Case study: diary of a regional newspaper videojournalist

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Demand for video on newspaper websites is booming. Journalism.co.uk spent a day experiencing life on the front line with the videojournalism team at Wolverhampton's Express and Star .

The paper's website (which attracts nearly a quarter of a million unique users a month) delivers around 20 videos a week. It's a mixed output of breaking news, interviews, features, news bulletins and pieces to add value to text stories.

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Video content for the site is created and edited by a team of videojournalists – a feature in the newsroom since June 2006 – with additional footage contributed by photography staff.

The title's two videojournalists Victoria Hoe, former chief reporter at the paper's Lichfield office, Wendy Lloyd, who joined the team last August from a broadcast background, and head of video Tim Walters took us through the day's video assignments from planning to filming, to the final cut.

Video: Video assignments and running order

The day begins with head of video Tim Walters laying out the day's shooting schedule and assigning the VJs their stories.

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Location 1: Halesowen, 10:15am

First video of the day for VJ Victoria Hoe was an interview with matchstick model maker Paul Morgan. The piece would eventually accompany a text feature on the site.

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Location 2: The Hawthorns [West Bromwich Albion Football Club stadium], 12:00pm

Her next assignment was a video vox pop with West Bromwich Albion fans in the build up to the FA Cup semi-final being played the coming weekend. The question to the 10 supporters interviewed: what's worth more to you - promotion or the cup?

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Editing:

Once the raw footage was gathered it was back to the office to cut and edit the video into packages for publication the next day day.

While out on location with one member of the team, fellow VJ Wendy Lloyd had been sent to interview former West Bromwich Albion player Bob Taylor .

After this she was back, editing a news review of the day's papers filmed in the office for immediate publication and readying a sports video from the previous day of West Bromwich Albion fans to be put live later in the week.

To edit the footage the team use AVID Xpress DV and record any voiceover material in a quiet office off the newsroom floor.

Hoe begins by laying out the video in order and editing down to core elements, before writing a script for any voiceovers and adding the audio.

Hoe explains that the day is usually split with half spent on shooting video and the rest on editing.

The figures below show the time spent on collecting the footage and editing:

Location 1 - final video Time spent at location - 80 minutes

Total footage -  16 minutes

Editing time   - 120 minutes

Edited length - 1 minute 50 seconds

Location 2 - final video Time spent at location - 30 minutes

Total footage - 5 minutes

Editing time - 30 minutes

Edited length - 2 minutes

Audio: Victoria Hoe (left) and Wendy Lloyd (right) on being a videojournalist

At the end of the day both VJs sat down for a quick chat on the highs and lows of newspaper videojournalism.

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