Tweet

In the fall of of 2011 I was approached by Save the Children to help tell a story. This story would be an ordinary story — a snapshot into the lives of five different people. However, those five people were not exactly ordinary. The subjects all had physical or mental handicaps.

But what was ordinary about these people — was their desire to live life to its fullest. They wanted the same things all other Chinese people wanted. They wanted jobs and financial security. They wanted a husband or wife. And they wanted to be treated equally and with dignity. While their lives were a little different, they were in many ways the same as all other people.

“We Are Different, We Are the Same” is a web documentary created to help break down barriers and stigmas surrounding China’s large disabled population.

In China today over 80 million people have been born with or have developed a physical or mental disability. In some cases their disability has stopped them having access to standard education and employment, but mostly it is the assumptions others have about their abilities and the discrimination they face in all areas of life which holds them back.

Through contributions from Save the Children China, the European Union and Kingfisher — friend and journalist Kit Gillet and myself got the opportunity to help create short videos to help show this ordinary side of China’s disabled population. We didn’t want to portray these people as heroes or create sympathy. Instead, the idea was to show the actual reality of their lives — and minimize superficial and sensational ideas surrounding them.

Toward the end of the main feature Li Weihong, Vice Chairman of the China Association of the Blind says:

“I think disabled people can participate equally in normal life and through their efforts help others. I think having a disability is not bad luck but simply an inconvenience. We can do a great job and be involved completely and equally, as long as we are provided with a barrier-free environment and help in overcoming our disabilities.”

This quote summed up a big part of our goal. While showing the ordinary side of these people, we also had to show the different side — as well as the challenging side.

We wanted to make an integrated video package which would allow a big picture view — but also give the opportunity to see the individual peoples lives. With the help of Save the Children we found five subjects in Beijing, Anhui and Sichuan who we could spend some time with filming their daily routines. After filming them we found a couple experts to ask about issues surrounding China’s disabled population. This accumulated to about 1 TB of footage which we split up into six videos. The first, embedded above is the main piece titled “We Are DIfferent, We Are the Same.”

This 10-minute feature gives an over view of the current situation for disabled people living in China. After piecing this together, we made five additional short four-minute videos that show the ordinary aspects of the people’s lives seen in this film.

The video profiles include a visually impaired stenographer in Beijing, a teacher in Hefei with brittle bone syndrome, a mentally handicapped chef outside of Beijing, a boy with cerebral palsy in Fuyang and a ping-pong playing, car washing man in Chengdu. We talked to their families, their spouses and their friends and coworkers. We saw their daily triumphs and hardships while at the same time, saw how society was viewing them as they went through their daily routines.

I believe the situation for disabled people China is immensely better than in was in the past. However, the population still faces great hardships and barriers to having normal lives. Many of these hardships come from China’s infrastructure and environment.

Li Weihong, goes on to say:

“The biggest problem, As I see it, is to form an environment where the blind can see, the deaf can hear and where the physically-handicapped can get around. If that can happen then the disabilities of those with handicaps will be gone and they can live a life like any other person.”

I Believe Weihong is talking about more than a physical environment here. And while it is easy to look at China as a developing country with issues that need tending, I think many of these same issues still exist in the West.

Please enjoy “We Are DIfferent, We Are the Same” and help share these videos with people of all countries to help create greater awareness of issues facing disabled people around the planet.

Barriers and stigmas can only be broken with dialogue and awareness.

Check back throughout this week for the five shorter video profiles.

Jonah

Tweet

Murong Xuecun is one of the least boring people I have ever met.

He is energetic. He is dynamic. He is impressively clever. And in the last year, he has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of censorship in China.

However, he is a writer.

And when New York Times’ correspondent Edward Wong first mentioned he was writing an in-depth feature on Murong, I initially doubted an accompanying video component would help add much value to the package. I did some background research and found articles with pictures of the young writer. Nearly every single one showed the author looking at a computer in some form or another, 3 out of 4 being a silhouetted picture of the back of his head with the computer out of focus or him at an internet café.

The still images I saw were far from inspiring. I imagined a video full of talking heads, with sequences of static imagery that would inevitably go on for too long and drive viewers to click away.

But right before I decided it wasn’t worth making the video, I read this speech Murong had recently given. Words started jumping off the page:

This is castrated writing. I am a proactive eunuch, I castrate myself even before the surgeon raises his scalpel. Our language has been cut into two parts: one safe, and the other risky. Some words are revolutionary, and others are reactionary; some words we may use, and others belong to our enemies.

And just like that, I was hooked. This person was clearly an outspoken agent calling for change and reform in his society. All of a sudden Murong turned from a writer into an incendiary subject on a hot topic. I jumped on board and got to thinking — how do I make a person who is visually boring interesting? And my first inspiration came directly from the same speech. Toward the top of his speech, Murong said:

From my many years’ experience in writing and publishing, I could compile a Sensitive Words Glossary, in which you would certainly find the words “system,” “law,” “government,” as well as a large number of other nouns, several verbs, quite a few adjectives, and even a few special numbers. The glossary would also include all names of religions, all names of important people, all countries, including of course China, and also the phrase “Chinese people.”

