Mobile Journalism Case Study: How to film a breaking news story for TV with just an iPhone and edit it at the scene with LumaFusion video editing app.

I was out for a walk on a public beach when this scene unfolded right in front of me. I did not have my microphone, tripod or press card. Only an iPhone 6S+.

This fresh Mobile journalism example shows the storytelling power of documenting with b-roll story sequences.

Have also a peek at the video story edit with the LumaFusion app:

In this situation of transforming from “person on holiday” to a first-responder field reporter I had to make some quick decisions.

I knew that audio would be poor given the high winds and lack of proper mic kit. So that meant that the audio track would have to be a voiceover. I recorded that directly into LumaFusion using my tent as a sound booth and sleeping bags as sound shields.

The other thing I could not do was make interviews or record a piece-to-camera. There was no way I could turn this into a news package in these conditions. But what I could do is to report in pictures and assemble shots that naturally drive a voiceover storyline.

So that’s what I did. The b-Roll edit was made in about 15 minutes. The voiceover was made in one pass once I had assembled a logical and complete visual sequence. The narration is essentially a scratch track that can be easily replaced later – either by me or a news producer who I hand it off to.

I also made some quick maps by screen grabbing my location with a map app. Again, these can be seen as placeholders, as the video graphics team can replace these with better versions.

And the title, animation and branding watermarks are items we keep in a favorites library within LumaFusion and are always available to reporters. This is very helpful when news breaks and you want to cut a fast turnaround version for social media and then transfer the project and clips as XML back to the newsroom where it can be recut for broadcast and other social platforms by the news team.