Participants in Sensing the News viewed and discussed
what new technologies already are available for use in telling stories
online. Then they got some hands on practice with existing technologies,
including 360-degree and 3-D video. They worked in small groups
to produce short "white papers" advising the news industry
about the possible uses of new technologies, as well as concerns
and research questions raised by their use. Take the opening day
tour yourself by following the links below. The project reports
are available here.
360-Degree Video
Jeff Gralnick: Remote
Media Immersion
USC scientists are working on an entirely immersive experience for
users, combining HDTV and immersive audio online. "When the
president of Nvidia saw a demonstration," Jeff said, "his
reaction was, 'Television as we know it is now dead.'" This
could include haptic technology, allowing users to "touch the
news." The technology would allow journalists to take people
to a story in a way never before possible, and users could learn
in entirely different ways.
Susannah Gardner: Immersive
Panoramic Video
Working on "user-directed news," an approach to journalism
based on panoramic video technology. With 360-degree video, the
user can self-select what to view and can see what is behind and
around the reporter. Immersion gives the user a sense of being part
of the event. The reporter is less a gatekeeper than a guide. "This
will have an impact not seen before," Susannah said, and it
raises lots of questions. "When is it appropriate? When will
people want to have news delivered this way? Will they use it? Will
reporters adapt to it?" Susannah's group shot a news story
using the IMSC technology--which is enormously expensive and cumbersome
at the moment. The user views the results with a laptop and special
goggles that offer a head-mount display. Lessons learned: Set-up
time required is much greater than for regular video. (For example,
the unit uses five cameras which must all be color calibrated the
same.) Planning is essential. Reporters don't know where to look.
(The five lenses shoot into a mirror, so there is no one lens to
look into.) Limitations: The resolution of the camera is better
than using a parabolic or fisheye lens. But there is no tilt option--the
final output is 76x360 degrees, not a complete 360x360. But Susannah
believes issues of time and cost will be resolved in the near term.
Russell Bellamy: Telegenesis
Russell has developed a portable, inexpensive, 360-degree video
unit, which uses an off-the-shelf digital video camera, a specially
designed lens, and a high-end laptop. Total cost: less than $3500.
The lens shoots into a mirror that picks up a 360-degree view. It
could be held above the shooter's head to give the viewer essentially
the same experience as the shooter. Online, the viewer can "drive"
the picture by deciding what to look at. Imagine coverage of a demonstration
in which you could turn the camera around to see just how many people
are really taking part. One participant commented: "It forces
more honesty on you as a journalist." Russell also has worked
with a mini-remote chopper to get aerial video. The cost: $4500/day
including pilot and photographer, for up to six hours of flying.
http://rcwhirlybird.com/rcwhirlybird/site.html
The drawbacks: must have a qualified pilot to operate, pilot on
the ground need to keep chopper in sight, could be dangerous if
it goes out of control.
Amy Talkington: The
New Arrival
Amy Talkington, a former journalist, is a filmmaker who produced
the world's first immersive movie, "The New Arrival."
Shot with Be Here's 360-degree ivideo technology, the movie allows
the viewer to navigate through the scenes. The story was written
specifically for the 360-degree camera. Talkington created 360-degree
storyboards to anticipate whether an edit would make sense. Even
so, she says, every cut is a jump cut. But because of the way it
was shot, there were fewer discussions in the edit room about what
shot to put where. "The nature of the medium is to be watched
multiple times," she says. It changes the way a director thinks
about the medium, too. "As a filmmaker, you tell stories with
juxtaposition and this explodes that. It pretty much obliterated
film language, because any shot could be close, medium or wide."
The way Amy sees it, "It's the difference between a painting
and a sculpture. A sculptor can't decide where a person will stand
to look at this work. It's just different." The four-minute
film was produced on a very short schedule: Five days of pre-production,
one day of shooting, six days of post-production.
3-D Photography
Paul Morin: Geowall
Technology developed for teaching geology students uses 3-D photography
and off-the-shelf hardware to project it so an entire class can
see the same thing at once. Instead of expensive goggles, they use
cheap "passive stereo" glasses fitted with polarizing
lenses. "It doesn't replace going into the field," Paul
said, "but it helps you see what you'll see when you get there."
Read how it's done by clicking on applications/stereo photography.
(See also this
review of new technologies making it possible to capture 3-D
photos online and view them without glasses of any kind.)
