Planet Forward: Day 27

BRISTOL, RI __ On Thursday, we put the Planet Forward-RWU catalog in front of Roger Williams University President Roy Nirschel and he gushed. Now, I don't know the man very well, but my partner in this project -- Judi Johnson -- says she was very surprised by his reaction to the body of work.

"I've never seem him like that," was what she said following the meeting.

We're in the process now of planning the local roll out; after that, Judi and I take it down to Washington DC to present it to Frank Sesno and his team at George Washington University. We're hopeful that the collection will meet his expectations.

Now, with January ending, I feel it's a fair time to look at the month.

We started production of Planet Forward on January 5th and spent three weeks working at it. Now, one of the key components of strong video is great light. Given the raw nature of this program, I thought we'd stick to natural sunlight, which -- in January -- is a risky business. This month, we had three snowstorms and of the 21-day cycle, we only had nine productive sunny days.

Still, our yield was strong: 12 videos. Not bad for a first attempt.

We're in Washington on February 12.

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Planet Forward: Day 24

BRISTOL, RI __ Tomorrow morning we present the entire Planet Forward-RWU catalog to Roger Williams University President Roy Nirschel for his review and approval. As promised, the PF-RWU team pounded out a dozen videos by our Monday deadline.

Since then, we've offered one preview showing to some administrators here at the school. So far, everyone seems to be impressed with the work.

Of course, with all projects of this nature, little troubles and wrinkles can appear at the oddest times. In fact, ahead of our Tuesday showcase, we had to export the body of work from Final Cut Pro into MOV files. In the process, we had some frame-rate problems that injected some obnoxious white-out pages into at least two of the videos.

Of course we discovered problem during the preview. As the administrators watched the video, my team shriveled into their seats watching as the white-frames dropped through the programming. What's odd was the fact that it didn't appear as though our audience even noticed.

Still, we noticed and we shared this unified sense of embarrassment.

Afterward, it appeared as though my students were much more disappointed that I was. To solve the process, my editors -- Mike and Stephen -- began reviewing the details and corrected the problem.

Tomorrow, we're looking to walk in and have a flawless presentation.

One can only hope.

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Planet Forward: Day 20

BRISTOL, RI __ The Planet Forward-RWU team got smothered by the workload this week. As proof, all you need to do is review my blog entries these last few days: I wrote nothing. Instead, I cut and pasted video, poetry and stills into the dialog hoping to keep your interest.

When we started the week, I felt that we were well behind. We had a dozen projects in production but only TWO video vignettes actually finished. The remainder were in various stages of undress and needed to be pulled together quickly. Among them was our Rail story.

Starting with the initial meeting, I was asked to produce something about commuter rail into southern Massachusetts. The problem here was the fact that there wasn't anything really visual going on. I mean, how do you shoot beauty shots of a rail station if there isn't one, right? Well, I put Kyle and Michelle to work on it, hoping they'd craft some sort of a vision. Collectively, we all mused over ideas.

We thought about doing a walk-and-talk with the Mayor of New Bedford but, for some reason, we couldn't get this guy to break away from his busy schedule to help us out (something he's going to regret in April). Then we thought about comparing and contrasting other commuter rail communities with New Bedford but that wasn't working either.

Along the way, Kyle, Michelle and Stephen zipped up to Boston for an interview with Kristina Egan, the Bay State's point person for commuter rail and landed a great Q&A with her. So, we did have something pending.

Next up, we contacted Jon Archbald, a RWU architecture student who had drafted renderings of a potential station project in the region. Turns out, Jon could translate his 3-D still renderings into animation and -- after four hours of production work -- pull something together.

After that, we dragged him out to New Bedford to do a walk-in-talk through the badlands of this waterfront community. From there, the team pulled it together creating what may be our top project.

This was one our successes.

Now, there were many more obstacles. Among them, for some reason the RWU administration decided it needed to test a new siren system just as we were lining up a video shoot on the campus. Clearly, ringing alarms might break the "mood" of the video we were shooting and I had to lean heavily upon my production partner, Judi Johnson, to find a solution. Ultimately, Campus Security yielded, and we got a 75-minute noise break.

