Wukan Video Journal from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

Using a fat Chinese man, a large backpack, a baseball cap and the hood from my sweatshirt, I attempted to hide myself.

I was sandwiched in between the beefy man and a f-stop Satori backpack jammed with gear on the rear of his motorcycle. He drove me down a dark dirt road in the middle of the night near the uniquely autonomous village of Wukan, Guangdong Province, China.

I was hiding from police and those who might not want attention drawn to the small village of about 13,000 people.

Earlier in the week, pissed off villagers had overthrown their leaders and in mass numbers chased the police out of town. When the police came back, they set up barriers and created a stronghold in their fishing community, only letting sympathizers and foreign journalists into the village. These outsiders started to grow in numbers and after a couple of days, a small media circus had developed.

The New York Times’ Edward Wong described the situation like this:

“The outsiders had come to see how furious residents had transformed their village on China’s southeast coast into a temporarily autonomous zone. Their anger focused on two issues: what they called illegal land sales by village officials, and the death on Dec. 11 of a village advocate while he was in police custody. The villagers chased out Communist Party officials, repelled an assault by police officers and barricaded all roads leading into Wukan with tree trunks. The two police stations in the village stood empty. So did the headquarters of the Communist Party committee.”

The villagers used this media circus and created a bit of a propaganda war. They shared their homes and food with us and drove us around on their motorcycles whenever we needed. This was a funny sight: I would be on the back of a motorcycle with a DSLR rig hung to the side, flying through small alleys and passing other motorcycles — all carrying journalists on the back as well.

With the global spotlight on this village, provincial officials were cornered and agreed to start negotiations with the angry mob.

Within 24 hours I filed one basic news video and one video journal (above) on my experience in Wukan. The video journal was paired with a text journal by Edward Wong. You can read his story “Canny Villagers Grasp Keys to Loosen China’s Muzzle” here. I shot mainly with one camera and a prime 24mm lens. While I love using jibs, sliders and mechanical movement, this video journal seemed most real shot hand-held.

While there was a lot of media there, I was the only DSLR video shooter (that I saw). All other newspapers, TV stations and wire service photographers were using standard video cameras — and with good reason. This was a tricky shoot and using a standard camera would certainly have been easier.

However, I knew it would be tricky and planned accordingly. Before I left I was told to pack light — bring no bells or whistles. Nothing extra. There would be limited car space, I would be riding by motorcycle and I would most likely have to run, so should bring only one bag.

Knowing this I created a really small franken-rig and minimized everywhere I could. Above, you can see what the franken-rig looked like disassembled and in use.

Above: f-stop Satori bag, Blackrapid RS-7 strap with Canon 60D with Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L USM, Canon 5DMII with Canon 24mm f/1.4 L USM, 2x Redrock Micro microHandGrip (Part # 2-19-0009), Redrock Micro Handlebar clamp (Part # 2-017-0002), 2x 18″ 15mm carbon fiber rods (Part # 8-011-0002), Porta Brace Universal Shoulder Pad, Jag35 Top Handle, Jag35 Tripod Plate Pro, Jag35 Quick Release Gorilla Stand with Zucoto Gorilla Plate, D | Focus Follow Focus, Jag35 90 Degree Clamp with ball head attached to a Ruige 5″ TL-S500 On-camera HD LCD monitor, Genus Counterweight for CSMK Shoulder Mount System (3.5 lb) and topped with a Rode VideoMic Pro Compact Shotgun Microphone.

I got all of this to fit into a single f-stop bag. The rig was small enough to fight for territory in press scrums and stable enough to run around in a less than stable environment.

This setup was also small enough to take onto a plane without checking anything. I kept one small tripod with me — although I barely used it.

The videos were largely edited during during the middle of the night or in the back of moving cars as I was fighting US East coast deadlines.

To see the strange conclusion to this story see my blog post “Wukan Journal Unfinished.” To see how this story unfolded check out these stories:

• Canny Villagers Grasp Keys to Loosen China’s Muzzle
• Demonstrators Who Took Over Chinese Village Halt Protest
• Officials Meet With Protesting Chinese Villagers
• Wukan Protesters Seek Return of Xue Jinbo’s Body
• Wukan Revolt Takes On a Life of Its Own

– Jonah M. Kessel is a Beijing based freelance visual journalist working with the New York Times. See his web site here and follow him on Twitter here.

Word Crimes from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

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 still 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 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 insight viewers to click away.

But right before I decided it wasn’t worth making the video, I read this speech Murong had recently given which discussed censorship of written work in China. 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 Chinese 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 discusses words likely to be censored should he use them in his books:

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.”

My idea for the video came to me while 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 onto the topic of voiceovers vs subtitles. Most international broadcast news videos gets 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 cannot 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 help 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 film 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 its a great exercise to find a new physical environment. Simply get them out of the physical environment 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 Canon 60D switching between a Gorilla Pod, a tripod and the in-table lazy susan. In addition, I had a 5D mkII 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. 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 f1.2 and a Canon 24mm f1.4.

