If you’re trying to fund a documentary or video journalism project, you’ll want to watch out for these approaching deadlines. From fellowships to grants, these funds are a great way to begin or produce a non-fiction film whether you’re a freelancer or news organization.

Rapid Story Deployment — Climate Change and Health: September 11
This grant, part of the the Fledgling Fund’s Special Fund for Rapid Story Development, is for documentary filmmakers working on projects that examine the link between climate change and health. The grant will award between $5,000 to $10,000 and international applicants are welcomed, as long as they have a U.S. based fiscal sponsor.

Diversity Development Fund: September 15
This fund from the Independent Television Service is for projects in pre-production for up to $15,000 in research and development. U.S. citizens or residents that identify as a person of color are eligible to apply.

IF/Then Short Documentary Program: September 15
This fund from the Tribeca Film Institute supports filmmakers living and working in and telling documentary stories about the American Midwest. Winners will receive up to $20,000 in production support and ongoing mentorship from the TFI.

Film selected for the 2017 IF/Then Short Documentary Program.

Knight Visiting Nieman Fellowships: September 29
The Nieman Lab Foundation offers these fellowships for U.S. and international journalists, who have at least five years of full-time media experience. Fellows receive a stipend, housing, and more as they work on their personal journalism projects, attend workshops and seminars, and take courses at the university.

Roy W. Dean Film Grants: September 30
The grant for $3,500 plus discounted film services supports unique independent feature films, documentaries, web series, and short films that will make a contribution to society. International filmmakers are eligible and applications are accepted three times a year.

Mother Jones Ben Bagdikian Fellowship Program: October 1
The fellowship from Mother Jones offers a course in investigative journalism, supporting both emerging journalists and media professionals.They do not provide work visas for journalists applying from outside the U.S.

Film Independent Documentary Lab 2018: October 2
The Documentary Lab is a five-week intensive program to help filmmakers currently in post-production on feature-length documentary films.

EFILM | Company 3 Feature Film Grant: October 2
This grant from Film Independent offers filmmakers up to $50,000 in color correction and digital intermediate services for their feature documentary film. Only Film Independent Fellows, alumni of the LA Film Festival, and Film Independent Spirit Awards Nominees are eligible to apply.

Fulbright–National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship: October 6
U.S. citizens — from any field — can apply for this Fulbright Programs fellowship to spend nine months traveling in up to three countries while exploring and developing a narrative on a global issue. Fellows will be trained, received travel and living stipends, and provide digital storytelling material to be published in the National Geographic.

American Documentary Film Fund: October 14
Independent filmmakers may apply to this fund to begin or complete their film. International filmmakers are eligible and the grant offers up to $50,000 in funding.

Film selected for the American Documentary Film Fund.

Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award: October 15
This grant for freelance photojournalists offers €50,000 to enable the winner to produce an in-depth photo essay from in the field.

Frameline Completion Fund: October 31
This fund for up to $5,000 is awarded to filmmakers trying to finish films that represent and reflect on LGBTQ life. International productions and filmmakers are eligible for the grant.

California Documentary Project: November 1
The CDP offers grants of up to $10,000 for research and development or of $50,000 for production of documentary projects exploring California’s cultures, peoples, and history. Filmmakers are not required to be a California resident to apply, but projects must have matching funds with the grant.

Tribeca Film Institute Funds: November 6
Tribeca All Access, TFI Latin America Fund, and AT&T Presents are varying grants for documentary filmmakers. The All Access fund supports storytellers from underrepresented communities while the Latin America Fund supports those living and working in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central, and South America. The AT&T Presents grant awards funding of up to $1 million for filmmakers to create their film, which will be distributed on DIRECTV NOW.

Hot Docs Ted Rogers Fund: November 15
This grant is for Canadian documentary filmmakers with projects already in production. Three to four applicants will be awarded grants of up to $20,000.

Miller / Packan Film Fund: November 15
This grant supports documentaries in production or post-production that explore issues on education, environment, or civics. Filmmakers will be awarded between $5,000 to $25,000.

McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism: November 30
This fellowship is for journalists with at least five years of experience who want to produce a story or series of stories on issues to do with the economy or business. International and freelance journalists are eligible to apply and winners will be granted up to $15,000.

This post originally appeared on Story Hunter and is re-published with permission.

Simone Kovacs covers media innovation and video production for The Video Strategist and In the Field as a writer for Storyhunter, the world’s largest network of professional journalists and filmmakers. Simone was a staff writer for The Crimson and an editor at Tuesday Magazine, a literary publication. Storyhunter, founded in May 2012 by a group of journalists, filmmakers and web developers, is a talent marketplace and network for video professionals worldwide.

The post Filmmaking & Video Journalism Grants: Fall 2017 Deadlines appeared first on MediaShift.

The saying that “time is money” rings true when it comes to producing a video, whether you need to commission a short news piece or a commercial. However, if you hire local freelancers to produce and shoot your film, you can actually save on both time and money. Here are six ways hiring freelancers will keep you within your production budget while also freeing up your time:

1. Less time spent searching for a crew

If you need footage from several countries or are producing a video internationally, then you should hire a freelancer to produce the project for you. A good producer will have experience assembling high-quality production crews, freelance shooters, or editors, and making sure that the project has as few hiccups as possible.

2. Less time spent on paperwork and budgeting

Hiring a producer also means that you only have to find, commission, and pay that single person. You can give the producer the production budget to distribute among their crew as he or she sees fit, which can save you a huge amount of time on paperwork when you file taxes or issue invoices.

