Could Multimedia Story-telling be the new journalism? Who are its clients and how to survive commercially with it?
All highly relevant questions that have been asked a lot recently.
Brian Storm, founder and executive producer of MediaStorm, came up with some assured answers during his fascinating presentation at the Frontline Club.
Being passionate about stills photography, he was shocked to learn that newspaper readers spend no more than 0,6 seconds on average looking at an image. He believes that good photography has so much information contained in it that it deserves to be taken in thoroughly. One way of gently forcing viewers to engage with a photograph beyond a cursory glance is to embed it in a multimedia story, where the makers of the piece decide how long the image remains in front of the viewers’ eyes.
Here is one example of multimedia photography projects that he showed to illustrate the kind of work MediaStorm does.
He touched upon some ways to structure a multimedia story to make it compelling viewing: establish empathy with the character(s), using body language, which makes up 80 percent of communication. He spoke about ‘back-timing’, having an element in the imagery that challenges a statement that has just been made. Visual sequences should be little essays, moving without extreme cuts from wide to extreme close-up. Make sure that in cuts the viewer’s eyes can stay in the same place and remain on the point of interest. Take stills in the same format as the video, 16:9, to avoid letter-boxing or crops in the edited piece, and finally, be as ruthless in editing by subtraction as you would be when selecting your portfolio.
Just as interesting is the business model of MediaStorm with four lines for diversity: publication, project specific agency work, production work for others, and teaching online and in workshops. Interestingly, MediaStorm content is available without charge to embed in online publications for the desired reach. In order to show a whole project (story, supplementary stories, photographer’s epilogue) with or without subtitles in several languages, with easy access to options like forward, comment, access to transcripts in several languages, buy related photography books or get involved, MediaStorm has developed its own media player. This code is available to embed free of charge, as long as it’s not tampered with, which means that MediaStorm monetises every view of the story anywhere online, as it and the advertising is running off MediaStorm’s website. To prevent abuse, the back-end control is pure genius: anyone who embeds the player gets a unique ID within the code, and if any tampering with the code is detected, MediaStorm can switch that particular embed off from their end.
Editorial work for partners proved to be particularly interesting as NGOs and non-profit organisation begin to seek partnerships with journalists rather than straight marketing to get their message out. They want awareness raised by people who know how to get a story in depth, i.e. journalists, and even tend to pay more for such projects than regular editorial clients. Also, this can develop into long-term partnerships with updates and new stories in the future.
Due to the huge amount of really interesting information there was little time for questions. One that was particuarly relevant to photographers ‘crossing over’ raised the issue of video work compromising the stills photography. Storm replied that one needed to allow enough time for ‘hunting’ (getting the right stills) and ‘fishing’ (filming).
It was certainly one of the most informative and positive presentations about journalism and its future forms that this blogger has seen.
Brian Storm, founder and executive producer of MediaStorm, came up with some assured answers during his fascinating presentation at the Frontline Club.
Being passionate about stills photography, he was shocked to learn that newspaper readers spend no more than 0,6 seconds on average looking at an image. He believes that good photography has so much information contained in it that it deserves to be taken in thoroughly. One way of gently forcing viewers to engage with a photograph beyond a cursory glance is to embed it in a multimedia story, where the makers of the piece decide how long the image remains in front of the viewers’ eyes.
Here is one example of multimedia photography projects that he showed to illustrate the kind of work MediaStorm does.
In Rwanda, in 1994, Hutu militia committed a bloody genocide, murdering one million Tutsis. Many of the Tutsi women were spared, only to be held captive and repeatedly raped. Many became pregnant. Intended Consequences tells their stories. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/publication/intended-consequences
He touched upon some ways to structure a multimedia story to make it compelling viewing: establish empathy with the character(s), using body language, which makes up 80 percent of communication. He spoke about ‘back-timing’, having an element in the imagery that challenges a statement that has just been made. Visual sequences should be little essays, moving without extreme cuts from wide to extreme close-up. Make sure that in cuts the viewer’s eyes can stay in the same place and remain on the point of interest. Take stills in the same format as the video, 16:9, to avoid letter-boxing or crops in the edited piece, and finally, be as ruthless in editing by subtraction as you would be when selecting your portfolio.
Just as interesting is the business model of MediaStorm with four lines for diversity: publication, project specific agency work, production work for others, and teaching online and in workshops. Interestingly, MediaStorm content is available without charge to embed in online publications for the desired reach. In order to show a whole project (story, supplementary stories, photographer’s epilogue) with or without subtitles in several languages, with easy access to options like forward, comment, access to transcripts in several languages, buy related photography books or get involved, MediaStorm has developed its own media player. This code is available to embed free of charge, as long as it’s not tampered with, which means that MediaStorm monetises every view of the story anywhere online, as it and the advertising is running off MediaStorm’s website. To prevent abuse, the back-end control is pure genius: anyone who embeds the player gets a unique ID within the code, and if any tampering with the code is detected, MediaStorm can switch that particular embed off from their end.
Editorial work for partners proved to be particularly interesting as NGOs and non-profit organisation begin to seek partnerships with journalists rather than straight marketing to get their message out. They want awareness raised by people who know how to get a story in depth, i.e. journalists, and even tend to pay more for such projects than regular editorial clients. Also, this can develop into long-term partnerships with updates and new stories in the future.
Due to the huge amount of really interesting information there was little time for questions. One that was particuarly relevant to photographers ‘crossing over’ raised the issue of video work compromising the stills photography. Storm replied that one needed to allow enough time for ‘hunting’ (getting the right stills) and ‘fishing’ (filming).
It was certainly one of the most informative and positive presentations about journalism and its future forms that this blogger has seen.
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