With those videos in our pocket and a few others on the verge of completion, it looks like Planet Forward-RWU is a ringing success. We were asked to produce FOUR (4) videos, but it looks like we're going to have TEN (10) or more by Monday.

Not bad for a group of undergraduates who, until three weeks ago, didn't know how to white balance a camera.

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Planet Forward Update

BRISTOL, RI __ Frank Sesno updated his pitch on Planet Forward. Here's what he had to say:



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The Calm Before the Storm

Bristol Ferry, Jan 16, 2009
Originally uploaded by scully65

Bristol, RI __ The Planet Forward-RWU team returns to the laboratory tomorrow in the early morning to press onward. We have a dozen projects pending and a deadline looming.

By Friday, I'm sure there will be some blood on the floor!

The World Is Too Much with Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

-- William Wordsworth

PF: Climbing the Ladder

PROVIDENCE, RI __ I'm reviewing some of the video from my Flip Mino HD (which I often just carry around in my pocket for silly stuff like this) and I discovered that I shot some video of the students hiking to the roof of the Green Building in South Providence.

Because so many of you liked the picture of Jillian in the previous post, I thought I'd show you the climb.



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Planet Forward: Day 11

BRISTOL, RI __ One of the best things about journalism is the fact that you can go anywhere and write about just about anything. With this Planet Forward project, I've got nine students scrambling all over New England chasing stories and doing research.

So far, we're having a lot of fun.

During this last week, my charges were in Boston talking to one of the leaders of the New England rail initiative; that same team scrambled into New Bedford looking to corner the mayor there for a meeting he should want to take; another group did a story about oyster farming along the Mount Hope Bay; finally, one group dashed into south Providence for a Q&A about green buildings.

During this last shoot, the team had to climb up a narrow 14-foot-high iron ladder and then each student had to foist his/her-self through the hatch and out onto the roof of the five-story building.

Pictured above is a shot of Jillian and her reaction to the shoot. Great fun, eh?

While this is all going on, we're carefully cataloging the video and editing the stories into shape. Initially, I wrote that I wanted to pound out 12 solid stories; at the current pace, I think we'll be lucky if we file six. We'll have lots of side filler, but I'm looking to have SIX wonderfully conceived and produced videos. I think this team can do it.

Tomorrow, we hammer away at Wind Power. Over the weekend, I hope to put the final touches on my own wind video. On Monday, we're doing a children's shoot: The idea is to get a half-dozen children playing with items that might help illustrate fossil fuels and the need for a sustainable future. On Tuesday, we meet with Professor Patrick Charles for another conversation about Green Buildings. Finally, we're working on a production featuring a green poet. The poet submitted a strong piece of writing -- a sonnet on green issues -- and our plan is to shoot him in his home environment -- he lives in urban Providence -- and catch him reading the work aloud.

So, there you go.

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Planet Forward: Day 9

BRISTOL, RI __ The Planet Forward-RWU team scattered in several directions today to pick up video on a variety of issues. Among them, one team shot beauty shots of oyster farming, while another secured an interview with a Massachusetts policymaker leading the commuter rail initiative in the region.

While that was going on, I cornered Jillian and dragged her over to the Law School cafeteria to see how she does doing MOS (man-on-the-street interviews). I forced her to walk around asking strangers questions about sustainability.

Along the way, she encountered the "Sustainability Fellow" here at RWU and got this interview on recycling.



This drill was more or less about teaching Jillian field producing. Tomorrow, she's leading a team on a walk-and-talk through a Green Building in Providence.

Back at the Planet Forward multimedia lab, my chief Final Cut Pro editor is finally putting the finishing touches on our farm-to-fuel-to-engine Canola shuttle video. The work is very comprehensive, but fun and easy to look at.

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Planet Forward: An Explanation

MIDDLETOWN, RI __ Here's a video explanation of Planet Forward.



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Planet Forward: Day 7

MIDDLETOWN, RI __ Snow, freezing rain, and a looming deadline.

