Cade White's excellent video series continues

Over at Digicade, photojournalism prof Cade White is continuing his excellent series on how the photojournalists at the Dallas Morning News are incorporating video and video workflow. I recommend reading all the parts. (See my previous post.)

Part 1 - DMN photojournalist David Leeson explains how he is getting stills from frame grabs off his high definition (HD) video camera.

Part 2 - White responds to a student doing an internship who writes: "I have to admit this scares me. ...I welcome the use of video in conjunction with stills but I don't want to be replaced by or turned into a videographer." This should also be read in conjunction with my recent post challenging another professor's take on why convergence won't work. White writes:

In today's media marketplace the newspaper is more that just a print product. The Internet, along with partnerships and cross-media ownership, means that content will be used across multiple distribution channels. The content gatherers and producers of the future must be capable of working with whatever new tools the medium demands, or offers, depending on your perspective. This presents economic realities which must be considered. When your employer, that content-creation-distribution-company-formerly-known-as-a-newspaper, wants stills and video from the same assignment, they're not going to send two people. It wouldn't be cost-effective. They will send one person capable of shooting either, or both. Eventually, the only photographers getting hired, or keeping their jobs, will be those willing to expand their toolset.

I know what the DMN photographers are doing is Web video, not broadcast. But part of my point in the earlier post is that framing the convergence argument in a way that seems to define video as "broadcast" is incomplete.

Part 3 - On assignment as DMN photographer Randy Eli Grothe shoots a bartender known for his flaming drinks. This lays out the extra workload of video vs. stills. White has a good video and three excellent discusson topics:

• The time and workload issues.
• Will cool videos like this that attract "viewsers" push aside the news?
• Will photojournalists feel increasing presure to produce such videos?

Part 4 - White covers the cameras and microphones that are the new tools of the trade, with some good links to other resources, especially a review of shotgun mikes.