Beauty of the Beast - by Ellen Clegg

http://www.billgentile.com, WASHINGTON, DC, 10 August 2011 -- Ellen Clegg traveled from Boston to Washington, DC, to attend the four-day Backpack Journalism Workshop of 4-7 August 2011. A print journalist during most of her career (Charlotte Observer, Boston Globe) she decided to probe the "visual language" of the methodology that we refer to as backpack journalism.

There's a lot of discussion about what backpack journalism is, so I define it at every opportunity. I call it the craft of one properly trained practitioner using a hand-held digital video camera to tell character-driven stories in a more immediate, more intimate fashion than is achievable using a conventional, shoulder-held camera and a team that includes camera person, sound person, correspondent and producer. Backpack journalists do it all and, most importantly, we make the pictures, which are the driving force of visual communication. (There's a reason they call it tele-VISION.) In the field, a backpack journalist shoots, acquires sound, produces, reports, interviews. We write the script. In some cases we narrate the piece. Depending on circumstances, we either edit the piece on our own, or we sit side-by-side with an editor assigned to the task.

Backpack journalism is not the 6 o'clock news reported by a single, multi-tasking journalist. It is a character-driven methodology with a specific, time-consuming approach and application that yields unique results and that does not work in all situations.

This is the first assignment Ellen has ever tackled with a video camera. We hope you enjoy it.

For more information, go to http://www.billgentile.com

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• Ellen Clegg
• Bill Gentile
• The Backpack Journalist
• backpack journalism
• backpack video journalism
• video journalism
• backpack documentary

[jakersjakers]

@dmvallaccess yes, it is open to the public

[dmvallaccess]

Is it open to the public?