Tomorrow, we hit day 8 in the Planet Forward project and already I feel like I'm going to get mowed down. Our shoots are taking too long to manage, we're getting clobbered by the New England winter skies and our story development is creeping along slowly.

This week, we're expecting snow or rain on three of the five production days, which means we either have to shoot inside or simply lock ourselves in the editing suites and simply crash video together. Regardless, the next week could break us if we don't buckle down and become enterprising.




I'm looking to my team for support, and creative input. I've learned in the past that if you empower students to perform, they usually rise to the occasion. I'm gambling that this group -- the Planet Forward-RWU team -- is ready to rise up.

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Planet Forward in the Field

Portsmouth, Jan 9, 2009
Originally uploaded by scully65

Portsmouth, RI __ The Planet Forward team zipped across the Mount Hope Bridge onto Aquidneck Island for a video shoot at a potato farm. The sky was clear but the weather was freezing cold.

Still, we had a very nice day hanging with Dave, the potato farmer.

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Planet Forward: Day 4

BRISTOL, RI __ The Roger Williams team spent a full day shooting video for a farm-to-engine video story about bio-diesel. We spent three hours in the campus kitchen lining up and framing shots of a chef moving potatoes through the process.

From there we shot video of Canola oil moving from the kitchen down into the storage area.

Later in the day, we zipped over to the campus car garage to shoot video of the Canola shuttle and its chief mechanic, Leo. As part of THAT shoot, we placed the Flip Mino HD camera low on the floor of the garage and had Leo drive the shuttle OVER the camera.

Here's a peek at that video:



With most of the video shot, the next step is to pull it together. We'll begin the full-on editing process next week simply because we're expecting Rhode Island will get shellacked with winter weather.

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Planet Forward Fun

DSC02611
Originally uploaded by scully65

BRISTOL, RI __ Mugging for the camera.

Planet Forward: Day 3

BRISTOL, RI __ After a day of preparations, we finally laid down a coat of green paint in our work study to create a Green Screen space. If you don't know, weathermen typically use Green Screens to show weather maps but there are a whole host of other applications for the technology. We want to use ours to create video illustrations on topics that we may not be able to shoot in a traditional setting.

Here's a sample of the work we created today:



That's Codie Eisenberg with the paint roller in the video.

Now, to create this effect, we basically primed the wall, smoothing out as many of the bumps as we could in the old academic study room. Then we applied this neon-pea-green latex paint. What you're looking at here is Codie rolling the green paint onto the wall. To the naked eye, the wall is green but once we get into post production, we use Final Cut Pro to "chroma-key" the green out, which allows us to replace it with any other images. In this case, we laid out a still photograph of sunflowers.

This is what you see: You see Codie rolling the paint, and as she lays the green paint down on the wall, she establishes the sunflower image. With every new brush, you see more and more of the sunflowers. Cool, yes?

Now, there were some wrinkles along the way. To make it work, the wall has to be uniformly lit. We have a solid light kit, with three strong halogen lamps, but the lights cast shadows. To defuse the lights, we created "silk boxes," to do this, we simply took white silk cloth and pulled it taught over a cardboard frame; we then placed those frames in front of the lights. As the light passes through the silk cloth, the white light is defused, which casts less shadows. This was Stephen DePasquale's idea.

Finally, you'll notice more music in the background. That's Kyle Toomey playing guitar.

Mike Spark edited the piece.

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Painting Forward

BRISTOL, RI __ The Planet Forward team takes the initiative to create a cleaner work space. We did so with a can of white primer and rollers.

We're actually laying the base coat for a new Green Screen shoot.



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Planet Forward: Day 2

BRISTOL, RI __ We got down to business today. The Planet Forward-RWU team gathered at 9 a.m. this morning to begin shopping story ideas around. As we worked around the table, I assigned field producers for a series of stories and then sent them out into the field to do some preliminary site investigation.

Kyle and Michelle drove through the badlands of New Bedford, Massachusetts to look at the train yards in an area called the "Whale's Tooth." The locals are pressing state transportation officials to build a commuter rail station there. Right now, it's a destitute train yard in the center of some of the worst urban blight in the Northeast.

