Page 43 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 2 2011
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THE CHANNEL
|
ISSUE 2 2011
|
43
TECHNOLOGY
|
THE CHANNEL
re‑think their objections.
Award‑winning South Korean
director Park Chan‑wook shot his
latest movie Paranmanjang almost
exclusively on an iPhone. It was
released in January. The 30‑minute
Paranmanjang was mostly shot in
black‑and‑white using up to eight
iPhones. It cost $130,000 and was
funded by iPhone’s South Korean
distributor.
Park champions cell phones as a
cheap filmmaking tool. “You don’t
even need sophisticated lighting.
Just go out and make movies,” he
told the Los Angeles Times. “These
days, if you can afford to feed
yourself, you can afford to make a
film.”
The biggest difficulties mojos
encounter are getting the story back
to the newsroom from the field,
and the fact that mojo work gobbles
up battery power. Mojos need to
know where to find free or cheap
wifi networks for those occasions
when a phone network is not
available. VeriCorder technology
takes care of the network issues.
And seasoned mojos always ensure
they have plenty of battery chargers.
EXCLUSIVES
In 2008 I pioneered mojo in
Australia, working for the Geelong
Advertiser. At one news conference
in September that year officials said
individual interviews would not be
available. I sidled up alongside the
talent, introduced myself, and
streamed a video interview live to
the newspaper’s web site. It was an
exclusive. The discreet nature of
mojo is one of its main attractions.
Apart from VeriCorder apps,
here are some of the iPhone apps I
use when working as a mojo. In
Australia an app called Laptop
Cafés was great for finding
restaurants and cafés with free wifi.
Starbucks and McDonalds are
usually reliable places for wifi, as
are some restaurants, and
university and school campuses.
Another way to control access to
wifi is to buy a portable wifi router.
I have tested a D‑Link myPocket
router (DIR‑457) that costs $200.
You need to pay for the data loaded
on the router via a SIM card.
If you have access to Ethernet
you can buy Apple AirPort devices
for between $100 and $400 that
connect to an Ethernet cable. These
devices create a wifi bubble of
about three metres, and can sustain
several connections. It is best to
password protect these devices to
stop people from feeding off your
free (to them) wifi.
Ametal device called an Owle
Bubo improves the quality of video
or stills and the package (available
online) includes a small
microphone. You can watch a
review here
/
watch?v=0ndXyV3FIP0 . Other
ways to ensure stable images is
through a range of tripods such as
the Gorillapod, the Glif and the
Handgrip.
For breaking news I use the free
Dragon Dictation app for quick
bites of text. Once trained to my
voice, the app allows me to dictate
a breaking news story and then
watch as the software transcribes
the words. I then email or SMS the
news brief to the newsroom.
A free app called AudioBoo lets
me podcast from my iPhone (it also
works with Android phones).
Touch the record button, conduct
the interview, and send the sound
file to a dedicated AudioBoo site
within seconds of completing the
interview.
Amore professional way to do
this, which allows you to edit
sound on your iPhone, is with
VeriCorder’s VC Audio Pro app. It
costs $6 and offers broadcast
quality audio. In April 2010 I
worked with student mojos at the
University of Missouri’s journalism
programme in the US. Erica Zucco
and Brian Pellot covered local
government elections for the NPR
affiliate while I was there, and the
news director told me the audio from
Audio Pro was as good as that from
regular digital recorders. One way
to improve audio is to plug a
broadcast quality microphone into
the iPhone’s audio jack.
14MINUTES VERSUS 25
Zucco and Pellot compared the
time it would take to shoot, edit
and produce a one‑minute multi‑
media slideshow using an iPhone
against traditional methods.
For the traditional report they
used a Marantz digital recorder, a
Nikon D70 camera, and Cool Edit
Pro and Soundslides software. For
the mobile reporting approach they
used VeriCorder’s ShowCase app,
an Owle Bubo case for the phone
and a VeriCorder microphone. At
14 minutes and 25 seconds the mojo
approach took about half the time
for the traditional report (25:46). The
mojo equipment also cost about a
quarter of traditional gear.
Various free or relatively cheap
software packages available on the
web let you stream video to the
web almost live. Best known of
these are Qik
,
Bambuser
,
Flixwagon (
and
Livestream (
).
The downside of using this free
software is the fact the video goes
to the software provider’s web site.
If you have an exclusive the world
can see it at the websites of those
software companies.
▼
Left
Film-
maker Park
Chan-wook
Top right
Editing
on the Vericorder
Bottomright
The
Owle Bubo
Mojo’s
discreet
nature is
one of its
main
attractions
“
▼
