F.R. "Fritz" Nordengren, MPH

Tom Burton and I are back from Venezuela. The medical team is home and the children are safe. If you read last month’s column about the virtual mission web documentary project, or followed parts of it live, you got a chance to see what we were doing. 

I write this month to share two things–both have to do with control.

The first is: the equipment and formats we used give up some of the traditional control over levels and adjustments. With lower price equipment, there is compromise.

The second is: the tools and the execution can give you, as producer and photojournalist, full control over your story and content.

Our project had its share of challenges ­ both technical and executional. All in all, it was a great chance to test the concept, workflow issues and new gear.

Ever hear the joke: don’t try this at home, Hess a trained professional? Well, usually, most “trained professionals” wouldn’t do what we did with equipment. It is almost never a good practice to start a new job, new project, or travel a great distance from support with brand new equipment. But we did. We were lucky ­ and as we discussed last month. Our backup plan was to publish when we returned, which we didn’t have to do.

The Nikon D-1 had fewer than a dozen frames shot on it, and had been out of the box less than a week when we arrived in Caracas. The Powerbooks, donated by Apple Computer, had been in our hands less than two weeks, and the GL-1 had been out of the shipping box from Videosmith for only a few days.

To the credit of the equipment manufacturers, there were no real problems with any of the gear, but the risk factor was high. We were prepared for the worst ­ everything worked and the project was a success in the eyes of the mission sponsor, Operation Rainbow.

In my mind, on a 1 ­10 scale, our project was a strong 6.5 or 7. All things considered, that’s a success. We were able to produce new content every day ­ 3 times each day. The other side is, a few times, we were able to post only parts of our package ­ which resulted in bad pages, broken links and un-proofed versions being “live” for several hours before we could re-connect and correct what was wrong. Okay, maybe some might think that gives the site an edginess ­ but you can’t get away with that for long.

Here’s what we learned about the gear ­ and first off, let me say, some of our “problems” may be attributed to human operator error and a lack of experience with a particular piece of gear. Don’t consider this article a fair “review,” but rather, a field test with some insight as to what you might explore or look for when using these items.

	Hallways become edit booths during a break in the shooting in the hallway just ouside the operating rooms on the 4th floor of the hospital. Fritz Nordengren uses a PowerBook to review photos from the day’s shoot. Photo by Tom Burton.
Volunteers working with Operation Rainbow look over Tom Burton’s shoulder as he writes and edits for the web documentary project. The challenge of such a project is maintaining a level of objectivity when your audience can see what you write as you write it. Photo by F.R. “Frtiz” Nordengren.
	Editing locations were in the recovery area. This young boy was undergoing a cast change. His tears of fear and the high pitched whine of the cast saw made it impossible to edit video and audio, the best thing to do was hold his hand and try and ease his fear. Photo by Tom Burton.

Okay, I wrote before that I’ve heard mixed reviews on this wireless mic setup. Probably both extremes are correct, and it is truly a matter of perception.

Let’s be fair about our expectations. No, this wireless setup does not perform like a Sony or Lectrosonics wireless set. However, it can give a good sound for under $500. I recommend it. But, listen to your audio with good headphones as you record, and if you need more quality invest in a better system.

Both the transmitter and receiver run on 9V batteries, and the unit is SMALL, which is nice. It mounts easily to the bottom of the GL-1 with Velcro and also clips easily to your subject. Its small size allows them to quickly forget they are wearing a mic, and that leads to more natural sound bites. The housing of the receiver and the transmitter are plastic and after time, won’t hold up the way a metal case will. Also, it’s unlikely the housings will stand up to being dropped much.

Digital audio is not forgiving like analog audio. So, the makers of the Samson unit allow some control over the signal leaving the receiver and going into the camera. It does have variable audio output levels of ­10dBv ­20dBv and ­30dBv. Right away, this points out a potential problem when used with the GL-1. Its inputs are ­55dBv or ­35dBv (with the attenuation on). This means you start with a hot audio signal coming into the camera. Then, since the camera has an automatic gain control circuit, the level gets compressed to avoid distortion. There is no way to switch off the AGC, and it is an AGC and not a “peak limiter” which introduces the second issue.

A peak limiter allows manual control of audio until it gets too loud ­ then the peak limiter takes over and compresses the signal to prevent distortion.

