Saturday, May 30, 2015

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












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