Rights-free music

Anyone have good sources for getting free music for slideshows? I want my students to post their pieces publicly but can't do that if they're stealing copyrighted tunes.

5th anniversary coverage?

I'm pulling samples for class on coverage of the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. I'm a big fan of these two:
- Reuters' "Bearing Witness" -- to me, a great example of what we can accomplish in multimedia
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's "5 Years in Iraq" -- to me, a great example of what local news ought to be and how you can effectively localize a major international story. It has its limitations (long cutlines on slideshows, not enough self-directed audio), but I do like the inclusion of polling and Meg Jones' blog. She always has seemed to know exactly why she was over there.
What are you seeing, liking and disliking?
Also, does anyone have links or screen captures from the 5th anniversary of 9/11? I'd like to compare the two.

Check out Blogging Basics

If any of you are encouraging your students to blog, you might find my latest blog - Blogging Basics - helpful. I created it for a workshop I did a week or so ago on the basics of blogging. I've tried to link to several sites that offer good information for beginning bloggers.

Regina talks multimedia

Here's my video of Regina McCombs talking about what makes a good multimedia story. Feel free to link to it or use it in your classes (OK - maybe as an example of poor video quality but she has good advice!) I've finally posted it on my class blog as well if you want to see that.

Digital manipulation

Here's a fantastic site documenting famous manipulations of photographs, dating all the way to the civil war. It's an excellent resource for classes.

Portraits

I sent my students out to do election interviews while we were at Poynter, and asked them to come back with some portraits of their sources. Their shots were not bad, but Denise McGill helped me advise them on how to make the pictures. Thought I would share with you guys what she said:

First off, there are a million ways to make a portrait, and millions of photo books and samples, and lots of philosophies and approaches. I show them lots of good samples, and we have a long conversation about treating photo subjects with respect, issues with shooting nudes, etc. I explain that in the non-journalism world, you always need a model release to publish a photo, so I make them get their photo subjects to sign a release.

OK, so what actually makes a good portrait?

 Get to the essence of the person. Use good composition. Study the light.
 Off-camera light is always better (ie, window light is better than the little flash on your camera, but your little flash is better than no light at all.)
 Look at the shadows. Make sure the eyes aren’t sunken in deep shadow pockets.
 Always focus your camera on the eyes.
 Backgrounds should be black or as uncluttered as possible.
 The photo should tell us something about the person.
 One good technique is to get the photo subject to lean in toward the camera. It gives a feeling of intimacy and intensity. Also, use your lens to zoom in, as this is a more flattering lens angle.
 So even on a pocket camera, you can use the zoom to zoom in and step back, which is better than using wide angle and staying really close.
 Wide-open aperture is often preferable, because it blurs the background and focuses all the attention on the face.


Before going out shooting, you ask:

__ Do I have film/digital card in the camera?

__ Is it properly loaded?

__ Do I have fresh batteries?

__ Is ASA set right?

__ Are the quality and other settings the way I want them?

I find something to take pictures of.

__ Am I in the best location? Should I get closer? Move around?

__ Do I have the right lens?

__ Is subject in focus?

__ Am I metering correctly?

I get a meter reading.
Have I adjusted it for:

__ backlight or special conditions

__ depth of field (aperture)

__ camera movement (shutter speed 1/60 sec. or faster)

__ subject movement

As I take the picture:

__ Am I standing solid?

__ Am I squeezing without shaking the camera?

__ Did I write down my settings and get caption information?

Also, check out these two links:
http://digitalphotography.tipcentral.net/

http://www.picturecorrect.com/photographytips/portraits.htm

-- Sue Robinson

Here's One I Like...

This Boston Globe multimedia package on prison suicide does a neat trick of embedding the links to other multimedia segments (letters, maps, etc.) in the video segments. It's the first I've seen like this.

Poor Use of Panos

The Washington Post has obviously put a lot of time and effort into this multimedia presentation ahead of the Texas and Ohio primaries, but it frankly doesn't work for me.

I don't "get" the use of the panoramas combined with the audio. I don't think one illustrates or supports the other, in either direction. And I HATE that the audio ends before the pano in most of the entries I looked at, leaving me to sit in silence watching an image spin around.

This totally strikes me as production for the sake of production, not something that advances the story at all. And what did we learn? When the production overwhelms the message, it's a problem.

SB