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 are the potential assets we gain from simply researching what our subjects. What they 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

– Jonah M. Kessel is a Beijing based freelance visual journalist working with the New York Times. See his web site here and follow him on Twitter here.

A full size HD broadcast camera is picture perfect and looks impressive. The large camera also screams “TV Crew” and too often gives a ‘warped’ view as people react to the big camera or simply turn it away. My previous experience shooting news with the Canon 5D mkII was a visual triumph, but the paraphernalia and workflow was overwhelming. I want to keep the big camera craft, but in compact form.  Twelve months ago the Micro four thirds (MFT) system caught my eye. The Panasonic AF101 and smaller GH2 stills/video hybrid cameras are cross compatible, sharing lenses and shooting the same AVCHD format. The AF101 is also significantly cheaper and smaller than the alternative Sony F3.

I went ahead and purchased the AF101 (AF100 in the USA) because it has all the video camera features: Neutral Density (ND) filter wheel, XLR audio inputs, Variable Frame Rate, SDI output and a dial in white balance. The AF101 ND filter wheel is the critical plus factor for me. I would not recommend any video camera without built in ND filters. I almost love the AF101 except for this – focus, focus and focus. Achieving critically sharp images is extremely difficult. I lobbied Panasonic hard for a better Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) and one-to-one pixel mapping magnification to no avail. I guess it will likely be in Panasonic’s next large sensor camera and I’ve now accepted the need for an external Zacuto EVF in my kit.

In the bureau with the Panasonic GH2

Working alongside my AF101 I have the GH2 which is small and discrete, with improved video functions over my old Canon 5D mkII. The GH2 has a crisp EVF with image magnification which means you don’t need an LCD loupe. Depth of field is shallow, but more manageable for video than a full frame sensor. I can still use manual full frame lenses with low cost adapters. In fact the beauty is I can carry the same creative stack of lenses for use with my GH2, GF2 or AF101 video camera.

My trusty Billingham bag (16inches/40cm long) was the defining maximum size for the AF101 rig. If the compact camera concept ended up the same size as my shoulder mounted P2HD ENG camera then I’d failed. It had to be ready to record straight from the Billingham bag in broadcast HD quality. Plus I wanted to be able to put it either on my shoulder, on a tripod or on a flat surface without it falling over or needing any further assembly.

I’ve used the combination of GH2 and AF101 extensively this year and to illustrate various points and lessons learned about the cameras’ use I’m going to refer to a portfolio of five news stories which I’ve done. Each is shot with Holly Williams, my correspondent in the Sky Beijing bureau. She has supported my tireless and sometimes tiresome quest for better imagery:-

Chinese Hackers: (Shot with AF101 and Zeiss/Contax CY prime lenses)

EXTRACT Sky News Chinese Hackers and Baby Buying stories from Andy Portch on Vimeo.

This was an alarming story given the ease this young computer hacker accessed our email and credit card passwords! I shot in a darkened room with a bit of Kessler Pocketdolly slider movement. I loved it. Despite recording in AVCHD I had comments from colleagues about how wonderfully sharp it was.

The Kesslercrane Pocketdolly/AF101 combo works well

Most manual focus stills full frame 35mm lenses are perfectly adaptable to MFT with a two times magnification factor (x1.86 with GH2). The Zeiss CY are easily cine modified, aperture de-clicked and damped. They have a comfortable focus throw and gorgeous Zeiss image quality.  The old Zeiss CY 50mm f1.4 is a gem. Canon FD is also a good manual lens option if you don’t have the budget for Zeiss. More expensive adapters now exist for Canon EF lenses with their electronic aperture. I haven’t personally used Nikon lenses because they focus in the opposite direction.

Low light shooting on the Chinese hacker story

Shooting in low light with raised ISO has not been a problem for me with the AF101. I did one shoot in a very dark whisky bar and was pleased how little video noise showed in the shadows. However the AF101 does not handle highlights well. In it’s Cine gamma modes camera knee is disabled. Unless blown highlights are out of focus they look awful. Underexpose a touch and the problem goes away. I’ve tweaked my Cine Gamma settings, and still have fairly vivid colour and contrast. I do grade, but if I like the ‘look’ straight from the camera I have the option not to grade for a rush news edit.

Ergonomically the camera had been proving hard for me to handhold but I had a ‘eureka’ moment when I started using a side support bracket and wooden handle/video trigger made by Olof Ekberg of Westside AV. The AF101 top and side handles unscrew to add accessories or brackets very easily. Not only was Olof’s side handle more comfortable, but at last I knew where the record start/stop button was. I’m also using a short padded tail plate to the side bracket that places the AF101 camera on my shoulder, but without moving the centre of gravity forward. It makes a real difference when trying to get stable handheld shots.  

Baby Buying: (AF101 and Nanoflash recorder)

The police arrive on the scene during our baby buying story

I shot sequences for a story about a Chinese baby buying scandal, mainly with a Voigtlander Nokton 25mm f0.95 and Zeiss primes. Again the Kessler Pocketdolly gave lots of positive feedback. The slider is a creative bonus, but when your interview subject is jumpy and really wants to head for the door, it takes nerve to create steady moves. There is a ‘should we use a slider for news’ debate (not least on this very blog). I use the slider with an awareness of when perhaps it is not appropriate as much as when it is physically possible. 

