Monday, February 25, 2008

Gannett Video Training


I'm sure you've noticed news distribution has changed a lot in the past few years. Online news is growing in popularity, and with the ever increasing speed of the internet online news videos are becoming more and more popular. Last week I had the chance to receive Gannett Video Training. It was an exhausting 4 days - most of them 12 hours long. News reporters, editors, photographers, and broadcast reporters from Phoenix, Reno, and Washington D.C. were among the 30+ participants in the training. Three big guns from Gannett - Lane Michaelsen, Anne Saul, and Harvey Mars - provided the training. Lane was the most interesting of the three - having won a number of Emmy Awards for his broadcast news photography he had a lot of experience and interesting stories to share. The first day we dove into learning the ins and outs of our Sony 1080i HD video cameras, audio (both shotgun, stick, and wireless), and we shot a few staged news events. Wednesday (day 2) was spent learning the Avid video editing software. Thursday we documented 2 real stories.

It was a great experience. I wasn't sure how excited I would be to be a video PJ, but after the training I see it as another great tool to story telling.