Jan 14 2011

Multimedia Easy Start: Still Images with Photographer Voice-over

Category: Multimedia & Video — Ethan G. Salwen @ 10:25 am

“Face-off With a Deadly Predator” is a great video — wonderful story, amazing images. From a tech point of view, it offers great inspiration to those of us moving into motion.

When it comes to video production it doesn’t get much simpler than “Deadly Predator.” Yet, as far as the quality of multimedia storytelling is concerned, it doesn’t get much better. Notice that the decidedly simple approach to the video interview of Paul Nicklen doesn’t detract from the piece — at all.

As you watch “Deadly Predator,” consider how you can put the still images in your collection to motion — adding only your own voice

To be clear: You don’t need to record yourself on video. As Bill Cunningham proves, voice-only voice-overs can work quite effectively when creating a video from still images. (Consider adding a little royalty-free music for drama, as in “Deadly Predator.”

A big thanks to Mary Lynn Price for strongly suggesting I watch this video, when I interviewed her for “Adventures in Motion.” “It’s so simple and yet it’s gotten more than two million hits on YouTube,” she said.

Price told me that as long as we have a good story, multimedia can be as simple as mixing our images with our own thoughts in our own voices.

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Oct 20 2010

Using Multimedia to Sell Yourself (Not Your Images)

Category: Business & Marketing, Multimedia & Video — Ethan G. Salwen @ 3:16 pm

“You need to tell them who you are,” Lauren M. Rabaino suggests in her post yesterday at 10,000 Words, in which she is highlighting the importance of applying multimedia skills in non-multimedia jobs. Here, she is specifically talking about the importance of entrepreneurs (read: all photographers) selling themselves to clients with multimedia storytelling.

Photographers are doing an amazing job at harnessing multimedia to highlight their work, but how many (and how creatively?) are photographers using multimedia to sell themselves — entrepreneurial style?

Here are four example of photographers using multimedia to help sell themselves to potential clients. What’s cool is that this self-promotion was either an after thought (#1) or not a thought at all (#2, #3 and #4), but all do the trick — meeting the 2.0 reality of potential clients wanting to identify a cool, like-minded image maker to work with, not just someone who makes cool images.

#1. This video features Ian Shive:

Amazing multimedia, wonderfully highlights his work, but also really shows you want this guy is about. Not surprisingly, he’s told me that he’s gotten amazing attention (and business) from this series.

#2. This video features Gail Mooney:

Amazing multimedia journalism, this is just a rough that Mooney quickly slapped together after her travels for “Opening Our Eyes.” Yes, it wonderfully teases us with the quality of her work (we want to see more!), but it also shows Mooney up close and personal — something you’d never see in a portfolio-only piece. Mooney has told me that every time she has shown this teaser she gets amazing interest in her project, and that her viewers are most interested in what she has to say on camera.

#3. This video features Peter Krogh:

OK, this is not amazing multimedia, nor does it seem to be a super sales device, but I actually think it is. In this world of 2.0 sharing, we get to see super photo nerdy Krogh in a less photo-nerdy moment, sharing a bit of his life, showing us who he is, helping us imagine him out camping in his van, letting us know that Zippy Lives!

#4. This video features Mary Lynn Price:

If you can make a fun, excellent, educational multimedia piece that features you, and starts off you with you mostly naked, well. . . I think you’re doing a great self promotion sales job, even if wasn’t your intention.

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Sep 23 2010

Adventures in Motion — The Article

Category: Creative Process, In-Camera Techniques, Multimedia & Video, Photographers, Technology Insights, The Industry — Ethan G. Salwen @ 2:32 pm

ACBlog_100900_adventures_in_motion_salwen_currents_fall2010“The ability to easily distribute video to a worldwide audience via the web is the third factor that has dramatically opened up possibilities in motion for still photographers,” I write in “Adventures in Motion: Nature photographers get serious about capturing video and producing multimedia.” Factor One, I explain, is that hi-def digital video capture has recently become so affordable. Even more critical, Factor Two occurred “in the late 1990s when professional video editing software began to run on the same computers photographers used for their digital still photography.” With this brief historical background, in “Adventures in Motion,” which I wrote for NANPA’s Currents magazine, I dive into a deeply-researched piece in which I attempt to inspire photographers to embrace multimedia and video, and to provide some fundamental advice for doing so smartly.

