A follow-up to my last blog post about one-man-band reporting, which isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, since it’s becoming more of the norm, reporters who are used to having a photographer are now trying to navigate flying solo. Especially, when it comes to breaking news.
I recently came across a write-up from The Coaching Company with tips featuring backpack journalist, Kevin Sites, going solo from the scene of an Israeli missile strike.
Keep in mind, these are great pointers for anyone, including PR folks, who are integrating video into their plans.
According to the site, some things worth note:
* He lets the sound at the scene lead him, even though he is creating as he goes. When chanting starts in the yard behind him, he remarks on it and turns the camera in that direction to give us a view. In this case, he does not seem to fret much about degradation of video and audio as he turns. As a matter of fact, it contributes to the sense that we are watching news in progress.
* Though not on a tripod, he uses some sort of portable stabilizer to steady the image he is shooting. So while parts of the piece are clearly raw and improvised, there is little to no unnecessary and distracting movement of the images.
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