Web-Video ist nicht Fernsehen
Bei den ersten Video-Versuchen wird man sich zwangsläufig bissigen User-Kommentaren ausgesetzt sehen, die die Filme und Filmchen als “amateurhaft” oder “laienhaft” abqualifizieren. Und obwohl man zigmal gelesen und diskutiert hat, dass Webvideo eben nicht versuchen soll, typischen TV-Journalismus nachzuahmen, schmerzen solche Vorwürfe dennoch.
Daher allen und mir zum Trost, zur Bestätigung, zur Aufforderung: Multimedia-Vorreiter Adam Westbrook in Charlie Brooker’s dissection of the TV news package (and what you can learn from it)
If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re not working in a TV newsroom. You’re more likely to be a video journalist working for a newspaper or the web, right? In which case, the rule is a simple one:
video journalism is NOT TV news!
Journalists from big newspapers have expressed frustration to me before that their attempts to ‘go into video’ end up looking amateurish. What they mean is they don’t look as good as TV news. And the reason: they’re trying to copy this TV formula without really understanding it. And they’re imitating without any need too.
Video journalism is free of so many of the contraints which which created the TV news formula; they might have more time, fewer people, and no style conventions to adhere too…so make the most of that! It’s cheaper than TV news too – so you can afford to experiment and make mistakes.
With the technology to produce video narratives cheaper than ever, I hope more people will pick up a camera and learn how to tell visual stories in new ways. Leaving it in the hands of the conventional herd of the mainstream newsroom alone means we’ll only emerge from this industry upheaval with more of the same. And that would be sad.
