Has this ever happened to you? You're standing on a busy street corner, minding your own business, when all of a sudden a masked gunman comes running out of a nearby bank with the cops in hot pursuit. Luckily, you have your video cell phone and capture the whole scene on video. But how would you submit network news video clip footage like this to ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox?
Being in the right place at the right time armed with a video cellphone when something newsworthy occurs means you could potentially reap some financial rewards. Did you know that news organizations pay handsomely for exclusive video like this?
So what do you do now that you've captured some great video or picture with your cell phone? There are basically three steps to take if you want to get paid for the video footage you have shot. Edit, upload, and announce it to the media.
Most video cellphones come with movie editing software built-in (or packaged with the phone). Even if the bundled software is sub-par (which it usually is) there are many off-the-shelf software solutions that can enhance the quality and reduce the file size of the video you have captured.
Remember, you do not want to manipulate the video extensively, since this will jeopardize the 'man on the street' quality that the news networks are looking for. Besides, the news stations have much more sophisticated software than you could probably afford to massage your video into the desired format, length and content.
You probably don't need to do much to your raw video footage except reduce the length of the clip to the smallest size. This is important because you don't want to pay to upload your video and the free video hosting services only give you so much storage space that can quickly run out if you are uploading large files.
Next, you need to upload your video to an online video sharing service. There are bunch of these available, some offering a meager amount of free storage and charging extra for larger portions of space. Other services limit the amount of bandwidth your video can consume. This means the number of people that can watch your video at one time is limited.
After choosing a suitable place to host your newsworthy video, you need to tell the news broadcasters about it. In whatever city you live in, there are local news affiliates that are part of larger news organizations like Fox News or ABC. You can easily determine which news stations are in your area by turning on a TV and seeing what the call-letters are for your local broadcast news stations.
Once you have the call-letters (for example, WABC) then simply go online and do a search for those call-letters in your favorite search engine. Once you find the web site for that broadcaster, navigate to the page on the site that has a link for submitting breaking news and supply the basic information that applies to your video, such as a description and the URL of the video where you uploaded it.
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