F.R. “Fritz” Nordengren (beta)

Did you hear the one about the educator, the recording executive, and the cell phone executive

Okay, here it is: A record company executive, an educator, and a cell phone executive all go to a meeting in at the Venetian in Macau….

Clearly by now, you’ve figured out the joke: educators don’t have a travel budgets that let them go to Macau. So the educator wasn’t there! So instead, we rely on media and blog reports of the event.

Media Post, MacUser, a PC World staff blogger, and Slashdot picked up the quote from Warner Music Group CEO Edger Bronfman about their company’s mistakes in understanding content and consumers.

Take it from us music industry folks. We used to fool ourselves. We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding.

And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find…and as a result of course, consumers won.

Today there’s a new consumer war being waged on the mobile front. And the perceived wisdom that consumers are “complacent” or that the “stickiness” of mobile services—established billing relationships, breadth of network coverage, brand loyalty—is enough to grow or even preserve your subscriber base without continually providing compelling consumer experiences, will prove to be wrong, dead wrong.

Bronfman’s corporate mea culpa was urging the mobile phone industry leaders not to imitate the failed business model of the recording industry. When I substitute “higher education” for “music industry” and “lifelong learners” for “consumer” or “customer”, and I see amazing parallels and similarities to what we do.

A group of my colleagues were involved in an email exchange over the weekend which included a citation that is similar to my earlier blog on EDUCAUSE Connect about the “producer” role of faculty. My colleague shared this from Lynch’s The online educator: A guide to creating the virtual classroom.

“To use a theater analogy, the traditional instructor serves as the lead actor- the one who must carry the show, even though there is allowance for other characters to interact. In contrast, the online instructor is more like the director- one who ensures that all the characters play their part and that the show moves smoothly from beginning to end, adding his or her expertise only when the actors seem to need assistance”

As educators, much of what we do is the creation of knowledge (content) and the delivery of knowledge (content). Whether the new role of the educator is director, producer, or some new iteration, there is significant strategy to learn from the missteps of the music business.

If you like, you can grab a .pdf version of Bronfman’s speech directly from Warner Music Group’s web site.

August 30 1997

Has the media pounded this topic into the ground yet? Do you remember what happened today in 1997? Do you remember what you were doing?

I remember because it changed the way I tell stories. And probably served as a role model for the way others tell stories, too.

Mark Hertzberg broke the news via an email discussion group for the National Press Photographers Association. I was a member and when his email popped up around 8:30, I read with great interest:


Subject: AP/Princess Di accident and Paparazzi
From: Hertzberg
Date: 1997/08/30
Message-ID:
Sender: NPPA Discussion List
Comments: ********************************************************
Reply-To: Hertzberg
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.nppa-l
One posting, two subjects, to save bandwith:

1)
>I had a hiatus from daily PJ'ing for a few years, but back then AP paid us
>for submissions. Is this still the case? or only for freelancers and not
>newspaper staffers? Some photogs say yes, others say no. All I know is that
>I ain't getting paid for stuff I send from my paper.

The policy varies from state to state. Wisconsin does not pay. Contact your
local bureau photographer or bureau chief to find out more.

2) It's about 8:30 p.m. central time and CNN is reporting a serious
accident involving Princess Diana in a tunnel near the Seine in Paris. The
gentleman she has been recently romantically linked to was apparently
killed in the crash. A bodyguard/chauffeur was apparently killed, as well.
What is going to be interesting for us to follow in our profession
is that the CNN anchors are questioning tourist eyewitnesses about the
possibility of paparazzi on motorcycles being in the area. They want to
know if they were indeed following the princess, and, if so, if they have
have been the possible cause of the crash. An American tourist says a
photographer with a "professional camera" was on the scene in "five
seconds."

Mark Hertzberg

In the aftermath, the idea of paparrazi and photojournalists being one in the same created an opportunity to tell a story about life as a daily photojournalist working in a community newspaper.  The result was Behind the Viewfinder - A Year in the Life of Photojournalism.  The photojournalists, through me as editor, wrote journals — early blogs — about their daily work and life.  These increbly talented individuals brought digital storytelling on the web to a never before seen level.

