Castle Island Strolling
visual journalism
Jose Ponce is the Key Grip
This short interview was a class exercise on shooting an interview with multiple cameras while using external audio. When using multiple camera angles there is less of a need for b-roll because there is always a dynamic cut to be made.
Staying Safe
This is a short film to remind students to stay safe while working in the field. It includes advice from first responders, journalists, and current and former Boston University journalism students.
Obama Advocates for Middle-Class Tax Cuts
President Obama gives speech on raising taxes for top earners to pay for middle income tax break. He spoke at Central High School in Manchester, NH on November 22, 2011. This video was cut with Premiere Pro. I am switching from Final Cut Pro to teach additional editing platform to Boston University journalism students.
Pete Souza – Portrait of a Presidency
Pete Souza, former Chief White House Photographer for U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama spoke on September 20 at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy Forum. Souza gave a presentation titled, Portrait of a Presidency: Pete Souza’s Photography of the Obama years.
See his photos here!
Takeout Cuba!
Fun story with well-sequenced b-roll. Subtitles and voice over control the narrative while the b-roll tells a visual story. Nice light, good motivated moves, fun interview with lots of character!
Never Fake A Feature Photo!
By Peter Smith
Is it okay to set up a feature photo? No!
Feature photos should speak truth about the world we live in. To set something up and pretend that it happened is not truthful. Are there unethical photojournalists who cut corners by staging a photo instead of doing the hard work of shooting something real? Sure, but that is a dangerous game to play and can end an otherwise illustrious career.
Feature photography can be difficult documentary work to undertake. You need to deal with real people in real situations, not actors or pretenders or art directors. It’s not rehearsed or faked. It takes talent, patience, and a good eye to capture. And like all works of journalism, it must be truthful. Few journalists have the ability to produce a wonderful feature image that amuses or informs about the world around us.
So for those who do not have the time or the talent to find a real situation, why not fake it? Why? Because feature photography is not conceptual art, it must be truthful or it will damage the brand of journalism. Readers are smart and can tell when something doesn’t smell right.
I see no problem with using a stock feature shot with a photo credit from a reputable news agency that is accompanied by a full caption to contextualize the moment. However, I would never endorse using a commercial stock photo as a standalone image or to accompany any story if it does not follow the rules of journalism.
Photographic illustrations can be useful unless they are not well-labeled to point out that it is a constructed moment born through imagination and never happened in real life. Again, it is not a good idea to mislead the public with what’s real and what isn’t. It’s better to not use a photo than to use one that misrepresents the truth of the moment.
The only time that it is ethical to shoot a constructed situation is to make a portrait or for an on-camera interview. And even then, it is important not to misrepresent your subject, the story or the situation.
See Poynter for more on ethics.
Charlottesville: Race and Terror – VICE News Tonight on HBO
Charlottesville: Race and Terror is an important community story of a protest march with large national implications. Vice News correspondent Elle Reeve worked fearlessly in a seven-person crew to dig deep in reporting on the white nationalists move to step out of the shadow of the internet and into the broad light of day. Her interviews were riveted with shocking sound bites of chants, ‘Jews will not replace us,’ powerful storytelling b-roll, ‘nat’ sound and tight editing to produce a tragic and chilling story. Counter protester Heather Heyer, 32, was killed during the protest.