As Kyle drove, Michelle aimed her Flip Video out the window and offered this raw, drive-by view of the site.



Meanwhile, Jillian and Codie drove into Providence to look at a "green building" in a decidedly rough neighborhood. I told them to simply walk into the space, present their interest to the folks inside and beg for a walk through. The ploy worked. One of the building administrators gave them a walk-and-talk tour of the building, which Codie documented on another Flip camera. Again, this is raw footage.



Other team members began working out details on a profile on bio diesel fuel, oyster farming and wind power.

Now, the purpose of the scouting missions was to find camera-worthy subject matter and potential interviewees. Tomorrow, we begin story boarding the production concepts and shaping a vision for the first series of video projects.

We should have some final samples by week's end.

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Planet Forward: Day 1

BRISTOL, RI __ So, the Planet Forward-RWU project opened today. We started with an overview meeting and then began talking about prospective projects. We covered a lot of ground before I got down to lecturing about camera protocols and video imaging.

Then I sent them out into the field to see what they could produce: Their assignment was to produce a 90 second story about an "overdue book." From there, they had to craft a concept, story board it, write their own music and pull it all together by 4 p.m. ET.

The goals here were very simple: I need to see how they worked together; I wanted to see what wrinkles they'd encounter along the way; and I wanted to make sure they could make video. Here's what they produced: (Remember, this drill is about teamwork and storytelling; it's a step towards going full on into the project.)



Now, I want you to pay special attention to the music in that piece. Two of my students, Stephen and Kyle, produced that sound in my office using an acoustic guitar and Garage Band. Licensed music is going to be a problem, so we're producing our own stuff. Very nice, eh?

Finally, as we worked through the editing process, I also pulled out the Flip Mino HD just to shoot some very roguish video. This is very raw and off the cuff but good fun. You'll see.



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Planet Forward

MIDDLETOWN, RI __ Starting tomorrow, a team of Roger Williams University students and myself will begin working on a project entitled Planet Forward, a multimedia documentary which will ultimately be presented to PBS.

The project is the brainchild of CNN anchor and reporter Frank Sesno and is being coordinated through his offices at George Washington University.



The idea is very straightforward: We're to produce a series of multimedia packages with a focus on Sustainability. For our part, we've been assigned to produce content on wind power, bio diesel, light rail and green buildings.

To make it work, I wrangled nine of the top students in the Communications Department here at RWU and asked them to participate. Our production cycle begins Monday, January 5th and will run -- in haggard fashion -- until Monday January 26th. My hope is to produce anywhere from four to 12 video projects during that time.

Now, there are many obstacles. First, it's January, which means everything in New England is either coated in ice or snow OR the landscape and sky are various shades of gray. The plan is to keep a careful eye on the weather, to pray for blue skies, and to shoot through it all.

Second, we need to create our own music, which is all new territory to me. Because of the menacing licensing situation out there, we need to have license-free music, and the simplest way to do that is to simply create my own sounds. Towards that purpose, I've brought in two students who say they know their way around the recording software; and at least one of them promises me that he can play "anything with strings." So, I remain hopeful.

Finally, the deadline is much tighter than I first anticipated. Twenty-one days, 12 videos... add a little foul weather, and other production troubles... and you can see how this is going to play out. Twelve is ambitious.

Still, we walk into it tomorrow and we hit the ground hard and fast.

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Newspapers Near Extinction?

MIDDLETOWN, RI __ I got an email from one of my former students who's out in the world trying to make it as a photojournalist. Lucky for him, he's a smart and talented guy. But he's worried about the rest of us.

This week, I posted a New York Time story about a newspaper in New Jersey that has made a point of NOT creating a companion website. The publisher's logic? "Why should I be giving the content away for free?" Odd as it seems, this publisher does have the correct idea, he's just looking at the world upside down.