An AGC does this AND also raises the levels to the same consistent level throughout. The circuit seeks out a soft signal and boots it to full. This greatly reduces the effectiveness of an add-on mixer like a Beachtek or StudioOne box.

At the last minute, we added a Beachtek box to the GL-1. It is a must for getting XLR inputs into the GL-1, and it does allow you to lower the overall level coming into the camera ­ which will reduce the amount of compression you’ll hear in the audio. It was very easy to overdrive the audio and get too hot a signal coming into the system. Good news: it isn’t distorted; bad news: it’s compressed and sounds it on the tapes.

Another important point to consider with a Beachtek or similar adapter is that the AGC circuit will “average” the left and right channels coming into the camera. If you have only one mic recording, I would leave the unused mic potentiometer up full, and I would also record to both channels ­ giving an equal signal to left and right, to get a more accurate audio track.

In our setup, I left the Sennheiser on the camera hot even when using the wireless, to provide a backup audio track and to try and keep the AGC balanced.

(Note: Baffled by audio? Pick up Joe Rose’s book: Producing Great Sound for Digital Video, published by Miller Freeman books as part of the DV expert’s series)
“I want it now” control: The Nikon D-1

We had great success with this camera. Being new to it, much of the shooting was done in auto mode, and we were very pleased with the results. There were some white balance issues we encountered, along with some frame-to-frame inconsistency with color balance, especially in multi-frame shooting. However, both Tom and I felt it was more attributable to user error than any particular camera failing.

Like most D-1 users, we found batteries went quicker than normal because we liked to look at the previews for instant gratification. More experienced D-1 shooters assure us that as time goes on, battery life “increases” because the LCD screen is left off more. I would guess that is true.

The big surprise ­ as a personal note ­ once I got used to seeing that instant gratification of photos, my motivation to shoot film dropped. I shot almost no film for the entire trip. I’m not bashing film, or saying that digital will replace film. But, I was amazed at the change in my motivation.
The production control: All in a PowerBook

At the center of our ability to produce content and edit was the G3 PowerBook from Apple. We had two identical systems, and then two dial-up connections to the state university, with a 256 link from there to the Internet. Our Internet connection did go down several times. Fortunately, AOL has a dial-up access point in Caracas, and using an AOL connection, we were able to connect and upload pages when our main connection was down. It was, though, a slow dial-up connection, which made it nearly impossible to post high-bandwidth video and audio to our server in the states.

But we were able to create it on-scene.

In addition to Photoshop, we also used FotoStation 4.0 as a digital light table to sort and manipulate photos. FotoStation seems more versatile than Extensis Portfolio, and facilitates cataloging and archiving a shoot such as this project.
Final thoughts: now you’re in control

This project was a great prototype to test workflow. In general, the concept of producing event-based websites is a market with will grow and offers huge opportunities for photojournalists. As a one-person show, or a two-person team, this formula can transfer to trade shows, traveling exhibits, rock and roll tours ­ any event where people come together for a focused activity.

You can control most every element from concept up to and including publication. With these tools, you can capture, create, edit and publish anywhere to the Web. We’ve done it from Venezuela, and I’ll do it later this year from both Mexico and Vietnam.

This is a great time to be a storyteller.

Okay, so you’ve made the jump from being a photojournalist to being a producer. Before, you made great images, and filed your story, and someone else worried about all the details. But now you’re the producer, that someone else is you, and you have more details to manage.Being a producer changes your responsibilities. If you work on your own, or in a small 2 – 3 person team, your role as producer may be shared with your role in the creative development and execution.

So over the summer, for the June, July, and August columns, I want to offer some suggestions for how to make your role as producer go better by organizing your life, your assets, and learning from some experienced pros.

So let’s start with you. Do you have a calendar? Is it one that the local drugstore gives away each year with pictures of kittens? Or maybe its one of those nice ones from Nikon. Or (gulp), do you have two calendars and can’t keep your days straight from one week to the next?

How about the phone number of the woman with the two kids you interviewed last fall. Where is that? And let me ask you this: You know that CD you were supposed to mail to California, is it STILL in your car, waiting for the trip to the post office?

Chances are, unless you are one of those Franklin Planner addicts with the focus of a reformed smoker in a born-again planning world, your life could use some organization. When it comes to your professional life, what you could do is go out and hire an Associate Producer. But if your budget doesn’t allow that, I’ll let you in on what works for me. The answer is a Palm – an associate producer in your pocket.

