KEEPING THE PASSION ALIVE
Standards
to make your stories stand out
from KUSA-TV photogrpaher Corky Scholl
*
Listen for stories:
“I
drive with my windows down, listening for good stories,” Corky says.
When he finds them, he makes an extra effort to get great audio. In
one story, he put a mic on a birdfeeder, and captured the buzzing
sound of a hummingbird’s wings. “It makes the shot more compelling,”
he says. Obviously, Corky cares about photography, but he says, “I
would take a great sound bite over a nicely composed shot any time.”
*
Balance action and reaction:
Corky
spends about half his time at a breaking news story shooting action
and the rest shooting reaction. “I shoot the event first,” he says.
Without the action, he says, there’s nothing to react to. He also
tries to anticipate action so he can be in the right place at the
right time. Covering an apartment fire, he noticed a piece of the
roof fall in but missed getting it on tape. He figured it would happen
again, set his camera up on the tripod and let it roll for five minutes
until he captured "the money shot."
*
Be unobtrusive:
Most
of Corky’s stories are shot with only natural light. Sometimes nighttime
video is a little grainy, but he believes he gets better, more spontaneous
sound from people if he doesn’t hit them with a bright camera light.
"I just put a mic on them and let them do their thing," he says. "I
get 'fly on the wall' sound as opposed to 'mic in the face' sound."
*
Know your people:
When
he finds an interesting character he'd like to follow, Corky often
spends time with them without his camera before beginning to shoot.
He wants to get to know them first, so the story he tells is "a real
story" about the person's life.
*
Shoot over time:
For
his award-winning story about a formerly homeless blues musician,
“King James,” Corky invested a year of his time, shooting about one
day a month. About half the time he was off the clock, but he also
worked on the story on company time between other assignments. “Doing
it yourself makes it a lot easier to get the desk to give you time
to go do it,” he says.
*
Stay under the radar:
To
make sure he has the time to work on long-form stories, Corky doesn’t
tell producers what he’s doing until he’s almost done. If he tells
them at the start, he says, they want it tomorrow! Instead, he keeps
in touch with the assignment desk and squeezes in shooting time when
he’s on V/O-SOT patrol. “They’d rather have you out shooting than
looking at the Internet,” he says.
*
Take ownership:
Corky
often involves a reporter in stories only after he’s done all or most
of the shooting. He’ll take hours of tape and edit it down to a 10
or 15 minute compilation including all of his favorite sound bites.
He structures the story before handing it off, putting shots and sound
in the order he hopes they’ll be used. “That way I ensure that my
vision ends up in the story,” he says.
*
Sell your stories:
It
helps to know how to get stories on the air. Corky's way is to know
what producers need and when they need it. Several of his favorite
stories aired on holidays, when producers were grateful to have a
longer piece. He also targets the Saturday 5 p.m. newscast, which
runs an hour, for the long-form stories he produces.
*
Enjoy the work:
Corky
says having a story on the back burner and working on it a little
at a time keeps him happy. “We can’t do great jobs on stories every
day and that can be frustrating,” he says. “To know that in a month
or two I’m going to have a great story keeps me sane.”
From
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