On the backend of the speech, the author continued:

If there really were a Sensitive Words Glossary, I hope that it could be published; in this way at least we could all save a lot of time, and reduce the possibility of unwittingly committing “word crimes.”

Sitting in a small airport in Burlington, Vermont on my way back to China I thought — maybe I can help him publish this list of sensitive words. I dreamed up a bunch of scenarios of how I could visualize a list of words and eventually came to the conclusion that I should let this man say the words that ordinarily he can’t say.

This train of thought continued to a greater concept on voiceovers vs subtitles. While most international news videos get a voiceover treatment, I started thinking it would be completely ironic to mute the man, when he is in fact, talking about words which he can not use. I decided subtitles were more appropriate which then opened up more doors for cinematic storytelling and made it a little easier to justify adding music to a news piece. Although I was excited to make the piece, I was still a bit worried about keeping it moving and wanted the music to keep the piece from drying up.

Now, regardless of the man’s profession, I had a hot subject and an idea for a snappy intro. I had music to help move the piece in a rhythmic narrative and a logic behind how I would represent his opinions visually.

And while I knew I had to shoot him writing or at the computer, I also knew I wanted to get him out of the context where we are used to seeing writers. When you get stuck shooting a “boring” person (or one, who doesn’t do anything visually exciting) I think this is a great exercise to find a new physical environment. Simply, get them out of the physical environment where they normal are or where we expect to see them. It doesn’t matter where — just someplace else. I wanted to see him interacting with people, and when I found out he was going out to dinner with some journalists and human rights lawyers, I was ecstatic when I got the invite to tag along.

This was the trickiest part of the video — both visually and narratively. How to link the home interviews, the writing visuals and a bunch of guys at dinner. With some thinking, it was easy enough to have narration lead the story into the restaurant, but shooting this was much more tricky.

There’s a Zoom H1 hidden on the table near the bear drinking, cigarette-smoking intellectuals. I have a 60D switching between a Gorilla Pod, a tripod and the in-table lazy susan. In addition, I had a 5DMII on a shoulder rig. And while I didn’t leave a camera rolling the entire time, I did leave the audio rolling. When I got back, I synched all of the audio with the video clips I had, and although I had tons of great dialogue, in the end I just grabbed one meaty quote that allowed me to jump from frame to frame anachronistically. Had I used multiple quotes or too much back and forth dialogue, I would have been forced into using more real time footage. Using just one quote allowed me to use some of my favorite visuals from the entire night.

With the intro set and multiple environments in the bank, I just needed to shoot the interviews. Knowing that I was at risk of having a boring video, I kept two cameras rolling continually during the interviews so when it came time to cut, I could keep all my frames short and bounce between a Canon 50mm f/1.2 and a Canon 24mm f/1.4.

With the credit roll, intro and title sequence, the video came out at 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Keeping voiceover out, adding music, using multiple environments and multiple cameras rolling during interviews, I hope I succeeded in making a visually “boring” person interesting.

And while I can’t answer that question for you, I can say the greater lesson I took away from this project was the potential assets we gain from simply researching what our subjects have to say, have said and what they might want to say.

MORE ON MURONG XUECUN:

• Read Edward Wong’s story “Pushing China’s Limits on Web, if Not on Paper”
• An Excerpt from ‘Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu’
• More on Murong: Words We Can Use, and Those We Can Not

Tweet

NOTE FROM JONAH: The following blog post is a guest lecture I am giving to the International Multimedia Journalism MA in Beijing, Wednesday night. The course is based in Beijing, and is a collaboration between the Beijing Foreign Studies University and the University of Bolton in the UK. The course leader is Dr DJ Clark.

DISCLAIMER 1: Dear Biel Calderon, Stephanie Thiedig, Mark Esplin, Joseph Djima, Dirk Claus, Jeff Kennel, Lui Chen, Tracey Shelton, Michela Orlandi, Yi Song, Lee Ryan Perkins, Chen Mai, DJ Clark, Sharon Lovell and BFSU social media and photography students,

In talking about online promotion for photographers, there is no correct answer. There are certainly best practices, things to avoid and techniques to help, but the information that follows this note is simply my quasi-guerilla (social) warfare technique that I employ to promote me, my photography and my business. The online atmosphere for #togs is constantly changing and in many ways, to stay up to date with the blogosphere, microblogosphere and visual communities — would be a full time job. While we have other full time jobs already, doing every step below, every day, is simply not always possible … but we can sure try.

DISCLAIMER 2: Yes, I am promoting myself, by talking about promotion.

WHY SHOULD WE PROMOTE OURSELVES?

The first question we might ask before we get into how I go about promoting myself, might be — why should we promote ourselves?

We are currently living in an over-saturated photographic world. Nothing says this better than the latest iPhone update. While the phone has improved a small bit, the big push from Apple this round was a photographic update. For $399 mobile phone users now have an 8MP camera and a video camera shooting 1080P at 30 fps. Apple’s attention to this detail (over some more practical things) is certainly a testament to the world’s current obsession with photography.

Given that the average meathead has at least 8 MP in their pocket, and thousand of talented graduates come out of J-school, photography school or multimedia programs like yourselves every year, it becomes increasingly important that we as professionals not only separate ourselves from the general amateur photo community, but also within the professional community.

