Dave Morris » david jones

Behind the scenes: producing BCS videos after the game

David Morris — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:31:36 +0000

Last night, Oklahoma lost to Florida 24-14 in the BCS National Title game in Miami. David Jones and Paige Dillard met me in the OPUBCO Studios about 10 pm to watch the final mintues. The Oklahoman’s Mike Sherman sports editor came down to the 7th floor from the 8th to tape three segments.

I had three videos pre-produced: graphics and script. Paige pulled photos from The Oklahoman’s staffers in Miami ready for our videos. Jones prepared the studio for the three shoots.

We knocked out the first video, a post game show that lasted about five minutes talking about the game.

Then we rearranged the sets and taped two segments – one about Sooner coach Bob Stoops and quarterback Sam Bradford.

We finished taping around 11:30 pm. We record and edit using Final Cut Pro. We encode the FCP .mov files into .flv files using Adobe Flash Encoder. Exporting and encoding is by far the lengthiest part of the production.

We left the office two hours later after posting the videos and editing NewsOK.com and NewsOK.tv to properly display the videos.

Bike to work week fun video

David Morris — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:02:44 +0000

Yes, really.

One of The Oklahoman’s business reporters, Don Mecoy, approached me with a video idea last week. He and his fellow reporters from the Biz desk were working on alternate methods of getting to work stories. With gas prices high, people have options: bike, bus, walk (ok, maybe not walk) and other stuff.

So Don Mecoy, who has a couple nice bikes, decided he would bike to work from Edmond. Read his account here. Jim Stafford would ride the bus.

David Jones and Kyle Roberts shot Mecoy as he rode to work, about 10 miles. Stafford took a hand held camera on the bus as he rode from Edmond to downtown – past The Oklahoman’s office – to catch the right ride to the office.

Kyle edited together a classic piece. Mecoy and Stafford were great sports and good to work with. It’s not your routine gas price package.

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Vegas: Day 1

David Morris — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:31:29 +0000

Getting a shuttle from McCarran airport in Las Vegas makes one think the taxi queue is the way to go. After 45 minutes of inhaling bus fumes, David Jones and I departed for the hotel.

The NAB Show is, as it says, a digital media event. In year’s past it focused on broadcast television. Now if focuses a lot on the Internet. Just as the newspaper industry is focusing on the Internet.

The digital industry is all about learning the latest technology. Tim Robbins is the keynote speaker on Monday.

Last day on the Hill

David Morris — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 04:54:48 +0000

Tuesday was a busy day for the OPUBCO crew on Capitol Hill.

Jones, Horton and I finished trouble-shooting our gear, tweaking the settings and going through test drives of the new Washington DC video set. Jones and I wrote training documents for our boys Chris Casteel and Mark Green.

Would you believe you can’t find a printer in DC? Two Fedex/Kinkos did not have printers for our thumbdrives to print the documents. It’s always the little things that are the most frustrating setbacks.

We joined Ed Kelley for a tour of the Washington Post Interactive. I met up with old friend Matt Havercamp at WPI as we picked their brains about newspaper video. More on this visit in a future blog.

Back at the National Press Building, both Mark and Chris taped debriefs for this weekend with Ed. Both seemed comfortable running through the processes of setting up the set and going on camera.

Oklahoma weather in Washington

David Morris — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:24:49 +0000

I took a tour of the Belo operation in Washington DC today. I was joined by Ed Kelley, David Jones, Scott Horton, Chris Casteel and Mark Greene from OPUBCO. Our mission was to look at what Belo is doing with their bureau from the Capitol.

We didn’t expect the surprise.

And we didn’t expect the gorgeous weather: 70s and perfect.

Upon arriving in a mostly empty building (it’s Presiden’ts Day and DC takes this day seriously), we were pulled aside and told the Belo staff at the DC bureau were just informed on Friday of staff cuts. The Belo bureau in DC is a combined print, online and broadcast team. I got the impression they had more synergies in the past than the present. And the staff cuts would only further that gap.

Ed and I spoke more today about how large operations like Belo and the Atlanta Journal Constitution are going more towards silo’d efforts, where departments focus on their core compentencies instead of collaboration.

Should be interesting to see how it shakes out.

It was also interesting to see the weather take a left turn, for the clouds to roll in and the skies to open. The temp dropped about 20 degrees and it started pouring. Welcome back winter.

Washington DC bureau update

David Morris — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:19:56 +0000

David Jones, Scott Horton and I worked on the new Washington DC set this morning, installing the teleprompter software with the help of Donna Young’s crew. Sometimes ya just hafta call for some backup to get the job done.

With that accomplished, we finished setting up the compression and resolution settings and knocked out a quick debrief previewing our upcoming DC coverage.

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Flip the switch, hit record

David Morris — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:22:43 +0000

Late Sunday night we recorded a quick video from the Washington DC set. We will meet with Ed Kelley, Mark Greene and Chris Casteel on Monday to go over format, answer questions and finish plugging things together. Maybe hit a Radio Shack.

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Video reports from Washington D.C.

David Morris — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 04:44:13 +0000

David Jones, Scott Horton and I hit the National Press Building tonight. D.C. is very quiet on a holiday weekend, especially on a humid Sunday night. The streets were wet, but empty. Only the occasional tourist walking past. Amazing how many foreign languages and accents you overhear while here.

Jones and Horton have done a very nice job in hooking up the equipment for our set which will serve as our D.C. bureau. Reporters Chris Casteel and Mark Greene will have great tools to use for their video reports.

On a side note, I can report the Old Ebbitt Grill knows a thing or two about baking crab cakes.

Not what you think

David Morris — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:41:45 +0000

David Jones and Scott Horton pouring over the menus at Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington DC?

Nope, both on their iPhones.

High School Huddle

David Morris — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:37:04 +0000

Worked on a script and production of The Oklahoman’s High School Huddle over night. We went into production today. Should post it tomorrow.

The Oklahoman’s sports editor Mike Sherman and deputy sports editor Mike Koehler wanted a high school sports show produced. Ryan Aber would go on camera with me to discuss the prep football scene each week.

And the 2007 season kicks off Thursday. Not much time.

So I wrote a quick show. 5 minute total running time. Backtimed it: Edlamfootball.com is our new site devoted to Edmond North, Edmond Santa Fe and Edmond North football – so there’s 45-60 seconds. We could use a Dave and Angi commercial – another 15 seconds. 2-3 minutes with Ryan talking about the season, with a True or False segment. We would use music under the entire video. Then we met with Bryan Thomas and Billy Davis for opening animation, full screen graphics and lower thired. David Jones created a nice studio setting. Tanner Herriott worked on lighting. Jacquelyn Farris ran teleprompter. Kyle Roberts oversaw the elements and will edit.

We’ll see the finished product tomorrow. We’ll improve production and the look in the coming weeks. But for a quick turnaround (one morning) it went really smoothly and simply.