Shameless self promotion

June 6, 2008

Robert Cronkleton of The Kansas City Star emailed me late last month with a really encouraging message. He said I could share it here.

I just wanted to drop a quick line to thank you for the NewsVideographer website. The material you and your contributors provide is invaluable. I was recently given a video camera — training is to be coming some time soon. Armed with the knowledge I’ve gleaned from the website, I was able to capture video that was edited by our video department to go along with a photo and story I did about a radio station’s promotion to sell cheap gas. It was part of my early morning shift we have to attract readers to the website. I’m sure someone with more training could have done a better job, but the important thing for me is I wasn’t doing this a month ago. The video added to our morning coverage on a slow news day …

Thanks again for your website and its contributors. It is a great resource and I’m sure that with what I’m learning from your website and training that will be coming, I will be able to do better videos to add depth to my storytelling.

Here’s the video that Robert shot:

I thought the interviews were very good … Emotional, interesting, excited people. They definitely explained what was happening.

I wish I could have seen more of what was happening for myself. Robert says he knows that he needed to shoot more broll. That’s a very common mistake for new video shooters. I think it’s good that Robert made the mistake and he realized it … It’s only his first video, and I know he’ll do better in the future because he’ll be thinking about this one. I think these previous critiques may provide some help:

I’m very happy that this blog has helped him, and others like him. It’s the whole point of this web site. It can sometimes get really hard to keep this up because I have a full time job, and I blog on my own time. When I get tired and dragged down, it can feel like a real burden. But when I get notes like the one Robert sent to me, I get a burst of energy. I feel like it’s worth it.

Robert, thank you!

UPDATE: added links to previous critiques.

This is a post from News Videographer.

Shameless self promotion