Posts filed under 'Video'
August 11th, 2008
this morning, two different people have talked to me about the excitement of two different competitions.
first, i got a call from an acquaintance of mine and former co-worker, connie carlson. she’s the projects and event coordinator for the rockford phantom regiment.
she told me i gotta go check out videos from saturday night’s dci victory on youtube, like the one below. she said it was “pandemonium,” and you’d have to agree.
connie marched in the regiment when it did “spartacus” back in 1981 and ‘82, so she still has her car marked up with “hail, spartacus” and other champ chants. besides, she’s too busy taking merchandise orders.
an hour later, i got a visit from former reporter geri nikolai. we were talking about the olympics.
i said maybe it’s harder to get kids excited about it these days now that we don’t have the cold war to spark the spirit (i was big on hockey in 1980!). she said, no, last night, the american 4×100 men’s freestyle swimming relay was an amazing comeback to watch. the french had said they were going to smash us. michael phelps opened up with a lead, but we lost it and didn’t win until 32-year-old jason lezak inched back into the game and showed the french we could do it.
the video’s at msn.com.
beyond the victory, the best part is when the announcers are basically writing lezak off and giving him the silver, saying there’s no way he can pull off an upset. oops. now that’s what makes it exciting.
July 18th, 2008
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you may be familiar with mary kaull from her blogging at “a seat at the table,” but you don’t often “hear” this longtime editorial board member.
she’s the voice in this tour of the ncenter, a place for youth in rockford. UPDATE: our “text” editorial is here.
thanks, mary, for serving as the editorial “we.”
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June 16th, 2008
two videos from friday night deserve a mention.
one was pretty complicated, or at least to me: a time-lapse of the zhou brothers art performance with rick nielsen and donald fraser. tv stations often use tv lapse to show how weather changes or to show action in a summary or comic manner. this was artistic, just like the show.
the other was quick and simple: the first triplet in the kuhl family to come home from the hospital. look how little gavin is! can’t wait to see them all home together soon.
thanks to billy kulpa, kelley simms and the delivery desk for allowing our readers to see these moments in a timely manner. both were important.
June 13th, 2008
while wrex-13 and the register star have worked together for four years, we’re still technically “competitors” in the media market. or at least when it comes to auto racing.
don’t miss georgette braun (right, above) and dani maxwell talking trash before the june 20 media race at the rockford speedway’s night of racing thrills: loves park police versus businessmen grudge races. geo will write about this in her column june 19.
p.s. wrex has revamped its web site.
June 11th, 2008
Multimedia artist and designer Margo Morgan wanted to share the following story on B&C, so here you go:”Last Saturday, I shot some video of AirFest. I’d never been before, so I didn’t really think it was going to be very sexy, I expected just a bunch of nerdy guys oogling military planes and talking about thrust and jets.
But it was amazing to watch the aircraft swirl, swoop and barrel through the sky. I guess it’s something you don’t really understand until you see it.
And it was really challenging to capture it on video. I managed to get some halfway decent shots of the airplanes as they performed. Here’s some “B-roll” footage that didn’t make it into our videos that I thought you might enjoy.
Check out our other video from the weekend for rrstar, too.
May 16th, 2008
who says rockford doesn’t have culture? or that you can’t enjoy very different things?
on wednesday night, i played the new wii mario kart racing game with my husband. poorly, of course.
last night, we went to the full dress rehearsal of “tosca” at the coronado. the rockford symphony orchestra and the rockford chamber of commerce allowed young professionals to mingle in the manager’s apartment and meet a few actors beforehand, watch the show from the balcony and see how things work backstage during intermission. it was a very powerful show, with great voices and great music.
we learned a few interesting facts. for one, the singers/actors are brought in specially for this performance, and they’ve performed in such revered places as the met and the lyric opera. secondly, the actress who plays tosca (amy johnson) and the actor who plays scarpia (vernon harman), the villian, are married in real life. if that’s not enough, harman is actually the director filling in because the man originally cast as scarpia has a throat ailment.
the show is saturday: see our video here by bob schaper.
May 8th, 2008
I love that our reporters are trying new things. When I went to college, there was no such thing as a multimedia journalist bachelor’s degree. Most of the folks in our newsroom have had to learn new stuff. Much of it by trial and error. Take a look at Jeff Kolkey’s package on Page Park School that published today on rrstar.com. Jeff wrote the story, and shot and edited the video. It’s worth your time.
April 17th, 2008
for those of you who remember andre smith, our former high school sports writer who liked to do things like wrestle and shoot photos in his spare time:
he had the opportunity yeseterday to photograph the pope for the wilmington, del., newspaper. he told me he shot video, too. it’s in today’s 1 p.m. newscast. “it was something else!” he said.
April 8th, 2008
This weekend, sports reporter Doug Goodman decided to use video to tell two stories. Both published online Monday. Doug took a Handycam and a tripod to Rockford Speedway and Kent Creek and got this:
Enduro race opens Rockford Speedway’s season
Spring trout season opens at Kent Creek
I asked Doug if I could share his thoughts with newsroom staffers on what it was like to take a new approach when telling these stories. Here’s what he had to say:
I’m hoping this doesn’t sound too much like a pep rally for the march from traditional newspaper reporting to the world of multi-media reporting, but it might.
I’ve been a sports reporter for eight years now, and after covering the same sports that long it becomes slightly boring. It’s not like sitting on a wooden chair for hours covering a city council or school board meeting, but more of a job than a fun experience.
When I heard we were going to videotape events, it sounded interesting. I’ve never had a video camera but used them in high school and college in classes — many, many years ago.
Last week I told Chris (Soprych, multimedia editor) I wanted to shoot Rockford Speedway’s season-opening enduro race. Billy (Kulpa, multimedia journalist) gave me a 10-minute intro to the camera, and I was ready to go. It’s that easy.
I was covering the spring trout season opener Saturday morning and threw the video camera and tripod into the car. After doing my reporting for the newspaper story, I shot about 15 minutes of video. It was an enjoyable challenge. The footage was not the best — a tripod leg in the frame on one segment — but usable and gave people a feel of what it was like to be there at 6 a.m. Saturday. Kelley Simms (multimedia journalist) edited the video Monday, and I did a voice over for the one-minute video.
The enduro race was more involved. I shot for a couple of hours from different angles on the track. I also interviewed the winners and a loser.
Billy edited the action and interviews into a nice three-minute video.
These are events I would normally cover for the newspaper, but they were made more fun by shooting videos. I was excited about coming to work Monday morning to work on the videos.
February 25th, 2008
on thursday, eleanora smith, our head librarian at the register star, received a note from ken and barb hall of edwards apple orchard. they had asked permission to share rrs coverage of the january tornado during the north american farm direct marketers conference; there were 400 to 500 marketers in their session for the trade association. they shared photos and videos (like here and here), which drew a standing ovation and “some tears.”
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