

Book authors channel Strunk & White

Robert Lee Hotz, moderator of the panel “Great science writing part II: Building the big book,” introduced the session by announcing, “We’re going to turn ourselves into a living Elements of Style.” Representing five elements were science book authors K.C. Cole (voice), Jonathan Weiner (story), Charles Seife (character), Jennifer Ouellette (structure), and Carl Zimmer (authority).

Cole cautioned writers against becoming attached to one voice. When people know that you’ve written something, she said, “that’s not a good thing.” She suggested trying on different voices, the same way that singers practice in different ranges.

Next, Weiner described the disparity between writers’ and scientists’ notion of story. While scientists seek universal patterns, writers look for a character facing an obstacle. Weaving those two notions together, he says, is a challenge for long-form science writers.

Seife spoke of characters as lamp-posts that illuminate a story and take the reader from one event to the next. He faced an unusual problem when writing a book about the number zero, which spanned more than two thousand years. “I turned zero into a character,” he says, giving the number verbs and a story arc.

Ouellette compared structure to a laser: light by itself radiates in all directions, but a laser focuses and directs the light. While she has several files of book ideas, she says, they sit there until she figures out which structure the story will take.

Finally, Zimmer gave an example of an error in his book The Tangled Bank, which incorrectly refers to one anatomist as Dutch. In "some of my nightmares," he says, people will refer to the book to look up the scientist's nationality. Book writing requires you to become a “junkie” about the subject, he says, and footnotes can show discerning readers that you’ve done your homework.

Here are a few of their favorite tools: Experiments in social media, part 2

"There's a huge value in doing things just because they're fun," said tumblr's Mark Coatney. Sounds great, but for those of us who are untutored in the ways of new media, where to begin?

TBD.com's Steve Buttry (more below) shared some of his favorite resources, including a blog called Zombiejournalism, whose tagline reads: dispatches from the walking dead of today's "old" media. It's a source for keeping track of what's going on in the new media world. National Wildlife Fund's Danielle Brigida added  Mashable as a favorite source for news in social and digital media, and Best Blog, a blog review site on Wordpress.

Several tutorials exist to help newbies jump into social media. Steve Buttry's blog has a lot of Twitter resources, he says, because Twitter is his main tool. And for those of us who worry about wasting hours on Twitter, you'll find a time management tool as well.

To find what you need on Facebook and Twitter, the speakers mentioned two sources, Social Mention and Kurrently. Finally, Brigida posts all of her presentations on Slideshare. "It's like PowerPoint on youTube." And it's a great way to find presentations on a topic you want to learn about. Her slides from today's presentation are here.

Mike Spear from Genome Alberta reminded the audience that all of this new media is just another communications channel. The same rules apply to traditional and new media. "If you can't tell a good story on radio or TV, you can't tell a good story online." Think in old media terms for how you tell the story, but think outside the box on where you tell the story and whom you tell it to.

TBD.com was launched 3 months ago to cover local Washington, DC, news. The name is a perfect fit, according to Buttry, director of community engagement. "In a digital world, news is always unfolding. And the path to success will involve a lot of changes, surprises, and failures along the way." He spent the bulk of his talk discussing the departure of TBD.com general manager Jim Brady. One more reason TBD makes sense.

Video for the Web

Trigger happy? You're in luck. Christie Nicholson, video producer and contributor to Scientific American, says now is the best time to get involved with online video. People’s TV and online video streaming are soon going to be one and the same, and Web video is growing at a phenomenal pace.

Nicholson and Eric Olson, video and audio editor for Nature Publishing Group, ran a hands-on workshop today on the basics of good video production. After a quick introduction to the basic equipment that a science writer-turned-producer would need, and tips on shooting and interviewing, volunteers from the audience played interviewer and producer. Here are some tips I took away from the session.

Action is key to telling an interesting visual story. Running, jumping, eating, biting. Nicholson's tip for judging good visuals: is the image/video still interesting if you turn the sound off? Take this New York Times video of cuttlefish that they showed us: http://bit.ly/192mY4 See where the cuttlefish bites the scientist? That’s good action. (It would have been neater still, Nicholson says, if they got the creature to bite Zimmer too. More biting, it seems, is key.)

Take time to find characters who speak with emotion. If they talk with their hands, and with their face, that’s a valuable bonus.

Pay attention to sound quality – you only get one shot at recording all your source matter, so keep your headphones on. Stay away from trucks and sirens. Keep out of the wind, and don’t be afraid to stop your interview and start again until your sound quality is just super.

When shooting, make sure the person talking is well lit. Take your time. Avoid windows.

While interviewing, take a few questions to get the interviewee comfortable on camera (Olson says people usually get comfy after three questions). Ask them to repeat the questions in their answers – this makes stitching together the final video easier. (And, don’t forget to sound check!)

When shooting additional footage (b-roll in production parlance) zoom slowly, pan slowly, almost twice as slowly as you’re tempted to.

Finally, when editing, keep it short. Online videos these days typically run for about 2 minutes, Nicholson says. The scripts for video and audio pieces are snappy too. Nicholson, who produces the “60-Second Mind” weekly podcast for Scientific American, said these one-minute pieces don’t typically run longer than 200 words on a page.

The Penthouse Is Falling

David Dobbs, accomplished author and moderator of the session "Rebooting Science Journalism: Adapting to the New Media Landscape," described his dismay at finally feeling like he "made it" in the freelance writing world, only to have the industry change and the magazine he worked for close.

"I was at the party in the penthouse, then they began taking the building down," Dobbs said. At first he faulted people changing their news habits from print to the Internet, and predicted doom for science journalism because of it. But now he's come to admit that science journalism is alive and well, it's just changed its form and pay scale.

Betsy Mason, editor of Wired Science, claims to have heard of the "penthouse" of writing, but characterizes herself as playing ping pong in the basement. She edits both blogged and reported stories for Wired Science and struggles with differentiating the two forms effectively for readers because they are posted right next to each other on the site.

Despite her biases in coming from the print world, Mason has come to realize that it's OK to tweet a story even though all the reporting is not complete yet. "I've learned that sharing online is good. There are more opportunities now for contributing to the science discussion. Instead of placing blame, we need to think about science journalism as a whole and how we can make it stronger than ever."

Most of the discussion in this session involved changing expectations and taking advantage of the new tools available (blogs, tweets, Facebook) for writers to showcase their expertise. Although doing so may not pay at first, it can eventually open up opportunities.

The ability to cover a story more thoroughly without space constraints was noted by panelists as an advantage blogging has over traditional media. Bloggers are also not constrained by writing to a certain reading level.

"Blogging makes journalism better by adding value and through personal reporting," said Dobbs. "There's no set inventory on the internet."