Video: A meeting long in the making
Posted: August 26, 2008 Filed under: Self-promotion, Video, Work | Tags: penpals, Spokane, spokesman-review, Video Comments Off
Longtime penpals finally meet from Andrew Zahler on Vimeo.
I’m just catching up to blogging about this video I shot and produced a couple weeks back.
It’s a sweet story about two long-time pen pals meeting for the first time here in Spokane. They started corresponding in the 1930s.
I tagged along with the reporter to document the magic moment. I hadn’t shot any live events for months, so I was kind of rusty on sequencing my shots and other imperatives that I’ve been taught.
I taped while the reporter did his interview with one of the women, but there wasn’t much there I could use. She didn’t provide much when I asked some follow ups.
In the end, I was able to capture the moment they met with some OK sequencing, and when I sat the two of them down together I got some usable audio to create a simple, one-minute short.
More important than the finished product, I think, was the experience of getting back into live shooting and producing on deadline.
The challenge facing young journalists? Being agile
Posted: August 22, 2008 Filed under: Blogging, Great tools, Industry, Reflections | Tags: blog rings, career resources, careers, journalism, journalists, tutorials 2 Comments »Where will I be working next month? Where will I be working next year? What’s the best platform for this story? How do I learn video storytelling?
These questions speak to one of the biggest challenges facing young journalists today: the need to be agile.
A quick bit of context: I’m writing this to participate in a blog ring of young journalists. This month’s topic relates to the challenges facing young journalists. I’ve been a working journalist for just about three years. And in that time I’ve observed that staying in this field for very long will require flexibility.
As someone else noted, a good attitude will give you a foundation. I want this post to be constructive, not discouraging, so I’m linking to resources that can help you become agile in terms of…
What I’m posting about, visually
Posted: August 19, 2008 Filed under: Blogging, Great tools, Self-promotion | Tags: Blogging, feeds, Multimedia, rss, word clouds, wordle Comments Off
I’m copping an idea from Mark Luckie at 10,000 Words (hat tip also to Palewire, who’s done a lot with word clouds).
I used Wordle to create a word cloud of stuff I’ve written about here (it’s above).
It was super simple.
- Go to Wordle.
- Type in the url for any blog or site that generates a feed (e.g. atom, rss)
- Use the Wordle menu bar to customize the appearance.
- Export it as you wish. I chose to use the Grab function in Preview to save a jpeg.
I didn’t realize I was using the word “posts” so often. How boring.
Five forums for journalists
Posted: August 19, 2008 Filed under: Great tools, Industry | Tags: forums, journalism, journalists 1 Comment »
I recently stumbled upon the forums at twentysomethingjournalist and joined the party.
Realizing that as of mid-September I’ll only have a year of eligibility left, I took the occasion to check out what other forums for journalists are out there. Below is a rundown.
How to make a how-to video
Posted: August 12, 2008 Filed under: Self-promotion, Video | Tags: arts and crafts, howto, Multimedia, Video 2 Comments »
How to make a paper rose from Andrew Zahler on Vimeo.
Before I went on vacation last week, I shot and edited a video to go with a story running in our Home section. The subject: How to make a paper rose.
I had never made a how-to video before. Here’s what the experience taught me.
I love this Flickr plugin for WordPress
Posted: August 8, 2008 Filed under: Blogging | Tags: Blogging, flickr, plugin, wordpress 1 Comment »Since starting this WordPress-powered blog, I’ve experimented with several Flickr plugins.
I’ve tried WordPress Flickr Manager and WordPress Media Flickr, which came highly rated by users and made it simpler to add photos to posts. But what I really wanted was something that would display photos in the sidebar. Because, you know, visuals help.
I’ve finally found it: Flickr Photo Gallery by Joe Tan. Look to your right, and you’ll see the fruits of my search. The plugin also came with some nice surprises:
- Like the others I tried, this plugin has a function that inserts photos from my photostream into posts. I find this function cleaner than the others.
- Flickr Photo Gallery can create a photo gallery page on your site, and all you have to do is create a URL in the plugin settings. Mine is right here.
Tutorials for those starting out with Google Maps
Posted: August 8, 2008 Filed under: Great tools, Maps | Tags: google maps, howto, mapping, mashups, tutorials 3 Comments »
White Rock Solutions has some accessible tutorials for getting started with Google Maps, which I discovered from a comment on an earlier post.
I like what I see here. Most of this covers areas I’m already comfortable with, such as creating a custom map, adding placemarks or lines and sharing maps.
But I appreciate White Rock’s step-by-step thoroughness, the effective use of screen grabs and the easy, tabbed interface.
Internal changes at Editor, Revised
Posted: August 7, 2008 Filed under: Blogging, Uncategorized Comments OffI’m back from a short trip to Portland and Seattle, and I’ve got a few more days off to play around with this site.
Two immediate changes:
- I’ve created a portfolio page, which you can access via that nav links above or by clicking here.
- I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.6 after ignoring the prompts for several weeks. I’m happy to report it was quick and painless.
I’ll be back with a real post soon.
A Google maps tutorial worth trying
Posted: August 1, 2008 Filed under: Great tools, Maps | Tags: google, how to, mapping, Maps, Paper Cuts, tutorial 2 Comments »
Here’s another great contribution from Erica Smith, the talent behind the indispensable Paper Cuts map of newspaper layoffs.
When I posted about that site, Erica chimed in and steered me toward a tutorial she wrote about creating Google maps from a database without having to know code. I finally took the time to run through it, exporting the data from my earlier effort on Community Walk.
The tutorial is concise and easy to follow. Unfortunately, the instructions for incorporating javascript into a WordPress post are not, so you must click the image or HERE to see my map.
This is a must-visit for anybody getting their feet wet in the world of mashups. Thanks, Erica.