By promoting ourselves efficiently we gain two things. First and most importantly, we gain eyes on our work. Second and also most importantly, we gain income. While some will disagree, our work is heavily based on technology that is constantly changing and improving. To keep these toys in our hands, we need money. Increasing our revenues to keep up with technology is important (as is money to live comfortably while tackling this competitive world).

While no one will put a knife to your throat saying “promote!!!” there is a great risk in not promoting because everyone else will be doing it. This has a semi-swing effect for photographers who don’t have web sites, have no Google klout or place in online social communities. At least from the public perception and online eye, you could become buried under those who do. For some this is very tough. I have plenty of friends who truly dislike social media and online promotion — but who are great photographers. You can chose not to play the game, but given the online environment for #togs, you are walking a slippery line.

PREPRODUCTION AND ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNALISM: YOURNAME.COM

When I was going through J-school I was always told — if you are looking for money, you might want to try the business school across campus. Post univisity, in my first years as a staffer at newspapers I was paid the equivalent of peanuts by Swift Communications, a chain of newspapers in America’s west.

While you probably won’t become a millionaire by being a photojournalist, for the entrepreneurial journalist there is a world of financial opportunity out there. To get a piece of this, you need to think about your images, as your business.

Freelancers often think about themselves as independent contractors going from job to job. This is true. However, what you are really doing is creating a business. So whether you sell cupcakes, lemonade or photos — you should have a plan. Brand yourself as your business. Branding is essential to any business.

The first step to this branding, is creating a web site. And the first step in creating a web site is creating a name for your web site. I see a lot of questionable decisions at this early stage of the game.

Do you want to brand your name or some other abstract title? For example, you might have a portfolio site that has lots of breathtaking photos form Asia. You want a web site to show case this work and call it “asiaphoto.com.” Now, let’s say this site becomes popular. The average person will now know asiaphoto.com instead of your name (.com). I see this very often with nascent production companies and individuals who chose a name which makes them look like companies. In the much more likely scenario that the business doesn’t succeed, you’ve also wasted time branding a business that doesn’t exist anymore, while you as a person, photographer and business — will always exist.

My first web site was called kesselimaging.com. This site branded “Kessel Imaging” which was actually just me. After a couple years I decided to pull the plug and stop wasting time promoting an ephemeral brand, and instead brand me (a real person … I think) and moved my branding efforts to jonahkessel.com.

• For more on entrepreneurial journalism check out Steve Buttry’s post “Jonah Kessel and Carmen Sisson discuss entrepreneurship and photojournalism” here.

STEP ONE: YOUR ONLINE BACKBONE

The backbone to my online presence is my web site (not to be confused with my blog, photoblog, microblog, etc.). First, in no way does Facebook “cut it” as “your website”. Neither does Flickr, Picasa or some other photo sharing site.

I meet photographers almost daily who don’t have personal Web sites. Many of these folks will have Flickr pages or Facebook pages — but don’t be confused, these become largely invisible to the public eye, expanded social networks and bots who will be your friends in getting visitors, clients and eyes on your work.

While bots are increasingly indexing social media, by hosting your works on these sites, you end up promoting them, sometimes more than yourself. They gain traffic. They gain Google status. And perhaps worst off,they can gain the rights to your media. On an subconscious level or psychological level, hosting your content exclusively on a social media site such as Facebook or Flickr, can create an unprofessional association with your work.

BEST PRACTICES FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS CORE WEB SITES: The top five concerns I have with my site, and also the top four problems I see with other photographers’ sites are: usability, compatibility, search-ability, share-ability and load times. Let’s quickly go through these elements:

• USABILITY: On a basic level, your web site should be easy to use. In fact, it should be so easy to use — an idiot should be able to navigate. For the busy client who is checking dozens of photographers’ sites, fancy and hidden buttons can turn mean a click off or closed tab.
• COMPATIBILITY: Your web site should function not only across all browsers but all platforms — and for all users. jonahkessel.com may look like a flash built site, but there’s more than meets the eye backstage. Underneath the flash site is a mirror HTML site for users who don’t have flash as well as for bots who are indexing content. There is also a site for mobile users, a site for tablet users and another site for disabled users.
• SEARCH-ABILITY: Photographers who simply have one flash built site lose a tremendous amount of traffic because bots can’t truly search the content of the site. Every image on jonahkessel.com has: (1) file names specifically labeled for SEO, keywords specifically labeled for SEO, titles specifically labeled for SEO. While this information is not contained in the flash built site, it is contained in the HTML site. When bots cruise the Web they see this information, index it and then make it available for users and potential clients browsing. Then when they click the link, the images forward to the flash built site. If your content is not searchable or findable, its almost as good as it not being there.
• SHARE-ABILITY: I’m assuming you are all children of the 21st century and understand the power of sharing. A viral video or a photo can take off putting millions of eyes on your work. Let’s hope that content links back to you — but in the meantime, let’s make sure there is a sharing button accessible ALL OF THE TIME. By not having these buttons easily accessible, or accessible at all, you are simply loosing out to potential traffic, eyes and income.
• LOAD TIMES: Unlike print journalists, our media unfortunately requires some space. It is critical to keep file sizes on videos and photos down to the smallest point possible. A long load time can be the difference between a click off and view. You could have the best content in the world, but if it takes too long to see it — no one will.

