Aaron Paul Vogel

Well, I finally took the time to learn how to embed video into my pages without the help of a service like audioblog.com, which I've been using. While audioblog.com is convenient and looks nice enough when displayed in a web page, it lacks support the mp4 video files I've chosen to use. Normally I'd just use a supported file type like .mov and go about using audioblog.com, but mp4's quality is so vastly superior to .mov, .wmv or any other codec that I feel like I'd be doing my work and my readers a disservice using anything else. As a quick example, the video posted here - my Family Stories project - is a mere 15MB, which is small for a project of its length. But the quality is barely degraded, where as a much larger .mov file would look half as good. Fortunately it isn't terribly difficult to embed this kind of file with some HTML and a little CSS to make it look nice. And since the file type supports audio-only files as well I can use the same process for embedding my audio-only clips.

So, it's goodbye audioblog.com and hello .mp4! The only downside to this change is that the pretty controls will be changed to the standard QuickTime plugin controls. I hope you can live with it.

I removed the embedded video because it was downloading every time the page is loaded, and that's killing both my bandwidth allotment and the user's experience (slowing page load). Instead I've put up the first frame and by clicking on the image you can load the movie if you want to watch it. Check out the page's source code if you want to see how I've done it, otherwise there are some links to help you out:

• Apple Developer Connection
• W3CSchools.com HTML Reference
• W3CSchools CSS Reference

It seems that everywhere I look these days I'm seeing Colin Mulvany's name popping up. Mulvany - who's Video Journal blog for the Spokesman Review's website is something I've reading and linking to for about 6 months now - just turned up in the SportsShooter.com newsletter as a featured interview in an article written by another SS.com member G.J. McCarthy. The dialog is really cool, and interesting and encouraging to see on what I'd say is a 99% still photography centered website.

In addition, Mulvany is serving as part of the faculty for the 2006 Southern Short Course which I'm sure has a lot to do with his previous 15+ years of photojournalism, but I can't help to think that his recent success with video, and the integration of audio and slideshows he's done had something to do with it too.

For my photo class this session we had to write a paper critiquing a photojournalism, or photography based website such as magnum.com, nytimes.com, sportsshooter.com and the like. I chose to do my critique on Mulvany's Video Journal. I wasn't going to post it, but since I now have a category (did you happen to see that addition on the right hand side?) for essays and articles, I think I'll post it now. So follow the link below to read my critique of Spokesman Review's Video Journal.

Hey, I know that's forever and a day for you pros, but it's a big accomplishment to me. The assignment was to shoot a 3-5 minute "People Story" about someone in the community. The biggest stipulation was that they had to be over 30 years old. Initially I was thinking I'd just go down to the farmers market and shoot a "Day in the Life" kind of thing with an interview at the end. When I got to the market in the morning, though, I was feeling less than enthused. And if I've learned anything in the last few sessions it's that I don't do well when I'm not excited about something.

So, I grabbed a cup of coffee and headed back to town trying to think of someone else to tape. My brainstorming partner - my mother - and I had come up with some pretty good ideas the night before, but as I was driving down Main St. I passed the Public Library building. I'd shot some VOX POPS there the week before and realized I'd never been inside. Suddenly I was stuck that a librarian in the digital age would make a really interesting interview. With that in mind I went in and spoke to a few librarians. It turns out that they're really cool with Brooks students. The gentleman I ended up taping, Dave Combe, had actually had a photo story done on him already, so he was more than game for video.

Below is the piece I ended up with. Because I'm an awful procrastinator I had to tape and edit it all in under a day and a half. I finished just in time no thanks to Murphy and the junk dv decks they have at check out. I'm pretty proud of it none the less, and actually even more so because of that fact. I feel like I could really do this in the working world. I hope you enjoy it. Click the "Continue Reading..." link to view the video.