To get a taste of the scope of “Adventures in Motion,” check out the article’s subheads: “New Frontiers in Video Capture, Editing and Distribution,” “Proceed with Excitement and Respect,” “Having Fun and Learning By Sharing,” “Understanding New Paradigms in Publishing,” “Taking On Video Editing One Step at a Time,” “Listen Up: Sound Is King,” “It’s All About the Story,” and “Beyond the Million-Dollar Question.”

Sounds like good stuff, no? Well, if I succeed with “Adventures in Motion,” it is because I was able to bring to life the experiences the visionary, multimedia-embracing nature photographers who informed this piece: Rob Sheppard, Eric Cheng, Ian Shive, Tony Wu, Ralph Clevenger and Mary Lynn Price.

I deeply thank all of these photographers. During hours of interviews, each one shared their unique perspectives with passion and patience. They also provided invaluable feedback on drafts of the article. While their experiences differ, I was pleased to discover that they are all very much on the same page in terms of what matters for still photographers moving into motion.

Currents’ editor Niki Barrie is the unsung hero behind “Adventures in Motion.” Not only did she assign the article, but she performed some major hand-holding as I worked to refine my mess of a first draft from more than 10,000 words down to less than 4,000. Thanks, Niki!

Check It Out! — A Resource Worth Sharing With Colleagues?

I encourage you to give “Adventures in Motion” a read. Even if you well beyond “newbie” status in your adventures in motion, my hope is that you will find a resource worth sharing with colleagues.

Sooooooo?

I know you’re the opinionated type, so please share your opinionated response to “Adventures in Motion” — in a comment below. More than “Good job!” or “That sucked!”, I encourage you to enter the dialog with your experiences. Expand on what I got right, correct what I got wrong, share any critical advice I left out, pose a question that was raised, or respond to any questions raised below.

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Aug 10 2010

Working for Human Rights Watch – Multimedia Style

Category: Business & Marketing, In-Camera Techniques, Viewpoint — Ethan G. Salwen @ 10:39 am

AC_Blog_100810_Human Rights Watch_1Human Rights Watch held a press conference in Buenos Aires today to drum up interest in their latest report: “Illusions of Care: Lack of Accountability for Reproductive Rights in Argentina.” I’m pleased to announce the cover image of the report was made by yours truly. It was great to put my photography to work for HRW. It’s even greater that it’s a relationship that has just begun. The next phase will involve my making for them a multimedia production, a topic about which I have been writing so much lately. (In fact, my writing led directly to this job, which is very cool and which I will explain below.)

For the “Illusions of Care” cover I was charged with making an image that spoke to the report’s theme — roadblocks to better reproductive health care for women and girls in Argentina. I could not show the identity of anyone I photographed, unless I obtained a model release, and so I focused on a graffiti-filled hallway in the maternity ward at Hospital Alvarez in Buenos Aires. (The graffiti “Aca nacio” features prominently in the image. “Born here” in Spanish.)

Actually, I was able to get model releases from a number of women I photographed. And some of these images show the women with distressed expressions that might have made a more powerful cover image. However, using one of these images for “Illusions of Care” would have been disingenuous, to say the least. The care at Alvarez maternity ward is excellent. The women’s expressions were the result of them being in various stages of labor.

Although many of the images I made at Alvarez were not right for the report cover, I’ll likely be able to use some in the multimedia project I am now working on for HRW.

Building Trust Was Key

A couple months back Marianne Møllman, the author of “Illusions of Care, contacted me to see if I might be able to make a cover image for the report. I told her I was Continue reading “Working for Human Rights Watch – Multimedia Style”

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Jul 14 2010

Wide, Medium and Close – The Key to Crafting Cool Videos

Category: Creative Process, In-Camera Techniques, Multimedia & Video — Ethan G. Salwen @ 3:24 pm

“When capturing motion and stills for use in multimedia it is essential to record all subjects in wide, medium and close-up shots,” Mary Lynn Price told me recently. As a video journalist focusing on “one-man-band” reporting, Price uses all three perspectives to carefully construct rich reporting experiences. One great example is her “Conserving Shackleton’s Historic Hut in Antarctica,” which she produced in 2008 for “Women Working in Antarctica.”