Jamason Chen: 3-D Video
Jamason is experimenting with shooting 3-D video by shooting with
two DV cams at once. He believes viewers can better share the experience
if it's in 3-D, but is still searching for the kinds of stories
that can only be done in this new way.
Web Cams
Rex Sorgatz: Fimoculous
We think of Web cams as devices that can observe public spaces--the
penguins at the zoo, Logan
Airport, and so on. But they could be personal communication
devices. Macromedia has a new server for video chat that allows
for 10 streams. Boxes pop up with video and audio, and people can
talk to each other, and they can type in instant chat messages.
Check out what's being done now at Remote
Lounge. This could be a way of letting people interact with
an expert source, beyond the live-chat typing sessions done now.
Webcams could get you access to sources that can't be reached any
other way (like someone in a war zone, or under house arrest).
Loren Omoto: Stribcam
"Web cams are the salted peanuts of the Internet," Loren
said. "People can't get enough." The Star Tribune's camera
has added functions. You can drive it, shoot with it, save photos
from it, and email the results. The paper has several fixed cams,
and a portable camera that goes to events. Last year, it was at
the Minnesota Vikings training camp when Korey Stringer collapsed
and died from the heat. The camera had 90,000 page views the next
day. "We provide the tools, they create community." But
journalists could add content to Web cameras using technology like
that developed by Perceptual
Robotics. You create "hot spots" in the video, and
when you click you get something else. Most applications have been
for commerce (buy the guy's tie, for example) but journalists could
use it too.
Interactive Audio
Jim Andrews: Vispo
Jim's NIO program allows the user to select audio elements, decide
what order to put them in, and play them back together. Check "The
Art of Interactive Audio" for more examples. What is the role
of the composer, then? "Musicians would be offering unfinished
pieces, raw material, but highly evolved raw material." Future
options would allow users to save their "compositions,"
or add their own sounds by recording them through audio plug-ins.
Imagine using this to let users experience the sounds of a specific
location, like a forest, to effectively recreate the environment.
What if a user could click on a story and have it read to them by
the person who wrote it?
The Future of Flash
Rex Sorgatz: Fimoculous
Rex posits that we need new tools to attract what he calls the "drag
and drop DJ culture" to news. As an example, check out what
ESPN
is doing with Flash technology using multiple cameras to create
360-degree video that the user can manipulate while it's streaming.
You could create a kind of video mixer so people could arrange clips
in the order they want and then play them, save them, send them.
At a minimum, this would be a great classroom exercise for beginning
reporters and producers. According to Jupiter Research, 30 percent
of online users want to create their own material.
Laurence Bricker: Continental
Harmony
Laurence created the "Sound Lounge" for the PBS project,
Continental Harmony. The user can create his own story by selecting
video clips and choosing music to match. In his new project for
Valparaiso University, you choose characters who then enter into
dialogue (pre-scripted) about the subject you select.
Other Issues and Research Questions
Regina McCombs: Double
Play
Regina's project for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is a video-driven
story with no text that tells the story. Text supplements the story
with additional information. It was designed to be more than a TV
story dumped on the Web. It is, however, a linear story with a beginning,
middle and end. Her approach was to create a timeline and give people
places they could move for more information while they followed
the line. She included "sidebar" videos and infographics,
as well as games you can play as you move through the story.
Julie Jones: Crutch
Freestyle
Julie's research studied how people navigated an online story that
was presented three different ways: as linear video, as video with
text, and as non-linear video with several different entry points.
Her project is summarized
here. Among her remaining research questions: could you add
hints that would get people to choose to view the story in a specific
order? Add different levels of interactivity and see how younger
subjects would use them. Add a measure of comprehension to the basic
comparison test, to see whether people choosing a specific approach
understand the story better or not as well as people choosing a
different one.
Christina Fiebich: Elements
of Digital Storytelling
Christina and Nora Paul are working on an operational definition
of interactivity. They are developing a vocabulary for studying
current usage so they can begin to analyze effects on audiences.
Some of the stories they have studied are available here.
One research project compared users of two different versions of
an online project, Voices
for the Land, one of which used Flash technology and the other
of which did not. The results found that teenagers and seniors who
viewed the multimedia presentation had slightly better recall, but
the opposite was true for college-age students. In the case of the
seniors, the reason seemed to be that they found it hard to read
the screen. Three-quarters of them said they would have preferred
the project in a newspaper format.
Read the final reports from the
conference.
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