The twin sister of a girl who was taken

The compact system is extremely lightweight and my back loves it. Lighter cameras mean lighter accessories. Everything on my AF101 and GH2 has the same Manfrotto 394 quick release plates. I can move easily from one piece of kit to another. For a tripod I use a Miller DS10 head on Solo carbon fibre legs; lighter, higher and lower than my regular Sachtler Video18P. Along with it I carry the compact Kessler V2 Pockedolly that works a treat (especially now I have fitted the optional carriage brake).  If I’m in a controlled environment then I use the SmallHD DP6 which is a rugged and sharp field monitor. A single Canon LPE6 battery will last a morning on the DP6. The only downside to my dp6 is a yellow cast when you first switch on.

China Tibetan region: Self Immolating monks. (GH2 video DSLR)

A monk prays

I’m used to working as a journalist in China – being harassed and my work interfered with by police and plain clothes thugs. The GH2 has shown its value, getting quality video in sensitive locations. (Its baby brother the GF2 has also been used by out team, including for a Bangkok ‘Lady boys’ documentary). In Sichuan province the police were all over us. We did every dodge in the book and over a couple of days managed to get images of temples and monks to tell this story. We also shot material we could not broadcast for fear of what would happen to those we’d met. Security is so tight in the Tibetan areas of Sichuan province. Monasteries have police stations and the authorities knew exactly where we’d been. We were soon sent to the airport.

EXTRACT Sky News Stories Tibetan Monks and Boeing Dreamliner from Andy Portch on Vimeo.

For this story the GH2 did its job, but the lack of built in ND filters was a mess. I’d opted against the variable ND (which I’d found soft on my 5DmkII) in favour of screw in ND8 (3 stop) filters. I thought I’d be either outside or inside for lengths of time. In fact it turned into a real pain as we repeatedly sneaked quickly from indoors to outdoors and vice versa. This mean’t I had a lot of panicky filter changes. That said it wasn’t just my GH2 that had problems with the light. It is unbelievably bright in the mountains and I also had a tiny Sony AVCHD Handycam (with IR capability for night vision) with me. It couldn’t stop it’s aperture down enough to shoot outdoors at noon! I did use some shots from that camera and had a lot of work to match them to the superior GH2.

A monk demonstrates the extremes of light on the Tibetan region story

Another factor with the GH2 was that the small size made it hard to hold without vibration from the blood pumping through your hands. Admittedly I was a bit stressed, but these are visible bumps in the shot even with the wide angle lens fitted.

For this assignment I also used the Voightlander 25mm Nokton lens wide open at f0.95, at least two f-stops wider than I would normally do. It was late dusk and I was hand held. To find the narrow plain of focus l found I had to sway gently back and forth. The GH2 is a surprisingly good low light performer. You can crank up the ISO and use the ‘nostalgia’ film mode (which has nothing to do with nostalgia) but lifts the shadows considerably. Strangely I find the GH2 easier to focus than AF101. The one press EVF image magnification gives instant focus confidence and you can hit record.

The Voightlander 25mm f0.95 and Westside AV side handle

After the pain of 5D mkII audio I have largely stopped using a mini audio adapter with the GH2. I let the camera record with manual levels displayed in the viewfinder. Simultaneously I use a separate Olympus LS11 audio recorder with Tram lavaliere mic placed on my reporter or talent. It can record for eleven hours and it is easy to sync image and audio afterwards especially if you have Plural Eyes software.

Boeing Dreamliner Inaugural flight: (AF101 with Nanoflash)

My 7-14mm Lumix F4 got a good outing on this trip. The lens is lots of fun (as long as it’s bright) and it’s easy to get extraordinary images. Holly’s ‘piece to camera’ on the jet was centre frame, filmed from one metre away seated across the aisle. The shot was so wide it included two passengers seated either side! The only problem was choosing an angle not to make her look cross eyed! The opening sequence has banding from flash photography which the CMOS chip struggles with, but nowhere near as bad as the 5D mkII flash banding.

Holly shot with the 7-14mm lens on the Boeing Dreamliner

The Micro Four Thirds system is dominated by Panasonic and Olympus but other manufacturers have thankfully joined in and new lenses are popping up. I’ve ordered the new SLR Magic 12mm F1.6 with cine aperture ring (with no click stops). The Voigtlander Nokton 25mm F0.95 has already become one of my firm favourites. De-clicking is possible, but less straight forward as the aperture ring is at the front. I like the Nokton and it’s images sit well alongside the Zeiss.