You won’t need to get a fixer or translator if your freelancers are local to the area.

3. Lower travel expenses

Whether you commission a producer or not, you should still use local freelancers or production companies since it will cut your travel costs. You’ll save on buying flights, paying for gas or visas, and providing accommodations, all of which can add up quickly with non-local crews.

4. Save on hiring fixers or translators

You won’t need to get a fixer or translator if your freelancers are local to the area. They will already speak the language and know the location, the best sites to film, who to talk to, and how production works there.

5. Less time spent on logistics

Hiring freelancers on the ground means they will already have visas (if they’re expats) or won’t need them (if they’re nationals), as opposed to sending your own crew. Plus, they may already have filming permits or know how to easily obtain them, so you won’t have to spend time figuring out those either.

6. Save on insurance.

One unexpected benefit of hiring local freelancers is that you don’t need to take out insurance for gear or personnel. Freelancers often already own insurance for their camera gear and buy their own health plans since most companies don’t provide that for them as contract workers.

Here’s a detailed breakdown on how we at Storyhunter saved time and money hiring freelancers to make our explainer video.

This post originally appeared on Storyhunter’s Video Strategist blog, and is republished here with permission.

Simone Kovacs covers media innovation and video production for The Video Strategist and In the Field as a writer for Storyhunter, the world’s largest network of professional journalists and filmmakers. Simone was a staff writer for The Crimson and an editor at Tuesday Magazine, a literary publication. Storyhunter, founded in May 2012 by a group of journalists, filmmakers and web developers, is a talent marketplace and network for video professionals worldwide.

The post 6 Ways Hiring Local Freelancers Saves Time & Money appeared first on MediaShift.

Also, if you want to keep up with ongoing digital media events, check out MediaShift’s weekly Upcoming Events post.

1. Content Marketing World: September 5–8
Location: Cleveland, OH
Cost: $2,495 for onsite registration
Reasons to go: One of the largest content marketing conferences out here, CMW is a great place to connect with the top media companies and creators from around the world. It’s basically the must-attend event for professionals working in media and content creation for brands and news agencies. Plus, the schedule is full of interesting events like video marketing workshops, lessons in brand storytelling, and how to use data to drive your video content creation.

2. The Content Strategy Innovation Summit: September 11–12
Location: San Francisco, CA
Cost: $995–2,495, depending on pass choice
Reasons to go: The summit’s speakers this year include content strategy execs from Facebook, Forbes, Disney, and more. Attendees will learn how to maximize their use of video online, hear from panels on strategy, and more that will help you innovate your content marketing.

3. Social Media Week: September 11–15
Location: London, UK
Cost: £749 for onsite registration
Reasons to go: Professionals attending SMW are at the intersection of media, technology, and marketing, creating plenty of networking opportunities. The theme this year is “Language and the Machine,” and attendees will hear from the biggest social media companies and learn about the latest trends in video, virtual reality, visual storytelling, and more.

4. The IBC Conference: September 14–19
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Cost: €1,199–3,520, depending on pass choice
Reasons to go: IBC 2017 is a hotspot for media, entertainment, and technology professionals. The programme includes panels and sessions on the future of virtual reality, how broadcast TV is transforming, and how AI is driving innovation in media. If you go, make sure you say hello to our Storyhunter team there!

5. Digiday Publishing Summit: September 25–27
Location: Key Biscayne, FL
Cost: $2,295 or $4,895
Reasons to go: This year, the summit is tackling the challenges that face digital media publishers, such as adapting to new technology and earning audience trust. Speakers include execs from top media companies, who will address topics like how to win at video, why publishers should think of themselves as tech companies, and how to master social content marketing.

6. Online News Association 2017: October 5–7
Location: Washington D.C., USA
Cost: $879 for non-members before August 24
Reasons to go: ONA17 brings together the top professionals in digital journalism to connect and learn from each other. Scheduled sessions include immersive journalism panels, table talks on audience engagement, and speakers on the do’s and don’ts of Facebook Live.

7. The Folio Show: October 9–11
Location: New York, NY
Cost: $1,390 before August 24
Reasons to go: The Folio Show is a great place to connect with magazine and digital media executives and learn from panels on monetizing video, growth-hacking image based social media, managing content production, and more. There are five different conference tracks to help you focus on the most important sessions: content, marketing, events, sales, and ads and operations.

8. Media Tech Summit: October 26
Location: New York, NY
Cost: $1,495
Reasons to go: The summit’s 2017 theme is “Harnessing the Power of Digital Engagement.” While this year’s agenda and speakers haven’t been announced yet, last year’s speakers included top marketing executives from Facebook, Time Warner, NBC Universal, and more. As a private forum, this hot-ticket event requires an invitation to register.

9. Digiday Video Anywhere: November 1–3
Location: Laguna Niguel, CA
Cost: $2,295 or $4,895
Reasons to go: This Digiday summit will explore how publishers are tackling emerging challenges in digital video production and how to build business models that don’t just capture viewership, but also revenue.

10. News XChange: November 15–16
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Cost: €650–1,285, depending on ticket type
Reasons to go: The two-day conference brings together hundreds of media executives from all around the world. The conference features prominent guest speakers and panel discussions that explore the biggest challenges currently facing journalism.

This post originally appeared on Storyhunter’s Video Strategist blog, and is republished here with permission.

