Third Revelation: Smartphone Video

So, if you want your revelations in order, start with the post, "First Revelation."  
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Third -3rd- Revelation

OK, so now it's a year later, May 2015 (man am I good a keeping up with my blog or what?)

A small tornado struck Broken Arrow, OK.  Once again, I called the Weather Channel. Now, I knew a national news organization would use video shot with my smartphone.  

I still can't believe it, but this year there is a twist.  Only last week, I started learning how to use Dropbox (only two years behind my daughter who was a senior at UCO).  Now could I send bigger, higher-quality files faster?  If I did, where would they go?  If they went there, how would anyone else find them, let alone put them on the air?  I still don't know the answer to these questions.

My first job was to be on the air a few times doing phone reports for The Weather Channel.  They introduced me as an NBC producer, since NBC owns them.  I guess that's not a lie, since I work for NBC as a freelancer.  But it made my head quite big until I thought, "Now can I pull off getting them the video?"

After clicking around on my iPhone's sending capabilities and Dropbox's mysterious tabs, I found the right combinations to send and receive videos.

Cover video:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f37ob5ikwsrzx06/CoverVid2-Cole.MOV?dl=0

Interview:  Yes, if you have four walls to block the wind, stand close and cup your hands around the phone, you, too, can get decent-tolerable audio.  It is even better if you have a roof, which this lady did not.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fsoao779gxbcgev/INTV-Carol%20Cole.MOV?dl=0

Second Revelation: Smartphone Video

So, if you think the top of my head came off last year, imagine what happened a year later on April 29, 2014.  I was watching Travis "what's his name?" on KOTV, and he said two had died in Northeast Oklahoma in the town of Quapaw.  I called The Weather Channel and they hired me to be a freelance field producer, which I've been doing for NBC and ABC News since 2006.  Imagine my surprise on arriving about midnight, and they told me they did not have a photographer.  "What kind of VIDEO camera do you have?" the assignments editor asked.

I said, "I don't have a video camera."

The assignments editor inquired further, "Do you have a smartphone?"

Feeling the bulge in my pocket, I thought, "I can't use that, can I?"

He said, yes, use that.  "O.K.," I ventured.

So, that's how I discovered my iPhone 5 was a 1080p, high definition, video camera.  Soon I learned that as long as I did not do any quicks pans, I could get good quality video.  Later the next day, it dawned on me that I might put together a whole reporter package-PKG.   I wrote this PKG in my car and, a few weeks later, voiced and edited it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWxuisIskGU&index=2&list=PLVdaPMeENCoyr9y38gWpchmXoMlz0PgAN

As you can tell, the audio is terrible when a slight wind blows.  However, if you get out of the wind, you can get pretty good sound by cupping your hands around the ends of the phone and standing about 1 to 2 feet away.  Look at the color, too, just natural room light, overhead fluorescents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTwyHOqFMPw&index=1&list=FLWtVUUI1Qw0Dg3kbTEwmLUw

Oops, I forgot.

Oops, I remembered.
Backing up one year in time to June, 2012, I attended the Poynter Institute's "Teachapalooza," hate the name but love the result. Without it, I honestly don't know how I would have integrated new media into my classes.  I guess I would have had to tell myself that sticking with the basics of good writing and good shooting is mostly what matters.  Well, I would have been right, but I also would have been "blind, deaf and dumb," but no pinball wizard.  In other words, to ignore how young people and now middle-aged people are engaging media would have been negligent.  At Poynter, I learned about things like Twitter, WordPress, Tumblr, screencast-o-matic, glifs, owlys and other attachments to turn my smartphone into a news-gathering miracle.  I also gained the courage to require students to use their smartphones and Facebook to shoot and publish news. The instructors at Poynter convinced me to tell the students to do it and they would figure it out.  I didn't have to be the master of new media to require new media in my courses.  That was my first year at Poynter, summer, 2012.  My second year at Poynter, June 2013, I attended the "Backpack Journalism" seminar to learn about shooting video with DSLR cameras, Canon 5Ds, and editing video with Adobe Premiere.  To prove I have no shame, click on the link.

Shooting video with a "still" camera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3aMyvw3IoE

First Revelation: Smartphone Video

By 2013, my new media skills had progressed, so I was only two years behind my students. However, I have done some things they have not done. When I covered the drought-driven grassfires in NE Oklahoma in June 2013, I was eerily aware that I was stepping across the divide between past and future.  Had the top of my skull not popped off due to revelation, I would be able to recount to you how I was able to get the following video out of my cellphone and to NBC News.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0xqo_gScY0&list=PLVdaPMeENCoyr9y38gWpchmXoMlz0PgAN&index=1


In the summer of 2013, the fresh air was reaching my brain.