The results from Lumix and Olympus lenses are mixed. They feature some if not all of these issues – clicking electronic apertures, twiddly control wheels, zooms that aren’t parfocal (even if they’re supposed to be), latency with focus by wire and focus rings that spin endlessly. I hope the promised 2012 Lumix X Pro 12-35mm and 35-100mm are fast and sharp zooms. For now beware lenses with a tiny focus throw.  The Olympus 12-60mm f2.8-4 for example has a great range, manual focus markings, but focuses from infinity down to one metre with just one centimetre throw. Compare that with a ten centimetre throw for the same focusing distance from my broadcast camera’s Canon HJ22 lens. I know some people use follow focus devices, but again that defeats my compact goal. 

The Dreamliner by the way turned out to be identical to any other plane. I called it the ‘Binliner’, with slightly larger overhead lockers. To think Boeing was aiming supersonic before 9/11.

Bangkok floods: (AF101 with Nanoflash)

Children playing on Bangkok flood water

This was a regular news scramble. I had to shoot, load, edit and transmit quality daily pieces by lunchtime every day. Following the packaged reports with hourly live crosses with Holly and then another shoot to update the package for later. The AF101 has analogue video out, HDMI and HDSDI output – but no firewire. The system we use for live satellite reports from a Mac needs a firewire input. Thankfully the Canopus ADVC-55 analogue to firewire box bridges the gap for streaming lives.   

EXTRACT Sky News Bangkok Floods stories from Andy Portch on Vimeo.

Lens juggling standing in flood water added a frisson to changing lenses.  I’ve adapted a small bum bag with padded compartments that holds three or four lenses and those are the ones I have on the go. Rubber lens hoods are fitted to all my lenses to speed up changes. In Bangkok I tried using the 14-140mm Lumix zoom with image stabilizing, but had trouble getting it sharp. Autofocus I haven’t really explored – I can’t bring myself to trust it. There is focus assist on the AF101, which puts a red fringe to whatever is sharp (or as I’ve found almost but not quite sharp). The AF101’s built in EVF and LCD ‘detail’ feature helps, but should not to be used at the same time as red focus assist.

A Canon HJ22 broadcast lens with an adapter for use in the AF101

The lens mount of AF101 is rated for 1kg. Fast and heavy Canon and Olympus telephoto zooms need supporting. As did my broadcast Canon HJ22 and HJ11 lenses I tried with an adapter. In reality I don’t want 15mm rails on my compact rig, so lens choice had to be sub 1kg. The Olympus Zuiko 50-200mm f2.8-3.5 is my heaviest lens and is sharp and good to focus, but lacks image stabilising and aperture ring.

I did get more daring shots with the lightweight AF101 than I would from my big news camera. Instead of a rig I used a Gorillapod with Manfrotto ball mount head as mini brace either on the shoulder or wrapped around things, even at water level.

So what can you do with the AF101 and GH2?

Both record to SDHC cards in AVCHD format up to 24Mbps. I conducted comparisons viewed on a 25 inch HD monitor with the same scene recorded with AVCHD and HD broadcast codecs. Most viewers could not tell the difference, some chose AVCHD over HD codecs and only a single video engineer spotted the higher bitrate HD codec footage.

AVCHD does not meet the minimum 50Mbps specified by most HD broadcasters – which is a pain! For me the answer has been the low power Convergent Nanoflash external recorder powered together with the SWIT S-8BG6 camera battery. The battery has an auxiliary socket and a single battery powers camera and Nano flash for hours. The Nano has power save mode, so you don’t have to keep plugging/unplugging. The resulting Nano flash XDCAM HD422 files are recorded to CF card in either MXF or .MOV. I did have a Nanoflash fail on location. A capacitor failed and was repaired by Convergent Design who said it was the first of four thousand units to fail this way. The Nanoflash is attached by locking arm to my AF101 side bracket and sits there perfectly out of the way.

Shooting a progressive image rather than interlaced looks less newsy. Some prefer this, but I think it makes the footage less ‘real’ for viewers watching our news broadcasts and so for now we have reverted to interlaced shooting. The compact AF101 camera is not suited to every shoot. Long lens stuff is most difficult. I wouldn’t choose it for a live press conference or a shoot over the North Korean border. Juggling lenses is troublesome. I started dreaming about an old cine camera revolving lens turret! I need to think clearly what shots I want and go after them with a specific focal length. I guess photographers coming to video would have two GH2 bodies with different lenses as they do for stills (I’m tempted!).

In conclusion with Micro four thirds I can do high quality work with a system that doesn’t cost very much. It is challenging for news, as is shooting anything with shallow depth of field. The beauty comes from the prime lenses, but for recording news ‘fast’ zooms are still required. I miss the ease of function and speed of a regular TV camera and broadcast zoom lenses. On the other hand there are creative benefits from that large MFT sensor. I hope it makes my pictures better and I love walking out the door with my Billingham bag. At least I don’t look like a TV cameraman.

Andy Portch is a senior cameraman for Sky News based in Beijing.
He is a broadcast pioneer helping to develop and shape camera and news gathering technology and has spent more than twenty years covering global news stories. A career Andy sums up as hard to beat – “It is a privilege to meet the people I’ve met, to travel to the places I’ve been and to see the extraordinary things I’ve seen.”

