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Open Reporting on CHS
BookstoresBanner2 I'm trying something new over on CHS.  I'm currently working on a story for them about the closure of Bailey Coy and the future of Bookstores in general in Capitol Hill and beyond.  Instead of just collecting all the interviews and b-roll and then editing it down to a 5-10 minute feature to show publicly... I'm going to be putting almost all of the content on CHS as I shoot it.  I put up my interview with owner Michael Wells a couple weeks ago, and I just put up some interviews and footage I shot at the wake last night.  I have some more interviews and shoots to go, which I'll also be posting, then eventually I'll be editing it together into a traditional longer form piece. Why am I doing this?  Well for one, putting together a video feature takes a lot a long time, but the blog format of CHS favors fast turnaround, short and to the point content.  Lately I've been kind of struggling to answer the question... Am I documentary director, or a video journalist?  I guess if I'm asking the question I must be somewhere in between.  So doing this kind of 'open reporting' allows me to be a part of the real-time journalistic conversation, but also lets me make the longer form, higher production value documentary shorts that I really love doing.  Also, with documentaries, there ends up being a ton of content that doesn't make the cut and is usually never seen.  This is a way of getting all that content out there for those that really want to get deeper into the subject. Posting the content like this will give viewers the chance to follow along with the story as I'm developing it, and I'm hoping that'll allow them to contribute ideas that can make it into the final documentary.   I'm hoping that viewers might suggest additional interviews to conduct, questions to ask, or even new ideas that could take the story in a whole new direction.
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I got a sponsor!
n105855521062_1680Some exciting news on the CHS front, we got our first CHS-V advertiser!  Healeo has been advertising on CHS for a while now, but they've decided to move their advertising specifically to my video series there. CHS-V is already building (and engaging) an audience by delivering timely, ground level video journalism and documentary-shorts focused on Capitol Hill.  I know that Capitol Hill is an attractive market for advertisers, so if hyperlocal ad-supported online video can work anywhere, it's here.  For ad supported video to work, obviously, I'm going to need to get views.  In this case that will often mean attracting viewers beyond just this neighborhood, and even beyond Seattle.  Lucky for me, Seattle and Capitol Hill specifically are centers for innovation and creative minded people, so I know finding topics with wide appeal won't be a problem.  Past episodes of CHS-V have already been featured on national and international blogs, and are regularly featured on various city-wide blogs, and even film festivals.  Any ad messages would be carried through all theses mediums. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to integrate the ads into the video. The only thing I know is, I DO NOT want pre-roll ads before every video.  If I'm not that interested in the video, pre-roll ads can be a deal breaker, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.  This is my first shot at integrating ads into my work so I'm sure there'll be some trial and error but I'm hopeful that we can make this work. Below is the first video with the 'presented by Healeo' post-roll at the end.  Tomorrow, I plan on testing out a more prominent (but hopefully not intrusive) ad placement.
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YouTube Rippers
If I ever catch you cropping my credit again... If I ever catch you cropping my credit again... UPDATE 6/29/09: I've started posting videos to the Storms Official Youtube account, so people won't have any reason to rip off crappy versions any more... And also, on the advice of my dad, I want to point out that the picture in this post is me messing around with a prop gun on a movie shoot in LA!  I mean really... I'm a Fairhaven educated Seattle liberal who makes Doppler skits for a living and documentaries about Obama Art for fun... so don't worry, I'm not a scary guy and I promise I won't shoot you. ------ Just discovered that someone on youtube has been ripping videos (off my personal website, and off the Storms website) and posting them on youtube.  I wouldn't mind if I were credited, and if the videos didn't look like CRAP, but I'm not and they do. I'm all about freely sharing content... all my personal videos are licensed under the Creative Commons, as opposed to full copyright, but it's only fair to credit whoever made the content you're sharing.  The Doppler & Sue Bird skit is only available one place online, the Storm's Video page.  The version on there ends with "Shot and Edited by David Albright," but this guy went through the extra trouble of cutting off the credit at the end of his ripped version of the video.  WHY?! It also baffles me why you'd go through the trouble of posting something that looks SO BAD, what is that video like 2 frames per second? So people... feel free to share my videos. Everything I have online is fully embeddable to make it easy for you to share it. But please, don't try and do screen captures of my videos if you don't know how to do it correctly, and definitely do not crop off the credit at the end of the video. No one is going to believe that you made it yourself anyways.
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