There are about a thousand choices for web sites. For the past three years I have been a client of Livebooks, a company who makes web sites for photographers. For the most part, I’ve been very satisifed. The company has lots of options including custom options. Might site is custom built off of my own functionality and front end visual design.

The company allowed me to give them the blueprints of how everything should work and look, and then they build the back end. The back end (in screenshot above) has a graphic user interface that makes managing the web site extremely simply, easy and fast. When I update the GUI, it updates the site and all mirror sites (including mobile and tablet sites). While this isn’t free — I couldn’t imagine updating 6 web sites manually every time I make a small change. The money spent on the site surely is made up in productivity time later.

In my continued efforts to brand myself as a business, the details of the site will also cross into the upcoming topics. Fontography, color schemes, link functionality and logos will be cross-branded across all of my web sites. Although these are small details and are largely ignored, the subconscious effect of branding continued out over multiple platforms turns you as an individual — into a brand.

You can sell a brand. Selling yourself is much more difficult … or illegal (in most places).

STEP TWO: YOU HAVE A SITE, NOW WHAT?

After creating jonahkessel.com, my goal was to create a continued traffic stream to it. While there are a number of ways to do this, we can split it up to a couple key categories: the blogosphere, the microblogosphere and social media communities. By engaging in these three keys elements, you will bring direct traffic to your site, while creating a Google ranking that will bring clients to your doorstep.

• BLOGOSPHERE: The site you are currently viewing is my blog, hosted by Wordpress. This site, named “Nomadically Curious Visual Thoughts” (note visual branding/attention to myname.com over title in logo) is dedicated to long form blogging and details images I take from traveling, as well as commentary about work I do. The general topics are journalism, photography, technology, video, China and travel. In an active month I will update it eighth to ten times. In a inactive month (which probably means I’m too busy to even sleep) I will update it two or three times. Since I am always working or traveling — there is never a shortage of items to blog about.

  The Wordpress community is often a more mature community and technically sound one, than some of its counterparts (i.e. Blogger, Tumblr, etc.). People who use Wordpress generally know HTML (at least enough to update a blog) and in general, the professional blogosphere is found here.

  I also host a photo blog called “Good Light and Good Luck” hosted on Tumblr. The Tumblr environment is very very different to that of the Wordpress community. In general demographics of users seem to be much younger. Narrowcasting seems to be much greater in the Tumblr environment as well. While in the Wordpress arena we see blogs on China or technology for example, on Tumblr, topics are widdled down to a much more specific level. Some of my favorite examples of narrowcasting on Tumblr include Kim Jong-il Looking at Things, Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Beiber, Fuck Yeah Girls on Bikes and Awesome People Hanging out Together.

  I do believe a monkey could use Tumblr. Its extremely simply, extremely efficient and requires no knowledge of HTML. While I target a general audience with my Wordpress, I am targeting a younger demographic with the Tumblr blog. However, my Tumblr account is linked directly to my Twitter account and Facebook account, and these are updated simultaneously to a Tumblr post.

  The photoblog I update (at least) every day. However, this process is automated. About once a month I will update the blog for the next 30 days. I program the system to release one picture a day that includes a large caption with some backstory about the photo. I initially started this blog as a simply traffic fishing device that required little effort; however, over time I have come to like the community and its ability to focus on very narrow subjects.

  My Google Analytic report for last year shows my Wordpress blog as the eighth largest traffic generator toward my mane site, and Tumblr coming in at eleventh.

• MICROBLOGOSPHERE: While my blogs rank eight and eleventh in traffic generators to my main site, microblogs are ranking much higher, coming in at third, only behind Google and direct traffic. When I talk about microblogging I am primarily talking about Twitter. I believe Twitter is the single greatest tool we have for promoting ourselves as photographers; however, without the assets listed above (site, blogs) it becomes a much different beast.

  Twitter is something that has become integrated not only into my work but my life. It is always on. While I have backed off a bit compared to where I was at about a year ago (in terms of time actually spent watching Twitter feeds), it is still an intrigal part of my life. It connects me people who see and view my work. It gives me the opportunity to let those people who do follow my work, do follow it as it develops.

  From posting cell phone photos during shoots, to talking about the process as it happens from shoot to edit, Twitter helps me create transparency in what I do. People ask me questions daily about photography, technology and the stories I am working on. As a journalist I believe transparency in our work creates exponential value to our content. When readers, viewers or users have a connection to both the content and journalist, this becomes a lot easier.

  Making Twitter an effective tool for promoting is not as simple as just placing a link to your content when it becomes available. In fact, per article you publish you might have a specific roll out plan just for Twitter in how to best promote your work. But first, you need an active community of followers and aggregators to help spread your links around. And this means actually being part of the community, helping to promote other journalists and photographers works and engaging in dialogue.

  If you have 100,000 followers, but you are not active with them — the tool will be much less powerful. However, 200 active followers can be a huge help in getting your work into their networks.