CNN have been in touch to say that their latest show ‘The Next List’ with Dr. Sanjay Gupta launches today. It’s all about innovation and fittingly it’s all been shot on Canon DSLRs. Running at 2:00-2:30pm ET each Sunday, the programme will profile exceptional individuals. The first is cyber-illusionist Marco Tempest. Check out the trailer by clicking on the image below.

My technology startup Condition ONE evolved from the inability to convey the reality of what I was seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even though my images and documentary film were published and distributed widely, they were still a passive window into this world, constrained by the frame. I wanted to bring people closer, to actually let them witness these stories first hand.

Technology is allowing us to merge the once separate media of photojournalism, filmmaking and virtual reality to create powerful immersive experiences.  Condition ONE has developed a camera system (I can’t yet reveal the camera or number of cameras) that captures the equivalent of the human eye.  We have also developed the software that transcodes and stitches these images.  By attaching the images to the gyroscope and accelerometer in the iPad2, we have created a highly interactive window into a video.  The slightest movement of the device changes the corresponding image, which creates an emotional connection to the story in an entirely new way. The hope is to shake viewers out of their numbness to traditional media and give a visceral and immersive experience.

The challenge of the next generation photojournalist and filmmaker will be developing the syntax and grammar to tell an effective story in this new medium.  The traditional rules of cinematography and editing no longer exist.  There is no frame. Creating an effective narrative and still maintaining immersion will be the next frontier.  This is just the beginning.

* Condition ONE, an immersive video application for iPads, launched through the iTunes App Store this week. It gives users the ability to look in any direction while viewing footage. Pivoting and tilting the iPad literally manipulates the corresponding field of view. The highly sensitive motion controls produce the illusion of looking through a window into another reality, giving a visceral sense of ‘being there’. Condition ONE will offer highly engaging storytelling with a focus on visual content conducive to being experienced firsthand. You can get it on the Apple App Store here.

Danfung Dennis has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2006. His images have been published in Newsweek, Time and The New York Times. His footage in PBS Frontline Obama’s War was nominated for a 2010 Emmy Award. His documentary, Hell and Back Again, won the World Cinema Jury and Cinematography Awards at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. He is the founder and CEO of tech/media startup Condition ONE. His background is in Applied Economics and Business Management, consulting small and medium sized enterprises in emerging markets.

You can find out more about Condition ONE here.

The idea that people from every country in the world can come together to film on the same day and become a media-creating community is extraordinary.

When One Day on Earth launched, it was through direct outreach to filmmakers to help create a global artistic creation.  Since then, though, the project has grown to be so much.  With the support of organizations like the United Nations and Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, we have realized the power and reach that community based media can have.

On 10/10/10, our community came together and shared over 3,000 hours of video footage.  And we are doing it again today (or tomorrow, depending on where you are), on 11/11/11.

Linking the media-creating community and NGOs for a single day on a global scale results in unmatchable perspective. I have to remind myself every time I watch the trailer below that this was all shot on the same day by volunteers who only wanted to share their perspectives with each other. We can promise to deliver something completely new to audiences with the feature film, which will be screened in every country in the world on the same day in February. See: Global Screening

And this is just the beginning. We see people from around the world joining in the collaboration everyday.  We have been continuously surprised with how powerful these stories are individually, not to mention the expansive and overwhelming feeling of humanity you get when you see them all as a whole.

This is the power of filmmaking–thank you, DSLRnewshooter community, for being a part of it.  I hope you consider sharing a short video with us, and the world, on 11/11/11.

Join here: www.onedayonearth.org

OCCUPY: Los Angeles from Angeline Gragasin on Vimeo.

I was shooting on location for a narrative film during the opening weeks of Occupy Wall St, and so wasn’t able to follow along as closely as I’d like. When we finally wrapped, I found that news of the movement had inundated my Facebook feed from all directions – which was rather convenient seeing as how, at the time, the mainstream media still weren’t reporting regularly on it. Instead, I was able to witness events unfold in real time via photos and videos from friends in New York, Chicago, Austin, Portland, and Seattle. Posts about Occupy Wall St were proliferating exponentially, it would have been very hard to ignore even if I had wanted to. But I hadn’t – I was quite interested in the fact that hundreds of different friends, who I had met under extremely divergent circumstances, were interested in and supportive of this one particular political protest. Friends I had met in high school, in college, through work at home and abroad; friends-of-friends, family friends, and friends’ family members who in turn had become my friends: everyone was talking about Occupy Wall St.

I decided to visit OccupyLA on October 15th -Global Occupy Day- and see for myself what the movement was all about, what kinds of people were participating, and whether or not the mainstream media’s reports aligned with those of my friends – now effectively the “citizen journalists” of the Global Occupy Movement.

I do not consider myself a news journalist nor a documentary filmmaker by trade. I visited OccupyLA to witness events firsthand, to record what I saw, and to actively contribute to the movement–which I support–by creating and distributing independently produced media. I did not set out to create any kind of definitive, unbiased, comprehensive report of OccupyLA, firstly because I do not feel compelled to adhere to the conventional expectation of what “good” or “proper” documentary film is, and secondly because it simply isn’t possible to make that sort of thing anyway. All I wanted to do was to make a video of OccupyLA and put it on the Internet as soon as possible. That was the plan.

