Instagram was launched in 2010 as an iPhone application to produce and share square shaped photographs with a range of filters – a very smartphone nod to the classic Polaroid instamatic photograph.

The rest you might say is history.

In 2012 Instagram was bought by Facebook for $US 1 billion. The 15 second video feature was added in 2013. The Instagram application is also available for Android and Windows smartphones.

Instagram says it has more than 150 million active monthly users. And that’s what makes the platform interesting for media organizations – it’s a way of reaching new audiences who consume media on mobile devices and tapping into the conversations on a social media network devoted to images.

Here’s onMedia’s quick round up of some of the media organizations using Instagram which might make you look at this popular app in a different light. Plus, there’re some tips on creating Instagram video news for yourself. 

NowThis News

NowThis News specializes in providing short form video content and video news for social media networks. It’s worthwhile checking out their feed @nowthisnews for ideas on producing and editing Instagram video. Many of their videos use voice narration, prominent text overlays and music.

BBC Instafax

In January the BBC rolled out its #Instafax video news experiment on the @bbcnews Instagram feed. Instafax news videos use a blend of video, photos and text overlays accompanied by music and a punchy BBC ident.

The Comment function serves as the space to include a story introduction or to give more context to a video. And as with Twitter, using relevant #hashtags shows how news organizations are adapting their online writing to different platforms. The BBC includes a dedicated URL (BBC.in/topic) to “READ MORE” about a topic on the BBC News website. Though at the moment hyperlinks are not active on Instagram – only #hashtags and @usernames.

It’ll be interesting to see how BBC’s #Instafax format evolves. The videos so far cover hard news items as well as quirky stories that have good video and images. Overall #Instafax demonstrates that you can deliver news and information by short video in a clever way.

Al Jazeera
The @aljazeera Instagram feed has started to move on from mainly showing behind the scenes production photos to previewing its In Pictures photo features and its new digital Al Jazeera Magazine publication.

Al Jazeera has used Instagram to crowd source contributions from users during demonstrations in Egypt. And it’s also using Instagram in the #FreeAJStaff campaign to call for the release of the AJ journalists currently imprisoned in Cairo.

Wall Street Journal

In recent weeks, the @wsj Instagram feed has featured calls for users to submit their images on themes such as Movember #WSJMustache and Chinese New Year #WSJCNY; and to preview in-depth multimedia specials.

The animated infographic below is something different and is a clip from the WSJ video series #TheShortAnswer.

The Guardian

The Guardian says it’s letting their journalists take over the @guardiannews Instagram feed while they’re on assignment – even producing “selfies” in the name of journalism.

Interestingly, the @guardiancities feed is a separate account for curating urban photography via the hashtag #guardiancities. Using a separate account for gathering the best photos on a specific theme looks like a good idea as Instagram hashtags can often be bombarded by irrelevant images or streams of selfies.

Who else to follow on Instagram?

Photo agencies Panos Pictures and Magnum are now featuring their photographers on Instagram, making it interesting to see how professional photographers are adapting to the application.

The @npr stream of National Public Radio takes you behind the scenes in studios plus offers fun Instagram videos on how to make dumplings.

Australia’s national broadcaster, ABC News, publishes photos from their reporters and audience on Instagram. A recent video showing the demolition of a copper stack is a classic “the moment when…” web video clip.

How to produce Instagram video news

Trying to tell a story within 15 seconds requires not only strong photos and video but also some tight editing. Don’t forget if you film your video in HD or in a standard 16:9 rectangle, you have to consider the effect of scaling and adjusting the position of the image to fit Instagram’s square frame size.

Creating a timeline with a 640×640 size frame in your video editing software is going to be a good starting point. This tutorial from WhoIsMatt for editing and exporting video for Instagram in Adobe Premiere Pro CC is a useful guide for settings.

And if you’re looking for a web-based method, check out Andy Dickinson’s clever No-Budget Way to Make BBC Instafax Style Video for Instagram guide.

Is it hip to be square?

Cropping, scaling and adjusting the position of your photo and video to fit Instagram’s 1:1 square frame has always been part of the process of uploading photos from your mobile phone to the service.

The latest iOS for iPhones now includes a square frame option in the native camera app for photos.

A photographer might well decide to frame and compose photographs that are intended for the Instagram platform.

But do you always have to be square and lose part of your frame? After all most photographers would shoot in a standard 3:2 aspect ratio and videographers shooting in HD would capture footage in a 16:9 frame.

There are several apps that let you upload your photos to Instagram in their original aspect ratio – usually by placing the image over a neutral background, or by creating a collage.

This could also be something to consider for crafting video news for distribution via Instagram.