  Here’s a couple things I keep in mind when using Twitter to promote my work:

  • TIME ZONES: Your followers most likely follow many people, and probably exist in many time zones. Therefor, if you post something once at 9:00 am its probably unrealistic to think Sahid in Qatar, Jaques in France and Chen in China all see the link. This makes it necessary to post things for different audiences in different time zones. Now look at times during the day when people might most likely be online.

    Right before lunch, when desk employees are killing time before they can take off. Right after lunch, when people don’t want to do work cause they are tired and full. Maybe 45 minutes after people arrive at work and are finished checking their work emails and thinking about how long till lunch. 30 minutes before the end of the work day is another great time when the Twittesphere becomes very active.

    If you post during those times and based on different time zones, you’re sure to get a little more attention.

    However, if you post the exact same Tweet twice, or Tweet too often, you’re followers will likely be annoyed with you for clogging up streams with content they’ve already seen. There is a fine balance between tweeting often enough, but not too often to be annoying.

    To give your followers more than just your content its important to stagger tweets linking back to your content, with tweets leading elsewhere, or commentary on other people’s works. If I put out a big piece that I thought could really go viral, I would link out to it every four hours for a day, and in between link to other things. With an article that was not as important, I might do it twice in a day (once for the Eastern hemisphere and one for the West – usually separated by 12 hours exactly).

  • TIMED TWEETS: You may be thinking … well, that seems like a lot of work. And it is. However, you don’t need to be sitting next to a computer the entire day waiting for 4:30 to roll around in every time zone. Instead you can use tools to automate Twitter. For example, right now, I am talking to you; however, I have programmed Twitter to automatically send tweets out during this lecture every 10 minute pointed at one of your Web sites.

    Having a presence on Twitter during all time zones will create a bigger following in more places. So take advantage of technology and tweet while you are sleeping.

  • SEO: You only have 140 characters, and Google is watching, so make them count. Just like writing a good headline, writing a good Tweet will make be clip or pass over.
• SOCIAL COMMUNITIES: Beyond Twitter and the microblogosphere, other online social communities are critical in creating traffic to your sites. Last year, Facebook ranked fourth (only behind direct traffic, Google and Twitter) in generating traffic to jonahkessel.com. In the last six months of this year, Vimeo ranked eight, with stumbleupon, YouTube, Google+ all also ranking in the top 20.

  Social communities can build your profile independently of your web sites as well. Today (November 23, 1:52pm), I had 2,300 views on Vimeo alone. This doesn’t count YouTube, Youku and Toudu where I also host videos.

STEP THREE: BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

So far, we’ve discussed the basics of online promotion. This is the bare minimum. However, if you want to excel I believe with each article or project you produce you can have a promotion plan and weasel your content into more places. Let’s take a couple examples, going from simple to some more complicated methods.

THE TEASER: If movies can have teasers, why can’t you? As cinematic journalism increases you’ll probably see more of this. I’m currently working on a project for Save the Children documenting disabled people around China. On December 1 a series of six videos will release on a new channel on Youku to promote the NGO and the channel. The videos are funded by the European Union as well as Save the Children.

The client requested a teaser to help promote their screening as well as the upcoming online dissemination. This can be a great money maker because, hey, its easy. Most of the content will already be ready to go: edited, color graded, codec-ed, etc.

THE REEL: In the past, it was normally just cinematographers, cameraman and movie people making reels. However, in the realm of cinematic journalism putting images with music can create a great self promotional tool. Having a reel ready, also opens up the doors to working outside of the traditional journalism fields. While I am largely video based now, in the past I would still make an annual reel made up of still images.

Creating a reel can be effective and fun. However, there are many things to think about when creating one. See this post “The Science of the Reel” for more thoughts on journalists using a reel as a promotional tool.

THE GUEST BLOG: Alright, so you have a blog, a photo blog, a microblog — now its time to guest blog. I guest blog on a number of different sites, one of my favorite being DSLR News Shooter. This community is mostly film makers and visual journalists, but plenty of audience members too. The video above, which was made mostly for the fun of it — has received over 5000 views, just on this site. For taking 20 minutes out of my day to write a blog post, I would say this is worth it.

Guest blogging also opens up the door for community members of that blog, to find your blog, increasing your core audience. On all major articles I produce I try to write at least one guest blog talking about what went into the production or some type of backstory, on top of creating content for my own blog. Here’s a couple examples:

Video above, guest blog post here:CHINESE NEW YEAR GOES WITH A BANG FOR SHOOTERS JONAH KESSEL AND PAUL MORRIS WITH CANON DSLRS

PRODUCT REVIEWS: Reviewing products can benefit more than just a manufacturer. When reviewing gear, you can use your own work as an example of what can be done with the kit. By speaking out on your experience with gear and kit, you can help create dialogue for both users of technology and the creators.

In this example, I combine a product review of Kessler Crane’s Pocket Dolly, with a promotion for my own work. Guest blog post here: KESSEL ON KESSLERCRANE – JONAH KESSEL REVIEWS THE KESSLERCRANE POCKETDOLLY V2.0

PEOPLE HAVE QUESTIONS, YOU HAVE ANSWERS: People are curious. That’s a universal truth. One of my favorite new sites (which admittedly I had more time to use) is called Quora. Its a social media based Q&A site with an excellent community of experts on various subjects. As journalists we’re always (at least attempting to) answering questions. Often when I have a new story I think about what question it might be answering. For more on Quora and its potential see this post “Curious on Quora.”

