DSLR News Report on CNN.... aweful.

Chris, lets make it personal. When i first saw videos on NYT websites i was curious and clicked a bunch of them - only to discover that they were of poor quality, crappy audio, horrible visuals, meaningless shots as b-rolls and what's the worst part bad reporting... Since the first time i watched a few more just to confirm that they ares till bad... I vistit NYT website everyday but it's been months since i watched any of those videos... Meaning, because the proven to me their low quality, they've lost yet another viewer to their "channel" = less revenue.
 
Patryk, YOU take offense to that content because YOU are in the business of creating film and video footage. If the general population were made up entirely of video and film people, then I'd say these entities producing crap video content for their websites might be in trouble. As it is, YouTube, local TV news, and "reality TV" has shown us that people are OK with crap. I barely even watch TV and I especially don't watch any kind of news.

"Bad reporting?" Have you ever even read the stuff on the CNN website? I read parts of news articles on there sometimes, but more than anything I read the comments after these articles (way more entertaining) and a lot of what I see on a regular basis are people technically critiquing the articles. I'm sure there are writers out there regularly on fire over the poor quality of online news articles in part because there are SO many articles being written for online use and these articles only have to be so good, so they're written by interns and entry level people.

I remember a while back people were talking about all the new TV channels coming online and how it was going to increase the need for more new programming to be produced. The internet is like a TV with an infinite number of channels and everyone trying to make a buck online has to compete with the endless sea of web pages.

I'm not defending poor technique or CNN, but you really have to consider what's important to CNN when it comes to those particular online videos which people may or may not watch at all, which is, merely, I would gather - having content to attach ads to, having MORE web pages with searchable live text, more traffic, more links, more traffic, more ad sales. Not to mention they DO have probably something like a million web pages they need to regularly produce content for, right?

It's not as though the internet is a repository of high quality work when it comes to news, art, video, etc. Especially when it's ALL driven by the quest for traffic. And especially when any content has to compete with cutesy animal videos, homeless guys with great radio voices, and kids lighting their farts on fire.
 
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Chris - I would say that the internet big hitting (millions) stuff IS high quality content, either the sound or the vision are right, sometimes there is poor but irrelevant vision with great audio or good vision when vision is important..

All the big stuff with a million watches communicates emotion to our soul/heart somehow

Bear with me on this argument

Some of my news mates call television 'radio with pictures'

culturally most news is bascially exactly that

especially because most news organisations are late on scene (compared to bystanders)

generally a fire may be represented as a witness/fire officer (on camera) saying 'there was a fire here last night, two kids died'

what they say is important, the picture (a talking head) is actually of little value to comunicating the message - we didnt see the event but our emotional strings are still twanged

in fact for the burnt kids story the news channels would not run the vision even if they had it

Youtube is often bystanders who happen to film a car crash or whatever, obviously the ones who 'miss the shot' dont upload the shot they didnt get only the ones that get good vision upload

Some vision that twangs the emotional strings (I am HAPPY that it was not me that just me who came off my motorbike on the freeway, or POOR bloke I feel SORRY for him)

So both news and you tube content is actually kind of high quality in content

High in twanging those emotion strings

Most news content has comprehensible sound, moust Youtube content has a comprehensible vision of the 'event'

Bloggers on youtube are often chatting, so the sound is only relevant, the good ones still twang ouyr emotions - if the potential of the new Iphone/Xbox excites you

Look at Mr Bloom, certain people get excited by what they could do with a shot tool he offers, thats why he is big - its emotional (for some people) !

So the web audience - millions - is getting either to hear the chat - or see the event and be 'twanged'

As for audio quality comprhensability is what is important (have you ever talked to a loved one across the globe on a bad phone line - it can be an emotionally satisfying experience of the highest order)

Of course I love good camera work and hate the stuff we see posted at the top of the thread

The emergence of still photographers and DSLR into video news gathering is a new era (maybe) of creating a new language of visual reporting (check out DSLRNewsshooter.com)

As that language enters the the viewers visual reptoire maybe te channels will be forced to up their game

The little television I see is so strange - a mix of adverts that have the highest quality costly cinematography possible (often amazing camera moves and wild overcranking) with visual garbage between the adverts - the programs

That of course brings us to Bourne/District 9 - high end cinamatography made to look bad wit the specific intention of making the footage look like it was grabbed by a bystander or on scene doco maker with the intention of communicating to the viewer a motivation for the presence of the camera and therefore adding to the 'beleiveability' of the fictional construct

S
 
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morgan_moore said:
So both news and you tube content is actually kind of high quality in content

High in twanging those emotion strings

Most news content has comprehensible sound, moust Youtube content has a comprehensible vision of the 'event'
Click to expand...


Yep, it's true. Content is king. In the online realm, technical quality is secondary to both content AND traffic especially when it's traffic and ad sales that allows for ALL that free content.
 
Saw this while watching a football game last night... on television...


No offense to anyone that worked on it, but I just shook my head. And, saw at least two other commercials that were obviously shot with a DSLR.
 
"The commercial – produced for the UO by the St. Louis, Mo., communications firm Fleishman Hillard – focuses on the face of the university: its students."


Apparently they don't like hiring makeup stylists...
 
Kholi said:
Saw this while watching a football game last night... on television...


No offense to anyone that worked on it, but I just shook my head. And, saw at least two other commercials that were obviously shot with a DSLR.
Click to expand...

I have one piece of advice for whomever shot this... Shouldermount.
 
I love that we have DSLRs and stuff like that , but the DSLR look just doesn't seem to work for news stuff. Just as a ENG type camera isn't the best thing to grab to shoot a film with.

I really hope that DSLRs and AF100s are not going to get used a ton by the news media, thus stealing the thunder that those cameras will provide for indie filmmakers, music video/commercial directors, and creative documentary filmmakers
 
Nektonic said:
I love that we have DSLRs and stuff like that , but the DSLR look just doesn't seem to work for news stuff. Just as a ENG type camera isn't the best thing to grab to shoot a film with.
Click to expand...


I'd have to go ahead and agree with that. I use a 5D and a 7D and I still also use a camcorder with IS for certain things because there are some things that just shouldn't be shot with a DSLR.
 
Kholi said:
Saw this while watching a football game last night... on television...


No offense to anyone that worked on it, but I just shook my head. And, saw at least two other commercials that were obviously shot with a DSLR.
Click to expand...

Nice clipped skintones.....
 
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