I just read this blog post at PDNedu which referred to an article by Mindy McAdams called What I learned from the online photojournalists. For some reason it really struck a nerve - not in a bad way, just in as much as it really made me want to reply... which is what I did:

"As much as I'm in favor of Visual Journalism, I just don't see the video camera taking over for the still camera. While I'm certainly no expert on the subject, and this is all just my opinion... having done the kind of video that newspapers are starting to do, I can honestly say that I feel there's a big part of 'shooting' that a video camera doesn't fill as well as a still camera. My quick reasons:

• Shutter speed. You're always shooting at a 1/30 or 1/60 shutter speed, if you do otherwise the video looks funny. Sooooo.. do you really think a 'camera' that only shoots at two speeds can take over the industry? I don't. Yes, that $1500 HDR-HC3 shoots at 1/240.. great, you have 3 shutter speeds.
• Ergonomics. Can anyone you know hold a video camera as comfortably and stably as a still camera? I can't. I use a tripod for almost everything. Do you want to shoot all your assignments with a tripod?
• Speed of workflow. The new P2 cards aside, working with MiniDV tapes is a pain in the butt. Even with disc based recording there's a big gap between the speed of editing a folder full of stills and video clip where you're looking for the best still grab.
• Lens choice. Unless you're looking at buying something like the Canon XL series, you don't have the option of switching lenses on most of these cameras. While the optical zoom range is pretty large, can you really say that the quality of the lenses is up to par with L glass or the Nikkor glass? Ziess makes good glass, but do you really think you're getting their best stuff in a pro-sumer $1500 camera? Probably not.

Again, sorry that I seem to have gone off. It started to just flow once I got going.

I love the video movement, and it's cool to seem something new ruffle everyone's feathers. I would imagine it separates those that really want to work for their jobs and those that are just in it to work. I just feel that there's a lot of hype that's freaking people out when it really shouldn't."

So the bike is sitting in the garage awaiting a heart transplant, and I'm just going silly with boredom. So what do I do? I grabbed my roommate's long board out of the garage and head on down the sidewalk. Mind you, I don't skateboard. In fact I've, until yesterday, yet to step onto on that I didn't fall immediately off of. But longboards are different. I discovered I can actually stay up on one.. and even carve a little bit! It's really close to snowboarding, which I can do. So here's a little video clip I made with my phone, just to prove I can actually do it.

I'm still working on my final for MPV261. I received an extension on it from Rick so I could film a bit more, and it really helped. I expect to finish that by the end of this week. In other good news I'm really close to getting credentials for the Laguna Seca Moto GP race at the end of July, which I'm really stoked about. I've only shot motorcycles once before (see my post on Ti2TT) but I feel like I learned a lot from that experience and I'm ready to take another shot at it. Lesson one: 2x extenders REALLY hurt sharpness. I'm hoping this time I can get really close to the track. Wish me luck.

After taking full advantage of the break-long extension I was given on my final project, I've completed my latest short doc assignment.

Motorcycling is a past time and sport very near and dear to me, and I've managed to find a great bunch of riders here in Ventura and I decided to do a documentary that would serve as a primer for those on the outside of the community who may be looking to get in, or at least understand some of the issues it faces right now.

Click on Continue Reading VC Riding - the video below to view the video.

I love being on the "inside"... that's why I'm a VJ. Maybe it's attributable to being on the outside in High School... hmmm... Anyway, weekend psychology aside, one of my favorite bits of "inside" knowledge was a way to conjure up one of the coolest Easter Eggs I've ever seen. Bruce the Wonder Yak was (is?) a cute little animation that will pop up in Final Cut Pro if the computer is left alone for a very long time. But there's another way to bring Bruce out of hiding. This from Eeggs.com:

In FCP, press [Option-J]
In the search field in the opened window, type "Bruce".
The search box will have "[shift icon]Bruce". Use the left arrow key to move the cursor left and delete the shift icon. Do not press [Return].
In the main field of the window, a button option will have appeared entitled "Call Bruce". Drag this button option into any window to add it to the customizable toolbars. Press the button.

Once you do this little Bruce will meander out to munch on a patch of grass while thought bubbles pop up with totally random thoughts. Apparently most are from some rambling notes embedded in the program's code by a frustrated programmer. For a picture check out FreshDV.com.

Anyway, the reason I lament right now is that I can't seem to find Bruce in the latest version - FCP 5.1.2 - of the program. I know it worked back in version 5. So I'm wondering where he went. If you know PLEASE let me know.. I need to get back on the inside!!

I'm just going to let these two videos speak for themselves. I think these are the two lessons that I need to learn and take to heart right now. Found these on YouTube via SportsShooter.com though they're originally from the How-To section of Current.tv

I just spent about 4 hours video taping a panel of women artists talking about their work, the distance the womens' movement has come in the art world and basically just being inspiring to one another. It is nice to hear any kind of artist talk about their world, but this panel was particularly fun because I don't get enlightened, rational feminist viewpionts in my world most of the time. Not to say that the women in my world are unenlightened or irrational, just that we don't have the kind of conversations that these women have with each other. I also felt priveleged to be privy to a discussion I wouldn't be normally.