In the example above, I created a video on censorship. I searched Quota for questions relating to censorship and China and found a couple that it related to. For example, one user had asked “When will China’s web censorship stop and the government’s attitude change?” While my video didn’t exactly answer this question, I did have an unused quote that I added to the conversation. I then gave some links to help push viewers from this site to my content in other places.

UTILIZING YOUR ASSETS: Often I see great content with short legs. This means, I see a great article but I don’t think the journalist (if its a freelancer) necessarily got all they could out of it. If you can promote your content efficiently, you will have the capability to make more money while getting more eyes on your content.

This means one project can have many different lives. In the fall of 2011, journalist Kit Gillet and myself created a project called “The Fate of Old Beijing.” This was an interactive project funded by the Asia Society and included three videos, a digital tour and two photo essays. You can see the project in that form here. However, we wanted more eyes on the content.

While we had an audience in the nonprofit sector, we then found a home for the video package in the editorial, or news sector. We sold the package to Global Post, who published all three videos in a series called Beijing’s vanishing act. You can see those videos here.

After a nonprofit and online newspaper — we moved to television and sold the rights to the Archeology Channel, where the videos were shown in the summer of 2011. Their posting about the series here.

Using our own contacts in the media, we started offering interviews and screenings of the films. This might seem like an obvious thing to do, but you will gain a greater audience by simply making yourself available to other journalists. Here’s some links of some of the places I interviewed, blogged or helped promote my material:

• Interview: Jonah Kessel, ‘The Fate of Old Beijing: The Vanishing Hutongs’
• Travel Site: Filmmakers Jonah Kessel and Kit Gillet examine the fate of old Beijing’s hutong
• Local listings: A documentary screening of The Fate of Old Beijing: The Vanishing Hutongs will be held alongside a dialogue at the UCCA.
• Guest blog post: THE PERILS OF SUBTITLING AND TRANSLATION IN VIDEO – JONAH KESSEL ON HIS LATEST 5DMKII PROJECT
• Photo Essay: The Vanishing Hutongs
• A converging media gray area
• Backstory — The Fate of Old Beijing: The Vanishing Hutongs
• CANCELED or CENSORED? The Fate of Old Beijing: A Vanishing World Documentary Screening & Dialog
• The Fate of Old Beijing: A Vanishing World Documentary Screening & Dialog

Beyond online media, we had enough content on this one to flip it around into a print article. As DSLR shooters, you always have the option to shoot stills and video. I often grab a still shot before I shoot video, to examen the frame. This gives me still photographs of most subjects and places I go. When video is rolling, you are grabbing quotes. So the only thing left is to fill in the details of the story where the quotes leave off.

This video appeared as a print article in UK based Geographical magazine in November of 2011, nearly six months after its first publication at the Asia Society, again — bringing in more revenue while getting more eyes on our content.

THE WIDE WIDE WORLD: You may have noticed a great variety of places mentioned above. Geographic variation can be another great asset to your content. When I publish an article, often times I think — “Ok, its published in China. Where’s next?” While publications like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal won’t make this possible, other publications have looser rules surrounding the issue.

HONG KONG: SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

In many instances this can be a great asset to you and publications. For example, it is unlikely a reader in India will read a newspaper in Hong Kong. Above, you can see an article titled “Tunnel Vision” which appear in South China Morning Post in May.

BEIJING: THAT’S BEIJING

Three months later, a slighter shorter version appeared in That’s Beijing’s August edition. The article would again be printed in Caravan, an Indian magazine. And of course, a blog post. Looking at your content as dynamic assets will get more eyes on your content while at the same time raising your profile and your income.

RE-EDIT/RE-SELL: Keeping control of the rights to your content is perhaps the most important thing you can do in repackaging and reselling. While NGO’s and the nonprofit sector don’t necessarily pay well, its usually pretty easy to control the rights to your content while helping out a good cause. Most NGOs are very happy in this scenario as it creates greater awareness of their cause. Here’s an example:

I support a couple different NGO’s, one being Shanghai Roots & Shoots. In the fall of 2011 I helped create a series of twelve, two-minute videos detailing one of their projects called “The Million Tree Project.”

The NGO paid for my expenses to travel to Inner Mongolia and film their volunteers planting trees in the desert. While there I grabbed more content that I knew would not be needed for their films, but might be useful for an additional program. In the end, I had enough content to create their videos as well as another long form piece here:

I find the nonprofit and NGO sector to be a great resource in doing ethical work while gaining assets that would otherwise be expensive and hard to find. In my experience, its pretty rare to encounter newspapers and magazines that will pay freelancers expenses (lodging, flights, food, fixers, translators). However, NGOs can do this — and as long as you can keep yourself separated as a journalist from their agenda, you can put yourself in a great position to gather unique and sellable content.

FINDING THE TIME

If the above plan sounds daunting, it is. On good days, I can get it all done. On days where hundred of emails are stacking up and the clock clicks away toward deadline, this can become tough. However, I have found the effect of my dissemination and promotional plan to be invaluable to both my career and content.

