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Stand Out with Standups

 

Multimedia Journalist standups are part of effective storytelling — and are quite do-able. 

 alex_dunbar

WSTM-TV/Syracuse, NY’s Alex Dunbar has served as a multimedia journalist for only a few months after joining the station in 1997 as a news and sports photographer.

 

How do you shoot your standups, Alex?

 

The P2 camera really helps with that. It’s very easy to go back and look at the standup right after I shoot it and see if I need to move slightly or tilt the camera down. With a tape based camera I’d always be worried about cueing up the tape properly so I didn’t record over something important but on P2 it’s a cinch.

 

Lighting?

 

Lighting can be a little tricky sometimes but I usually travel with a small stand light to help out or fill in a bit.

 

Your challenges?

 

The biggest challenge has definitely been finding time to get everything done while staying creative. When there’s a separate reporter and photographer, one person can log tape and write while the other one drives. In the interest of my safety and others I now have to wait to log tape until I get back to the station. I’ve recently had to cover a few stories that are close to two hours away from the station and that drive back can be very frustrating.

 

I think that having one person shoot and write can actually give a storytelling advantage. I was recently shooting a story about an upstate New York county that was very successful in selling their surplus on Ebay.

 

alex-ebay-storyWhile in the manager’s office, I noticed he had a large collection of Yankees bobble heads and it allowed me to get sound bites and a shot sequence that worked well together.

 

 It’s also a lot harder to write myself into a corner if I’m the one who shot all the video. The photographer in me really loves the fact that I can write around my best video and give myself great opportunities for natural sound.

 

How do you manage your time?

 

Time management is key. I try to keep to (somewhat) flexible deadlines for shooting, writing and editing. It may not be perfect but I try to make the most of the time I have for each part of the job. I try to remember that if I’m pushing my shooting deadline, I’m going to have to streamline the writing or editing process. I think good work can be done but I find I have to keep myself disciplined. The internal deadlines can also help when plans go astray.

 

I haven’t really done much anchoring so far but I’d love to hear what others have to say about it.

 

Here are a few stories that have worked out somewhat OK: 

http://www.cnycentral.com/news/video.aspx?id=266001

 

http://www.cnycentral.com/news/video.aspx?id=268206

 

http://www.cnycentral.com/news/video.aspx?id=269851

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 6:24 am and is filed under Multimedia Journalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Stand Out with Standups”

  1. Andrew A. Sailer Says:
    February 24th, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    Great comment about motivation

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