“Seeing – and hearing – is believing.”

So says Terry FitzPatrick, one of UPIU’s multimedia mentors. It’s not enough, he says, to just get the facts of the story. Broadcast journalists must “find sources that are willing to talk directly on-microphone or on-camera.”

And that can be tough. Want some tips, radio and video journos? For more from Terry, read on…

Getting a good clip or sound bite requires more than sticking a microphone in someone’s face. You must first know the qualities of an effective sound bite, and then ask questions that will get good quotes.

Here are six key characteristics of a killer clip: emotion, opinion, personal experience, urgency, passion and persuasion. Those aren’t listed in any particular order, and they’re not the only characteristics. You’ll rarely encounter a sound bite that has all these characteristics—just one or two is good enough.

Listen closely to the sound bites in this public radio feature I produced about South Africa’s national anthem. The way people speak is just as important as what they say.

Some details about these characteristics:

Emotion: The way a person speaks can be newsworthy—their inflection, their mood. If someone is angry, or happy, or joking or afraid—we will know it by the way they speak. Ask people how they feel, and, if it’s appropriate, ask why they feel that way.

Opinion: It’s better when sources can speak for themselves instead of having a journalist paraphrase their thoughts for them. As the reporter, stick to the facts in your voice tracks and narration. Let the opinions come out in the sound bites.

Personal Experience: Most news isn’t witnessed by a reporter. We find eyewitnesses who describe what happened. Personal accounts transport our viewers or listeners to the moment the event happened. Find sources who can describe what has happened, and how they felt as events unfolded. Ask follow-up questions that will prompt vivid descriptions-go beyond what happened to what it sounded like, smelled like, felt like, etc.

Urgency, passion, persuasion: These are variations of the same basic point. If your source speaks in a compelling way, listeners and viewers will pay attention. I often find that a one-word follow-up question adds sparkle to an interview. That word is: “really?” With that one word, I politely challenge sources to make better arguments. They often repeat or rephrase what they are trying to say, in a much more interesting and persuasive tone of voice. And that second answer will be the killer clip.

Here’s another example: listen to the sound bites in this public radio feature I produced about land expropriation South Africa.

How long should a sound bite be? It’s different in different languages. In English, a sound bite should run between eight seconds and 20 seconds. There are always exceptions to this guideline, but if the clip is too short it won’t feel like the source has been given a fair opportunity to make their point. If your clip is too long, it will drag down the pace of your story.

Listen for sound bites as you conduct your recorded interviews, and keep asking questions until you hear quotes you can use. In my own reporting, I have found that one of the Five Ws is more effective than the others at prompting sources to give good sound bites. That’s the question: “Why?” When sources answer the question why, they often reveal motives, opinions, experiences and personal convictions that make perfect sound bites.

Do you have a great story? Will your story take more than hard work and solid skills? Good journalism costs money. The professional journalists who make up UPIU’s mentoring team know that all too well.

That’s why we want to give j-students a financial kick-start to pursue a big story. If you (alone or with a team) pitch the strongest story idea, you’ll get $1,000 to pay for travel, data analysis software, freedom of information requests – anything you need to report and produce your story. You can even set aside some of the money to pay for your own time.

Once the story is accepted by UPI.com editors, we’ll send another $500 your way as payment for work well done.

Broadcast students, photojournalists, radio reporters, online text writers – everyone who is studying journalism is encouraged to apply. Want to produce a mini-documentary? Send us a pitch! Want to pair up with a photojournalism student to submit a photo gallery alongside text? Even better! Do you have the skills to create an interactive Web feature? We want to hear about it!

The story pitch that plans to provide UPI.com readers with the fullest understanding of the issue – from text to photos to graphics to video – will be given major preference.

Get all the details – and apply for the grant – here. The deadline is Sept. 26.

Good luck!

Storytelling is the foundation of all good journalism. But even when a journalist has a good narrative story in mind, it can be difficult to translate that story from one medium to another.

Phil Rees

UPIU Mentor Phil Rees, an award-winning documentary producer and former BBC correspondent, joined our team to mentor broadcast students at our university partners around the world. Even if you focus on audio or text or another medium, Rees is here to help. Below, he shares basic technical tips on capturing good video. Take a look at his clip (linked below), give his suggestions a try, and let us know how it goes!

Rees: This post is not about journalism content, but basic shooting skills. Nevertheless, while you are thinking about technical matters, you are still a journalist. Always keep in mind a visual storyline and the ingredients you need, including who you should interview. Ideally, you should make a list of what you need to capture during your research or, for breaking news, on your way to the location.

Note: If you are just starting to shoot video, I suggest that you place the exposure and focus buttons of your camcorder on automatic so that you can concentrate on framing and shot collection.

The first thing to consider is framing. There are conventions of composition such as the Rule of Thirds, but mostly you need to find a shot that is easy on the eye. If you are filming a subject that is not moving, such as a building or a person sitting down, then put the camera on a tripod or unipod. Or, find a flat surface to rest the camera, such as a table or wall. There is no reason for shots of motionless subjects to be shaky. If you are hand-held, try to keep the camera as still as you can. It helps sometimes to hold your breath. An object in the foreground, such as bushes or branches, can make a shot more interesting. If you do include foreground objects, make sure you haven’t confused the auto-focus. That could blur the primary portion of the image.