Now … Any questions? Those of you in class, ask away, those of you not in Beijing, feel free to write in questions in the comment section below or email me.

Tweet

Tweet

NOTE FROM JONAH: This is a response from a comment from a guest blog I wrote for DSLR News Shooter. See the original post here.

After finishing a couple projects for the New York Times and some shorter video pieces, I had the opportunity to do some long form video journalism for the Asia Society, once again on the topic of desertification (this now being the 14th video I’ve made on the subject).

The threat of desertification is an issue of global concern. In China, expanding deserts are taking a heavy toll on the lives and livelihoods of citizens all across the world’s most populous country. China lost approximately 660,000 squares miles of land to deserts between 2005 and 2009 alone.

While there is not one single solution to combating desertification, Kulun Qi, a dry area in northeastern Inner Mongolia, has shown signs of hope that may eventually work as an example to others adversely affected by encroaching deserts around the world.

At the Desert’s Edge documents the trials and tentative successes of a collaborative effort between locals, governmental initiatives and NGOs fighting to combat China’s growing deserts by planting vast barriers of trees.

Cinematic Journalism and the Resell

If you follow this blog, you’ll notice this footage is a re-edit and combination of twelve short videos Kit Gillet and myself made for Shanghai Roots & Shoots and Dragon TV on the Million Tree Project. I think its a good example of how to use your assets as a freelancer.

We had characters and interviews that never made the 12 previous videos, and enough content to make a completely different video with its own monetary and intrinsic value. Clients frequently ask, and sometimes demand “exclusivity.” When I say, this cost a lot more they don’t understand and are sometimes largely put off by it. However, as freelancers, our images are our assets and repackaging and reselling content can make a real difference in our incomes.

While the other videos were “short and sweet” – this one is on the long side. The request came in for a 10-minute video which was at first was a bit intimidating.

However, when you start piecing together a video, 10 minutes does go pretty quick. However, for Web purposes I believe it is on the long side. The challenge here is creating something that isn’t boring, not rushed and can hold a viewers interest for 10 minutes without them clicking on another page. Admittedly, this might be impossible.

Do people watch 10-minute videos online?

When it comes to Hulu or other online movie sites the answer is, yes. However, with news videos I believe the 10-minute mark is pretty steep.

In a recent review of Kessler Crane’s Pocket Dolly on DSLR Newsshooter, photographer Chris Gibbs commented on the film:

If I have one comment it would be about the use of these sliders. I just don’t appreciate the effect in journalism. Furthermore, over the web, the effect rarely plays back satisfactory. Just an observation from a viewers perspective!

While Chris is directly referring to the slider, I think he may be refering to cinematic news in general. Is it ok to use a jib for a news report? If I decide to setup a dolly, am I changing what’s actually happening? Are you tricking the audience? Is it less truthful? I think these are all valid questions and I can sympathize with the old-school photojournalism view here. However, the fact that people don’t follow the news and do follow movies is a good symbol to me that we need to make (as Dan Chung so elegantly says) “real life look as good as cinema,” if we are going to keep a modern audience involved with current events.

Nothing in my films is ever “setup” to the extent I tell people what to do. However, I might setup my gear with anticipation of something happening. The more you film and shoot the more predictable shots become and the better you can get at creating a cinema style news report.

Nonetheless, I think its important to think about Chris’ point in order to keep ourselves in check. Cinematic news is a fine balance between recording events with precision, without changing them and making things exciting to watch. When the photographer starts changing reality, thats when we’ve gone too far.

On the other side, if we make news videos which audience members don’t watch — then we have achieved nothing at all, except for wasting our time and someone else’s money. When the assignment came in to make a 10-minute video, it was obvious to me I had to make the video a little more cinematic than the traditional “man in front of camera” talking video, simply in order to get people to continue to watch without clicking off.

Chris has some beautiful images from Alaska and beyond. Check out his site here.

Tweet

As a video journalist I’m frequently approached by people asking me to come film — whatever it is they have that’s going on. A Chinese rock band, a new brand or some really exciting business conference are the usual suspects. These people often think their event would be so fun to film, that I would love to do it — for free.

Sadly these people are mistaken, and generally speaking whatever guest speaker is at the “Annual Chinese Conference of Bilateral Business” is not actually that interesting.

However, last week while at a small bar in Beijing a Québécoise approached me and told me he had built a device out of a tricycle that could paint Chinese characters on the ground with water droplets as it was peddled. I stopped for a second and thought about it and my first question was — why?

And his answer was … “because!”

Meet French Canadian Media Artist Nicholas Hanna. This guy decided to build a device for no reason, that doesn’t really serve a clear purpose. So, I decided, this would also be a good time to create a video just “because.”

I wanted to keep it short, sweet and corky. An afternoon filming, a weird soundtrack with an upright bass and a didgeridoo and some editing and we had this fun device on film.

Ironically, I found the best way to film this strange contraption — was on another tricycle, peddled by the days assistant Annie Sallaberry. Now picture both of these tricycles peddling through the old streets of Beijing and you can imagine we were quite the spectacle. As we filmed, people would actually just start following us down the street as if we were the Pied Piper of Chinese people.