“The wide shot is the establishing shot, the medium shot clearly shows the subject, and the close-ups give us the ‘wow’ factor,” Price explains. She uses all of these to her storytelling advantage throughout “Shackleton’s Historic Hut.”

Even though it’s only five minutes, “Shackleton’s Historic Hut” asks a lot from Web viewers with short, fickle attention spans. Price holds our interest by presenting as much information as many, slower-paced TV documentaries would in a half hour.

Not only do get to know three different Continue reading “Wide, Medium and Close – The Key to Crafting Cool Videos”

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Jul 02 2010

Take a Flight to Antarctica

Category: Books, Multimedia & Video, Viewpoint — Ethan G. Salwen @ 3:56 pm

“The way I approach multimedia is to think about each project as a storyteller and then to think about what tools I will need to best tell the story,” says Mary Lynn Price, who since retiring from practicing trial law in 2003 has dedicated herself to video journalism, with specific interest in natural history stories that support conservation efforts. Just as Ralph Clevenger told me, Price explained to me than nothing matters more than thinking about story when putting together “music videos” — her name for multimedia projects that tell stories without narration or even graphics, but just smart use of images and music.

Price proves her music-video storytelling prowess in “C-17 Flight to McMurdo Antarctica.” In less than two minutes, she takes us from baggage security scanning and flight boarding to landing on “The Ice,” having shown us tons of interesting close-ups during this famous, windowless flight.

“Famous” is, um, definitely too strong a word for this particular flight that takes scientists and support staff to the McMurdo Station. But I’m an Antarctic exploration junkie so I’ve sure heard about it plenty, although I could never really imagine what it would be like — until I got taken for a ride with Price’s great documentary vision.

What does it mean that I’m an Antarctic (and Arctic) exploration junkie? It means that I’ve read Alfred Lansing’s “Endurance” three times, twice read “Shackleton’s Forgotten Men” (by the brilliant Lennard Bickel) and at least once just about all of the other classic books about frostbite and suffering in pursuit of knowledge at the southernmost (and northernmost) tip of the world.

I’m kidding about the pursuit of knowledge. Continue reading “Take a Flight to Antarctica”

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Jun 03 2010

Underwater Storytelling from Tony Wu

Category: Creative Process, Multimedia & Video, Photographers — Ethan G. Salwen @ 2:04 pm

AfterCapture Blog_100603_Underwater Storytelling_1When I talked with underwater photographer Tony Wu late last night (early this morning for the Japan-based Wu), he agreed with Ian Shive that making quality multimedia — from stills, video or both — is all about the story. To illustrate his point, Wu directed me to his fantastic blog covering underwater photography and therein to “A Very Hungry Frogfish,” one of his first experiments in multimedia storytelling

If you haven’t yet put together a multimedia piece, or are in need of inspiration, I strongly recommend you watch this wonderful Frogfish-staring piece by Wu. “It’s a good illustration of nothing mattering more than the story,” Wu told me, which is the exact sentiment Shive had shared (not to mention everyone else I have interviewed on the topic).

“Yeah, the audio sucks and the video processing is no good,” Wu shared in his slow, calm, thoughtful manner of speaking. “But the end result achieves what I wanted, which was to make people laugh, and to get people to emotionally relate to a fish.”

I definitely laughed. I definitely was not distracted or put off by the low-tech nature of the piece. For “Frogfish” Wu only used a handful of stills (patiently captured over more than an hour and a half), Wu’s voice-over narration and endearingly simple “special effects.”

“Frogfish” has a simplicity the resonates like the experience of the best children’s books, which (as my sister-in-law, who is a children’s librarian will tell you) are some of the greatest books out there.

“There’s no way I could have conveyed this story with one picture, or words alone,” Wu said. “People really get it.”

Not Being Overwhelmed by Overwhelming Technology

Continue reading “Underwater Storytelling from Tony Wu”

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