Simone Kovacs covers media innovation and video production for The Video Strategist and In the Field as a writer for Storyhunter, the world’s largest network of professional journalists and filmmakers. Simone was a staff writer for The Crimson and an editor at Tuesday Magazine, a literary publication. Storyhunter, founded in May 2012 by a group of journalists, filmmakers and web developers, is a talent marketplace and network for video professionals worldwide.

The post 10 Media Events You Should Have on Your Radar This Fall appeared first on MediaShift.

1. Have an extra person monitor and respond to comments.

While the journalist in the field is live streaming, they might miss questions and comments from the audience. Most live streaming platforms will let you have multiple people logged in to your profile, page, or channel at the same time. So if you have a producer logged in and monitoring the comments, they can help be sending written replies. When a media company live streams and responds to their viewers, their audience feels more valued and will be more interested in returning to future streams as well as staying on to watch the stream.

“You need to welcome people into the broadcast and acknowledge that they are there. Accept their questions, react to comments, and to different opinions…You want a lot of the same people to come back. Make it a community for them.” — Evan Hansen, Editor-in-Chief at Periscope

We’re live now in #AthensPride2017 – It’s Education | #StoryhunterLive https://t.co/CJeOGejLfo

— Storyhunter (@Storyhunter) June 10, 2017

2. Discipline or ignore trolls, depending on what works for your streams.

Different media companies have different ways of handling troll comments depending on how bad they get. By prioritizing fruitful comments over ignorant or irrelevant comments, you will be engaging the audience that you want — the audience that cares about the subject.

Evan Hansen also suggests live streamers shouldn’t ignore the trolls completely, but should exert and maintain control of the comments when necessary.

“Don’t let the comment community bring you down. Don’t get distracted by the trolls. Respond to trolls, but don’t let it show it’s annoying you. Stick with your main theme, but jump out every once in awhile to discipline people. Ignore it or make fun of it, but don’t let it bother you. Don’t ignore it totally or it will get out of control. Maintain some control of the commenters. ” — Evan Hansen

However, Fusion has a different policy regarding troll comments:

“We have a policy of not feeding the trolls. We don’t heavily monitor comments. I have no issue with people disagreeing. I have no problem with people having very, very unpopular opinions the only thing we really moderate is hate speech, and I think we’re very loose in that we don’t address the trolling comments. We focus on the ones that are on topic and lead to better, more fruitful conversations.” — Katrine Dermody, Director of Social Media at Fusion Media

3. Send and request real-time updates on the stream.

If you’re covering breaking news, you want to make sure that your journalist live streaming has the latest information, which they may not be able to get while on the ground or if they’re stuck in a particular location. And there are times when you may not know what’s happening on the ground and need your live streamer to update you. Open communication will help both producers and journalists respond to viewers correctly and keep them interested in seeing what will happen next.

We want to know what’s going on. We want to know what’s happening… It’s good to have updates into where you are, what you know, and what you don’t know. Honestly, I will start remote producing a video journalist through text messaging, saying “Hey tell us what you’re seeing and ask these questions.” — Katrine Dermody

This is why you should make sure your live streamer either has second person in the field with them or, at the very least, a second phone. Answering texts or calls will end a broadcast, making a second phone essential if you want to communicate with your journalist while live.

Paraty, Brazil https://t.co/wsH7e1d2v2

— Storyhunter (@Storyhunter) June 8, 2017

4. Consider upgrading from a smartphone.

If your newsroom really wants to invest in quality live streaming, you should look at setting up a system where you have more control over the stream. Geoff Dietrich, the Executive Producer for Newsgathering at AJ+, says that the digital media company wants to use be able to transmit from a control room and add graphics onto live streams to keep audiences engaged.

“We’re looking at using a third party app to transmit the video back to us. We will have it go to a control room where we will be in total control. Different apps facilitate live streaming. It basically sends it to the control room where we can add graphics to it…We have more tools to keep the audience engaged. You can put text on screen, and if you’re not going to have a presenter, we want to find ways to add things to the feed and do it with our live team.” — Geoffrey Dietrich

Correction: This article has been altered to correct and attribute Fusion quotes to  Katrine Dermody, Director of Social Media at Fusion Media

Simone Kovacs covers media innovation and video production for The Video Strategist and In the Field as a writer for Storyhunter, the world’s largest network of professional journalists and filmmakers. A Magna Cum Laude in English from Harvard and a poetry student at New York University, Simone was a staff writer for The Crimson and an editor a Tuesday Magazine, a literary publication. She also runs Storyhunter’s social media. Twitter: @storyhunter Facebook: @storyhunterTV. Storyhunter, founded in May 2012 by a group of journalists, filmmakers and web developers, is a talent marketplace and network for video professionals worldwide.

The post 4 Tips For More Engaging News Live Streams appeared first on MediaShift.

Here are five takeaways from how they handle the hectic life of the newsroom:

1. Take pride in your own and others’ success.

Sam Go: The biggest success to me is finding and discovering talent. In my years as an editor and manager, I’ve positively influenced the company by helping find and hire the right people — some of them while they were still in school — and watched them succeed in the company and beyond. Their talent is their own, but taking a chance and finding a great writer or producer from a pile of resumes is incredibly gratifying.

Vivian Tang: I feel that my biggest success as a producer is that I get to tell and share stories with people. I get to make a cool piece of content and hope that people can learn from it or get inspired by it somehow. The digital world can have a strong impact on people. It may be a one or two minute video they’re watching, but in that one or two minutes, you can really make people think. So you have to be careful with what message you’re trying to get out there with your work. You never know how it can impact someone.