As working visual journalists I think its a really great exercise do go out and shoot stuff for fun. Its really easy to get in the habit of only shooting when working. But this two day project was a lot of fun and helped me get back to my roots a bit. It reminded me why we do this in the first place — because its fun.

So — for no reason at all, enjoy.

Kit List for this Project:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
• Canon EOS 60D
• Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM
• Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM
• Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
• Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro
• Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
• Franken-Rig made from Ikan, Genus, Jag35 and Zacuto parts.
• Kessler Krane Pocket Dolly v2.0, Traveler Size
• Kessler Crane All Terrain Outrigger Feat
• Rhode NTG Shotgun Condenser Microphone
• Pearlstone Universal Shock Mount
• Sony UHF Wireless Lavalier System
• Zoom H4n Mobile Handycam Audio Recorder
• (2x) Manfrotto 190Cx Carbon Fibre Q90 4-section Tripod
• F-Stop Satori Expedition Pack
• F-Stop Tilopa Expedition Pack
• (3x) F-Stop ICU (small, medium, large)
• Blackrapids RS-7 R-Strap

Tweet

NOTE FROM JONAH: This post was originally written for Dan Chung’s DSLR News shooter blog.

On a recent assignment for the New York Times I was tasked with filming a filmmaker.

I’d taken portraits of photographers before, but I had never filmed a filmmaker. Its hard not to have a little bit of anxiety when you know the person you are filming not only knows what you are doing, but has their own opinion on how to do it.

The idea was to create a behind-the-scenes video that describes how Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang makes his films.

The first step was getting my hands on his films, which wasn’t the easiest thing, given his films are not available in China. Your first question might be — why aren’t Zhao’s films available in China? If you get your hands on one of them the reasons for their unavailability will become pretty clear. For the most part, the content of Zhao’s films is not exactly the type of material the Chinese government wants you to see.

I have discussed previously that I am not necessarily a documentarian, but as a visual journalist working with cinematic storytelling the two fields are certainly not too far off. Regardless of how you work with video, I believe Zhao’s films can teach us all something.

On my first screenings, I though Zhao’s films didn’t necessarily have “beautiful photography”. Even from the samples of the films I used for my video, you can tell most of his films are not multi-million dollar productions or maybe not even multi-thousand dollar productions. These are truly grassroots-style productions that often use gorilla-style photographic techniques.

While the photography isn’t necessarily beautiful, it is in fact extremely powerful, which in itself, I would consider beautiful.

As an image maker, I spend so much of my time trying to compose beautiful images that I had to spend some time thinking about why I felt these images were so powerful. I think the answer comes in the relationship between your content and your images.

Zhao’s films show a truthful view of China, rarely seen. The raw video footage makes the truths and injustices he reveals even more real. Let’s say that Zhao was about to use jibs, dollies or even regular tripod use while filming — the visuals would feel way more contrived. There is some tripod use, but a large majority of this footage is handheld and there’s quite a bit of shakiness to it.

These things are a bit counter-intuitive to a lot of us who spend half our day thinking about gear; however, the effect is one that should be applauded. Not only does Zhao let the footage speak for itself in a digital age, the raw nature of the images actually reaffirm the stories he is telling.

I would describe Zhao’s films as having a “slower pace.” He’s not in a rush to tell his stories. You can tell this — even by the mere fact he spent 12 years filming his movie “Petition.” However, I believe the slow pace matches that of his characters’ realities. This pace creates the opportunity for the audience to actually experience the reality of his subjects.

To visualize this Zhao has left in some less-than-exciting images and scenes. However, these images are real. There are seemingly very few contrived scenes which many other filmmakers set up to help tell their story.

Videos with an interesting story, but that have boring or disconnected images are clearly not good. Videos with amazing imagery, but broken storylines are also not good. In video journalism and documentary film making, the relationship between our images and stories is what separates great productions from the pack. Whether this means holding back on production level like Zhao has or going the opposite direction — when our images and stories work together, our videos become infinitely more powerful.

And in a world where gear means so much its refreshing to see Zhao showing us that you don’t need a million dollars to make a film with a million dollar impact.

The New York Times, Ai Weiwei and Zhao Liang

While my portion of this project was a “behing the scenes” look of Zhao Liang’s productions, New York Times reporter Ed Wong’s lengthy profile shows a much different side of making films in China. Wong reveals how many believe Zhao has now “switched sides” in order to continue to make films in China. While Zhao is still very respected, his cooperation with the Chinese government on his recent film Together as well as a decision to pull out his film Petition from the Melbourne film festival has cost him friends, including the controversial artist Ai Weiwei, who only recently was released from prison.

The Times included a video from Ai Weiwei along with mine as part of the Ed’s story as well as photography by Beijing based photographers Chi Yinsim and Shiho Fukada.

For journalists, cinephiles, videographers, photographers and documentarians — the piece is very interesting and I encourage all to check it out.

– To read New York Times reporter Ed Wong’s story on Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang click here.
– To find Zhao Liang’s movie check out dGenerate films web site here.
– To read a follow up to Ed’s story, check out New Yorker writer Richard Brody story “CHINA’S CULTURAL EVOLUTION” here.