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The Death of Local Arts Reporting in Milwaukee?
Posted on July 29th, 2009 No commentsAccording to the Milwaukee Business Journal, the people that will take the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s latest buyout offer include broadcast media columnist Tim Cuprisin, theater critic Damien Jaques, books editor Geeta Sharma-Jensen, education reporter Alan Borsuk, pop music writer Dave Tianen, music/dance writer Tom Strini and business columnist Tannette Johnson-Elie.
Most are arts writers. All, including Johnson-Elie, who chronicled new business and minority business stories, and Borsuk, on Milwaukee’s volatile local education scene, can be considered important local-oriented reporters, whose detailed reporting on the arts, media, education, and small business gave an important and influential segment of the paper’s readership something to look forward to.
Jaques is a legendary name in Journalism circles. His father was a journalist, and Damien has been consistently and devotedly reporting on the arts for most of his career. Cuprisin brought new life to the TV-Radio section, following on the heels of early Sentinel efforts by Chris Stoehr and others, and always emphasizing the local ups and downs of Milwaukee’s broadcast media.
Sharma-Jensen, Tianen, Strini, Borsuk, and Johnson-Elie owned their niches, and one wonders if they will even be replaced, or whether their activities will be merged into a one or two “combo” positions, echoing what happened to architecture reporting after Whitney Gould left.
I’m guessing the Journal-Sentinel will be happy to pay for freelance reviews. But behind-the-scenes analysis? Maybe not so much.
You can’t argue with the economics of the newspaper world. But you can argue with a medium giving up it’s unique selling proposition (USP). Local, local, local is what makes a newspaper or on-line publication different.
When big city papers started trying to be USA TODAY, their soul started to evaporate. You can read about Michael Jackson anywhere. What’s in the offing for the Milwaukee Rep, Symphony, Ballet, and so many more institutions, now that their important voices are gone?
The Journal-Sentinel has yet to announce replacements.
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Tribute Video “How-To” Book Now Available
Posted on June 21st, 2009 No commentsTribute Videos are videos that celebrate a person, couple, group, or institution. They can be engagement videos, anniversary videos, memorials, retirement videos, milestone birthday videos, company histories, leadership stories, school reunion stories, award-winner portraits, and more. They are at home in the living room, rec room, boardroom or ballroom.
Tribute videos are how I got my start. (See “AVSquad” in the links.) And they remain the most satisfying of the work that we do. There is nothing like telling a people story.
A lot of people are into video these days, some as a hobby, some as a potential profession, some as part of their job duties. There is a perception that video is easy, thanks to point and shoot miniature cameras, computer editing, and thousands of tipsters on-line telling you how easy it is and selling something– usually hardware.
But hardware is only part of the problem, and hardware and editing software are covered pretty readily via training web sites, DVD lessons, and more.
No one is training people on how to tell a compelling story. How to interview, how to move pictures, how to choose music, how to pace videos, how to get a visceral reaction from an audience!
That’s where “Tribute Videos for Love & Money” comes in.
Tribute Videos for Love & Money
It’s an ebook that details my communications beliefs and systems. If you like samples of my work, and you want to know how and why certain creative decisions were made, this is the place to start. It concentrates on the “Tribute” people story type of video, but frankly, if you can tell that kind of story, there isn’t much you won’t be able to do as you grow your capability or career.
For more information, go to videostoryschool.com.
I hope you like it and find it valuable.
Books, Business Solutions, Techniques, The AV Biz, The Basics, VideoStory Team News, tribute videos anniversary video, audio-visual, Brien Lee VideoStory, corporate video, engagement video, family video, memorial video, on-line video, retirement video, reunion video, school video, slides, slideshow, slideshows, storytelling, video production, wedding video -
A Primer on “Tribute Videos”
Posted on April 3rd, 2008 No commentsThrough the years, we’ve often gotten this question from people we respect:
"How did you learn to do that?" That, depending on the time frame, might have been slide shows, meeting openers, video tapes, DVDs, web presentations, you name it.Often, these folks, like my friend and client Jack Koller, were people who were very skilled in some aspect of what we did. As an example, Jack is an excellent photographer, so he was intrigued by how we mixed photography with sound and somehow got an audience-ready show out of that.
In later years, that person might have been a camcorder enthusiast, or a sound specialist, or even a writer.
Because of the way we started– right out of college with no formal education in what we decided to do for a living– I became more of a generalist. Plus, we could only afford so much gear. My partner Ric and I were good at certain things, but it was the holistic aspect of the audience experience where we had to be strong. In short, if the equipment was average, the end product better be above average. By not being ultimately strong at any one aspect, we offered a product that had to be more than the sum of its parts.
However, with hardly a quarter century of living under our belts, the answer to the question of "How do you do that" was often "Uh, I don’t know."
Well, having been at this for quite a while, I’ve had more time to think about it, and so I put down on paper (well, actually a PDF) my thoughts on how one assembles the kind of video I love to do most– the tribute video.
A tribute video honors an individual, either on a personal level or a business level. It looks at their life, their achievements, their family lineage, their ups and downs. Ultimately it is a celebration. It is usually emotional, and usually has real impact on an audience. It’s pretty much how I got my start.
So today, we quietly launched the sale of our book,
“Tribute Videos for Love & Money”, which is really a book about how
to tell a video story, or more bluntly, how to make really good videos.
It uses as it’s main examples “tribute videos”. But the lessons are far more universal.
It is 120 pages or so, generously illustrated, and is accompanied by tutorials and samples, some ready now, some ready soon. The layout and design by Diane Wilson compliments the warmth of the subject matter.
I hope you’ll consider looking at what the book has to offer and
perhaps purchasing a copy for your family video-maker, your company
video people, or yourself. There are a lot of good ideas in it, and a
pretty good explanation of the philosophies and structures of
videomaking we have been using for the past 35 years. Go here: http://www.videostoryschool.com.I will be mailing a copy to current clients. But if you can’t wait, email me and I’ll zap one out to you electronically right away.
Thanks
Brien Lee
