How to shoot a movie from Bakersfield.com

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Bakersfield.com continues to point the way for newspaper video.

Today, they posted and teased to in print a “how-to” on video making. The obvious goal, but unstated, is to encourage user-generated video.

How to make a movie.

It was shot with a Casio P&S (actually, turns out this was shot a Canon XL), which is smart because they’re not putting on airs, showing up, intimidating users by using equipment users are not likely to own.

I also learned today that Bakersfield.com is posting many of its pieces on YouTube as the “bakotube” user account. I think they should also tag their content with bakotube and encourage local users to do the same. There’s not a lot of views on their stuff, but I think if they promoted “bakotube” more, it would be a nice way to expand their multimedia reach and drive participation.

When I visited Bakotube, I found this classic Bob Price commercial promoting Bakersfield.com. The local TV stations refused to run it. I think it was the line, “why would you watch television anymore?” that pissed them off. HA-HA!

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7 thoughts on “How to shoot a movie from Bakersfield.com”

  3. Thanks for sharing Howard. This is a great way to educate viewers. I love it.

    Not to beat a dead horse (from our last exchange), but I’m impressed by the quality of the recording of this P&S here. My coworkers were huddled around your blog today watching this video and comparing the quality to a P&S that I’m testing right now and debating the same thing you, Seth and I did yesterday — does ease of use trump quality? (I still want the best we can get, but we don’t have the funds to buy the broadcast quality yet.)

    The one we are testing, a PureDigital Point & Shoot Camcorder, is so user friendly, but the video is all choppy and the audio is poor — you hear the reporter much clearer than the person you’re interviewing. Quite frustrating.

    Given our budget constraints, I’d like to find out more about the Casio P&S. I did a search on your site but couldn’t find specific recommendations. Thanks for any help.

  4. I just noticed this comment … You probably posted this after I made a correction to my post. After I posted, I got a note informing me that some of the video for this piece was shot with the Canon XL. That said, some of it was shot with the Casio. It’s pretty instructive, I think, that the visual quality of the two cameras are quite comparable (after compression).

    I’ve only ever used the Sony Cybershots for video, which is what I first introduced to Bakersfield.com last year. Since then, they discovered the Casio cameras. Davin McHenry (who’s blog is linked on my Buddy List, can fill you in on the details of those cameras. As I understand it, the video is slightly better, but more importantly, it’s easier to drag the files off the memory card.

    If you’re looking for a camera to arm reporters with as an “always carry” item, I still think this is the way to go. Bigger cameras, mics, tripods, etc. can be dragged out for the appropriate narrative/documentary story.

  5. BTW: You’ll note that in the “the movie” the shot of Jen outside Dagney’s with her coffee is over saturated. I’ve noticed with the P&S cameras that one of the lighting issues to watch for is too much sunlight. The Casio handled this better than a sunlight shot I did once with my Cybershot, but it’s still subpar (the Cybershot video was horribly pixelated).

  6. Thanks for the feedback, Howard. Goes without saying, I’m sure, but the added benefit of using something like the Cybershot or Casio is that the reporters can take still photos as well. This other product we were testing only did video.

    I had a reporter test a Cybershot today and she was so excited to try it. She said she found it to be less intimidating for her to use. And, interestingly enough, less intimidating to the people she was interviewing. That’s something I hadn’t thought about before.

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