SFBAPPA’s (San Francisco Bay Area Press Photographers Association) annual Multimedia Workshop was an infusion of inspiration & continuing education for current members- incredible meeting of the minds, so to speak. If you missed it this year, consider joining SFBAPPA and mark your calendar for the first week of Dec. 2011. Kim Komenich, Dai Sugano and Paul Sakuma chaired this year’s event and did an incredible job organizing interesting speakers to move the multimedia conversation forward.

It will take me a while to unpack and integrate the pages and pages of notes I scribbled- here’s the abbreviated highlights:

Theo Rigby (Documentary Filmmaker) presented new things for still photographers to consider as they cross over to multimedia and film.
• Production process- sorting through 300 hours of footage for a 1 hour film (4-5 months production).
• Music copyright: Did you know you can get sued if “Happy Birthday” is heard in your film/multimedia? I didn’t!! “Fair Use” applies only if you are critiquing copyrighted material in an educational format. I learned there is actually a form to sign via your lawyer for “fair use”.
• If you want to incorporate footage from the news (ie: NBC)- it’s $50/second with a minimum purchase of 30 seconds.

Rigby also discussed his film “Sin Pais” which was in a film festival in Amsterdam recently (congrats Theo!)
http://player.vimeo.com/video/11124305?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0

Sin País (Without Country)__Trailer from Theo Rigby on Vimeo.

I can’t wait to see this in its entirety.

Powerhouse Panel:

1. Radio Photojournalist, Lonny Shavelson spoke about funding independent projects- sometimes you have to do the project before the funding can be found. His advice- follow the stories you’re passionate about- the ones you “must” tell- not just the ones that pay.

2. Kathleen Hennessey, Former editor of the SF Chronicle- now with the incredible nonprofit organization: Photophilanthropy spoke about hope.

Quotes of the day:
“Sometimes when you follow your heart, the people you need to work with appear.”
“The part of you that must make pictures is independent of the job.”
“Don’t complain about what you don’t have, use what you’ve got.”

Hennessey mentioned ways in which freelancers are beginning to organize towards benefits- check it out:
• media workers union
• Media Workers Guild (CA)
• freelancer’s union

Geri Migielicz of Story4.org talked about the demand of multimedia marketing pieces for nonprofits.
Things to consider:
•Personal storytelling vs. talking heads.
• Tight, focused message- clear goals
• Distribution Plan
• What is the message and WHO is your audience? The who impacts HOW you convey your message.
Check out the new piece produced by Story4 “Interrupted Lives” (this is the trailer)- notice Richard Koci Hernandez’s powerful use of Adobe’s After Effects on the titles and photos (more about this later).

Josh Wilson- publisher of newsdesk.org, talked about new ways to get your story published and to fund stories you care about.
• spot.us– is a community involvement site. You can suggest a story and people can donate to help make your story happen if it’s something they also care about.
•kickstarter.com– another way to “fund and follow creativity”. With your project on kickstart, it looks like you can get an interactive map, post audio updates etc. for those who want to follow the process of your story’s creation. Very cool concept- not limited to photography at all.

Josh talked about lots of independent news desks popping up- he said some are sustainable and some aren’t… what I left unclear on is what a “sustainable” model is and which ones he considers to be…

I’m thrilled to learn there is an app for mobile model releases! If you’ve ever walked around on a shoot with the stack of release forms to be signed- it’s a pain. What’s more of a pain is scanning them later- I’m thrilled at the idea that there’s a mobile app for this. I have the Android- so for my phone, I found “Model Release Pal“- (free). You can input notes about the model and/or shoot, attach a contract, and have them sign with their finger or a stylus. I tried signing with my fingernail- it hardly looks legible- but it has potential. A stylus will be in order. Exciting technology!

Following the panel, I went to 3 workshops: Richard Koci Hernandez’s intro to After Effects, Suzanne Yada’s Social Media Presentation, and LiPo Ching from the SJ Mercury News on FCP tips and “Soundsoap”.

If you check out multimediashooter.com, Richard Koci Hernandez‘s blog- he has a post chocked full of examples of interesting projects and title sequences all made with Adobe’s AfterEffects called: “Why You Should Learn After Effects Now”. I haven’t tried it yet, but the interface is fairly similar to Final Cut Pro- he made it look quite easy (but we all know how that goes…)! I believe we’ll see less and less of the “Ken Burn’s Effect” and more 3-D movements as this software evolves and more still photographers learn it. Check out the 3-D effect on the stills in the trailer for “Riding Giants”
We discussed ethics- because you do have to manipulate your photo by cloning background areas to create this effect. Things to consider: how long the ‘effect’ is on screen, intention, deception/cloning.

Other gems:

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• RKH recommended “Rescue Time” software which tracks how much time you spend in each application. I’m trying out the free “lite” version today for the first time. When you don’t type for a while, the computer asks you “where have you been for the last ‘x’ minutes?” I can see this having great potential for those of us who are freelancing and multitasking. The ability to track how long projects are actually taking- (although I don’t know about you- but it might be sobering to see the actual time I’m spending on projects…)

• Revostock: You can purchase After Effects scripts and insert your own footage

Suzanne Yada (Social Media Expert)
I admit it, I’ve had a strong aversion to ‘Twitter’. I’m a private person, and broadcasting anything is simply going to have to be an acquired taste… I signed up a couple of years ago, and have made a whopping two tweets. Suzanne explained the point of Twitter, and outlined how to use it with goals and purpose (yes!). Not of this random business… she truly made the twitter-beast less intimidating to incorporate into the workflow. She has a detailed “resource” page attached to her blog, generously helping the world become adept with social media (check it out!).

A few Suzanne Yada tips:
• 1 in 7 tweets should be about you. The other 6 should be links to other people.
•hootsuite: manages your individual social media sites such as facebook, twitter
• Get your free Photoshelter, 55 page “social media” pdf here
•Use your “Twitter Manager” to divide the tweets you’re following into category lists so they’re not as overwhelming
•Use bit.ly to shorten long URL’s to fit in your twitter posts (140 characters)
• # is called a hash tag, which turns any word it precedes into a searchable ‘key word’ making it easy for twitter users to search topics they’re interested in. I found this helpful article today when I was clarifying my notes called “The Twitter Hash Tag: What is It and How Do You Use It” and to shed even more light on the “hash tag”

Last but not least… ever capture shaky video and wish you could stabilize it? San Jose Mercury News LiPo Ching demo’d Motion’s “Smooth Cam” filter- I was impressed, it worked like a charm. When you send your clip to ‘Motion’ via ‘FCP’, your clip is automatically updated in FCP when you save your work. I will be trying it out on my system in the near future… TBA

In a nutshell- that’s the news from SFBAPPA’s multimedia workshop 2010.
Thanks again to Paul Sakuma, Kim Komenich and Dai Sugano for creating this experience.