In my local town we can just go to the local Phone Company (Telus), and plug into a Fiber-optic dumping station. The dumping station can be routed to any of the stations in North America supposedly. I think it was $115 Canadian for 13 minutes of footage and the quality lose was about the same as going DV25 to SVHS.

Alex

Yes, more money for the national broadcast of course. But the affiliate stations which need local news more frequently do not pay near as well. Plus the number of people with cameras has given them more options. But that is part of the business, there is no set structure, it is what a person finds they can charge. I turned down a Tampa station because they wanted to pay me 65 dollars (total) for 2 seperate shoots of a 5 y/o girl who was shot to death and the then capture of the shooter. I have shot for the NBC today show and the CBS early show as well as CNN, yes they pay good, but like I was saying it is sporadic work. One local man started a business years ago hiring stringers as a network. He has fared very well over the years but is beginning to re-arrange his business practices because the business has changed. Instead of paying hourly he now pays his stringers half of the shoot and makes them W-9 so he no longer shows them as employees. I may be wrong but the money appears to be shrinking. I think that you being so far away from the station is part of the pricing. I have to ask you, is the $150 dollar stories worth it for three hours drive to and three hours drive from the studio?

This is a really facinating thread.

There is a difference between journalism and just shooting video. The former is aimed a telling a story in a short period of time in a way that's compelling and accurate. It obviously has much to do with the latter. The "value-added" is a journalistic idea.

Journalists have been thinking about these issues and the impact of new technology quite a bit. While there's no formal organization, there are focus points and information exchange. For just one example see:

http://digitaljournalist.org

You can even do workshops in the new methods, see

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/workshop/brooks.html

If you doubt the impact of the XL1s, just take a look at the picture on the following page:

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue9904/workshop1a.htm

What people are talking about is the "platypus" model. The platypus being an animal of many odd parts being used to describe a journalist with many odd skills. The idea/image comes from Dirck Halstead -- Time's White House photographer for many a year.

Read the about the "Platypus Papers" at

http://dirckhalstead.org/platypus/platypus.html

Just finished reading all the posts to this thread in search for info on ENG. I have a few amateur questions that I hope to have answered here about press passes and shooting news events. I feel pretty sure these are stupid questions but I can't even buy a clue on these, so here goes-

1) If I'm driving down the road and I happen upon a 20 car pile up and it looks like news, am I free to park my car on the side of the highway, whip out my cam and start shooting? How close could I get or could I interview witnesses without being hassled by law enforcement?

2) Do I need some sort of press pass for this?

3) How legit (if at all) are press passes from sites like these? Or has anyone used these?
http://www.nationalpressassociation.org/
http://www.picturestock.com/presspass.shtml

4) If I were to interview an indvidual would having them state and spell their name on cam be enough of a release? Should I have them say something specific like "I authorize (insert co. name) to use my testimony"?

And any additional info on the subject will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

Paul

1) It depends on the camera. If you have a little mini-DV consumer camera, changes are the police are going to tell you to put it where the sun doesn't shine and make you move along. But if you have a camera that looks like a news-gathering camera, most cops will just assume you're on assignment. I'd suggest you just look like you know what you're doing and act like you should be there. That demeanor alone may get you the shots you want. But even if you have a press pass and a logo on your car, you may get booted.

2) I've never had anyone check my press pass, even though I have one.

3) Again... a press pass may do you some good or it may not. I don't know about these.

4) You'll want them to say and spell their name more for the graphics folks than for a release. You don't need a release for a news story. But make sure its a news story, not a feature, for example. It has to be timely as news or you could be o thin ice.

Wow, like others I think this is a great thread and am definately interested in keeping abreast of any developments. From my perspective I would be interested in something that was international, seeing as I am in New Zealand.

Don had a concern about trained people. Well I think any site/organisation that was set up could help that by offering online courses/information or putting people in touch to train each other and buddy up if there was more than one person in the same area.


Thanks for the excellent info.

Aaron

I've been following this thread with interest. I am a (full time) web developer and I have registered two domains, following Charles Newcomb's idea. Domains are www.dvnews.tv and www.dvnewssyndicate.com (as per Charles). I will build the sites over the next two weeks. Basically, they will be sites where you can set up an account and post the latest news footage you have just shot. The latest 10 or 12? items will appear on the front page. Sites will be free and ad free (unless you guys kill me with bandwidth charges). I will put the sites together, but I need volunteers to help run them. Email we and we'll talk. bill<AT>witsco.com

Bill:

Thank you for your generosity. It will be interesting to see how this works.

