We’re big on anniversaries here at the newspaper, and I guess in the news media in general. It seems like any time there’s a significant anniversary of a significant event, we run out to find someone who remembers it. I put together a big documentary project on the 70th anniversary of the Hurricane of 1938. […]
Read more "Montville Police remember 9/11"For our latest episode of Song Spinner, a video series exploring what goes into writing a song, Rick Koster decided to profile John Fries. John picked his song ‘Vacancy’ and suggested shooting in the basement of Thames River Wine and Spirits, a location that John thought would match the mood of the song. Rick and […]
Read more "Song Spinner with John Fries – a three-camera shoot in a wine shop basement"We added a new tool to our video toolbox this month: a tiny little HD camera made by GoPro. The camera has a fisheye lens, shoots 720p or 1080p, has an interval timer for photos, and comes in a waterproof housing. It also has an incredible number of mounting options. For our first video with […]
Read more "Stand up paddle surfing with GoPro HD"Over the last few years we’ve tried a couple of different ways to incorporate video into our political coverage. We’ve tried posting a full one-hour debate between candidates for Congress. We tried an edited version of a debate with an introduction by the reporter. We tried shooting candidates’ endorsement interviews and publishing an edited ~10 […]
Read more "Candidate interviews: trying something new"This is the fourth in the occasional Song Spinner series that Rick Koster and I do. This was the first one that I shot on my own with three cameras. Since the raw content of each episode is basically a performance of a song and an interview, it would be tough to get enough visual […]
Read more "Song Spinner: Jim Carpenter"The Rhode Island National Guard Open House and Air Show is an annual event for a lot of people in this area. Each year, their PR people give us a chance to photograph one of their stunt pilots to promote the show. It makes great pictures, shooting from an open-sided chase plane as the stunt plane flies just a few yards away with local landmarks in the background. After one of The Day’s photographers shot this last year, we remarked that it would be cool to have a reporter do a video from inside the stunt plane. Turns out this is something they do all the time.
When this opportunity rolled around again this year, my regular partner in crime Rick Koster was supposed to take the flight. He ended up having to cancel the day before, so I thought it was going to be a missed opportunity. I sent out an email to the newsroom at the end of the day looking for volunteers, but hadn’t heard from anyone when I left for a 6pm assignment. I got home to find that reporter Julianne Hanckel was interested in taking the flight.
We met Team Oracle pilot Sean D. Tucker the next morning at Groton/New London Airport. First, Julianne flew with us in the chase plane to get a look at some of Tucker’s stunts. Then she joined him in the cockpit. Tucker’s plane had a camera in the cockpit, and one on the wing. They provided us with a tape of the in-plane footage, which helped give a unique view of the experience.
Read more "Take a flight in a stunt plane"
There was some debate in our newsroom about whether to publish videos to YouTube: YouTube would get our videos in front of more potential eyeballs, but the traffic would not be landing on our site, and those eyeballs would not be looking at our advertisements. At the heart of the debate was the question: “Will […]
Read more "The Power of YouTube – Behind the Scenes at a Funeral Home"For the third episode of our Song Spinner series, Rick Koster and I recorded the jazz/hip-hop band Above/Below in the New London apartment of one of the band members. The past two Song Spinners were just one musician with a guitar, so I was able to shoot it myself with two cameras. Since this was […]
Read more "Song Spinner: Above/Below"
Peter Huoppi - Multimedia Journalist 