I shot second camera - roaming - for Sabine who some may remember I did audio for priviously. It was 3 hours of an ill-fitting Canon XL-2 on my shoulder. I know some of the shots are going to be shaky because that behemeoth (sp?) is a bear to hold steady while sitting down. And since I was at the front of the audience most of the time I was either on my butt or my knees. And oddly enough my right hand (on the grip) was the one that took the most burden against the hand strap. Griping about poor camera ergonomics aside I really enjoyed working with Sabine again on her doc and I enjoyed being "in" on things i'd never normally go out of my way for.

“Do you have a video camera?” I asked him.

He said he did.

“Do you have FCP and a laptop?” I said.

He said he did.

Then, echoing the very good advice Peter Matthiessen gave me more than a quarter century ago, I told him, “then go get your camera, get your laptop and start making stuff. Post it on Youtube, Current or your own website. Just start making stuff.”

It has been brought to my attention that my two video pieces have been a little buried and made difficult to find. So, until I can arrange a better navigation through my blog here are the direct links to the pieces:

• VC Riding
• Searching for Answers

So, my first video work at my new internship was posted yesterday on The Sacramento Bee's entertainment section website, SacTicket. The video was a companion piece to an article written by staff art critic Edward Ortiz. Edward is a really nice guy to work with and I had fun listening to the work of the four composers he profiled.

So far, two weeks into it, I'm having a great time. It is a little odd having a management structure that I have to work through instead of just deciding for myself what pieces I do and do not want to do. This is one that I probably wouldn't have even known about if Manny hadn't been on top of it. The next months I'm here I'll be trying to get more in touch with the reports so that I know what's possible before the articles are written.

The Bee is still getting their program going, but Manny and all the other staff are terrifically enthusiastic about the prospects. There's clearly the will to make their website and particularly their multimedia much greater than it is currently.Hopefully that will will find a way.

Here's a link to the story:
http://www.sacbee.com/music/story/294244.html
And here's the video I produced:

This is the second same-day turn around video I've done for The Sacramento Bee while on internship. I used tape gathered from a live news feed from the funeral and two other video shooters as well as my own tape to put together a short piece.

CHP Officer Scott Russel, 46, a 22-year CHP veteran, was killed Tuesday July 31, 2007, after placing a spike strip in the path of a driver who had led officers on a 30-mile chase. He was standing on the median of Highway 50 near Shingle Springs when he was struck and killed.

This is the first same-day turn around video I've done for The Sacramento Bee while on internship. I went with reporter Christina Jewett to video her interview with the former DJ's of morning radio show The Rave on local station KDND. The pair were fired in January after an on-air contest, where contestants drank water until they couldn't hold their pee anymore - dubbed Wee for a Wii, turned fatal. After the contest 2nd place winner Jennifer Strange died of water intoxication at her home in near by Rancho Cordova.

The pair insist that they were made scape-goats for a management mistake; that they believed the contest had gone through proper channels to be approved - including being okay'd by parent company Entercom's legal department - and thus had no reason to stop the contest despite callers to the show insisting that contestants could die.

I'd like to draw your attention to the below video. I found it on YouTube through a link posted in the SportsShooter.com forums. It's a music video from what I gather is a German singer. The video was done by Hagen Decker, a German director and shot entirely with a Canon 1D MKIII. It's a fascinating study of what can be done with the amazing tools that we as creative people have a our command. Watch and enjoy!

This is a promotional video that Steve Lamme, Leanne Snyder and I shot. Steve and I did the editing. It took far longer than I planned, due partly to the poor communication between us and the organizers which resulted in some last minute planning changes. All in all I'm pretty happy with was a difficult situation and a first of its kind event for me. Let me know what you think!

Last night I had a lengthy conversation from a good friend and fellow intern. She was bemoaning the number of things her editors were piling on her plate on top of already frenetic photo assignment schedule. Once they found out that she - one of two at the paper - knew how to do audio slideshows, they assigned her to compile audio slideshows for a number of other photographers currently working with her at the New York fashion week events.

This particular friend of mine is a quality over quantity kind of person, like myself, so I could completely understand why she spent an inordinate amount of time tweaking and refining two slideshows. What was astounding was that her editors, when told that the third would have to wait until tomorrow, couldn't understand why things that look good take time. My friend was unsure what to do as she'd already been working incredibly long hours and was paying with her health for doing so. You see, she has Lupus, and despite fending off the germs and struggling her way through arthritic joints thus far, The Wolf has finally caught up with her in the form of a cold. "I've touched subway railings and moments later eaten out of those same hands and been fine so far! Why now?"