But it brings me back to my original question... how do we deal with the file size issue? For example, this week I did a 2 minute feature piece for our Fox affilliate here. I still had to drive the footage over to the station to uplink it because that's a huge file. Making it a WMV9 file dropped it down to 15 megs, and MPG1 was 28 megs; but neither of those formats is acceptable quality for TV news.

How are we going to use the Net to move full resolution footage around?

Thanks again,
Charles

Wow, what a great idea, and a terrific thread! Thanks for sharing, Charles!

I'm definitely interested. But I wonder -- it's been over a year and a half since Charles made the first post. Is his idea of a national association and web site going to happen any time soon?

In the interium, I wonder if it's worthwhile to add a new forum here that would be dedicated to this topic? Seems like one of the site admins mentioned this earlier.

I think the website will be for a text description and possibly a screenshot of the footage. Broadcasters can search based on keywords and then contact the shooter. I don't believe there is currently a speedy way to handle large file transfers on the net, other than using an IM prog like MSN Messaging, but even that would take around 2 hours to transfer 750 Mb. Best thing to do at present is sell the footage first and then worry about how you are going to get it where it's going. If it's juicy enough, the broadcaster will find a way.

1) It depends on the camera. If you have a little mini-DV consumer camera, changes are the police are going to tell you to put it where the sun doesn't shine and make you move along. But if you have a camera that looks like a news-gathering camera, most cops will just assume you're on assignment. I'd suggest you just look like you know what you're doing and act like you should be there. That demeanor alone may get you the shots you want. But even if you have a press pass and a logo on your car, you may get booted.



Charles,

That's exactly how I handled a major accident on a local freeway a couple weeks ago. I parked at a local tire shop off the service road and walked up to the accident scene. I shot from just outside the guardrail and many law enforcement people saw me and said nothing. They did shoo away a couple kids trying to run up the hill to see what was going on. Like you said, just act like you belong there. Funny side note, I came across this accident shortly after leaving my day job which requires me to wear a badge. I'm thinking they may have mistook that for a press badge.

I always have at least 1 video camera in the vehicle for this type of scenario.

This is good stuff. Again, thanks for sharing a looks like the thread has new life.

regards,

If they want it they will direct you to a local affiliate.

A word to the wise, be careful creating this, are you an agency representing the Independents, or an organization displaying their work? You must think liability here. If someone gets postal and decides to create a ficticious story you will have to have an agreement and their business info (license) in case someone creates a bad story or gives the wrong info or slander. I cant impress upon you enough to know who is shooting for the website and what type of individual they are. This is no small undertaking, this is a big, expensive project. Not saying it cant be done but a business plan must be made,

1. legalities
2. startup & monthly cost, software and security, business license.
3. how is profit generated
4. how to limit liability or make each videographer responsible.
5. how to select videographers / register them.
6. hours working on site vs profit

This is a large task, not a small one. Think this through!!

I've been following this thread since its inception and have to agree with Don. While it's fun to chat somewhat altruistically about such a venture the fact is that it does essentially represent an independent news agency. It simply won't fly as a loose coalition of people with video cameras. Getting it off of the ground in the face of the mega-agencies (Reuters, AP, etc.) would require at least several million dollars worth of initial investment and a great deal of skilled business planning and organization. It's not a hobby project and definitely not a part-time venture.

Guys, guys, Oh ye of little faith.

www.dvnewssyndicate.com is still propogating through the net's DNS servers but will be viewable in a few hours. As soon as I can get FTP access I'm going to put a design graphic on it which should show you basically what's gonna happen. The legalities are well covered and the site is essentially self-publishing. Once you have seen the design, I'll give you more details.

Trust me, I've done this kind of thing before.

I really do wish you all the best of fortune, and suspect that Don does also. But a Web site doth not a news agency make. That's the trivial part.

Most certainly wish you good luck. Everything has to start somewhere and I hope this turns out great. Just tried to give some tips so that you will think, remember, I don't know you or how deep you think about things. The comments were all meant to help.

Bill,
The site looks awesome and easy to use. Looking forward to it!

