How did you get your start?

[Chris Northcross]

How do you get into newspaper video in the first place? Were you a reporter that made the jump or a photgrapher that was pressed into doing double duty? Or are you new to the newspaper video scene?

I'm eager about the possibilities and opportunities that exist with newspaper video and interested in hearing the many avenues people traveled to arrive where they are.

[Chuck Fadely]

Hi Chris - Many of us doing video now were staff photographers and changed over to video. Finding that I could tell a great story without depending on a reporter's words was a liberating and exhilarating discovery for me.

At my paper, we trained over a hundred people to shoot video. Sadly, many (if not most,) are gone now and those who are left have little time to put into making videos. Our remaining core staff of videographers are all photographers, though we have a couple of sports reporters and one or two news reporters who regularly shoot video, as well.

I'm afraid the opportunities at newspapers will continue to shrink, but the demand for news video keeps expanding in other fields.

[David Berman / sitbonzo]

I was the chief photographer and, much inspired by people like Chuck relished the move into MMedia. I was pretty good at it if I do say so myself. I love (ed) the whole 9 yards. Shooting for the edit, collecting audio thinking thinking thinking. I was a uplifted and delightfully challenged with this change in direction. I became the evangalist.
I still believe the web is the direction we need to head in but like everybody, the cuts came to visit us and, those upstairs made noises that having a shooter off the rota editing (sitting in a room arsing about is I think what they thought) was no longer acceptable.
I had trained myself, funded the equiptment to the tune of about $8k. Inspired those around me to upskill and offered to train shooters and even reporters. Broadcast live snow storm video and was lauded in the trade press as one of the first to bring soundslides to the UK.

After the redundancies, I am now a jobbing photographer at a sister paper. My pleas to be given a brief to train accross the group didnt get a reply.

I am currently in a quandry as the new team are very keen on MM. I have been kicked so hard in the cahones that I have taken my vidcam, mics and lights out of the car and left them under the stairs.

I had a fantasy at one stage of doing a grand tour of the US stopping off for a few days with guys like Chuck and Joe (soundslides) Joining the Platypus workshop and telling stories all the way up route 1.

Maybe when I get my MOJO back and the market gets a little better I may dig around under the stairs and grab my gear and call the airmiles guys.

[Chuck Fadely]

Oh, man David, I wondered why I hadn't heard much from you lately... I didn't realize the plague upon the newspaper industry had hit you, too.

Do what you have to to earn a living and do what you can to keep your sanity. I just shot a movie during a film festival this past week to do something outside the paper. There's lots of stuff to do with multimedia outside newspapers!

[David Berman / sitbonzo]

Thanks Chuck. I was hoping that with all this new spare time I would self motivate some interesting projects and indeed, I have a few in mind. But, sat in the car all day with no one to talk to and not much to do leaves one without the desire to do anything.

[Chuck Fadely]

Don't let depression kill your creativity! One step. Just take one step toward something fun... it's hard. Really hard. But it's harder to let creativity turn to bile; it eats you up from the inside. Do a promo video for yourself. Update your website. Do a piece for your charity of choice. Do a cantankerous video flame on the state of the news industry and post it to youtube anonymously. Go work on a movie set. It doesn't matter what.

[David Berman / sitbonzo]

done. I'm on it. ;-)