Melissa Worden has a nice post on the Multimedia News Producers Workshop in Minneapolis.

Someone put together a funny video about newsroom training being similar to training cats to fetch. Since herding them didn’t work, maybe teaching them to fetch will? I have to agree that training about “that Internet” is a lot of like teaching cats to fetch. We had a senior editor bail out of a training session last week after five minutes. (sigh)

Worden makes the point that we have to figure out how to make training fun like Kate McGinty taking the multimedia plunge. But watch the training cats video. It’s great.

She also posted this great guide that was presented at the workshop on rating video stories and the time they can consume. I need to circulate this one around my newsroom.

>> One star: Raw video, recorded for no more than 45 seconds. The final product has no editing or titles. Production time: 1-2 hours, which includes shooting, ingestion, formatting and posting.

>> Two star: Very rough cut video. Two to four cuts in a short video with limited titles. Production time: 2-4 hours, which includes shooting, ingestion, formatting and posting.

>> Three star: Project is shot, edited and posted the same day. Includes 1-3 brief interviews (A roll) with other shots (B roll). Titles are used as intro and to introduce people. Production time: 4-6 hours, which includes shooting, ingestion, formatting and posting.

>> Four star: Often supplements in-depth enterprise stories. Video may contain several interviews and voiceovers or on-camera reporter interviews. Production time: May take several days to complete, which includes shooting, ingestion, formatting and posting.