New contender for worst newspaper video
And I thought the Bolton News was bad. The bar has just been lowered by Reading Evening Post’s Sports Editor David Wright’s video bulletin, a painful lesson in how not to do online video:
Rule #1: if you’re aiming to imitate broadcast television, make sure you’ve watched it since the ’80s.
Rule #2: if you use a cloth for a background, make sure you iron it.
Rule #3: tempted to use those fancy transition effects on your video editing software? Sleep on it. Please.
Rule #4: if you’re going to do ‘green screen’ make sure the green covers the whole background.
Rule #5: don’t start talking to your mate while the camera is still filming.
Rule #6: speak clearly, slow down.
Rule #7: film at a time or place when people are not coming in and out of a door and mumbling to each other out-of-shot
Rule #8: do more than one take.
It’s not David Wright’s fault that he has to learn his trade in public. I doubt Surrey and Berkshire Newspapers have invested in any training for him, and it’s clear they’ve not invested in facilities. Perhaps material like this may persuade them otherwise.
UPDATE: I hope David’s hits have shot up – they’re watching him in Australia and Hungary.
You could add a couple more:
9. Try being interesting or at least (unintentionally) funny.
10. If you can’t, at least tell us something new – not a list of the bleeding obvious.
It’s not confined to Bolton & Reading – this stuff is all over the place. Why do news sites persist with multimedia without hiring the right skills? You’d no more ask a video technician to design a front page than pay a graphic designer to doorstep the mighty. Surely it’s worse for a newspaper’s reputation to offer up risible stuff like this than to leave video to the experts? (Or at least to the gifted amateurs?)
That’s pretty funny.
You know, none of you are funny at all.