2. Take a chance on people.

Sam: Follow your gut. The best candidates don’t necessarily fit in a single mold and we’re always looking for new and creative talent that challenge our current thinking. I think it’s also important to support those candidates and make sure they’re set up for success.

Vivian: I’m currently working with someone on Storyhunter for the first time for a illustrated/animated video. I’m always a little hesitant when it comes to working with new editors because you never know how it’ll turn out, especially if you already have people you’ve been working with. But so far we have been communicating great! The work has been amazing and I’m very glad I took a shot with her.

3. Things won’t always go your way.

Sadie: Something that I have faced, and I’m sure many others have as well, is the issue of whether or not you did everything possible to put the best story together. Did I film enough? Did I ask the right questions? Am I weaving together a strong narrative in the edit? Over time, I have learned to quiet that inner monologue and instead try to channel that energy into creating the story itself. A big part of the storytelling process is dealing with challenges as they arise and problem solving on the spot. I’ve never published a story that was exactly what I thought it would be when I first started working on it, but that’s part of the fun!

Vivian: I think we’ve all faced setbacks, but personally, I’d say it was new for me to learn how to communicate with editors online. As a producer, it’s easy to have a vision — but sometimes it was challenging to get that through via email with your editor who’s on the other side of the country. Another setback is that sometimes the creative juice flow hits a brick wall. It’s important to get re-inspired once in awhile.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Vivian: It’s important to be transparent and let the other people know when you need some help or direction sometimes. When I find myself in a difficult situation, I try to think of the light at the end of the tunnel and remember the bigger picture. I think of how I want viewers to feel when they watch the final piece of that content. Approaching new challenges is always scary but exciting at the same time. You know you’ll be learning something new so it may be hard, but you also know you’ll be learning a new skill. I’ve learned it’s important to be open minded.

Sam: You try to make the best of the situation you have in front of you. It’s also important to make a mental — and physical — checklist of what went wrong to prevent the same problem from happening again in the future. If you learn from experience, the unforeseen situations won’t come up as often. When approaching a new challenge, I make sure to always ask for help and ask the right questions. And of course, pay it forward by helping others when they ask you in the future.

5. Learn from the people around you.

Sadie: Be flexible. Our industry is changing and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Don’t get caught up in finding the “right” job — find the one that’s right for now and learn as much as you possibly can while you’re there.

Vivian: My advice would be to be open minded, stay true to yourself, but also don’t close people off. Sometimes you’ll think you have the best idea ever and know exactly how to execute that (and maybe that’s true), but don’t be too quick to brush other people off. You learn a lot more than you think by working with other creatives. And always stay inspired. When you feel that you’ve lost that extra bright light, go make time to find it again.

Simone Kovacs covers media innovation and video production for The Video Strategist and In the Field as a writer for Storyhunter, the world’s largest network of professional journalists and filmmakers. A Magna Cum Laude in English from Harvard and a poetry student at New York University, Simone was a staff writer for The Crimson and an editor a Tuesday Magazine, a literary publication. She also runs Storyhunter’s social media. Twitter: @storyhunter Facebook: @storyhunterTV. Storyhunter, founded in May 2012 by a group of journalists, filmmakers and web developers, is a talent marketplace and network for video professionals worldwide.

The post 3 Video Producers Give 5 Tips on Setbacks and Success appeared first on MediaShift.

June Cohen is the former Executive Producer of TED Media, where she built their digital media operations from the ground up. After leaving TED, June launched a media startup and content incubator with her partner and the former Head of Media Partners at TED, Deron Triff. Since then, they have partnered with Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin at Within to create the first virtual reality documentary series, The Possible. The series, which tells the human story behind incredible scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs, was also developed with the help of Mashable, Here Be Dragons, GE, and the Sloan Foundation.

In this Q&A, Cohen talks with Simone Kovacs from Storyhunter, where this piece originally appeared.

Q&A

Photo: James Duncan Davidson/TED

Storyhunter: How did you get involved with Within and this documentary series?

June Cohen: I was with TED for 11 years, I launched TED Talks online in 2006 and built the media team inside of TED. I loved the community, but when I left, what I really wanted to do was take a leap back into the frontiers of storytelling. VR was a huge draw for me because I love working in new mediums. I love the challenge of figuring out what happens to storytelling when it meets a new medium. We launched TED Talks the same year Youtube launched, so online video certainly existed before that, but it was very, very young. When we launched TED Talks, we had to be very careful in how we instructed people to use an online video player because it was not common then.

The funny thing about technology is that we very quickly forget how new something is and how odd and unusual it was the first time people used it. When you’re developing for a new medium, you can’t take anything for granted because no one has seen it before  —  they don’t know what to do, they don’t know what to expect. So everything you do when you’re working in a new medium blazes new trails.

What drew me to VR and Within was just the incredible open question of what kinds of stories we could tell in VR. I had admired the work of Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin for a year and had invited both of them to speak at TED. So in leaving TED, I approached them about collaborating. And my partner, Deron Triff, and I began working with them to originate the series and develop it with them.

This is possibly the first documentary series filmed in VR. Nobody else has taken that step to create a series, which to me is an essential part of a medium maturing because a series is a way to build an ongoing audience. What we set out to do was try to capture the most extraordinary, exciting, and immersive breakthroughs that are happening in science and technology. And to cover them in a way that really allows the viewer to not just watch or hear a story, but to feel like they’ve been there, like they’ve really experienced something.