NowThis News and BBC Instafax videos for example overlay text on the image – the key facts of the story. But the video could also be a smaller rectangle size occupying the top or bottom of the frame and leaving the remainder space for text or something else. Perhaps a question of storytelling geometry?

No matter what format you use, it all comes down to telling a short story for a small screen.

Author: Guy Degen

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.

Basic report from journalist

In its most basic form, this type of video is simply the reporter speaking directly to the camera from a fixed position. Broadcast journalists might refer to it as an “as live” or extended piece to camera which is aired as their report.

For solo journalists, this format is also possible with a lightweight tripod and making good use of a vantage point. For example, overlooking a demonstration. And as we mentioned in our second post, try to avoid filming either yourself or interviewees against bright backgrounds and making video reports that look like this – it doesn’t look good – either move to another position or use external lighting to correct the exposure on the face.

With a little bit of practice, and knowing how to work within the limitations of a small camcorder or a mobile phone, a journalist can produce these basic reports quickly.

And while turning the camera around and holding it at arms length from your face to record a dispatch is not really ideal for good video quality, it might be a technique to use for quick updates when covering breaking news – either record and upload your report or use a live video stream application on a smartphone such as Bambuser. There are a number of examples of Wall Street Journal reporters using iPhones to record these dispatches in this way.

There are of course variations on this basic format.

If you want to produce something more elaborate that looks more like a short TV package, you’ll need to use your video editing software (or an editing application on a mobile phone) to overlay images of scenes, objects or action that are relevant in your report. Or you could insert a clip from an interview.

Your studio or newsroom could also adapt this technique to a reporter Q&A / two-way from the field. The reporter finds a good vantage point, then records answers to questions they hear through headphones connected to a second mobile phone, or questions set beforehand by the newsroom sent to them by email or SMS. The journalist then compresses and sends the video clip answers back to the newsroom. The anchor/presenter could either record their questions live, if they are directly speaking to reporter by phone, or they could be pre-recorded in studio, and mixed together with the video answers for a bulletin, or as a video Q&A for online coverage.

Some media organizations may use this technique in place of a live two-way interview – “Earlier I spoke to our correspondent…”

Tips

– Find a good vantage point or position, where possible think story context
– Marking your standing position can help when composing and focusing your shot or if you have to move
– Use an external mic if background noise is very loud
– Record a few seconds and playback to check your framing and audio
– Plan the points you want to make, and know the point to end on.

Filming sequences

Watch a film or television news and you will start to see how a scene or some sort of action is often edited together in a sequence using a variety of shots.

If you want to produce short video stories you will need to start practicing how to film sequences – telling your story in pictures.

Wide, medium, close-up, extreme close-up, over the shoulder – these are just some of the terms you might hear from camera operators to describe shots they produce to film a scene or some action.

Here’s a very simple example of filming a variety of shot and matching them together to build a sequence. No it’s not breaking news, just your author launching an internet radio app on his iPad. But try doing something similar at home for practice. You could film anything. Film the process of making a cup of tea, or collecting mail from your letter box. And in the spirit of this web video series where we’ve focused on using small camcorders, we shot and edited this example using an iPhone.

Again, the key thing to remember is to film a variety of shots – when you have a variety of shots you have more options for editing. You’ll often hear trainers refer to filming five shots – in other words, aim to film at least five different shots for each scene, event or action to help you build a sequence.

That’s good advice. But if you have time, shoot five and a couple more. And always look for opportunities to shoot from interesting angles – a shot that surprises your audience will help keep up their interest. If you’re looking for inspiration, we love this example from film maker Philip Bloom.

Tips

– Plan. A little bit of planning always save lots of time
– Make a list of shots you think you will need to tell your story
– Record each shot for at least 10 seconds
– Remember to breath calmly and stay relaxed when filming handheld
– Film a variety of shots. Aim for at least 5 shots in each setting/scene
– Look for interesting angles. Move your feet rather than use the camera zoom
– Be aware of not “crossing the line” when filming a subject
– Be careful to avoid making handling noises that your camcorder or mobile phone mic may pick up

What next?

Keep practicing, and have fun! Developing your camera, editing and video storytelling skills takes time. But once you’ve mastered the basics look for opportunities to be creative. Online video doesn’t have to be the same as TV news. Analyze and deconstruct good examples of video journalism on leading news websites such as the Guardian and New York Times. Borrow and adapt from other visual storytelling genres. For example, take a look at our blog post on different approaches to video vox pops. Or, experiment with innovative web video tools such as Mozilla Popcorn Maker.