In my vision of the new newspaper universe, the print edition should be written in a feature-magazine-style and published weekly. And the companion online news site should be home to the breaking news. All this newspaper publisher needs to do now is rethink his standing: He needs to create two types of content: One that's information rich (for the print weekly) and another that's visually rich and timely for the online publication.

Right now, even The New York Times is getting this wrong. Online content should NOT be culled from a companion medium. Instead, this content must be crafted for the online community.

Here's the email my former student, Danny Wild, sent me that got me musing over this topic again:

Interesting story about the newspaper with no website. What do you think? Is there an expiration date yet on the newspaper industry as a whole?

I'm feeling pretty glad/lucky I actually have a job, cause I don't know where I'd turn, at this point, if I get laid off. I'm doing things I never envisioned myself doing, but I think that was partly my plan -- to become a multi-tasking journalist in an effort to survive.

But I just don't see much real hope for papers -- the local one here by me, the Journal News, gets thinner and thinner every month. My old sports editor at the Poughkeepsie Journal was laid off last month along with three others -- how do you lay off a major section editor? I think the Bergen Record closed its newsroom, the Star-Ledger slashed their staff big time... it's everywhere. There was/is a great sports photographer who maintained a popular blog amongst us fellow sports photogs for a big Seattle paper, and when I checked it last week, he said he'd been laid off! Unreal

The only papers that seem to make it are crap like the NY Post, with bikini-clad women on the cover or Page 3 instead of news.

I had a guy email me last month asking if I was interested in freelancing for his obscure paper -- I looked up it's website, and it was literally a guy, in his basement (seriously), writing a weekly free community newspaper with one other editor.

-Danny

Turns out, that Danny's email rant actually touches on the edges of the future.

Back in 1993, when the Congress didn't even know what to call the Internet, I sat with my editor, Hugh Wachter, and started talking about the future of the information age. To my surprise, he understood it immediately.

"It will be an editor's paradise," he said, very lucidly.

"What do you mean?"

"Editors will be ruling the universe," he said.

It took me years to see what Hugh saw: He saw an Internet writing community where editors will pick and choose content and give it a stamp of approval. In Danny's note above, he mentions a basement news writer looking to hire Danny for freelance photography. As "garage band" as that seems, that is apparently the essence of the future business model: Editors scouting out talent and pulling together a team of writers, photographers and content producers who get paid pennies per story view. The rest of us, of course, will be freelancers developing an "expertise" in something.

It doesn't sound like much now, but in a few years, the model could blossom. In the meantime, the traditional daily newspapers need to do one of two things: They either need to assimilate to the times (which isn't happening) or they'll simply have to die.

The tragedy there is the fact that old flags like The Providence Journal will be surrendering their branding, and historic archives off into the hands of oblivion.

As for my advice to Danny Wild: Just keep shooting those photographs and writing your stories. Your talent will always find an audience.

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Playing with Stock Video

MIDDLETOWN, RI __ A student emailed a link to a stock video site called Pond5, which is a storehouse of prepacked licensed video. For a fee, you can buy the video and use it professionally. Armed with the information, I decided to experiment.

After looking through the Pond5 archives, I decided I wanted to play around with a couple of time laps video images of car trails. The shooter took these videos in Miami.

I liked this first video because the blurred images created this rolling daydream. To buy it, I had to register with Pond5 and then I used PayPal to buy the video. This short six-second clip cost me $15.



From here, I continued looking and I found this next video clip. It's time laps but shot a little earlier in the day, so the images don't quite align. Still, I bought it because it was long and had a nice flow. This clip also cost me $15.



Once I'd downloaded the clips, I dropped them in Final Cut Pro and began fooling with them. The second clip moves very quickly, so I slowed it down to one-third the original speed. Then I laid copies of the first clip over it and blended them with a fade tab.

I used the Moby song, "Flower," because I like the pace of it.

Green Sally up!, Green Sally down!
Green Sally up! Green Sally down...
-- Moby

Here's what my final work looked like:



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New Year's Greeting from NYC

NEW YORK __ My friend Hiro sent this message from New York City:



Happy New Year to you too, my old friend! And to everyone else: Here's hoping for a great, happy, peaceful new year.

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