Commie J-School

Journalism training without the debt.

Oakland cops were livestreaming on May Day!

Here’s the first archive in a long list of video files that I received today. The audio seems to be missing and I’m checking with OPD to see if someone removed it on purpose.

My plan is to upload all the videos first, then watch them. If you see anything interesting, please let me know!

Thanks to Kristin Burgess for following up on my public records request. (Update ~ Kristin wrote me to say that the audio wasn’t removed: “If there is no audio, it could be because the microphone was accidentally turned off during recording.”)

~Justin

Update: Oakland cops respond to May Day records request

Photo of livestreamer @jeffkloy in Oakland on May Day 2012, by Flickr user jsruby22

(Photo of livestreamer Jeff K. by Flickr user jsruby22)

Awhile back I asked the Oakland cops for emails sent or received May 1 by command staff that contain the terms “livestream,” “live stream,” “Ustream,” “pixplz” or “Justin Beck.”

Today they handed over the emails — all 5 of them, which was a lot fewer than I anticipated, and they didn’t even talk about me!

Email 1 - Email 2 - Email 3 - Email 4 - Email 5

What’s interesting to me about the emails is not that the cops were watching livestreams and reading Twitter to gather real-time intelligence on the May Day protests, since they’ve done this before. But I do wonder why they called for mutual aid so early that day — at 9:55 in the morning.

At that point, the marches and protests had just gotten underway and were so far peaceful. Twice on May Day I asked the cops’ chief of staff Chris Bolton why they had called for mutual aid at all, but I never got an answer.

A next step might be to request all of the updates throughout the day from OPD Operations.

-Justin

Get better at helping people feel comfortable on camera by watching how Huell Howser does it.

There are so many awkward moments in this clip where it looks like it’s all going to fall apart. Huell keeps it together by being friendly, curious and confident the whole time.

This is an unedited, nearly 12-minute-long clip by Bill Marczak and it’s a great example of how a skillful videographer can capture a scene in a long take. (I used “long shot” in an earlier post, which apparently isn’t the term preferred by movie people.)

A big difference of course between a long take in a feature film, such as Altman’s The Player, and a news video like the one above, is that the action is planned in the former but (hopefully!) not planned in the latter.

Despite the unpredictability of real life, there are some ways to make a video, whether it’s live and uncut or recorded and edited, look more cinematic:

  • Have a specific subject in mind and frame the subject purposefully. Get close, especially when you need clear audio such as someone’s voice.
  • Anticipate the action by watching and listening, and move your body and camera accordingly.
  • Follow the action and be fairly consistent in how you frame the subject and compose the shot.
  • Keep the camera as steady as possible. There’s always going to be some shake with a handheld device, but with a little practice it’s possible to reduce it. Something that helps me is to watch the edges of my phone’s LCD screen.
  • Hold a shot for a while, at least a few seconds, before choosing a different angle.
  • Staying still and letting the action unfold is a good rule when making a video, but sometimes panning is inevitable and even desirable. Pan with a purpose: Have a start and end point in mind first, then make the pan short and smooth. The same goes for zoom shots.

I hope you’ll find these tips useful. See you on the streets!

-Justin, who’s on summer break from teaching and has movies on his mind

One way to make your livestreams more appealing? You could try being more like director Alfonso Cuarón. His 2006 film Children of Men featured many of what movie people call a long shot (or long take). In the compilation I’ve shared here, although none of the scenes has any edits, not a single frame gets wasted.

Livestreams often go long, sometimes for many hours in a row, and it can be a challenge to keep them interesting. Sure there’s more to a successful livestream than just the visual composition, but it’s important that it look good. So, I try to be more like Cuarón, go for the long shot and make every frame count.

Yesterday I streamed from Lakeview Elementary school in Oakland, on the fourth day of the sit-in. I was mostly happy with how the video turned out, and I was especially pleased with the part where the cops did a walk-through of the school building, along with the scenes just before and after. More and more I’ve been thinking about a livestream as a single, long shot, and so I hope I was able to express that idea to some extent in yesterday’s stream.

Side note: In Children of Men, Michael Caine plays a political cartoonist! (Sadly, his character gets murdered.)

-Justin

Update: Thanks to Richard for recommending Alexander Sokurov. Check out Russian Ark from 2002 (one very long shot that’s cut into several pieces on YouTube, unfortunately).

You never know who might be watching, it could be a cop

Back when I filed a Public Records Act request with the Oakland cops asking for their archived livestream footage from May Day, I also made a second request. This one was for any emails between the cops containing words and phrases that might shed some light on what else they were watching that day, namely, other people’s livestreams, like they apparently did mine on Jan. 28. (To speed things up, I revised the request a little later to include only command staff emails.)

If you recall the reply I got about my request for video footage, Kristin Burgess-Medeiros said they’d hand it over on or before Dec. 31. So I was happy to find out that I can expect not to wait nearly as long for the emails: 

May 18, 2012

Mr. Justin Beck

Justin3000@gmail.com

SENT ONLY VIA EMAIL

Subject: Regular Records Act Request (RE: May 11, 2012-Public Records Act Request #9558)

Dear Mr. Beck:

This is in response to your public records request #9558, dated May 11, 2012, requesting email messages sent and received by OPD command staff on May 1, 2012 containing the words or phrases: “livestream”, “live stream”, “Ustream”, “pixplz” or “Justin Beck”.

Due to the Department’s limited staffing resources and the numerous public records requests related to Occupy Oakland, it will take some time for the Department to complete your request. Emails that are not exempt will be provided on or before July 31, 2012.

Sincerely, Kristin Burgess-Medeiros

Oakland Police Department

Office of Inspector General

455 7th Street, 9th Floor Oakland, CA 94607

(510) 238-7097

kburgess@oaklandnet.com

I’ll let you know when I hear more.

Now, if only I could figure out if any of those trolls that hang out in my chatroom are cops!

-Justin

The littlest journo

I just discovered the Pocket Journo site via the great Online News Association. The site was put together by the New Media Innovation Lab “to help journalists and bloggers who may not have had formal journalism training but are out covering stories on a regular basis.” It’s very mobile friendly and packed with great stuff from covering government meetings to ethical dilemmas to image rights — a must-bookmark for any CJS student.

Livestream cops, give us all your May Day movies

Oakland cops were livestreaming on May Day! Too bad we couldn’t watch!

So, the other day I filed a Public Records Act with request with the cops asking for their footage. Here’s their response:

Dear Mr. Beck:

This is in response to your public records request #9559, dated May 7, 2012, submitted to the Oakland Police Department asking for all archived livestream video footage recorded by the Oakland Police Department on May 1, 2012.

The Department is in the process of reviewing all video related to the Occupy Oakland activities, including May 1, 2012.  Video must be reviewed and in some cases redacted.  Some video may be exempt pursuant to California Government Code 6254(f) as investigation records or investigatory files related to an open and ongoing investigation.  To the extent possible, the Department is working to process the video in date order.  

Due to the Department’s limited staffing resources, the numerous public records requests related to Occupy Oakland, and the hundreds of hours of Occupy video to review for numerous occupy operations, it will take several months for the Department to complete your request.  Video that is not exempt will be provided on or before December 31, 2012.

Sincerely,

Kristin Burgess-Medeiros
Oakland Police Department
Office of Inspector General
455 7th Street, 9th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607

(510) 238-7097
kburgess@oaklandnet.com

I’ll post again as soon as I hear more! -Justin