A MMJ Life -- "Expand Your Skill Set -- Become the Ultimate One-Man-Band" скачать в хорошем качестве

A MMJ Life -- "Expand Your Skill Set -- Become the Ultimate One-Man-Band"

A long time ago I discovered it was important to expand my technical skill set in TV news than to just do the bare minimum. Some people might snicker at the thought of having to pick up a camera or edit their own story, but I found it to be incredibly beneficial. Why? The list is lengthy, but a few highlights include: You don't have to rely on anyone, you get to decide how well your story turns out, you control your day -- and most important: you become valuable. Why is that last part important? Well, when push comes to shove, the people who know how to do more will ultimately survive in this crazy world we work in. One thing I pushed myself to learn over the last 5-7 years is how to create crisp, clear and memorable graphics. Let's face it: many of the stories we're assigned to aren't visual. Our job is to make them visual. I mean, we do work in TV after all. So how did I learn how to create graphics? I did what many of us do on a regular basis: I watched a lot of television shows and movies. Over and over I studied how producers and visual artists would create different graphics -- specifically when it came to text display and font usage. When I worked at WSYR-TV in Syracuse, NY I remember how my news director would stress three simple letters: C,E,U. "Make your stories are Clear and Easy to Understand," he would say. I used that theory when creating graphics back then and I still use it today. I'm not sure which editing program you use at work, but at KUSA I use Edius. Prior to using Edius, I used Avid. Both editing programs have title making software built in to them (and most other programs do too). The other day I was assigned a story about a 14-year-old girl who lost her battle with cancer. Two days before her death she was elected 'Prom Princess' at her local high school. I was invited to the funeral, but since it was 5+ hours away in southeast Colorado (in the early morning hours), it was difficult for me to get there. Since I couldn't get there, I came up with another idea: Instead of doing a traditional PKG, I asked my producers if I could write an essay and present it on TV. My producers liked the idea and gave me a thumbs up. Earlier in the week, I had been in contact with the family. They graciously agreed to send me about 40 pictures of Janea -- featuring photos from when she was diagnosed with cancer, photos from her treatments, photos with family and friends from the last 24 months -- and finally, photos from the prom. After looking over the pictures and interviewing the family via e-mail, I wrote an essay. It featured no sound from friends or family -- just tracking, photos, music from our music library. I'm not a fan of heavy tracking, so this experiment was outside my comfort zone (I'm a firm believer you should try new things, especially if they make you feel uncomfortable). In an effort to make the story NOT feel boring, I added slow zooms and pans to the photos (using 3D Picture in Picture) and also made the photos transparent. I had the photos on a second and third video layer and I put B-Roll of a burning candle on the first video layer to serve as a backdrop. I used three separate music tracks and broke up each piece of the story based on its emotional standing. Once everything was complete, I rendered the story and watched it. It was fine, but it wasn't memorable (at least not by my standards), so I went back and added some text (graphics). When I initially watched the story I got lost (visually). Unless you were paying close attention to my writing, you might start to drift off. By adding in text, I was able to create a simple scene setting situation which allowed the viewer to remember where they were in the story. On top of that, I also added in simple words such as 'family' and 'community' when I talked about each chapter in the story. Fading picture to picture can get repetitive and boring quickly, so I added the text to help move things. I also tweaked the text to make it 15% transparent, so it wasn't as strong and important as the pictures. Although the text was helpful, I didn't want it to dominate the story. It's tough to tell what the story would have looked like had I been able to make it to the funeral. Chances are if I had to drive more than five hours, I may have been tired and not had enough energy to go all out. I'm glad I got to try something different and use the skills I've learned over the years to help tell a memorable story. If you were to give that assignment to a reporter who didn't know how to pick up a camera, edit or create graphics -- I'm fairly certain it wouldn't have turned out as well. Do yourself a favor: keep learning. Teach yourself new tricks. Make yourself valuable.