I was lucky because I was working hand-in-hand with the most creative, experienced, exuberant team in VR. Between Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin at Within, who are both extraordinary talents and extraordinary at blending technology and storytelling, and then the production team at Here Be Dragons, it was the most experienced VR production team in the business. They can make anything happen somehow.

Why did you choose science and technology as your focus?

Cohen: Several different reasons  —  one of them is very practical. The audience for VR is still relatively small and the vast majority of people who are watching VR are by definition early adopters. They’re people who make a point in their lives of exploring the latest technologies. So the built-in audience for VR is an audience that’s very interested in science and technology. For me  —  I started my career at WIRED, then I went to TED  —  this is the audience I’ve worked with my whole career. It’s the early adopters who love hearing about scientific and technological advances. But then on top of that, what we set up to do was cover science and technology in a way that was very human and very inclusive. So that you don’t have to be a science or tech expert to want to watch the playful robots at Boston Dynamics or take a ride on a hoverboard.

What was the most challenging part of producing the series?

Cohen: There were a lot of challenges along the way, but they were joyful challenges. They were the kind of challenges that you always run into when you’re developing in a new medium, and for those of us who seek and choose to work in a new medium, the challenges are part of the appeal. That’s where you really get to think and create and invent solutions where there haven’t been any before.

The technology for capturing, editing, and producing VR content is still very new and developing. Everyone working in VR right now has to invent a lot of their own tools. There was a new challenge on every episode because we were trying to break new ground on every episode. For example, how do you shoot VR from a space balloon in the stratosphere where it’s really cold? We had problems with cameras freezing. How do you shoot VR going 380 MPH where you have to deal with speed, jostling, and weight issues? And over the course of a normal 12-hour shooting day, VR cameras tend to overheat, so we had to pack them with ice packs.

What was your solution to the space balloon?

Cohen: We had to build a custom rig and casing in order to keep the cameras from freezing. It had to do with having them in a ring, and since their batteries were warm, they would all kind of keep each other warm in a way. It took many many attempts to find the version that worked. And that’s just the shooting technology!

Another challenge was adapting to the pacing in VR  —  VR audiences expect to be immersed. When a scene begins, you feel like you’re there, so you want to take it in. So the VR that’s most effective involves much longer shots than a typical film. Modern cinematography involves a lot of fast cuts to achieve a particular technique. But in VR, the approach is much more verite, you tend to draw people in and leave them there a little bit longer than most filmmakers would for a standard film.

What was your favorite story from the series?

Cohen: I don’t know. I can’t choose. It’s like choosing from among your babies. I think the episode on the hoverboard is the most immersive. There’s scenes where you’re watching him fly his hoverboard, and then a scene where you’re with him on the hoverboard, and I think those are the most immersive moments in the series, the most experiential, so they’re really exhilarating in that way. I think the most surprising and adorable is the robotics episode from the Boston Dynamics Lab. I think it’s surprising because it is adorable. You don’t think ‘Boston Dynamics’ and ‘adorable’ in the same sentence, usually, but there is such a whimsical way that these robots come to life in this episode that you can’t help but smile.

The episode I’m most proud of in some ways, is as far as I can tell, the most ambitious representation of science in VR to date. It’s an episode that tells the story of this major scientific discovery that happened in 2015 that many people still haven’t heard about. Scientists detected gravitational waves for the first time  —  they were predicted by Einstein a hundred years before and nobody thought we’d ever be able to detect them. What the film tells is the human story behind the scientific story: how it happened, how this project was pulled together. What was really special in the piece is the sequence of scientific visualizations that are kind of 3D stereoscopic VR. It points to the potential of VR to tell a different kind of story, to tell a story about science that we haven’t been able to witness to date.

Screenshot.

The post June Cohen on Her Path from TED to Launching the First VR Documentary Series appeared first on MediaShift.

In this interview, Storyhunter, which first published this post on its Video Strategist blog, talks to Omar about his work and what’s ahead for journalism.

Q&A

Storyhunter: What does mobile journalism mean to you?

Yusuf Omar: Desperate people venting into front-facing ‘selfie’ cameras in Aleppo to college graduates crying on Snapchat when Trump won the US election. It’s all mobile journalism — stories told with mobile and for mobile devices — and it’s redefining the role of the media from creator to curator.

S: How do you think mobile journalism will change in the upcoming year?

YO: The curation of mobile journalism and user generated content will become the most valuable source for newsrooms. At the intersection of rigorous quality control, fact checking, and the endless and unverified stream of sources, is great journalism. Like the BBC’s Exodus documentary shot by refugees in rubber dinghies: it’s user generated and professionally authenticated. It’s a new form of news and it’s told from every angle possible. That’s where most traditional media — fixated on slow, expensive news-gathering, and yesteryear formats — fails.

Verifying the validity of sources will become big business for media houses. Too many perspectives is a good problem to have, but we will need to sort the real from the fake. The law of large numbers states that the greater the sample size, the more accurate our findings. With a quarter of the world’s population documenting their lives on Facebook, the democratization of media has already happened, whether we like it or not.

S: Are there particular platforms or social networks that you think will become integral to mobile journalists?

YO: This revolution will be Snapchatted, on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We could also see use cases for Musical.ly and other new apps targeting where young people are creating cool things. Social media platforms that prioritize live videos will prevail. By 2020, armed with 5G cellular speeds, almost all of social media could be live. Unbuffered broadcasts by a generation that overshares everything (we brought you the toilet selfie), will lead to more live video content than we know what to do with.

