Why Is Travel TV (and video) So Bad? (when it could be so good?)

Grenada by Bob Krist

Today we are wrapping up the USA TODAY Trave Video Academy

USA TODAY is going to start building an online/mobile/tablet presence and a great deal of that is going to be video

In this case, video about travel

One of the students in this class this week is Bob Krist, one of the pre-eminent travel photographers in the world.

Go take a look at his website (above). Go buy one of his books!

Bob Krist has a great eye. He has been taking photos for magazines like National Geographic for years.

You see the quality in his images. They speak for themselves.

Magazines like National Geograhic are visual media.

But so is televison.

Why then, is the ‘visual quality’ of televison so bad?

from Mancation, on The Travel Channel

Television, as a visual medium, has not paid much attention to the visuals.

Usually it has been enough to take the ‘talent’, stick them in front of a camera and hope for the best.

This is particularly annoying when it comes to travel.

Here, the opportunities for powerful visual images are limitless.

I don’t want to spend the whole space here beating the crap out of the travel channel. Let’s beat the crap out of someone else.

Here’s Conde Nast Traveler – a fantastic and beautiful magazine.

Great articles, amazing graphics, stunning photography

Until it comes to their video

[youtube]http://youtu.be/kkSmeaWs9K4[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/user/condenasttraveler#p/u/98/kkSmeaWs9K4[/youtube]

staffers go online with video

This, embarassingly enough, is from CN Travelers website.

Umm… yes…

Would CN publish an out of focus photo done on an ‘instamatic’ (that was a cheap camera made by Kodak, for our younger readers (Kodak was a company that mde cameras for our even younger readers)).

But what happens when you empower someone like Bob Krist with video?

And then what happens when you send him out to create travel videos the way he creates travel stills?

That’s the objective of this week’s exercise in New York.

Get the concept?

Get the opportunity?

See the future?

 

Michael Rosenblum

For more than 30 years, Michael Rosenblum has been on the cutting edge of the digital video journalism revolution. During this time, he has lead a drive for video literacy, and the complete rethinking of how television is made and controlled. His work has included: The complete transitioning of The BBC's national network (UK) to a VJ-driven model, starting in 2002. The complete conversion of The Voice of America, the United State's Government's broadcasting agency, (and the largest broadcaster in the world), from short wave radio to television broadcasting and webcasting using the VJ paradigm (1998-present). The construction of NYT Television, a New York Times Company, and the largest producer of non-fiction television in the US. Rosenblum was both the founder and President of NYT TV, (all based on this paradigm (1996-1998). The President and Founder of Video News International, a global VJ-driven newsgathering company, with more than 100 journalists around the world. (1993-1996). Other clients include Spectrum News, Verizon and CBS News.