Hmmm, for some reason I can't seem to access the site. It doesn't load...

How soon before the site becomes functional? I think it's a great idea and will check back periodically.

EDIT: I just saw the October 1st notice at the bottom of the site.

Bill,

Your site has a very nice layout. Good colors, easy to read. I like the DB search feature. And you developed the design very fast!

I do have one suggestion. Can't tell about your site because the current home page is just an image. But please do NOT use fixed size fonts, like Arial 8pt. Use relative sizes like Arial x-small. This way if a person has a hard time reading the small print they can just increase the browser text size. And if you are going to use the small size, use Verdana. It's much easier to read than Arial for very small font sizes.

I look forward to being a member. Let me know if you need any help testing the site before it goes live.

Your site looks great, cant wait until it opens!

I am from New Milford Connecticut, small northwestern CT town. I am 21 years old with a Canon GL2 setup; wireless mic's, boom mic etc.

I really want to start to get into the field of news gathering. Or even just making videos of local events, etc. I love the rush of being behind the camera, getting the footage.

I'm not the type of person who has a GL2 to make Short movies I'm more into, I dont know what to really call it, photojournalism? We recently had a Balloon festival here in CT, and I went down with my cam got some footage and made a 6 minute video of the balloons, edited with Pinnacle Studio 9, with music. I was going to get some interviews with the owners, but it was my 2nd "video" so I didn't know what to say, as far as who I am and why I want to film them. You know what I mean, Im not a member of the media. But I'm in the process of getting my video put onto the websight http://www.nwballoonfest.com/ so people can see whats at the festival next year, or what thy have missed.

Does this seem out of the question, I want to see / find local stories of people in the area, and try to get them to air on a local TV news station, there are 2 in Hartford and one in NewHaven. Both an hour away. Does that seem out of the question. What is if it breaking news etc? We also have a local public access station, but thats not that great.

Also How can I get in the field in the future to be behind the camera as a freelancer? I mean I would love to work for a type of company that film shows on TV Ie: HGTV, Food Newtork, Discovery, Travel Channel, TLC, etc How do I go about that? Any advice?

I appreciate any feedback or comments that you may have, thanks alot, this site has been awesom.

Update on the site progress at www.dvnewssyndicate.com.

I'm a little behind schedule with the site coding after the failure of my hard drive early in the week, but I still hope to be able to launch by October 1. The database is done and the Crew Registration is working, so any early adopters can get their details into the database. I'd appreciate it if some of you would get stuck in so I can test. For those interested in websites, it's being done in ASP.NET using MSSQL 2000 database so it should be fairly robust. It also will allow a lot of sexy stuff in the future, such as an RSS newsfeed of new stories uploaded, but at the moment, I'm concentrating on getting the core site work done, which I'm having to do in my (very little) spare time due to pressure of work. I'm having some problems with my registrar getting www.dvnews.tv resolved to my server. This will point to the site too, but for some reason, it has hit a glitch which the registrar has spent the best part of two weeks trying to solve.

The Terms and Conditions of use still have to be written, but they will basically say that any contract will be between the crew and the broadcaster. DV News will not act as an Agent for either, just as a contact point. There is no charge to either for registering.

Please give me feedback of any problems you encounter on the site, bearing in mind it is still in Beta stage.

I just registered, Cant wait, lookin good

Thanks, Kevin. You have the (dubious) honour of being the first in the database. :) Having a few in the db helps me set up and test SQL queries for searches etc. so thanks for the help.

www.dvnewssyndicate.com a.k.a www.dvnews.tv is nearly there. Crew can now register, login and post stories. Crew and news stories are searchable. I've also added Stock Footage, where Crew can post details of footage. This is also searchable. The Forum is working.

Still to do: Broadcaster Registration and session cookies to allow viewing of Crew contact details. Email News Alert for Broadcasters. Admin section for approval of Crew and Broadcaster registration. Some cosmetic work to be done. Once I've finished all the functionality, I'll go back through the site and shine it up.

It's your site, so get stuck in and get your stories and stock footage into the database. Once we have a few entries in the database, I'll produce a Press Release and go after the Broadcasters to inform them about the site. Any feedback or bugs, please put in the forum.

This is a service that is similar to yours but it requires expensive proprietary encoding/decoding hardware.

www.telestream.net


Here is another related thread

www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?threadid=12185&highlight