To make sense of it all, journalists must help curate the true and debunk the fake. Social media needs traditional media’s expertise to fact-check, to sort through the explosion of content on our timelines. Traditional media needs social media to get closer to the human angle, to find the stories under the stream of news, to contextualize the noise. Together, they can sift through the noise.

This kind of verification can enable newsrooms to be relevant in the age of the smartphone. If balanced journalism seeks a variety of voices, the selfie is the primary source of our time. Curation is the new creation.

S: How do you use Snapchat as a mobile journalist?

YO: At the Hindustan Times in India, where we are training 750 selfie journalists, we’ve used Snapchat face filters to hide the identities of sexual abuse survivors. Selfie journalism has empowered women to tell their stories while maintaining dignity, without the archaic use of face blurring or silhouettes like TV broadcasters.

Covering education, we trained six students to Snapchat the most stressful six weeks of their lives hustling for a spot in university. Their selfies were curated into a reality show, #CampusCalling: they shared stories of their sex lives and turmoil with their families, details they are unlikely to have shared with a big camera and a boom mic.

In Punjab, Yusuf and the Hindustan Times Snapchatted a selfie journalism adventure in pursuit of drugs — connecting social issues with youth on a platform they can relate to.

S: What are the challenges of mobile journalism now and what do you expect them to be in the future?

YO: For aggregation of mobile journalism stories to succeed, even verification needs to be democratized. Think about it: there’s an estimated 2.5 billion smartphone users around the world. If we curated the content of just one percent, that’s 2.5 million storytellers. Media houses alone won’t be able to sort real from fake with that quantity of content. The audience would have to self-regulate. Wikipedia is far from perfect, but stories are reviewed and fact-checked by the community based on a consensus.

S: What do you see as the pros and cons of mobile journalism? Do you think these will change over the next year?

YO: For the ordinary citizen reporter telling an extraordinary story, there’s no tool more powerful than mobile: you can shoot, edit, and broadcast from one device. Since 9/11, mobile users have broken the world’s biggest stories. Activists used mobile phones to erupt the Arab Spring and the #BlackLivesMatter movements; the same devices are now broadcasting their tragic deaths.

But the spectre of “fake news” is being weaponized to discredit selfie journalism. In this battle, traditional media are positioning themselves as guardians against fake news; as the sole arbiter of truth, objectivity and impartiality. They say that social media users are unpredictable and accountable to followers, not press codes.

This is true. Recently, I posted a video on Facebook with my face replacing Trump’s as the TIME magazine’s Person of the Year — several people posted sincere congratulations. My friends are gullible.

So, selfie journalism can compromise the quality of news, but it doesn’t have to. It can also enhance it. From ‘final goodbyes’ in Aleppo to Snaps from the US election, the aggregation of selfie journalism could be our closest version of the truth.

S: Where do you see the role of professional journalists and freelancers going? And do you see them as remaining an essential part of the newsroom and journalistic process?

YO: With the unverified stream of content exploding our way on social media timelines, we’ve never needed professional journalists more. That’s why the New York Times saw a spike in subscriptions immediately after the US elections — audiences are hungry for not just authenticated journalism, but also for the added value of experience and expertise to contextualize the world around them.

As newsroom resources shrink and international players pull back on their global footprints, the demand for freelancers to access hard to reach stories is only growing. But the freelancer today needs to provide holistic coverage that can be used across platforms.

Gone are the days of just being a writer, photographer, or filmmaker. In an age of Robo-storytelling where even writing can be automated (you’ve seen the news stories written by algorithms during the Olympics) we must now become Robo-Cop storytellers — armed with lots of different narrative weapons at our disposal. That means the ability to do 360° videos, Snapchat stories, and a Facebook Live, all at the same time.

I think journalists will increasingly be regarded like influencers, and newsroom will want to buy into their social media followings. So you’re not just selling your stories anymore, but your ability to help them travel online. To share and engage.

S: Since newsrooms can be manipulated or have political agendas, how can we trust their ability to verify fake news and citizen journalism? Will we still need professional journalists to investigate and produce content on stories, even if the story originates with citizens?

YO: There’s nothing better than a reporter’s boots on the ground, digging deep for the stories that aren’t bubbling to the top of our social media timelines. The role of professional journalists to hold power to account and be the watchdogs of society is more important now than ever before.

If the media’s role is to mirror society, this includes highlighting its flaws. Journalists aim to expose audiences to the best and worst of humanity. We are hopeless romantics who still believe we can change the world and that starts with social issues. But to understand these issues, we need to leave our own bubbles of society and listen to the stories on the ground and from across the spectrum. Because many of us media folks are wealthier and more isolated from the social issues that plague much of society.

There has never been a more exciting time to be a journalist with the plethora of social media platforms and storytelling tools available. But this also offers more difficult and varied editorial choices.

India’s viral content is often hijacked by three things; Bollywood, cricket, and right-wing politics. Everyday we choose to produce and share stories with more editorial news value. Maintaining editorial integrity when you’re competing with funny cat videos on people’s timelines is tricky.

Simone Kovacs covers media innovation and video production for The Video Strategist and In the Field as a writer for Storyhunter, the world’s largest network of professional journalists and filmmakers. A Magna Cum Laude in English from Harvard and a poetry student at New York University, Simone was a staff writer for The Crimson and an editor a Tuesday Magazine, a literary publication. She also runs Storyhunter’s social media. Twitter: @storyhunter Facebook: @storyhunterTV. Storyhunter, founded in May 2012 by a group of journalists, filmmakers and web developers, is a talent marketplace and network for video professionals worldwide.