I went to OccupyLA by myself with nothing by a camera and a fanny pack of batteries and an extra CF card, and had a look around.

I usually greet and introduce myself when approaching a subject, ask permission to film, and even often direct their action, gaze, and dialogue in favor of the camera. But this time I did none of that; there were hundreds if not thousands of other shooters present, and the public was unanimously very receptive to being photographed and filmed. I floated around from person to person shooting in silence. The only direction I occasionally gave was to turn towards the light in the event the subject was intensely backlit. For 2 hours I waded through thousands of people, signs, and cameras. It would have been difficult to conduct interviews not only for technical reasons (I didn’t have the kit with me, and if I had, monitoring + shooting would have been extremely cumbersome), but mostly for the fact that it was so overwhelming to be in such an enormous sea of people, signs, megaphones, drums, and cameras. I thought it more important to capture the diversity and general spirit of what I saw rather than focus on any one particular person, or even just a handful of people. Especially considering much of the mainstream media was grossly misrepresenting the population and demographics – I saw thousands of people of all ages, ethnicities, and occupations present, and I thought that if I could convey any one thought as the result of making a video, it would have to be this.

I shot on the Canon 5D mkII on a Jag35 shoulder rig (the “Austin” model), with a 35mm f1.8. Every day I curse the fact that I do not own an ND filter. Please excuse the fact that I am neither a professional cinematographer nor do I own a comprehensive camera kit. I did, however, receive numerous compliments on my rig, especially from shooters lugging hefty Panasonic pro camcorders over their shoulders. I certainly had the advantage over these pro shooters in that both I and my rig were small, which enabled me to move quickly and gather more footage in a shorter amount of time than if I had been shooting on something bigger and heavier. I’m short (5’3”), so most of the time people didn’t even notice me shooting. It was very easy for me to dart in and out of a crowd, or to the front of a crowd.

I edit on Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and grade using a combo Magic Bullet Looks + Premiere Pro color settings. I chose to grade strongly to compensate for my admittedly lackluster cinematography. I also thought vibrant colors would compliment the vivaciousness of the protest. I used quick cuts and music because I wanted the video to be short and catchy – I know viewers are more likely to watch and share something that fulfills those criteria, unless the content of the video alone merits it going viral. Also because I wanted to cram as many different images into one 2-minute video as I could, and for me, cutting to music is the easiest way to do this.

So in conclusion, you now know that my main incentives and goals for making this video were to participate in the movement by documenting and spreading it as quickly and easily as possible. Equal parts citizen journalism, political propaganda, and music video. That was my approach, but by no means is it the best or only way. I’d love to see more filmmakers experimenting with genre and style as part of their documentary process. There is no one right way to documenting or supporting the Global Occupy Movement. There are as many ways to participate as voices to be heard. I hope to continue making OCCUPY videos over the coming weeks and months.

Angeline Gragasin is an Internet video director living in Los Angeles, California. She is the founder of NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS, LLC a creative startup dedicated to developing technologies for indie media production and distribution. You can learn more about her work at http://angelinegragasin.com and you can follow her on twitter @angelinegragzin.

I guess when we all started out in this industry as news cameramen or photographers we dreamed of the type of jobs we would be shooting; whether its covering the human tragedy in some war torn country or amazing stories in far away exotic lands. The unfortunate reality of the news industry in the 21st century is we work to feed the demands of a 24/7 machine who’s hunger for news content never tires, we work under continually shrinking budgets and increasing pressures. Even for those of us fortunate enough to get to travel the world covering these stories we rarely have the time or budget to cover the stories we want the way we want to. But every so often – for a lucky few – we get to shoot our dream job. This is a brief account of shooting my dream job.

The dream job

Late in 2010 Aljazeera English called for pitches for a new program of hour long documentaries called ‘Correspondent’. This was to be a flagship program which would explore a story through the eyes of Al Jazeera’s correspondents. A few years back I’d heard of the Kingdom of Mustang, an ancient Tibetan land hidden high in the Himalayan mountains. Up until fairly recently Mustang had been cut of from the rest of the world, protected by the foreboding fortress which is the Himalayas, foreigners forbidden entry. Life there had remained almost untouched for hundreds of years. But this rich and ancient culture is facing destruction, the threat coming from across its northern borders, where a road is being built to pass through Mustang and eventually connect Chinese controlled Tibet and India, thus ending Mustang’s isolation. The road is due to be completed soon and with it will come the full force of the 21st century. I knew it was one of the last opportunities to witness and document one of the few remaining places on earth where true Tibetan Buddhism is still being practiced. I approached correspondent Steve Chao, who has a deep interest in Tibet having been based in China for many years. Together we pitched it to ‘Correspondent’.

