Video Journalism Movement profile

Behold the Video Journalism Movement, a worldwide network of video journalists. I am the VJ Movement's Dallas correspondent. All contributors first have to submit a self-profile video. Here's mine. Many thanks to Mark Birnbaum and Leslie Chase for allowing me to use some of the footage they shot of me in action at my former and current jobs.

Stretch Your Muscles, Not Your Wallet

At the Knight Multimedia Workshop in June 2009, I collaborated with four journalists on a multimedia package about a donation-based yoga studio in downtown Berkeley. The project's main video, which I edited, incorporates video footage, still photos and audio gathered by all five team members. View the high-resolution Flash version at the project site.

Special thanks to fellow team members Erika Check Hayden, Caryn Rousseau, Cesar Munoz-Acebes and Amelia Estades Santaliz!

I didn't shoot J.R., but I did shoot his ranch

I'm talking about a video shoot, of course. No telling who you might come across when you take your camera to Southfork Ranch. I found "Dallas" TV show fans from the Czech Republic, U.K., France, Denver and Wapakoneta, Ohio. Our package on the legendary show's 30th anniversary includes my story and this nifty trivia quiz.

Austin or bust

More catchy music in this video dispatch, where I took my camera aboard Amtrak's Texas Eagle for a seven-hour train ride from Dallas to Austin.

Gas: $4 a gallon. Peppy music: Priceless.

We've all seen the TV standups and news-you-can-use checklists lately about how to cope with rising gas prices and eke out a few more miles per gallon. In this video, I tried to spice up a well-traveled topic by using music and text slides while veteran DMN automotive writer Terry Box offered a series of helpful tips.

Jenna Bush's wedding

Residents of Crawford, Texas, aren't exactly buzzing about Jenna Bush's private wedding at the Prairie Chapel Ranch this weekend. But I had fun spending a few days there for this video and story. If you like the video, be sure to check out this new documentary about Crawford when it comes to your town or hits cable TV later this year.

"You can't even take your family to the movies no more"

With gas prices at an all-time high in Texas, I spent an afternoon at a gas station talking to drivers about how rising fuel prices are affecting their personal budgets. The video, edited by ace colleague Randy Eli Grothe, aims to humanize the impact of skyrocketing gas prices.

Bunnies, ducks and squirrels, oh my

Videos about cute critters never fail to attract viewers.

Surprise endings

Web readers who choose to watch a news video are clicking on good faith that the video will be worth their time. Every now and then, it's nice to reward these readers with an ending that surprises them and makes them glad they took the time to watch. My colleague Richard Michael Pruitt pulls this off masterfully in today's video about Dallas area residents enduring their second day without electricity after a ferocious storm. I tried to take the same surprise ending approach in my accompanying story, but if you compare both examples, you'll see how video trumps the written word in taking readers to the scene to experience the moment themselves.

Capturing breaking news on camera

While many of us love the meticulous craft of producing feature videos that take weeks or months to complete, breaking news events almost always attract the most hits on newspaper Web sites these days. Mark Lorenz, chief photographer at the Salem News near Boston, captured compelling breaking news in this video showing a firefighter's escape from a burning second-floor apartment. (Click on the video on the right side of the screen.) Mark held his shot and let his sources tell the story.