As the appetite for video content online keeps growing, many media organizations are scrambling to put video on their websites. But for those doing video for the first time, it’s not necessary to shoot documentary-level quality to attract viewers. A simple alternative is video blogging, or vlogging. Vlogs are easy to produce and can quickly build up a following. Here’s what vlogging journalists should think about before letting the camera roll.

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Cartoons and comics have been part of popular culture for decades. So why not use them to report stories? Taiwan-based Next Media Animation is exactly doing that. The news service produces animated shorts that are sometimes bizarre, sometimes gruesome and sometimes serious. But their news recipe has proved astonishingly successful. onMedia’s Marcus Bösch takes a look at what could be the future of news.

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While documentary making is a difficult endeavour in any environment, filmmakers also face challenges that are unique to the culture and country in which they work. OnMedia’s Lesley Branagan caught up with three directors from different parts of the globe at the recent DOK Leipzig international film festival, where they sat together and compared their experiences, story inspirations and approaches.

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New TV journalists often wonder about the dos and don’ts of what to wear when reporting on camera. onMedia has compiled these tips from experienced DW TV reporters and news anchors Ben Fajzullin and Meggin Leigh.

DOS

Think about the background
The color of the background is important. You are going to disappear if you wear desert colors in a desert. Likewise, if you wear something dark at night, we will only see your head. In a studio, wearing green in front of a green screen or blue in front of a blue screen means your body disappears. By the way, red works better in front of a blue screen.

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In previous onMedia posts, we’ve explored making video for the web using camcorders and mobile phones. But compact digital cameras are also making a big impact in television. They allow journalists to shoot video from unusual points of view and because of their smaller size, they also make it easier for camera operators to capture authentic footage and interviews.

Among his equipment, professional cameraman and documentary filmmaker Christian Parkinson has a small point and shoot digital camera, which he uses to produce quality films for broadcast. He talks to onMedia about his experience of working with compact cameras.

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When journalists first get in front of the camera to report from the field, they’re usually so worried about what hand to hold the microphone in or whether they should use a notebook that they can’t concentrate on what they want to say. To help calm those nerves, onMedia asked DW TV journalist and news anchor Ben Fajzullin to share the basics of what’s important when reporting on camera.

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Online news video continues to rapidly grow, but how are newsrooms producing video? What formats are working? How important is mobile and social media? And what is the return on investment in allocating staff and resources to produce video journalism?

A new report, Video Now: The Form, Cost, and Effect of Video Journalism, produced by Professor Duy Linh Tu, of Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, has examined the video production of several American newspapers and online media organisatons.

It’s well worth watching the whole report.

The responses from producers and editors are both candid and insightful, especially regarding time and staff required to produce video and the number of views their pieces attract.

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Infographics can enhance a visual story’s appeal and are extremely helpful in presenting complex information in an easy-to-understand way. Now, it’s easier than ever to use graphics in your videos thanks to more advanced and user-friendly software. OnMedia’s Kyle James takes a look at how a production team from Indonesia used graphics effectively in their award winning video feature.

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Whether you’re working in daily television news or in business, sports, features or entertainment programming, one of the biggest challenges is to write introductions for reports that are simple, clear and conversational.

Capturing and keeping the interest of your audience in the items you are presenting is essential – it’s too easy for viewers to click on to another channel.

Ben Fajzullin is a highly experienced broadcast journalist and one of Deutsche Welle’s most versatile TV presenters. Ben is one of the station’s main news anchors, presents and produces business news and hosts Made in Germany. Ben also presented and reported for the sports desk and DW Radio. In his native Australia, Ben hosted the national evening news on the public TV broadcaster SBS.

For this post, we asked Ben to offer his tips for writing introductions for news and feature reports.

Along with Ben’s top ten writing tips, you can read example introductions and watch the corresponding video clips to get a sense of his style of delivery; writing to pictures; and most importantly, hear how his words sound on air.

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Producing online video offers a lot of possibilities for creative visual storytelling – even for news items. But if you’re just starting out, honing your basic camera and editing skills and being able to produce simple formats competently will help you to take the next steps.

So far in our Getting started with video for the web series we’ve introduced you to some standard video equipment and accessories as well as discussed how to produce simple video clips and interviews.

In our final post we’ll take a look at producing short reporter dispatches and get you started with shooting simple video sequences.

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