Later this year, the site will include a recorded interview of the people who participated in the project.  The interview, recorded in 1999, has been reedited from it’s original public radio broadcast.

A Year of Living Generously

Okay, it’s a 15 year old reference to a Mel Gibson movie, but I think it works. A Year of Living Dangerously is the Peter Wier directed story of Guy Hamilton (Gibson) in his first job as an international correspondent.

Sigourney Weaver is Gibson’s co-star and the story paints international journalism in a very romantic light. I suppose having Sigourney Weaver on your next shoot would even paint the “ladies of the D.A.R. potluck” assignment in a romantic light, but that’s the subject of anther column.

Billy Kwan, the photojournalist in the story (played by Linda Hunt) tells Hamilton, “We’ll make a great team, old man. You for the words, me for the pictures. I can be your eyes.”

And they set out to tell an important story. One they hope will change the world in 1965 Indonesia. It’s a romantic notion, using your skills to make a difference. Photojournalists often hope that something they do with make a difference. The Year of Living Dangerously is the stuff war stories are made of. Our own site, the Digital Journalist is filled with some pretty intense stories - both of the subjects shot by the talented people here, but also the behind the scenes stories of what it took to get the photos. The “dangerous” makes the story seem even more important.

But if you read the title of this piece - and have been patient enough with me to read this far, you can change your focus from dangerous to generous.

2001 is going to be a year of living generously for some producers and photojournalists I know. They are giving back to people in need by working with a non profit organization called “New Media for Non Profits” http://www.nmnp.org/. New Media for Non Profits grew out of some conversations with a number of people - and much of it connects to the columns I write here. The interesting thing about a non profit like NMNP is that no one “owns” it. It’s a collaboration of talents that has a board of directors who govern it, but the work produced is directed by need rather than profit, commercial appeal, or shareholder greed. (Don’t get me wrong, profit, commercial appeal and greed are all good in their right time and place, NMNP just isn’t one of them.)

So living generously this year is a way of saying these producers and photojournalists are giving back, working to make a difference with the images, words, and stories they tell.

Donald Winslow is my fellow producer and co founder of NMNP. Both of us have been extremely fortunate in our careers and by coincidence were in a position to devote some time and energy to getting this non profit started. In his words, its time to help other non profits do a better job of telling the world who they are, “This is why we founded NMNP.org, to better help the people and non-profit organizations of the world who work hard to make life better for those who can’t help themselves when they need help the most, and to help those organization’s whose goal it is to improve our society, our culture, and the environment.”

NMNP will be securing grant money, foundation support, and other funds to make it possible to fund new media and traditional story telling profits on behalf of charities in the world. Charities that need to tell their story and producers and photojournalists that are looking to tell stories are coming to the group. NMNP will be the place that helps bring the two together, and find reasonable budgets to fund quality work.

People who are able to give their time and talents are donating some of the work being done. Some of the work is paid work at fair rates. But it’s through the generosity of producers and photojournalists like you that the real work will be done. Generosity in the form of a donated print, generosity in the form of bringing a creative mind to a project, and generosity in the form of taking the time away from vacations to shoot a project that makes a difference in someone’s life.

2001 is my year of living generously. I hope that by the 2002, we can all look back at something we’ve done this year and seen that we have made a difference.

Learn your skills. Find your passion. Make a difference.

PS: There are literally hundreds of people who have been instrumental in getting this rolling. I can’t thank each of you here, but if you’re reading this, you know who you are and thank you.

Behind the scenes at POY

Interactive categories went over big at 58th Annual Pictures of the Year competition.

There were a combined 51 entries in the two interactive categories at this year’s POY judging in Columbia, Missouri.

As a new media producer, and someone who has seen the high quality work that typically wins this award, I was curious about the judging process and when given the chance to watch part of the judging, I made the trek to Columbia last month.

