MacDailyNews reader Mike McNeill, who works for Fox 4 (KBTV) in Beaumont, Texas, shot and lightly edited what is likely the first news story to broadcast over the air that was completely shot and edited on an iPad 2:
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I just can’t understand why the mainstream news media are losing audience by the bucketload.
LOL.
Mike – I read the story … Your framing is crap – I was pointing that out – it looks like a self-shot story. Should I congratulate you for churning out crap just because you did it all yourself?
Lowest common denominator.
Camera operators are paid to shoot stories for a reason and your story illustrates that well …
My point stands – just because you think you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
Good on you for pushing the envelope of technology by using a consumer grade product to shoot a story for a major news network – well done.
Thanks for your effort, but to me it proves the value of trained, professional operators.
Tom,
Sounds like you are a angry, unemployed camera man.
Professionals using professional equipment usually will do a better job at whatever the task is. This guy did the best he could with the situation handed to him and it was the first time! It demonstrates the possibilities for the future.
First, before I forget, I want to be perfectly clear: Mike, with a 90-minute deadline, you did what you had to do and it’s as good as it is for mainly two reasons — your experience, and in no small part, the iPad 2. It’s easy for everyone to go Monday-morning-quarterbacking here, but if the choice was turn something in or not turn anything in, there really wasn’t much room for discussion.
I can understand Tom Waits and how he cringes when he sees one of the two faces on the screen half cut off, or when the beer bottles in the frame are tilted by 30 degrees. I tend to look at this from a different perspective: first, this is NOT a major news network; it is a small local TV station. Second, this is not a major news story about a senator soliciting prostitutes, or mayor receiving bribes from organized crime; this is a story about beer. Production quality criteria is not as high.
I’m sure, the next report done on an iPad will also contain some shots done by the other camera, intercut with the talking-head shots.
In NYC, there is a cable channel on Time Warner, New York One (channel 01), which does 24-hour local news about NYC. It started sometime in 1992, pioneering the concept of a single person reporter/cameraman. Back then, they all carried massive Sony BetaCAMs, often with tripods, and roamed the city looking for news. The station has recently migrated to HD and I’m sure their cameras are smaller, but their reporters still have to go through video journalism bootcamp before they can work.
It takes very little time to learn how to properly frame and shoot video, and I’m sure Mike is quite familiar with that. The only question is whether it is possible to properly do both tasks at the same time with the tools provided.
Is it me or is the resolution on that video very poor?
What I find ironic about all the naysayers talking about how mm can’t frame for crap is that mm is actually a really GOOD still photographer. He won’t take credit for it, but his photo skills should be credited for this turning out as good as it did. Steady photographer hands count for a lot. This could’ve ended up looking like “The Blair Witch Project.”
You mean the iPad isn’t a professional quality news reporting camera with built in professional editing features? Well I’m canceling my order asap. Jeez, take it for what it is. I’ve seen some news footage played on TV that is the same if not worse quality. Monday morning quarterbacking is right. Was this a really serious news story? I doubt it. I’m glad Mike has a sense of humor and thick skin. Maybe one of the detractors can write a book – Professional Video Shooting and Editing on the iPad for Dummies.
I liked the piece, it was a nice friendly segment, I didn’t expect it to be as polished as a 60 min piece! Obvioulsy it was mean as a fun casual report and it delivered that. Would have like to see more beer varieties though, instead of just Guniness Co.
Best NonAl beer I’ve had so far is from Lebatts. Almost passes for a real one. Just wish they could make a dark NA.
Sorry! 2 Typo’s- “ObviouSLY it was meanT as a fun casual report…”
Yeah, it’s definitely a first – maybe with the iPad camera and iMovie for iPad, maybe we’ll see more citizen journalism, and we the people can take back the news from corporate conglomerates! (Eat that, Rupert Murdoch! 😀 )
I’m not some disgruntled camera operator – I work in the industry and if this is the direction its going then I see no future.
I wouldn’t get a plumber to fix my teeth and I wouldn’t use a journalist to self-shoot a story.
Sure Mike did what he could with what he had on the day and that’s great, but I look at his story and see some network executive saying to himself, “You know, give it a couple of years and we can sack all our camera operators. This will be our model going forward.”
It may seem far fetched, but the market for crap and fluff seems to outweigh the market for quality.
Kudos to you Mike and sorry if I slammed you unfairly.
I think we’re going to have to see widespread popularity among the citizen journalists before the commercial news studios decide to move en masse to using this kind of technology. I mean, yeah, it’s probably not that mindblowing to see a report on a local booze vendor shot on an iPad (other than it’s the first one), but what if we got some up close coverage of the Wisconsin protests? A big angle that the corporate media doesn’t want shown, but that a rogue everyday guy could capture and post online? That’s the kind of thing that would get iPad journalism going!
Would it affect the professionally paid cameramen? I don’t know. I suspect that a lot of it will still be towards people whose professions are something not related to journalism, but who capture the sides of the story that people want to hear about.