If you want to be a working writer, then you must understand web video.
Just like every newspaper has a blog nowadays, the time is coming when most media outlets will have video content to compliment text.
Everybody realizes that the potential for fantastic journalism exists in web video, but nobody knows exactly how to do it. Here are three easy ways to build some web video smarts. Continue reading...
1- Befriend a video artist! I can't say it any better than Mark Bowden (author of the journalism classic, Black Hawk Down) in this essay:
"I advise young journalists today to learn how to use a digital video camera, and to get used to working in multimedia. Nearly every story I write today for the Atlantic, and every book I undertake, I do in conjunction with a documentary filmmaker. This results in a documentary version of the story, which can be marketed to TV but also compiles the audio and video needed to produce a Web presentation."
2- Read the best websites. I suggest daily visits to the ReelPopBlog and News Videographer and the excellent Video Toolbox that links out to the powerful online tools.
3- Watch lots and lots of web videos. Here's a good place to start: A couple months ago, New York Times writer C. J. Chivers and web producer Adam B. Ellick, crafted an innovative piece with and plenty of editing style and hardboiled narration--learn video storytelling from the best.
Thanks to Journerdism for many of these links!
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