{"id":7969,"date":"2018-09-19T14:19:58","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T08:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/?p=7969\/"},"modified":"2018-11-08T09:07:10","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T03:07:10","slug":"video-is-the-hardest-genre-in-journalism-says-videographer-steve-rice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/video-is-the-hardest-genre-in-journalism-says-videographer-steve-rice\/","title":{"rendered":"Video is the hardest genre in journalism – says videographer Steve Rice"},"content":{"rendered":"

The School of Multimedia Journalism Imedia Project conducted consecutively for three years by the Kazakhstan Press Club has been launched at the end of August 2018 in Almaty with the financial support of the Soros Fund Kazakhstan.\u00a0 The trainer of the first module is Steve Rice, professor of Missouri School of Journalism.\u00a0 In his interview he told us why video became such an important element of the modern journalism. <\/strong><\/p>\n

It is the second time in Almaty for the seasoned journalist and professor of Missouri School of Journalism Steve Rice. During his module he taught project participants the nuances and secrets of making a good microdocumentary.\u00a0 Now it is time for the students to grab their tripods and cameras and start making own micro-docs.<\/p>\n

\u2014 You teach journalists how to make video. Why do you think video became such an important element of the modern media? <\/em><\/p>\n

SR:<\/strong> Do you want the truth?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n

SR:<\/strong> It is because video allows you to make money.\u00a0 Before a video starts a pre-roll advertising is shown.\u00a0 The video player is surrounded by plenty of popup ads which need to be clicked on and which lead you somewhere else.\u00a0 In the United States, at least, we became a nation that does not like to read; people want information delivered to them. In that sense video has an advantage.\u00a0 YouTube\u2019s popularity is steadily increasing.\u00a0 My daughter loves BTS (a famous K-pop boy band), she goes to YouTube and watches everything related to BTS.\u00a0 On YouTube People watch various speakers, travel logs – literally everything.\u00a0 That\u2019s where the difference between her generation and mine is particularly visible. \u00a0Also, video becomes more and more sophisticated.\u00a0 Its main value is that it tells a story. It gives a fuller picture, shows details and tells a story. \u00a0The best part of microdocumentary is that it gives a specific access to the story.\u00a0 You no longer need a 60-minute film. Everything can be done quickly: you observe, find the right angle and shot a short video about a small thing.<\/p>\n

\u2014 What time duration is best for the microdocumentary?<\/em><\/p>\n

SR:<\/strong> The usual duration is between 3 and 10 minutes.\u00a0 The trick is that audience takes the decision to continue watching a video or not within the first 10 seconds.\u00a0 So, if they decide to continue watching, then we need to keep on engaging them with the help of tools we call \u00abhooks\u00bb.\u00a0 The author needs to come up with techniques to tease the viewer, to keep him\/her interested and make them continue watching till the end.\u00a0 If you are not successful at that the audience will not come back to you.\u00a0 Very few people would watch through the first minutes if what they saw is not a quality product.\u00a0 If a website hosts too many poor quality videos people will stop visiting that website.\u00a0\u00a0 A quality content is based on an understanding of the rules of audience engagement.\u00a0 Anyone can shoot a video and not everyone can create a successful one.\u00a0 One should think of integrating something informative, something entertaining and something educational in a video.<\/p>\n

Integrating traditional media and new media is possible because some prefer reading to watching videos, others might want to consume multimedia content.\u00a0 Traditional media must come to an understanding that information can be distributed through many channels, and not only through pages filled with text.\u00a0 \u00a0If you are using infographics, polish your text, think through the layout it takes you to the new level.\u00a0 One needs to understand that big chunks of text are no longer effective.<\/p>\n

\u2014 What are the current trends in making of video?<\/em><\/p>\n

SR:<\/strong> \u00a0The new trends are VR (virtual reality) and 360 \u00b0 video. We are yet to find out and decide how to use these instruments in storytelling.\u00a0 \u00a0The thing is that people improve their skills in making video and documentaries and documentary seems to be playing an increasingly important role in filmmaking industry.<\/p>\n

\u2014 What can you say about the students who study in your module, what is your first impression about local journalists? \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

SR:<\/strong> \u00a0I think they are hungry, they want to study, want to make a good content.\u00a0 I told them that video is probably the hardest genre in journalism, hence they need to become multi-taskers: know how to work with camera, audio, editing software, understand different ways of presenting a topic, be able to work with people, make interviews and use music.\u00a0 There is still a lot they need to learn and they seem to be thirsty for knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u2014 It might have to do with their education. Often times universities teach irrelevant and outdated subjects.\u00a0 For instance, the usual approach is that a writing journalists should only be good at writing while a television journalist should be good at speaking only. <\/em><\/p>\n

SR:<\/strong> \u00a0Every journalist who enrolls to our university knows how to shoot video, edit, write and so on, because he\/she grew up with a gadget or a smartphone.\u00a0 People that support the approach we talk about grew up with a newspaper in their hands, carrying a huge photo on a two-page spread.\u00a0 What we do scares them, they know nothing about video or multimedia, they deny the new trends and do not want to learn.\u00a0 We have a similar problem in the US, where both newspapers and journalists are scared of change.\u00a0 I saw photographers who would not shift from film to digital, who did not want to learn to make video.\u00a0 They were lagging behind because they were unable to adapt in a dynamically changing environment.\u00a0 Do newspapers in Almaty compete against each other?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Not really.<\/em><\/p>\n

SR:<\/strong> \u00a0That is not good.\u00a0 The absence of competition means there is impetus for the owners to develop the newspaper.\u00a0 Without competition there is no willingness to evolve.\u00a0 \u00a0Another problem is that investigative journalism is not advanced in Kazakhstan, because some people do not want to be investigated by media.\u00a0 In our country the President Donald Trump is suppressing media, because we are working really hard to reveal what he is trying to hide.\u00a0 He attacked free media, he called our news fake.\u00a0 \u00a0The thing is that he comes from a business background where everything was under his control and everyone jumped through hoops for him.\u00a0 He does not like being criticized for what he has done.<\/p>\n

Trump’s actions against media lead to a situation where dictators all over the world began crackdown campaigns against journalists everywhere in an attempt to halt spreading of truth.\u00a0 When leaders take that kind of viewpoint it is very hard to change anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The School of Multimedia Journalism Imedia Project conducted consecutively for three years by the Kazakhstan Press Club has been launched at the end of August 2018 in Almaty with the financial support of the Soros Fund Kazakhstan.\u00a0 The trainer of the first module is Steve Rice, professor of Missouri School of Journalism.\u00a0 In his interview he told us why video became such an important element of the modern journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[75],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7970,"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7969\/revisions\/7970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.soros.kz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}