Shoot with the light behind you unless you want the subject to appear in silhouette.

Think discrete shots. Don’t try to move the camera while filming unless the subject is moving, such as someone walking. Allow the camera to run for at least ten seconds on each shot – it often helps to count. Use the zoom control to compose a shot, but don’t be tempted to use it while filming. Yes, a gentle push-in can be very effective and some reports can benefit from crash zooms, such as a story about fashion or dancing. But remember that in expensive pop videos, experienced directors choreograph these zooms. Beginners should keep their fingers off the zoom button!

Film a variety of camera angles and sizes. Don’t be afraid to walk around to find enough shots. Think wide, medium and close-up for each angle. Move close to the subject to frame a tight-shot. Always look up: Is there somewhere to get a top-shot that captures the whole scene?

Have a look at a nine-minute clip from a documentary I made in Kosovo in 1998 – a year before war broke out in that region. Some of the pictures may be a little upsetting, but on occasion, so is the job of a journalist. Watch the whole sequence, and then let’s unpack a few things.

I want to concentrate on three scenes, which have been intercut through the report.

1)    The first sequence involves a man singing while a group of friends listens around a fireplace. If you are using the microphone on top of the camera to record music, you need to compose a good shot, but also make sure you position yourself where the full sound is good – not too close to any one instrument or singer. (If you have a radio mic or sound recordist, different guidelines apply. I’ll write about those in a later post.) Keep the camera running and don’t move until you record the whole song (or, at least, complete stanza) so that a clean audio take is captured. After that, you can move the camera to take cut-aways that you can overlay with the master audio. Our master shot was of the singer at  20 seconds in, but we also had a wide shot at 30 seconds that looked very different. We also filmed the song twice. Don’t be afraid to ask someone to sing the same song again, as most singers want to be filmed!

When we took close ups of the faces, we made sure we had foreground – the smoke served us nicely.  Notice that there are very few camera moves or zooms. At 1.25, there is a very gentle tilt, and at 2.10, a slow zoom into the fire. But these were very measured and deliberate.

2)    The next sequence is of a fairly dull protest march. Not very interesting, eh? Well, there are different ways to shoot a march to make it visually appealing. Get elevation from somewhere so you can look down, such as at 1.03. Skip on to 6.45: We saw a third story apartment window and then knocked on the door to ask if we could shoot from the room. If you are polite, people are usually willing to cooperate with people working in TV. The shot was even better because the trees provided foreground. Then, at 7.20, you’ll notice that the cameraman went into the midst of the marchers. Don’t be scared of going (safely) into the middle of a demonstration. Force people to walk around you. Then we have other angles, such as feet at 7.24 (the camera was placed on the ground) and a low shot at 7.50. For this shot, the cameraman sat on the ground and cradled the camera in his body to keep it still. The camera only moves with the marchers, and the cameraman only moves when he walks alongside them. At 8.30 and afterwards, we see Serbs watching the marching Albanians. We wanted to film the two groups in relation to each other. To compose this shot, we filmed from the other side of the road, achieving foreground and a much more interesting image as the marchers passed through frame.

3)    Let’s move back to 3.40 and the white-haired man (Kosta) walking up to a large Serb memorial. A guy walking is not that exciting, right?  Believe me, you will need to shoot a lot of walking shots in your career to establish interviewees. So, let’s make it more interesting. Start with Kosta out of frame and allow him to walk into shot. Then, we vary from a very tight shot to a very wide one. At 4.00, we see a big, wide shot from a long distance away. To make sure we had different angles, we had Kosta do the walk twice for us. We told him to wait while we ran across the field to set up the shot. Don’t be afraid to ask people to do things more than once.

An experienced cameraman shot these sequences, but you can easily achieve the same variety of the shots. Once you are confident in handling the camera and gathering the basic shots, you can start putting the iris and focus controls on manual. There are many things to learn about filming, but getting the basic grammar of shot collection is an important first step.

Want more multimedia tips? Check out this post, by UPIU Mentor Terry FitzPatrick, on how to structure an audio story.

Jacob Soboroff says grab a camera and get out there and film. His project, Why Tuesday, leads by example, using video interviews to create accountability through quality journalism.

Soboroff did an excellent presentation for the February 24 DC Media Makers. Why Tuesday is a non-profit group that uses video blogs to increase voter turnout and enact election reform. His goal? “To help save democracy in America.”

On his way out of the NPR building Soboroff gave his advice to new video bloggers. Check out his video response.

Why Tuesday is new media journalism done right, using the tools at hand to affect change.

At DCMM, Soboroff talked about what he learned when he first picked up a camera. His initial work was right after graduation, when he drove around the country to film elected officals for a bounty.

This tactic may work with student news organizations. An offer for five or 10 dollars for the first 10 or 20 video interviews of student government members (or a pizza per interview) would probably pull in interested students, who would then become well-informed students.

Soboroff also noted the usefulness of infographics to enrich video content (a technique definitely worth investigating in a future post).

Transcript of video:

[Transcript coming soon]