The shoot would be a logistical nightmare. It would take us five days by horseback to get to the capital Lo Manthang, all our equipment would need to travel in with us. Power was very limited as was fuel for generators so these too would have to be brought with us. The return journey to Kathmandu would be by helicopter and because of the high altitude we would be facing severe weight restrictions limiting the equipment we could take with us. Our team consisted of correspondent Steve Chao, Producer Mat Skene and myself. We also had our Nepalese fixer Subel Bhandari, our local guides Tashi Bista and Wangdue Tsering, two government minders (a necessity in the restricted zone of Mustang) and a trekking support team of seven – including porters, cooks and horsemen. In total that’s a team of fifteen and lets not forget our seven horses.

Producer Mat Skene was keen from the outset to shoot the documentary on a Canon 5DmkII. During his ‘day job’ he is the program editor for Al Jazeera’s US based current affairs program ‘Faultlines’. The half hour show is exclusively shot on DSLR, probably one of the only television programmes of its style to do so. Mat wanted Mustang to have a cinematic feel that he knew the 5DmkII could deliver although initially I had my concerns. I’d shot with DSLRs before but only for short 2-3 minute news packages. A 60 minute documentary was going to be a very different beast.

My primary concern was going to be media management; we predicted having between 1TB and 1.5 TB of data for the whole project and it would need to be backed up in triplicate. Also we would need to record audio separately for the many planned interviews – each an hour in duration. Syncing this would be a big job. Fortunately Mat was going to do the post production in DC with Faultlines editor Warwick Meade, a veteran of the DSLR work flow. That was the reassurance I needed and I put aside ideas of shooting it on a traditional broadcast camera such as the Sony PDW-700.

My Kit consisted of the following –

2x Canon 5DmkII
1x Canon 7D
7x batteries
5x 32gb Memory cards
16-35mm f2.8L
24-70mm f2.8L
70-200mm f2.8L IS
24-105mm f4L IS
24mm f1.4L II
50mm f1.2L
85mm 1.2L II
400mm f4 DO IS
Extender 2x III
2x Rode video mic
2x Zoom H4n
2x Sennheiser EK2000 radio mic set (RX/TX)
1x Sennheiser shot gun mic
2x Headphones
Marshall VLCD70XP 7” HDMI monitor
2x Zacuto Z-Finder
2x Singh-Ray Vari ND 77mm
1x Genus Vari ND 77mm
1x Nature Vari ND 82mm
Genus wide angle matte box
Assortment of Tiffen 4×4 filters (polo, Grad ND etc)
Sachtler CF tripod with 18p head
Kessler Pocketdolly slider
Matthews suction cup camera mount
Cavision shoulder mount.

1x 17” Macbook Pro
1x 15” Macbook Pro
5x Lacie rugged 1TB
2x Lacie rugged 500gb
1x Nexto 750gb
1x Express slot CF card reader
2x Sandisk firewire Express card readers

I would need to light a lot of the interviews but decided to take only a basic kit. Where possible I used available, only using my lights to compliment it, giving the interviews a more natural look. Obviously all the lights would need to be DC powered so I took a kit made up of exclusively LED lights:

1x 1×1 Litepanels 5600k Flood
1x 1×1 Litepanels 5600k Superspot
1x Litepanels mini plus with battery
2x small cheap AA batt powered camera LEDs (to be used as background lights)
Assorted colour correction gells and diffusion
3 light stands, 2x reflectors, black wrap, black cloth and some basic grip kit
2x IDX Endura 10 batteries and charger for the 1×1’s

I’ve probably forgotten some stuff…. but yes that’s right, this is me traveling light! I took duplicates of a lot of equipment as redundancy was key – If equipment failed I wouldn’t be able to find a replacement on location. I shot most of the interviews using the prime lenses and used the zooms for overlay and sequences. I know that Canon make some of the sharpest zoom lenses available but they really can’t be compared to the fast primes for quality. The fast primes are astounding – letting me shoot using only available light in some very dimly lit locations.

For the most part the Canon cameras and lenses performed flawlessly in the harsh conditions as would be expected of their pro series equipment. I did encounter a few technical issues mostly to do with dust on the 5DmkII sensor. Mustang lies in the Himalayan rain shadow so is essentially a high altitude desert. This coupled with the fact that we were living and working in tents made keeping dust out of the equipment a full time job. Despite the 5DmkII sensor cleaning function I still ended up with dust spots ruining some material I’d shot. I’m not sure how I could have avoided this – changing lenses constantly is a necessary evil with the DSLR. I also encountered issues with the 7D overheating and causing the camera to crash. An image would freeze on the rear LCD and the battery would need to be removed to reset it. I found this strange as day time temps only reached a max of 24-25 degrees C.

The other technical issues I encountered were mostly with the accessories we strapped to the DSLRs to transform them from stills cameras to video cameras. As I feared before leaving a lot of these accessories are not built to the rugged standard that we expect of professional broadcast equipment. For example the rubber bands on the Rode microphone mount broke constantly. I had a Juicedlink mixer which lasted about a day before failing. The Singh-Ray vari ND’s vignetted on the 24-70 and 24-105, the Genus 77mm Vari ND jiggled apart on horse back one day causing the front piece of glass to fall into a rocky river bed. The Nature 82mm vari ND had a strange patchy effect when it was set to max. The Z-finders constantly fell off the cameras (though to their testament never broke).

