Video shooting tips

Sometimes great pictures don’t add up to a great video news story. That may sound absurd, but it’s true. TV stories that work aren’t just a collection of great shots, they’re narratives with visual continuity.

Scott Jensen, who just won his second NPPA TV photographer of the year award, says you can’t tell a coherent visual story without sequences. Over the years, he’s trained himself to shoot sequences in the field, which helps him edit stories much faster. “If I had to, I could edit a sequence in five minutes.”

Jensen works for KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Alaska.  We taught together last weekend at an NPPA workshop, and afterward I asked him to explain how his understanding of visual structure affects the way he shoots.

Share