The post How the Hindustan Times Is Building the World’s Largest Mobile Journalism Team appeared first on MediaShift.

Since launching Facebook Live in August 2015, Facebook has been aggressively pushing it for publishers — creating paid partnerships and releasing their Live API in April, which allows media companies to go live with professional cameras and drones. And, at least in terms of engagement, it’s been working well. According to Facebook, Live videos have ten times more comments than regular videos and live streams are viewed three times longer than non-live content.

Needless to say, newsrooms need to embrace Facebook Live as much as possible if they want to compete for the viewership and engagement they bring. The Online News Association recognized the importance of this growing medium and hosted a panel on using Facebook Live at their conference in September.

On the panel, we heard from representatives and producers at Facebook, The Huffington Post, Fox News, and NPR. Plus, we spoke to experienced livestream and freelance video journalist, Frank G. Runyeon, about what he’s learned from Facebook Live. Here are some of their best practices for sending video journalists into the field for livestreaming.

1. Create a standard set of guidelines.

Before hiring a freelancer or sending your journalist into the field, give them a clear set of instructions to follow, including what they need to do for pre-production and during the broadcast.

2. Put together a basic gear kit or require freelancers to have specific gear.

Frank G. Runyeon, who has hosted a number of Facebook Live streams for AJ+, says that he always carries audio equipment and two fully charged ASUS battery power packs. He also suggests making sure your iPhone has plenty of space in case you need to download files.

Frank R. live-streamed from a protest outside the Trump Tower for AJ+.

“[In live streaming,] there are all the considerations that go along with getting good video. You have to think about your lighting situation, you have to think about audio. The visuals in your live stream are frequently naturally crappy, because you’re going to be getting grainy video sometimes when there’s not a reliable uplink. So audio has to be to the best of your ability, and you need to get solid audio equipment — Rode makes great audio products.You basically have to build a rig around your phone. At the end of the day it starts to look like a pretty serious piece of equipment. The phone is just inserted in the middle of it. Those are the technical things to get you started.” — Frank R.

Beyond having reliable shotgun mics, try to send your freelancers out with an iRig and iOgrapher frame to hold the phone steady. You might also include lite panels for any situations where the light is low.

3. Plan as much as possible in pre-production.

For pre-production, you should ask your journalists to go early to the scene, set up key interviews for when they’re live, and have questions prepared in advance. Setting up interviews before going live will help the actual interview go more smoothly since the subject knows that they will be on camera and will have thought about what they want to say. And knowing who to interview before the stream starts is just as important as a journalist needs to get the people who are integral to the story. Having questions prepared beforehand will also help your journalist keep their train of thought in the field and conduct effective interviews, remembering to ask the important questions. Plus, being early at the scene will give them a feel for the situation and layout of where they’re livestreaming — whether it is a concert hall or protests on the street.

4. Send more than one journalist into the field.

If you’re sending a journalist out to live stream, you should try to send more than one — there should be one to hold the camera, one to be on camera, and one to handle the comments and questions coming in on the Facebook stream. According to Jason Ehrich, the Vice President of Social Media at Fox News, it’s important that the journalist on camera is able to take questions from the Facebook audience.

“Engage with the audience, and if you do that you let them know that you’re listening, and you increase the number of comments that you’re going to get. We get so many more comments on our Facebook Live than we do on our on-demand videos and these tend to be higher quality comments.” — Jason Ehrich, speaking at ONA’s Facebook Live panel

5. Understand when to go Live: engagement, immersion, and suspense.

During the broadcast, your journalists should reintroduce themselves and what’s happening in the scene every few minutes so that new viewers tuning in will understand what’s going on. You also might ask your journalists to go live five to seven minutes before the main action because it can take a few minutes to gain an audience. If you do this, however, be aware that the first few seconds of a Live video need to be visually interesting since over 60% of watch time happens after the post is no longer live. The first three seconds are the most important to catching a viewer’s attention when it auto plays silently in their newsfeed.

Once you’re live, remember that it’s all about engagement, immersion, and suspense. According to Patrick McMenamin, the Supervising Producer of Huffington Post Live, a Facebook Live stream needs at least one of these three key traits and preferably all of them in order to be successful.

“It has to be participatory at its core, and that’s the biggest advantage that you have of being online. If it’s not participatory, for us, then immersiveness is the second thing. You have to really immerse somebody in an area or place that they want to be but could never get to. They want to see what it looks like. The third one is suspense…what made the [Buzzfeed] watermelon video so good was the fact that it was just full of suspense. You had 45 straight minutes of ‘When is this gonna burst?’ If you have any one of those 3, you’ve got a live stream that you should be rolling with.” — Patrick McMenamin, speaking at ONA’s Facebook Live panel

The Buzzfeed Staff’s Facebook Live video on an exploding watermelon was a huge success with over eleven million views to date.

6. Remember story is more important than video quality.

Facebook Live streams depend so much on wifi, that they often don’t have the greatest video quality. However, the video quality isn’t why the viewer tunes in, though it should still be visually interesting. When a live stream catches the viewer’s eye as their scrolling through their Facebook feed, they click on it because they want to know more — they’re interested in the content.

