Welche Rolle Video-Reporter im Online-Journalismus spielen werden, fragte die Online Journalism Review im September den Washington Post-Reporter Travis Fox. Das Interview ist lesenswert, weil es sehr genau auf die praktische Arbeit von Videojournalisten eingeht; Fox hütet sich vor großspurigen Prognosen. Er unterscheidet technisch und ästhetisch kaum zwischen Video für das Web und Video für das Fernsehen, weil auch das Fernsehen von Qualitäten des Web-Videos wie Nähe zum Gegenstand und Tempo profitiert. Ich halte nur ein paar Stichpunkte fest [Q&A with Travis Fox, video journalist for washingtonpost.com]:
Gutes Webvideo ist weniger Reporter-/oder Anchor-getrieben als ein großer Teil des TV-Materials:
And I think my style in general is different from some parts of television… It’s not reporter driven and it’s not celebrity-anchor driven. That’s not to say that it’s not heavily reported and heavily narrated…
Rücksichtnahme auf den kleinen und nahen Bildschirm ist wichtig, kommt aber auch der Qualität auf TV-Bildschirmen zugute:
You can make the argument that the video screen is smaller on the computer monitor, therefore we should shoot tighter. But shooting tight is a good technique, whether you are shooting for television or for film.
Auf ein Stativ kann man nicht verzichten, wenn man auf alte Rechner Rücksicht nimmt:
In the beginning, there was the notion that you should have everything on a tripod to be stable because any sort of camera shake would cause the pixels to be refreshed, which would slow down your processor, which would slow down your computer. So that’s still a concern, if you are dealing with slower computers.
Schnelle Bewegungen halten die Zuschauer fest; beim Schnitt unterscheiden sich TV- und Webvideo, aber die Unterschiede sind schwer zu fassen:
How tight and how fast moving to cut it? On television you want it to be fast moving because you don’t want anyone to click on their remote control and go to the next channel, right? You want to keep their attention all the time. Whereas on the web you don’t want someone to go to a different Website. Obviously you want it to be tight and you want it to be fast moving. I don’t have the answers but it’s a different medium and it is interesting to
think of it in different ways.
Am wirkungsvollsten (und aufwändigsten) ist Video in Kombination mit anderen Medien — aber nur, wenn jedes Medium präzise für seine Funktion verwendet wird:
There are several projects that I think have been successful. Those would probably be ones where you took the various media and combined them in a way that was logical, using a blog for user feedback and conversation; using the panoramas to give you a sense of place; and using videos to give you a sense of people, the character, the location, and then combing the two to give you a full picture of the story.
Die größten Benutzerzahlen erreicht man mit Evergreen-Projekten
, die über Jahre immer neue Interessenten anziehen (Beispiel ist ein Post-Projekt über den israelischen Grenzzaun):
So that’s essentially a good model–not covering news on a day in and day out basis but the kind of stories that have legs and can go on for several weeks, several months, several years even.
Die Videojournalistin der Zukunft wird enger mit Printjournalisten zusammenarbeiten und an den Newsroom angebunden werden:
I would say the direction we are headed in is that I will continue to do my own video reporting, but at the same time probably become more integrated with the newsroom–both the dotcom and Post newsrooms are becoming more integrated… In southern Lebanon I was working with print reporters and photographers and it was really interesting to see where the focus of each of the group lied. I chose to go do video somewhere in the middle between the print reporters and still photographers.
Videojournalisten werden immer mehr verschiedene Kanäle nutzen:
We said that in some ways we are functioning like a production company. We are producing videos for the Website, for our podcast. We were also selling them to television.
Das Web wird das Verbreitungsmedium für Videos, auch wenn die Zuschauer sie nicht auf Computer-Bildschirmen ansehen (schwer, nicht an Googles letzten Deal zu denken):
So think about that when you are setting your TiVo or whatever box you are going to be using in the future, you select a Survivor episode, news reports and the latest Washington Post documentary. And the next day, when you sit down to watch them, they will all look the same but one of them came through the Internet and two of them came through cable TV.
An Werbung werden nicht mehr nur die Dinosaurier verdienen:
Advertising on television in general is lucrative and to be able to capture that type of lucrative advertising by bypassing the juggernaut of cable or broadcast is very exciting. It’s not just for me or for newspaper sites, it’s for people running their blogs. You can now essentially be your own broadcast station.