Angus Farquhar, Online Video Producer

Final Edition - Rocky Mountain News closes its doors

Not much I need to say about this other than it is a very nicely produced video, such a shame it is being produced by a group of people that are no longer able to work together to serve up such high quality content.

Lets hope the obvious talent here gets snapped up quickly and not wasted.

(Courtesy Multimedia Shooter, picture by ladydog22)

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

After 149 years and 311 days, the Rocky Mountain News published its final edition on February 27, 2009.

Posted by Angus Farquhar (27/02/09 - 23:33)

It’s so sad to see the continued shrinking use of video in online newsrooms around the world when we have only just started to see the full potential of all the VJ talent that is out there.

Let’s hope that Colin Mulvany is right when he says “I believe the need for innovative people and ideas will flow once again.  If not, I’m sure what ever rises from the ashes will need a visual journalist who can do it all.

Posted by Angus Farquhar (27/01/09 - 18:44)

Pro HD camcorder in miniature - JVC GY-HM100

JVC chose the FCPUG Supermeet in San Francisco last week to make a pretty significant announcement - the launch of the tiny JVC GY-HM100 camcorder.

But it’s not just the fact that it is small that really makes it stand out from the crowd, it’s the fact that it shoots full 1920x1080p HD at 35Mbps in to a Quicktime file and records it straight to two SDHC cards while maintaining full manual controls (many of them physical).

What that means in practice is you can shoot on really cheap media, then just pop it out, slot it in to you computer and begin editing. No capturing and no format conversion.

Having just just published 11 videos from the press room of the CES show in Las Vegas with a Sony EX1, I can attest to the benefits of a file-based workflow, but my aching arms would dearly have loved to have been carrying the 3lb HM100 rather than the 6lb (plus wide angle lens) EX1.

Like the EX1 the HM100 also shoots in XDCAM EX but instead of recording on rediculously expensive SxS cards (32GB = £750), you can use a bog standard SDHC card (32GB = £70), which are coming down in price every day.

Annoyingly I just bought a Sony A1E as my second camera. If only JVC had been a bit quicker I could have had a totally tapeless workflow.

MacVideo were in San Francisco and posted a good video of the launch of the HM100 that shows just how small it is and how easily it imports in to Final Cut.

Posted by Angus Farquhar (12/11/09 19:13)

Print publishers shouldn’t back off from online video

I’ve just managed to catch up on my blog reading after the Christmas downtime and one post stood out for me from Colin Mulvany, multimedia producer at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, on his Mastering Multimedia blog.

Chris gives a neat roundup of how Newspaper multimedia progressed on 2008, but one thing stood out for me that just sums up how much print publishers still have to grasp about the importance of video.

“In these challenging economic times, many newspapers have backtracked into full retrench mode as they prepare to make their final stand to save the traditional print product from extinction. This last year, online and photo departments got hit harder than expected. I lost seven of the 12 people I trained to shoot video. Other papers disbanded entire photo departments.”

The last few weeks have seen a plethora of new statistics that show the continued rise in popularity of online video with consumers around the world and yet publishers are mad enough to cut resources in the only area they have that is growing!

This week I’m lucky enough to be at CES shooting video for which.co.uk and the rise of online video was highlighted to me at the show in two seperate ways.

Firstly, when I get up in the morning to get ready for a day of press conferences I want to check what everyone else is saying about the show (Hey, I’m a geek, I can’t get enough) but there is now way I’m sitting down to read text. So I click on the video links and leave it playing while I faff around getting ready in my Medevil themed hotel room. Now I know I’m not alone in doing this.

The second thing that really brought it home was just how many video cameras there are floating around in the hands of journalists and bloggers. (Photo courtesy Steve Garfield)

I’m talking about everything from little Flip flash devices to full broadcast cameras and I’d say at least 90 percent of them were recording for the web.

If print publishers really think this is a time that they can afford to scale back in online video to focus on the survival of their ‘core’ print business then this really will be their death knell. If they don’t do video and leverage their existing strong brands to make it a success then there are a hundred blogs in the wings just waiting to seize the opportunity and put the final nail in their coffin.

Posted by Angus Farquhar (08/01/09 17:04 Vegas time)

Print publishers can do online if they try

After all the doom and gloom in the recent weeks about the imminent demise of the print publishing industry and the likely disappearance of many traditional publishing companies, I thought it would be nice to highlight some people that are making the transition to digital work really well.

Gazettelive.co.uk was brought to my attention by friend and social media star Daniel Thornton (via PaidContent) because they have managed to monetize ultra-local video by using a sponsor-filled pop-up screen  behind their sports reporters.

Now this in itself is worth praising, but looking around the site you can see that they have properly embraced the way the web works rather than the hesitant approach we often see.

• They have video and image galleries to accompany their written articles in both incidental form and produced pieces
• They promote videos about the local area that aren’t necessarily produced by them
• They encourage users to send them images by Flickr and get involved in the stories
• They get local community groups and individuals to blog on their area of expertise
• They use polls, social bookmarking, UGC and a whole host of other tools

Now the site still doesn’t go as far as it should to generate user involvement (not enough calls to action on stories and hidden UGC articles to name a couple of things) but compared to the majority of print publisher’s sites, this really is a good example of what can be done with a little effort and a the will to try.

Posted by Angus Farquhar (17/12/08 11:33)

This is a really nice little guide to producing video journalism for websites. It covers all the bases from planning your web video to filming techniques, sound for video and how to tackle the interview.

This is a must watch for anyone thinking about making online video as more and more journalists are being asked to make online videos to accompany the articles they write.

Posted by Angus Farquhar (10/12/8 17:44)

Check out the video of the first demo of the ‘new’ computer ‘mouse’ by Douglas Engelbart at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in 1968. To be honest, apart from ergonomics, the mouse I’m using now looks and works pretty much the same way.

Posted by Angus Farquhar (9/12/8 - 15:24)