Just got an e-mail from Jay Rosen about helping out with some video editing for the '08 Iowa coverage for Off-the-Bus. He's got a pretty sweet connection with the HuffingtonPost, which could be some great exposure. And an opportunity for me to be more directly involved in the '08 elections. Time is the only consideration, and so I brainstormed a number of ideas that would make the process more collaborative, and make my life a lot easier.
I just shot this e-mail back to Jay with some ideas that I thought were worth sharing. It's amazing how an inquiry and it's roadblocks can spur all sorts of ideas for coming up with creative workarounds that leverage the latest in new media technologies.
I have a number of questions and some ideas for streamlining this type of collaboration.
* First, time is of the essence since the news cycles is so compressed these days. So what are the specific dates of the main events, and when would the video need to be done? (BTW, I'm on the West Coast now, which means that my nights are later)
* Where is the source video coming from? C-Span feeds of the debates / Original on-the-ground footage? There are services like Spin-XPress that will enable the transfer of high-res footage in a P2P fashion.
* Will there be any other voice-overs, external B-roll (i.e. other footage/photos) or any other original contextual info included?
* I think that Twitter / Live IRC chat log / live e-mail log could be used for great effect here. Specifically for logging the footage in real time and for helping create the narrative structure for the video piece.
How? Well, the hardest part for editing down a news piece is logging the footage and knowing what sections are particularly newsworthy -- and adding in the additional context to it as well. The advantage to the debate is that it is live, and if a number of Off-the-Bus correspondents will be watching it live, then that means that any twitters that they make will be time coded, synchronized and able to be easily coordinated to the debate footage. (note: different time zones may need to be normalized, but the important thing is that will be chronologically listed)
It will also be a good way to document the questions, summarize the answers and use the volume of chatter as an indicator of "newsworthiness."
Think of it as collaborative live mini-blogging medium that tapes into the collective wisdom of the crowd.
Here is a real transcript example from the YearlyKos debate that was streamed online that I was watching with a number of my twitter friends:
Note the spike in twitter volume that happened around Hillary and lobbyist money -- lots of fireworks were flying, and people's twitters reflected that:
Kent Bye: Watching live stream of YearlyKos Presidential forum: http://www.yearlykosconvention.org/ustream -- A pretty energized & rowdy crowd
01:15 AM August 04, 2007 from webKent Bye: Here's a cheat sheet that I remixed from 2decide.com of where Prez candidates stand: http://tinyurl.com/2ckj3e
01:38 AM August 04, 2007 from webChuck Olsen: so cool that candidates have to answer to bloggers here.
01:35 PM August 04, 2007Chuck Olsen: kucinich sez impeach! werd.
01:47 PM August 04, 2007Scott Beale: YearlyKos: "If you are elected, will you hire an official White House blogger?"
02:08 PM August 04, 2007Scott Beale: YearlyKos: "President should be the one blogging."
02:09 PM August 04, 2007Chuck Olsen: Edwards would make Elizabeth Edwards the official blogger... sweet.
02:12 PM August 04, 2007Kent Bye: Hillary thinks that lobbyists don't influence her votes b/c they represent real Americans. Bleh. Obama speaks truth to her face. Smack!
02:23 PM August 04, 2007Chuck Olsen: hillary gettin nailed for not refusing lobbyist money
02:23 PM August 04, 2007Steve Rhodes: Obama has a great response to Clinton defending taking money from lobbyists & Edwards is asking how many people have a lobbyist
02:23 PM August 04, 2007Kent Bye: I know Kucinich has a snow balls chance in Hell, but I love his non-violent voice Re: the War on Terror. Very anti-groupthink. (ahem! Obama)
02:38 PM August 04, 2007Kent Bye: Debate Takeaway: I don't like Hillary b/c she's too immersed in corporate establishment. Sad to see Obama's anti-Beltway views fade w/ time
02:48 PM August 04, 2007Kent Bye: Another takeaway is Obama packs a sharp punch esp his counter to Hillary re: lobbyist $. He's quick on his feet & not afraid to counter BS
02:53 PM August 04, 2007
This is just a small sample, but this approach actually scales quite nicely. It just needs to be recorded and digested. [NOTE: This confrontation with Hillary turned out to be pretty big talking point for Edwards and Obama ever since it happened -- see the full exchange here:
It'd be great to have a newspaper editor-type person reading over the twitters and then create a wiki page that digests the feedback into a roadmap that makes my life easier as a video editor.
These twitters could also be cultivated directly into a news article piece -- where off-the-busser's twits could be quoted for their reactions and providing additional context.
The other advantage is that it'll make it a lot easier for anyone to else to watch the Off-The-Busser's reactions live via twitter. The iPhoneDevCamp folks did this during their barcamp-like meetup by posting the feed from: http://twitter.com/iPhoneDevCamp/with_friends -- My suggestion would be to only friend people who intended on contributing to the twitter feed in an off-the-bus context. Specifically creating alter twitter egos -- otherwise there will be a lower signal-to-noise ratio with non-relevant posts from people who were friended, but not twittering about the Off-the-Bus event.
Also with a little technical help, this editor-type person could be crowdsourced out to the collective as well if it was integrated within Drupal. If each twitter message was also a Drupal node, then the fivestar module would allow people to vote on other people's comments, and the Views module could create lists of the most popular comments.
CAVEAT: One problem with Twitter is that it is notorious for having outages -- which would suck if one happened during the debate -- and so it might be better to have the backup plans in other reliable place like:
* An IRC backchannel or IM Chat (more technically difficult unfortunately, but it is in real-real time, and less public)
* Or a Drupal site that has a way to automatically post 140 character messages to Twitter via their API. (This will take a bit of configuration and time to play around to get it to work, but it's certainly possible to achieve. More public. Contributers would have to sign in as a Drupal user and enter their twitter account info if cross posting)
* Directly into a wiki page (potential problems with deleting other people's edits, more technically difficult)
* Create a specific e-mail list that will be high-volume for short-term events.
* Have people type up brief notes offline and then aggregated later. (will have to manually timecode it, which makes it a lot more difficult, but is a last-ditch option)
I think for simplicity's sake, doing it through a working Twitter would be ideal, but there should be some backup plans and whatever works best for the loggers.
Anyway, those are some of my first thoughts for how to streamline it to make my life as a potential video editor a bit easier.
Thoughts?
-Kent.