Jakob Nielsen: “On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.

Surfers scan, they don’t follow dutifully along the path we lay. For a linear medium like video this creates a problem, and explains why “Text remains King of the Web“.

Two approaches, one from the BBC, the other from MSNBC.

Modularize

The approach of bbc.com to the use of web video is instructive. An average of 34 stories in the bbc.com RSS feed each day. Sampling 3 different days over a few weeks I counted 12 videos. 2 Barack Obama speeches excepted, video length was 23 seconds to 1minute 20 seconds, average around 45 seconds. Video is used as a modular, optional element within a text story, just like a paragraph of text or a photograph. The videos are bare-bone - no sequencing, no storytelling. Say your piece and leave.

Provide transcripts

[MSNBC promotes] the value of transcription and emerging use of voice to text technology….This functionality not only provides more effective searchability by surfacing metadata, but provides viewers with the power to find and watch what they want by reading text.

Other news organizations and video sharing sites including YouTube publishing platforms such as Delve are integrating transcriptions into their video pages. Blinkx and EveryZing use raw transcriptions to drive search functionality. Adobe will soon integrate transcriptions into workflow.”

Obama’s speech auto transcribed in 15 minutes

msnbc.com used a voice-to-text solution from Nexidia to transcribe last night’s address to Congress by President Barack Obama. The online news site got the Obama transcription up in 15 minutes after the conclusion of the speech, we have learned.

Getting the transcript up that quickly was not a scoop. After all, the speech was distributed to the media and the members of Congress before it began, but it marks a significant landmark in the automated transcription of such a notable speech. Not just a transcript, the document was immediately linked to words within the video, giving viewers the ability to find a word and find a related passage.

Executives at msnbc.com say that the transcription was proofed by humans before it was published, but there were very few edits.”

beet.tv

10/31/2007

Interactive lighting tutorials from Lowel Lighting - many featuring Lowel’s excellent Rifa soft box.

The advantages of soft lights for are huge. - the advantage of Rifas is convenience: they set up in seconds - pop open like an umbrella - and you can carry 2 or 3 (with stands) under one arm.

But you don’t need to go mad - a small rifa 44 and a reflector or a couple of small fluorescents is often all that’s needed to light an interview. The 44 can also be lamped for 12V.

Ross Lowell is also of course the author of the inspirational lighting tome, “Matters of Light and Depth“.

Nov 11 2008

A month ago I seemed to be almost alone in expressing a distinct lack of excitement over the video capabilities of the new DSLRs from Canon and Sony. Stu Maschwitz nails it:

The D90 and the 5D MarkII can make compelling moving images. But they are not yet cameras that will support your creative development as a filmmaker, growing with you as your skills develop. Did Vincent Laforet want Reverie to feel like a masterfully-lit soap opera? Did Matthew Bennettt want Subway to feel like the wobbly video from a jailbroken iPhone? We are at times seduced by aspects of these demo reels that are perennially absent in our video viewfinders, but we are not seeing the work of a cinematographer in full control of their craft. We’re seeing accidents—some happy, some not. Images borne of a battle with an uncooperative piece of kit. Mario Andretti doing his best with front-wheel drive and an automatic transmission” prolost

Well worth reading the rest of his blog post.

To get an idea of the type of set-up required to use DSLRs for handheld video work check out this clip from Zacuto:

Introducing DSLR Cinematography via Journerdism

The 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer survey sampled 4,475 opinion leaders in two age groups (25-34 and 35-64) in 20 countries. All opinion leaders met the following criteria:

• College educated
• Household income in the top quartile for their age in their country
• Read or watch business/news media at least several times a week
• Follow public policy issues in the news at least several times a week

Trust in TV news coverage dropped from 49% to 36%, and trust in newspaper articles fell from 47% to 34%. Viewers are 3 times more likely to believe an “expert” talking head than a CEO.

“Video content on the web must differ from TV. It should be shorter, less intermediated, less heavily produced. It should be raw and direct, not like sitting back and watching TV” Richard Sambrook interview with Richard Edelman

Fairly conventional wisdom these days I think, but why is it that so much online news/PR video ignores this advice and comes across as ponderous and stilted.

Three reasons:

1. True spontaneity in any creative endeavor is the preserve of the adept. The neophyte requires a lot of preparation to produce footage that is at once watchable/listenable and “raw”. Breaking news excepted.

2. Raw and direct = handheld. Almost a cliche right? Handheld footage from handicams can easily degenerate into a confusing mess. So while even Hollywood directors are rushing towards the “immediacy”, “authenticity” of hand-held cameras, many videojournalists remain tethered to their tripods. Sure you gain watchable and professional but often at the cost of raw and direct.

3. Less intermediated = live audio only. Lack of preparation time and lack of dedicated audio equipment/personnel, result: the resurrection of the voiceover. The trusty voiceover had all but disappeared from news/feature coverage - but now it’s back with a vengeance. Not to say that the voiceover does not have it’s place in modern video, particularly when it’s woven in to the live audio a la David Attenborough. But for short web features Voiceover = heavily produced.

The solution - more preparation, more training, better equipment - more $$$$.

Many aspects of the new media aesthetic are derived from economic and technological circumstance. Smaller cheaper cameras favor hand-held run and gun shooting, no lights, and an emphasis on the creative vision of the cameraman/director, rather than the technical expertise of a team of specialists.

50 years ago those same principles were being advanced by the French new wave as “auteur theory”. A disdain for “learned framings, complicated lighting, polished photography” - promotion of the caméra-stylo: the prescient notion that directors should use cameras as stylishly and spontaneously as writers use pens.

An article on the influence of Truffaut & Godard on Hollywood directors including George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma in last week’s New Yorker.

To be sure, the Van Meegeren story raises many, many questions. Among them: what makes a work of art great? Is it the signature of (or attribution to) an acknowledged master? Is it just a name? Or is it a name implying a provenance? With a photograph we may be interested in the photographer but also in what the photograph is of. With a painting this is often turned around, we may be interested in what the painting is of, but we are primarily interested in the question: who made it? Who held a brush to canvas and painted it? Whether it is the work of an acclaimed master like Vermeer or a duplicitous forger like Van Meegeren — we want to know more.”

There’s a lot of programming on the new site, including several years’ worth of episodes of many PBS programs, including “Frontline,” “Nova,” “The American Experience,” the “Newshour With Jim Lehrer” and “Antiques Roadshow,” the highest-rated show on the network. Cooking fans may enjoy a library of the Julia Child shows.

But there are lots of PBS programs that won’t be online at all or will be available for only a short period. As with the commercial networks, some shows have many owners with various agendas. In most cases, PBS pays only 20 to 33 percent of the cost of producing each show, and so independent production companies and foreign networks have a controlling interest.

For example, much of the programming on “Masterpiece Theater” is owned by the BBC, which will allow shows to be available on PBS.com for only a few weeks. Similarly, Mr. Burns is being particularly stingy with rights to “The National Parks.” Each two-hour episode will be available online for only about a week after broadcast. Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Mr. Burns, declined to say why his for-profit production company is limiting the streaming rights.” nytimes

• The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.
• Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same period.
• In the last year alone, unique viewers of online video grew 10 percent, the number of streams grew 41 percent, the streams per user grew 27 percent and the total minutes engaged with online video grew 71 percent.” beet.tv