And finally, if you want to stay up to date with the latest camcorders, video equipment and discussions about video for the web formats, it’s worth following the hashtag #onlinevideo on Twitter.

Additional resources

Vimeo Video School

Links to DW Akademie blog posts on video

Basic video shooting tips: lynda.com tutorial

Shooting tips for small screen content: lynda.com

Author: Guy Degen

Remember, your camera is a tool for telling stories and no camera is perfect for every situation you’ll encounter. Importantly, try to become familiar with the operation of your camera.

– Know how to operate the focus controls
– Know how to manually adjust the main exposure settings of  S-I-N-G: shutter speed, iris, neutral density and gain;
– Know how to adjust audio settings
– Know under what conditions your camera produces its best images
– Know the limitations of your camera: this will help your planning and workflow

Really, what it comes down to is practice. Video for the web offers you the chance to use almost any camcorder. But no matter what camera you have, you need to start clocking up the hours of using it under a variety of conditions. Practice. When you are comfortable and confident in using your video camera you can concentrate more on your story.

In this post, while you’re still practicing with your camera and equipment, we’ll introduce some basic video for the web formats that will hopefully offer some ideas that you could apply or adapt to your online stories and newsroom workflow.

Video clip

A short video clip is the most basic form of video for the web content to produce and it offers a very simple way of adding a multimedia element to your story.

Video clips can be used to give more meaning to your story subject, or help to explain or illustrate a point. A video clip can also be the element that attracts the audience to your story, especially if it is shared via social media. Or, it might be the multimedia element that your audience explores first before reading the rest of your story.

Short web video clips are probably at their strongest when they show “the moment when” something happened. The meteor explosion over Russia captured on video by CCTV and by dashboard mounted video cameras in cars is one example. Another recent example was the Boston Marathon explosions filmed by staff photographers of the Boston Globe newspaper.

Wall Street Journal reporters are now equipped with iPhones and file a range of video for the web content to their WorldStream section and the WSJ social media networks. The planning, purpose and quality of the video content produced by reporters varies considerably. Given that it is mainly mobile video you expect production to be a bit rough and ready. But this example below showing the passenger ship Costa Concordia aground in Italy does a very simple thing well – the journalist was on board a vessel passing the ship and just kept the camera was steady to produce a quick clip. Nothing fancy. It’s short and simple and illustrates the scene. Click the image to watch.

Here’s another example of how a video clip could be used for online news. A couple of years ago I was with journalists reporting on a fire that had started within a government office building in Freetown, Sierra Leone. It was a chaotic scene of firefighters, police and office workers trying to put out the fire. There was a lack of working fire extinguishers and it was hard for fire crews to get adequate water pressure to the fifth floor. For an online news story this short 23 second clip filmed with an older iPhone 3GS could give the audience a good sense of what was actually happening at the scene. And by the way, the office on fire reportedly contained records of land titles.

Tips

– Keep it short and simple
– Whenever possible, plan your shot. Avoid “hosing the garden” with your camera
– Rather than trying to film everything, filming one important thing for your story is better
– Hold your camera steady and try to avoid handling noises
– Trim your video and upload the best part that adds value to your story
– We’ll say it once here because even big newspapers have done it, hold your camera the right way to avoid VVS: Vertical Video Syndrome

Video interview

A video interview is the bread and butter of web video content. You can offer your online audience a short interview, or perhaps just use a strong clip that helps to explain a particular point. Whatever you do, if you get it right you’ll have a good visual element that’s relatively simple to produce to include in your story. Get it wrong and your audience will get bored and click back to Facebook.

If you’re filming on your own, think about producing a straightforward interview with your interview partner – either standing or seated.

A tripod or monopod is going to help you produce a better quality interview – no shaky cam and getting tired arms from holding the camera during the interview.

For this type of basic interview you would ask your interviewee to look at you when they answer questions instead of looking down the lens.

Importantly, try to get the eyes of the subject, the lens of the camera, and your eyes at about the same height.

If you’re working with small cameras you probably won’t be carrying lighting equipment. So, think carefully about using available sources light effectively. Look to where the light is coming from. Move your camera and position your interviewee accordingly.

Have a look at the slideshow to see some examples of working with just the available light in a variety of conditions. View in full screen and click on show info in the top right hand corner for details on each shot. We’ll add more examples, both good and what to avoid.

