Will News Gathering Become Cinematic
On November 11th the Polish authorities clashed with violent marchers rallying on the country’s independence day. While the majority of the media were shooting stills and video at the flashpoint of the clashes, a cameraman located at the outer periphery of action was shooting unique footage with a RoboKopter.
What is particularly striking about the video is that it is incredibly cinematic. If you replace the actual sound of the RoboKopter’s engine with a musical soundtrack by muting YouTube and selecting a song from your iTunes library, the news event looks like a rough cut scene from a movie.
What I like the most is that the viewer gets a broader, more complete feel of what was occurring at the time that the footage was taken. There have been times when I’ve been on assignment that my lens was focused on unfolding action, and then behind me the scene was almost the antithesis of what I was shooting. However, from the perspective of the image, it looks like I’m in the middle of the chaos.
What I find dangerous about the emergence of more cinematic news footage is the significant potential that the news will be marketed even more like entertainment than it is currently. When I look at the footage below, I am amazed, but slightly more removed than normal. The urgency of the crisis and the fact that people are getting hurt is less resonant. And this is just a video of opportunity. Imagine what this would have looked like in the hands of a more experienced news photographer.
The first video is of the Polish riot police running down a narrow street to get the heart of the clashes. The second video is of the actual clash and is a less cinematic looking than the first video.