How is it done? Web entrants are asked to send in a CD or other hard media version of their site, along with the web address of the project. One of the most striking things about judging was the presentation of projects. The judges then sit and watch a large screen projection of the project as an assistant navigates the mouse and their collective direction. The judges toss out links to “click” like captains barking orders to navigate ships into a harbor.

The other most striking thing was that the projects were viewed on one OS (Mac) and only in one browser (Netscape 4.7) and through a large multimedia projector, which makes the screen taller than the judges.

As a producer, I know two things about the web. First, it’s a one-to-one medium. Unlike television where several people can sit across the room and watch a linear program together, the web is one person in front of a screen, making choices about what to read or see or hear next.

The other thing I know is that web browsers show web sites differently. We typically test our projects in a number of web browsers (The Netscapes [4.05, 4.5, 4.7, 6 and 6.01] both on Mac, PC, and Linux) and the Internet Explorers (4.0 5.0, 5.5 again, on Mac and PC) and a few others like Opera. And also, 3 or 4 flavors of AOL’s built in browser on Mac’ and PC’s.

But for this judging, POY chose to limit the experience to Mac and Netscape 4.7. Which really reinforces the fact that on the web, it is an audience of one that matters most. In this case, the “one” is one system viewed by 5 judges.

The judges had a range of new media experience. Some had build multimedia projects, others had not. But really impressed me was the time they spent with each entry. Even if a site didn’t immediately grab their attention, they dug deeper to explore and review it. However, it usually was true that if a project didn’t capture the judges immediately, the deeper site was just as un-interesting.

The judging was kind. In most cases, the occasional broken link was assumed to be functional by the judges. During first round judging, any judge who felt strongly about a project could request that it be included in the second round, even in the other judges had voted it “out”. As a result, here are some things I came away with as general reactions:

1) Big media houses have finally embraced new media. As you look at the list of winners, it accurately reflects the number of entrants from large media organizations. It’s odd to me that a media so easy to publish in, in a contest essentially made up of entries submitted by individuals, lacked a majority of projects entered by individuals. I know from my own surfing, lots of quality sites did not enter the contest.

2) In general, judges disliked technology for technology’s sake. Two projects, judged back to back, included panoramic interactive photos. The judges universally disliked the one of photos only, but enjoyed one which included other story telling elements. As one of the judges commented, ” (if there are) lots of bells and whistles there better be a tune.”

3) Flash is universal. The use of Macromedia’s Flash technology in web projects is everywhere. The projects used flash seamlessly and in most cases, the use of Flash added to a project’s liability.

4) A universal dislike seemed to be Flash interactions that completely removed control from the user. A note to remember, make sure there is some way to navigate and control flash presentations including: stop, back to beginning, or jump specific images.

5) Judges seem to really like flash presentations that teased  in an almost television style - the subject or content of the story. Usually 10  15 seconds in length, these “attract sequences” pulled judges into the project and gave them an overture to the story.

6) Unlike Flash, the use of video is still a hodge podge of interfaces, and technology. One large media company had several entries, and each one used a different metaphor and interface for video. Even accounting for different delivery of video (Real, QuickTime and Windows media) video applications were clumsier than Flash. As interactive sites use more video, producers will need to have developers take care of video details behind the scenes in server based scripts to determine the appropriate format of video, and then show it to the user consistently.

Some of the projects were photography for photography’s sake. Online portfolios of amazing images caught the judges eyes even when there was a lack of a story other than “here’s my work on line.” Others were photo packages designed to supplement on-line reporting. Audio seems to be thought of as an add-on, rather than an integral part of the project. One of the projects I watched had the depth of audio experience of good public radio reporting, Some used audio effects to give feed back on mouse clicks (clicks, music notes, or the over used shutter-motordrive sound), the judges were split on whether this helped or hurt a project.

The winners are good projects. The content was interesting. If more individuals would enter their private stories, next year’s POY could be a very interesting contest.

It’s all about control

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.