Workshops planned for Convergence '10 will cover still photography, videography, multimedia, editing, storytelling, and the equipment and software used by today's cutting-edge visual journalists.
Special emphasis will be placed this year on online visual journalism, as well as the business and revenue side of the industry for both freelance and staff visual journalists.
"We've spent more than a decade teaching ourselves how to do online visual journalism. It's time to learn how to make it pay," said Mark E. Johnson, a photojournalism lecturer at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Johnson is the chair of this year's Convergence program.
"Convergence '10 will address best practices in newsrooms, we'll look at how to do what we do so that we can do it better, and we'll open up a conversation with the business side to talk about how our skills will help our news organizations or further our freelance efforts."
Online registration is now available at www.nppa.org/convergence. Convergence '10, billed as "One Event, Countless Opportunities," will be centered at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, SC.
Since 2005, Johnson has been rebuilding the photojournalism emphasis at his university to include audio, video, and online journalism. He's been a leader in the journalism department's efforts to modernize the school's curriculum and to prepare the next generation of journalists through the creation of new courses and online news sites run by the students. He is a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and during his career he's worked as a photojournalist and editor up and down the East Coast.
"We are very lucky to have Mark working on Convergence '10," NPPA's executive director said. "In keeping with the successful and popular model laid out at last year's Convergence event, Mark is planning a line-up of practical, new skill-building and bottom-line improving workshops of substance that will help our attendees to go out and immediately compete in today's economic environment. We will, as always, be adding the awesome visual presentations from some of this year's award-winning visual journalists, but we learned from last year's event that attendees want a balance of both inspiration and application from our workshops."
"If you've never done video, we'll show you where to start – from hardware to software to where to point the camera," Johnson said. "If you've already done that, we'll show you how to do better daily online journalism. If you've been doing that for a while, we'll dive more deeply into video and audio editing software to really put a polish on your work. If you manage a group of people who do these things, we'll talke about resource allocation and coaching creative people. If you do it on your own, we'll talk about using social networking to find new revenue sources. It's time to make innovation pay."
Included in this year's plan are some workshops that are a longer format and meant to be more intensive, addressing technical, technique, and business issues. There will not be separate tracks for still photography, television video, and multimedia, but a "matrix" of workshops that will occur more than once so that attendees can mix and match their desired course of study to fit their individual needs, Straight said.
"Just like last year, we are aiming to challenge attendees in a classroom setting that requires active participation instead of just sitting in a lecture or watching a slideshow," Straight said. "While there will be some outstanding presentations that are meant to inspire, what we really want to do is to give people experience and skills that will help them to do their job successfully."
Some of the speakers and topics Johnson has confirmed for Convergence '10 include:
Sean Elliot, NPPA vice president and visual journalist at The Day: Navigating the Downturn, a panel presentation on succeeding in the new economic realities of the industry
Damon Kiesow, managing editor/online at the Nashua Telegraph: Managing a Multimedia Newsroom, Free (or Cheap) Tools for a Mobile Workflow; Going Mobile - Trends in Content Creation and Delivery; Mind Your Metrics - Measuring Success and Progress
Steve Masiclat, professor at Syracuse University, on search engine optimization for Video; Going Granular - The Third Screen is Now the First Screen, looking at mobile technology
Stanley Leary, NPPA Business Practices chair: Pitching Multimedia to Corporate Clients
Jim Biddle, Apple Certified Trainer and professor at the University of Georgia: Multiple high-level Final Cut Pro sessions including ones on Color, Soundtrack and Compressor.
Special hotel rates at the Francis Marion Hotel will also be offered to attendees and will be available on the Convergence '10 Web page, Straight said. "In an effort to make this as affordable as possible for people to attend, given the challenging economic climate, NPPA also announced that its prices will remain the same as 2009. This is only possible through the generous support of Convergence '10 sponsors Canon and Nikon."
NPPA's annual Awards Program, where the organization's annual top honors and awards from the recently-judged 2010 Best Of Photojournalism contest are presented, will be held at the conclusion of Convergence '10.
NPPA's Convergence '10 is officially sponsored by Canon and Nikon. For more information, please see www.nppa.org/convergence.
http://nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2010/04/converge.html
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