Tips
– avoid filming your subject against a bright/white background (see example in slideshow)
– think about the Rule of Thirds in composing your shot for interviews
– leave some space at the bottom of the frame (lower third) if you need to add a name and title
– turn mobile phones off to avoid interference or distractions
– use Airport or Offline mode for filming with mobile phones to avoid incoming calls
– avoid interviews in rooms with surfaces that produce hard sounds or echo, for e.g. a tiled bathroom
– use an external mic where possible and avoid locations with loud background noise
– if your camera/mobile phone lacks headphone output, record a few seconds, playback to check audio levels

In our next post we’ll take a look at producing short video dispatches and how to start filming sequences.

Author: Guy Degen

Keep it simple, keep it short and a little bit of planning helps of lot.

That’s probably the best advice for anyone who needs to start producing video for the web content.

It goes without saying that we’d recommend you do a proper video for the web course. Or even better, a video journalist course to learn more about the techniques of filming and the craft of visual storytelling.

But if you’re looking for some tips to get started, our blog series on producing video for the web will cover some of the basics and point you in the right direction for online resources.

Which camera?

Trainers will tell you this is a question that comes up in every video course. The big question you need to ask yourself is: what is the purpose of the video I need to produce? Short clips? Interviews? Feature stories? That’s going to guide you to what sort of camera will be appropriate for your needs. Below is an overview, but also check out this short video guide.

Smartphones

All major brands of smartphones have cameras that offer video recording in a codec such as .mp4 or .mov. Smartphones are useful for quick video clips and interviews. The position of microphones on smartphones is sometimes not helpful for capturing good audio, so to produce better quality video use an external microphone if a cable or adapter is available for your phone. Remember, smartphones are small and light, but that makes it harder to produce a steady shot hand-held.

Pocket camcorders and point & shoot cameras

Yes, you could say that pocket camcorders such as the Flip or Kodak range have been largely superseded by the growth of better smartphones offering HD video. But models such as the Kodak Zi8 and PlayTouch offered an external mic-input – a valuable addition. Most small point & shoot digital cameras have a movie function, and like smartphones, are OK for quick video clips or interviews so long as the interview subject’s voice is not drowned out by background noise. And remember, just like smartphones, pocket camcorders and small point & shoot digital cameras will be hard to hold steady hand-held – a tripod or monopod will be useful for stability.

DSLR’s

The video functions on many DSLR and mirror-less micro four-thirds cameras can produce stunning video – an advantage of having a large sensor. This is really useful for photographers who may need to file video clips at events they are covering. There are few of drawbacks to consider. For example, mic input – not all DSLRs have it. And you’ll most likely find that in good lighting conditions you’ll need to add an ND filter to your lens, especially if you’re filming at a standard video frame rates such as 24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 frames a second.

Video camcorders

Obviously there is a wide range of camcorders from consumer models through to professional VJ camcorders. In short, a video camcorder should offer the advantages of a good lens, in-built ND filters, plus an external mic input (either 3.5mm or XLR) and headphone output to monitor audio.

Good exposure and working with available light

Most journalists working with small camcorders, smartphones or pocket camcorders probably won’t be carrying lighting equipment. So, think carefully about how to use the available sources light effectively. This will mean looking for good sources of natural light, and working with whatever practical lights are available.

If you have manual settings on your camera, try to use them to stay in control of exposure. Setting the correct exposure on your camera means adjusting your iris / aperture (F-stops), shutter speed, neutral density or gain. And, make sure you’re using the correct white balance setting.

If you start producing a lot of video, then a small inexpensive LED panel may worth considering for your kit – even one panel supported on a small flexible tripod could be useful.

This short video tutorial from the Vimeo Video School is an useful introduction to the principles of setting the correct exposure and filming with available light.

Audio

A good microphone will improve web video quality

Small cameras are often used for web video, but we can not stress enough the importance of good quality audio. Good video needs good audio. Where possible, use a video camera that allows you to plug in an external mic. But if you do not have a camera with an external mic, you need to think carefully about the conditions you are filming in. There’s nothing worse than watching an interview in a crowded room, say at a conference, where you can’t hear what the subject is saying because there is too much background noise.

Basic equipment checklist before filming

It doesn’t matter what type of camera or camcorder you have, there will be some essential things to think about before you head out of the newsroom.

Battery             – charged? Do I need spare batteries or external power?
Audio                – microphone: Is it the right type for this job? Fluffy wind cover?
Headphones  –  if you can: ALWAYS USE HEADPHONES
Memory           – have I got enough recording space? Do I need extra cards?
Tripod              – steady shots? Interviews? Or use a monopod?

Online resources

– Vimeo Video School

– Choosing a camera

– Introduction to DSLR cameras

– Overview of older HDV Cameras

– 5 pocket video camcorder tips

In Part 2 of Getting started with video for the web, we’ll take a look at producing basic interviews and short video clips.

Author/Photos: Guy Degen