“We can bring people into a moment, and really start to share and tell a story…Often it’s a story where we don’t know what the ending is, but that’s the beauty of it for you as a journalist — turning the camera to an event in real time and having an audience all around the world conversing under your video clip.” — Aine Kerr, the Manager of Journalism Partnerships at Facebook, speaking at ONA’s Facebook Live panel.

7. Consider using the Facebook Live API.

If your newsroom is interested in pursuing higher-quality live-streams, you might want to use the Facebook API. The API lets you integrate live-streams into your existing broadcast set-up and use more devices, such as professional broadcast cameras and drones. It also allows you to build live-streams that can mix video and audio sources as well as use special effects. Plus, combining the Live API with Facebook’s Graph API, lets you analyze viewer engagement in real time and create on-screen graphics based on engagement. This is an extraordinarily powerful tool for companies that want to take their Facebook Live videos to the next level.

Simone Kovacs covers media innovation and video production for The Video Strategist and In the Field as a writer for Storyhunter, the world’s largest network of professional journalists and filmmakers. A Magna Cum Laude in English from Harvard and a poetry student at New York University, Simone was a staff writer for The Crimson and an editor a Tuesday Magazine, a literary publication. She also runs Storyhunter’s social media. Twitter: @storyhunter Facebook: @storyhunterTV. Storyhunter, founded in May 2012 by a group of journalists, filmmakers and web developers, is a talent marketplace and network for video professionals worldwide.

The post 7 Tips for Publishers Going Live on Facebook appeared first on MediaShift.

Click on the photo or here to see the full series. Creative Commons photo.

This is a guest post that originally appeared on Storyhunter’s publication The Video Strategist and is cross posted with permission.

We are constantly being reminded that video is one of the biggest and most important forms of online media. But how big is it? At Storyhunter, we’ve gathered past, present, and predicted statistics for social and mobile video to analyze just how important video is and will be to the future of content creation.

Digital Video is Social Video

If you haven’t already begun investing in video production for social media networks, now is the time. When over 100 million hours of video on Facebook and over 650 million hours of video on YouTube get consumed each day, it’s clear that video is an integral part of consumers’ social and online experience.

The post The State of Video in 2016: Social Video, Mobile Video, Heavy Competition appeared first on MediaShift.

Pete Jones is the senior producer at Framestore’s VR Studio in New York–the world’s first dedicated studio of its kind. Since the studio’s opening in 2014, Jones has helped drive a number of milestones in the VR space. His work includes HBO’s massively successful Game of Thrones “Ascend the Wall” experience and over a dozen other projects across Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard, and Samsung Gear VR. Jones has ten years of experience in VFX across film, television, commercials, and VR, and has worked with Framestore for over seven years. He recently served as a panelist for the Virtual Reality category in the AICP Next Awards 2016.

Pete Jones, Senior Producer at Framestore VR. Courtesy photo.

How is virtual reality important to storytelling?

Pete Jones: Whether it’s important to storytelling as we think of it now is a hot topic that will probably continue to be debated until the time somebody produces a really convincing example of a VR movie. We need to think about what stories are, as the advent of VR asks a slightly different set of questions from its audience. The paradigm has shifted and we’re now users rather than just viewers, which challenges us to look at what a story actually is.

Does it have to be driven by a narrative and contain characters and dialogue, or can it simply be an experience? The platform is compelling because it elicits a completely different feeling from other forms of media, and so we must ask different questions of it in order to tap into its potential.

What areas of media do you think VR will have the most most impact on?

Jones: Gaming will be affected fundamentally and early because of the use of real-time rendering game engines to create content it’s all set up for game developers and their target demographic. The applications for the technology are far reaching though, and you can expect to see applications developing for training in all areas, but particularly well resourced fields such as medicine and the military. Social media will never be the same again either, as the power of sitting in a room with someone on the other side of the world is scarily immersive.

How do you think VR will impact journalism now and in the future?

Jones: I think it’s hard to say, as journalism is a craft in and of itself. Certainly there is scope there to transport people to a place and impress on a user the atmosphere of an event, whether it be a sporting moment or a war zone. But as with film and other media with a rich history, language, and craft, VR will find its place alongside those disciplines—contributing rather than competing.

How will it impact advertising?

Jones: VR, when done well, gives the user something that you can’t get with anything else. Anyone who’s put on a headset and taken part in a great experience will testify to that. Harnessing that power, whether to tell a story, to entertain, or to sell cola, can be an extremely effective way to get the message across and get it to stick. If what we expect to happen does in fact happen and we see mass adoption of VR headsets across a number of platforms in the next year, brands will be taking part en masse.

“The Nature of Industry” is a 360° video produced by Framestore for General Electric

Should commercial producers invest more into VR?

Jones: Absolutely. If you’re not already being asked about 360° camera rigs, tracking volumes, and binaural sound—you will be!

How should brands and marketers approach VR?

Jones: That’s the big question, but the projections for growth are very encouraging. The key for marketers is finding the best fit for their brands, as VR is such a massive area that covers video, gaming, mobile, installation, everything across all art and entertainment! The eternal question for every idea is “is this a good fit for VR?” If it can’t be done on any other platform, like on a computer screen with a mouse, then that’s a really good start.

Storyhunter, founded in May 2012 by a group of journalists, filmmakers and web developers, is a talent marketplace and network for video professionals worldwide. This piece first appeared on the Storyhunter Blog.

The post Framestore VR’s Pete Jones on How Virtual Reality Is Changing Media appeared first on MediaShift.