Maybe you have one. If you have one, feel free to skip ahead to my tips on software downloads and how to make the most of your investment.

If you’re new to Palm, thinking about one, or can’t imagine why anyone would own one, read the next few paragraphs as an introduction.

The Palm connected organizer is the current name of what was originally introduced as the “Palm Pilot” by US Robotics. When it was first advertised, the creative focused on the ability to “beam” your business card to another Palm user (sorry, I never really got the appeal of this).

These days, the advertising is slicker, and the appeal is “cooler,” but they still show off the advantages of “beaming.”  For a Quicktime presentation on this, go to: http://www.palm.com/about/advertising/anna_30_qt.html

The Palm is Offered in Three Product Families: The III, the V, and the VII series.

There never was a Palm IV (four being a bad luck number in parts of Asia) or a Palm VI.

The III series offers the most features for the value. The V is the most stylish and the VII series has a built-in wireless modem connection, making it possible in many geographic markets to retrieve email, and Web pages in real time.

Software for the Palm includes a great set of organization tools built in and included with the Palm. These include software to keep your calendar, address/phone book, memos, track your expenses, and read and write email.

Additional software tools are written by nearly 65,000 registered developers and the most popular tools are priced under $50, and many are less than $20.

The various models have essentially the same performance specs. What does change by model is the amount of RAM memory, and more is definitely better – I cannot recommend less than 4 MB RAM. This holds a huge amount of basic name address and phone information, but adding Web pages, word documents, or databases can quickly gobble the memory. 

My Palm is a IIIx with 4 MB memory. If I were to replace it today, or buy new, I might buy either the Vx with 8MB or the IIIc with the color screen and 8 MB memory. They start at $150, and top-of-the-line is around $500.

	The Memorial Day calendar as displayed using Action Names.  The advantage to these add-on programs is the flexibility they give you in showing your schedule in daily, weekly, or monthly views.  Here the To Do information is shown with the calendar		The Memorial Day calendar as displayed using Datebook 4. Your calendar display can include your To Do information, your Memo’s and addresses in the same screen.
Arranger lets you group ideas, events, calendar entries, and expenses in outlines. Here, the main outlines I use inlude roles, goals, values, and projects, along with specific outlines for some projects.		The Digital Journalist Column ouline open in Arranger. The items with icons are links to other entries on the Palm.

I’ll spare the techno-details of how this all works, other than this: the Palm is very easy to set up and I’ve watched experienced computer tech people and novice vice presidents set up a Palm very quickly.

Let’s look at the 4 included Palm software applications – the ones that are run by pressing one of the buttons.

Datebook, Address Book, Memo, and To Do List.

The Datebook is an electronic calendar. The information is kept in a database and displayed in a very matter-of-fact way: daily, weekly, or monthly.

The Address Book includes fields for multiple phone numbers and customer information.  So the home, mobile, and summer cottage numbers of that hard-to-reach editor can always be at your fingertips.

The Memo feature is the Palm’s weakest application. You can type notes up to 4000 characters long. It has minimal formatting, but you can carry short scripts or short lists in this format, or even short articles for reference.

The final built-in app is the To Do List.  If you organize your life around things to do rather than time-based appointments, this is for you.

Now here is the beauty of the add-on software for the Palm. The software that I use for planning works WITH the built-in software. It adds functionality to the Datebook and To Do List, for example, without modifying the Database. This means you can try and use these add-ons and, if you decide later that you don’t like them, you can delete the application but the DATA is still intact and good and usable with the built-in software. If you don’t like one of my ideas, you can delete it and not lose your information.

There are three great additions to the calendar application. Action Names, made by Iambic Software  (http://www.iambic.com/default.stm), and Datebook 3 and Datebook 4 made by Pimlico Software (http://www.gorilla-haven.org/pimlico/). At the risk of repeating myself, these are add-ons to the existing calendar program and can be used together or you can choose one. And both companies offer trial versions you can use for 30 days to see which you like better.

One of the advantages of both of these programs is the additional views of your calendar – including the ability to view both your To Do List and your day calendar on the same screen.