This little anecdote brings up two points that I think are important for interns to think about. First, a complicating factor in her problems is her Lupus, though more so that she didn't remind her editors of her limitation after accepting the internship offer (she did state it on her resume), nor did she bring it up when it began to become apparent that her photography assignment schedule was exacerbating the problem. Had she been up front and built a rapport with her editor where she could let him know when the assignments were causing a problem and he could be ready for such a situation, the problem of her burnout may have been avoided. As it is she's worked herself sick.

The second half of the problem is unreal expectations by her editors. This is not, sadly, an solitary incident of an editor that's out of the loop. Instead it is a single example of an problem that is endemic in the industry: asking too much of too few people. There is, of course, something to be said for interns busting their butts to prove themselves and produce increasingly better results within their capabilities. It is an entirely different story when unreasonable expectations are placed on any staff member. As 30 year Daily News veteran Frank Van Riper writes in the August 2007 issue of Digital Journalist:

"The danger, though, is what happens when – in an increasingly bottom-line-hungry climate in which deadlines are constant – news organizations (or, more correctly, the suits upstairs who call the tune) feel they can pile various jobs onto a staffer who is in no position to complain, and still expect to get professional quality results in both words and images."

In the end I advised my friend to do what I think she knew she had to: stand up for herself and her body, and tell her editor what he can expect from her. With only 3 weeks left in the internship they're not going to let her go because of it and she won't come home three-quarters dead. She may not get a glowing review if another paper should call, but from what it sounds like, her editors didn't really pay much attention to her before this, so what kind of review would she get otherwise. Besides, if she (read WE) don't stand up for ourselves and our time now we (she) can't expect our editors to suddenly expect a reasonable amount of work. Once a precedence is set, particularly in new media, that's where the bar will always be. So in the end busting your ass and setting unreal expectations is not in your best interest

UPDATE: I got a little iChat update from my friend last night:

"[I'm doing] much better. Long story short I had a good talk with the editor. Said my quality work takes time, either give me that or I make so so slideshows faster. He appreciated my honesty and gave me 2 days off to recoup. He said I'm too valuable to him this week."

If you haven't heard of Discovery Channel's hit show Deadliest Catch you're clearly not paying attention to some of the only good television on these days. I'll spare the details for those of you in the know, and give everyone else a link to check it out for themselves: Deadliest Catch on Discovery. take a look and come back.

Well, it turns out that the brave souls who started and continue to film (they have extra camera now, but continue to work themselves) the show are Sacramento locals. Well, relatively local. One lives in Auburn and the other in Lotus. Sac Bee did a story on Doug and Todd Stanley a couple weeks ago. I'm praying I can talk to the guys about what they do, and maybe, just maybe, get them to come out and talk to Brooks NPPA about their gig. That would be amazing.

Below you'll find what I believe will ultimately be the final way that I host and post my videos to the web. The solution is, unfortunately, still a version of hand-coding in that I encode the FLV files using a program on my computer, then upload that file to my hosting server and use a pre-created SWF file and some special embed code to actually play the FLV file. Sadly I've yet to find a sharing/hosting service that can cleanly and reliably share my files. While I lose out on potential views from traffic coming from the sharing site, I have very good control over the way my video plays on my website. Ultimately I'm happiest this way, but I'm amazed that with all the options available out there for video sharing, this is still no high quality, flexible and simple site: no one site has managed to do it all.

What you see below is my Profiles in Composition video encoded using the On2 Flix Standard program. It is a $39 standalone program that does nothing else than encode video to FLV files using the On2 VP6 codec, which, at the moment, is the highest quality FLV codec available. In the future this same program, or the next version of it, will be support the H.264 codec, which is even better for getting quality at low file sizes. Once the FLV file is created I upload it and use the JW FLV Player rather than going through Flash to create a player. This is a nice, FREE, way to embed FLV video without having Flash. There's even a wizard on the website that will create the embed code for you and a javascript that will cleanly deal with users who don't have the most recent Flash Plugin installed. It's far more advanced than anything I could come up with on my own.

This is a video I did to accompany a written piece about the Real McCoy ferry's pending retirement.

I feel I should redo the voice over and the FLV compression looks horrible.. but a friend wanted to see it. So here is the rough draft.