As I suspected the media management was a real challenge, ultimately it added one and a half hours extra work to my day on top of the twelve hours shooting and traveling. After we’d settled in a camp I’d set up my Mac with the 3 1TB hard drives daisy chained together and the CF card reader in the express slot. I’d then create a folder for the date, then camera A and camera B, then cards 1 to 5 plus a file for the Zoom recorder audio. This would be duplicated on all three drives and I’d start copying the files off. Most days I’d shoot one to two cards. Once they had finished copying we would review the rushes and verify the copies. Dust, or the constant jiggling of horse back travel, eventually killed 3 of my 5 Lacie ‘rugged’ hard drives causing a few stressful and sleepless nights! I never carried the 3 drives in the same place for safety and fortunately the decision to have copies in triplicate paid dividends – we didn’t lose any of the material.

I don’t mean to sound down on DSLRs but I do want people to be aware of the limitations of some of this equipment. The fantastic image quality that can be achieved with DSLRs has been well documented on the internet and nobody needs to hear its praise sung again. But the reality of shooting for broadcast on this equipment does mean a compromise – especially for those of us more familiar with professional broadcast equipment.

Shooting ‘Mustang: Kingdom on the Edge’ was an extraordinary adventure and I learned a lot along the way, both about shooting on DSLR and about an incredible culture that the world stands to lose. I was very privileged to get the opportunity to work with a fantastic team and my heartfelt thanks goes out to them all.

Hopefully the results speak for themselves, ‘Mustang: Kingdom on the Edge’ is airing now on Aljazeera English from the 13th of October. You can watch it here.

You can follow me on Twitter @benjamin_emery

Ben Emery is an award winning cameraman based out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for Aljazeera. He is a multiple ACS (Australian Cinematography Society) award winner having won the prestigious Neil Davis Golden Tripod for International News Coverage in 2010 for his work on the Bangkok riots. Ben has covered major stories around the world and is an avid user of DSLR technology.

It’s been a long and hard road, but after several years of work, my film HELL AND BACK AGAIN will be released in theaters starting on October 5th.

As many of you know the project was entirely shot on the Canon 5DmkII and I’d especially like to thank the DSLR community especially for supporting me. The film now needs your help to reach as many people as possible.

Please help spread the word about the film by forwarding the trailer link: http://vimeo.com/danfung/hellandbackagaintrailer

Thank you once again for your support.

-Danfung Dennis

You can see Danfung’s original post about the project on dslrnewsshooter.com here.

When shooter/editors Josh Thompson and Liam White found themselves absorbed in the 24 hour news coverage of the escalating trouble in London last month, the lure of the action proved too much. The Progress Film Company is based in Brighton and predominantly shoots using DSLRs for commercial, music and corporate work. But Josh and Liam packed a Canon 5DmkII kit and jumped on the first train to Clapham Junction. Upon stepping out of the station onto the High Road, they were immediately engulfed in chaotic scenes of looting, vandalism and violence.

Josh and Liam worked quickly and quietly, with one person taking the camera out of their bag and shooting while the other kept watch. By remaining relatively discreet they were able to capture scenes of missiles being thrown at police, rioters breaking into shops and looting, as well as violence towards members of the public who tried to intervene.

A still frame from the video showing police giving chase

After seeing one photographer being assaulted and having his camera smashed, they started shooting with an iPhone4 and a Flip UltraHD from the heart of the action, walking through the looting crowds who were smashing their way in and out of high street shops. Again they worked fast, passing through each area swiftly before regrouping.

Upon reviewing the footage with the Progress team that evening, it was quickly agreed that they should keep shooting despite having no clear story or news agenda. Josh and Liam returned to Clapham the next morning to document the reactions of those involved in – and affected by – the riots. We wanted to listen to the discussion on the street rather than present a story or show the chaos that the news was broadcasting. A 5DmkII allowed us to get close to those involved without intimidating them and once we’d started shooting, a crowd gathered to join in the debate.

Upon reviewing the new footage it became increasingly clear that there was a message on the street that the news broadcasters did not seem to be focusing on. Residents were talking about the inevitability of something like this happening. With an editor in the studio running through the footage with a detached view, we were able to build a story that focused on the issues rather than getting too involved with the initial violence.

With that in mind, we spent a further two days shooting in other affected areas around London such as Croydon, Tottenham and Hackney, asking members of those communities “Why has this happened?” The answers to this question were far from clear-cut – racially, politically, economically or otherwise – with fingers being pointed at far-reaching issues that in some cases go back generations.

Our aim in editing this film was to keep the feeling of discussion open – we used the camera to listen rather than to enforce an agenda, and chose to keep away from cutaways during the narrative of the film.

What develops on screen is a very powerful insight into communities that we all thought we understood, but in reality know very little about.

For more details about Progress Film please check out the website.