There are differences between these programs, but the best description of them is they make the built-in applications work together better, and more like a paper-based organizer – with all the advantages of a computer-based system. For example, let’s say you are working on two projects for different clients, and also balancing a family life at the same time. You can view your calendar with all your appointments, OR filter it to show only those meetings with Client A or only the soccer games. The same filtering can be set up to filter your appointments by the roles in your life (if you are a Franklin Covey devotee, you’ll like this feature). Jeff Kirvin has a great article on organizing at (http://www.jeffkirvin.com/writingonyourpalm/planning.htm).

For the To Do List, Handshigh software makes To Do Plus (http://www.handshigh.com/). I like this because of its ability to view the To Do List with several day and time filters. For example, I like the Radar setting, because it shows things that are coming up and things that remain undone. To Do Plus also lets you add simple sketches to the To Do item. A quick map or layout idea can be jotted down and easily retrieved. Do you have things you need to do that repeat: a fitness class every other day or a tax report that has to be filed. To Do Plus lets you enter this once and then it automatically updates as needed.

The program that really brings all this together, though, is Arranger (http://www.olivebr.com/). This is an outliner on steroids – with functions that make the Palm really pay off.

If you like lists, or outlines, you’ll quickly get to speed with Arranger. I’ve created main outlines or lists by the key areas in my day-to-day life. I include outlines for the roles I fill, the goals I have, and the values (something borrowed from the Franklin Covey folks), as well as projects, and in some cases, specific projects get their own top level outline.

I mark the roles, goals, and values with a * so they are always at the top of the list.

Under each of these outlines are outlines for each role I fill, or each project I am working on.  What’s really great about Arranger is that in addition to creating an item in Arranger – such as “Digital Journalist Column,” I can also LINK to a To Do item, or LINK to a datebook entry, or LINK to the address book entry for David Snider. So instead of typing the information several places, I can link to it instead. What linking does is display the information in both applications. And if you change the entry – like moving an appointment from 1:30 to 9:15 — it updates both. It makes it very easy to see what, when, and where your day is taking you.

For example, with this article, I have several things to do. I need to write and send the article on to our editor Joan Gramatte, and David Snider, our producer. That becomes a link to my Datebook because I want it done on time so I don’t make Joan or David grumpy. The clock next to the entry tells me it’s linked to the Datebook. Next, I have to make some screen shots of my own Palm so I’ll link that to the To Do, reminding me to do it soon.   It occurred to me that I also want to ask David a question about a future column, so I’ve linked to his address book entry. Finally, I spent some money at lunch interviewing someone for next month’s article, and I’ve linked to the expense program.

Items that are linked have icons next to them; items that appear only in Arranger appear without icons. Despite looking a little intimidating, it can easily be mastered in an evening.

At the beginning of each week, I sit down and review Arranger and my calendar, looking at what is left over from last week and scheduling time to do it this week. I also review my roles, goals, values, and projects to make sure I’m spending time on the things that really matter most and not getting sidetracked.

I also do this during each day, looking at the things I want to complete and adjusting the schedule when the unpredictable happens.

Finally, I make sure that as I hear ideas, or phrases, or random thoughts I want to record for future use, I jot them down so I can refer to them later.

As a last thought, here are five time-savers I use my Palm for that make life better.

1) I attach copies of my flight and car rental/hotel reservation confirmation numbers to my calendar. This makes it easy to refer to rather than hunt down several pieces of paper. I copy US Embassy contact numbers, airline baggage lost and found numbers, and Internet access numbers for the countries I am visiting.

2) I keep a packing list for my gear bags so I can do a quick pre-trip checklist for gear (this has saved me many times).

3) I keep my credit card and ATM card PIN numbers (in a homemade code) for easy retrieval. I don’t often use my credit card at the ATM so I haven’t memorized the number. Home made codes include adding a number to the real number or disguising it as some other kind of information like an address or phone number.

4) I sync my email – many times people send a meeting plan or agenda prior to our meetings. I can then copy my notes into the agenda in the Daily Journal feature of Datebook 4 or Action Names and have meeting notes finished when the meeting is over.

5) Download Avantgo (free) (http://www.avantgo.com/) and subscribe to news and information from 100s of online sources. Everything from the New York Times Book Review to Thatsracin.com. Every time you sync, you get updated news. If you need to kill time or wait for an appointment, you can read something more current than the magazines in the lobby.

So there you have part-one of organizing based on the Palm. You’ll find that your own personal style and your meeting patterns will change your needs, but like most Palm users, give it a week and you’ll never go back.