Richard McGuire
Readers who also follow the Osoyoos Times on the internet will probably know that in recent months we’ve been using more and more multimedia such as video to tell local stories.
Sometimes a video story roughly parallels a print story, as was the case this week for our story about art and music at Jojo’s Café.
Other times the video story stands entirely on its own. During the Cherry Fiesta and Canada Day events, for example, we provided six different video stories, but there was only room to run a few photos in the Osoyoos Times print edition.
For me, producing these videos has been a steep learning curve, but an exciting one. I have many years of experience telling stories in print and still photography, but while video combines these two skills, it is so much more.
Shaky camera movement, poor focus or bad audio can be a distraction, but I’m still learning the technical skills to avoid them – easier said than done in the real world.
The technological change with video in recent years has been phenomenal. I generally use a DSLR still camera that has a video feature, but many people these days produce video on their phones, although watching some of those videos can make you seasick.
When I studied journalism back in the Stone Age days of the 1970s, I took two years of television journalism before deciding to major in newspapers.
In those years, we used supposedly portable camera equipment called Portapaks, which shot black and white video onto large U-matic cassettes. We carried this gear on a backpack, which, when the camera, recorder and battery were included, weighed close to 50 pounds.
For one class assignment, I chose to travel with a classmate to the skid row area of downtown Toronto, where many older men drowned their suffering with cheap sherry, or even aftershave, and then passed out on park benches.
We interviewed a man who supervised a homeless shelter, talked to police and videoed some of the action.
Until the Portapak came along, video cameras were too cumbersome to use for such stories, and TV crews often shot on 16 mm film, which they transferred to video in the studio.
Even with the Portapaks, we had to edit in the studio by dubbing from one video recorder to another – a cumbersome process.
Still, I remember thinking at the time about how “new” technology made it possible to tell stories in revolutionary ways.
Today it’s all done in computer software and the resulting story can be easily posted on websites like YouTube and shared on OsoyoosTimes.com or Facebook.
In a community like Osoyoos, which can’t support its own television station with a local news team, the new technology has made it possible to tell local stories visually in a way not previously possible.
In addition to the story about Jojo’s Café, we’ve also recently posted stories about the Desert Park horse races, Romancing the Desert, the Osoyoos Lawn Bowling Club, a visit to Osoyoos by B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan, Music in the Park, the Dubh Glas Distillery, rattlesnakes at Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre, the street dances and many more.
For those who prefer radio, I also do a weekly pre-recorded news summary for CIRO Radio 106.5 FM, the station operated by Randy Bedard for Destination Osoyoos. You can also catch these summaries on
OsoyoosTimes.com.
For the video stories, go to OsoyoosTimes.com/category/video or simply click the “Video News and Features” box ad on the OsoyoosTimes.com home page.
We hope you’ll check out our multimedia stories if you haven’t already.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Digital Editor
