VIDEO?!

I just finished the best training I think I've ever received with the folks with Story4.org

I had a week's notice that I was going to the Houston Chronicle for a week of video training. My only video experience was my raw video from the Press Park story about a year ago. When I arrived I could not have been happier to find out who our teachers were. For the first 2 days we had Geri Migielicz, the DOP at the San Jose Mercury News, Todd Feeback, a photographer with the Kansas City Star, and Cliff Schiappa, a long time photographer and former Midwest photo editor with the Associated Press in Kansas City. On Wednesday, we were sad to see Geri go but two of the best in the biz arrived to take her place: Richard Koci Hernandez, formerly with the San Jose Mercury News now teaching at UC Berkeley, and Mercury News photojournalist Dai Sugano. Need I say more?

They are not at any fault for the quality of my videos, they did all they could with me. I got a ton of practical video knowledge but most of all I got truly inspired and excited about video. I'm seeing things in entirely new ways.

If your newspaper is going to invest in training for still photographers, get the folks at story4! They are great teachers, are incredibly patient and teach practical knowledge since they are actually doing what we will be asked to do every day. And, if you do their workshop, you will spend at least part of one day laughing hysterically (I'm not supposed to post that video) while gaining confidence that you can actually do this.

For our first exercise, we were sent out to do a sequence, following someone in action, looking for details. I came back drenched with sweat and whining to Geri that I am a total failure and I thought I did a terrible job. Richard helped me edit and it was at least not humiliating. I'm posting these in hopes that there will be some sort of evidence of growth, from this starting point.

I saw this man in the lobby of the Houston Chronicle paying for his subscription (yay!) and knew I had to photograph him. He was heading to the bus stop so I followed him for my sequence. We weren't supposed to worry about the audio on this one.




Sequencing: Bus Stop from Lisa Krantz on Vimeo.


We had about 4 hours over 2 days to shoot our "feature story." We were supposed to only shoot 10 minutes of tape per day but that proved impossible for me. I was on my way to Starbucks in the tunnels beneath the Chronicle when I met a security guard named Victory. She works in the darkest part of the building but brightens it with her personality. Thank you Dai for the editing help!



Victory from LK on Vimeo.