Videojournalism - the wow syndrome

Unengaged - photo taken at Art Gallery opening in Beirut.
Why does this work? And how does the videojournalism need to be informed?
Bit more space to the right.

If videojournalism gave over itself to qualitative empiricism we might tap into something science has known for millenia.

OMG! It is the phrase that proceeds the sight of wonderment.

As an Organic Chemistry graduate, I'd mumble it almost every week we entered the lab.

Benzene, the equivalent of Final Cut, waited patiently for a new substrate to come in contact with it.

Then it did its magic, often on its own in the right conditions, sometimes requiring the right intervention, the deft editing hand pushing video clips around that would yield the right film.

Benzene was also the Jack the Ripper of the chemical world, highly elusive in its manifestation.

In basic chemistry, we know oxygen and hydrogen makes water and is fairly stable. We can simulate the molecules with lego bricks enough to make a 6 year old understand.

Benzene was a different matter. To grasp it you had to as Kekule did be highly creative, even a bit mad. You see Benzene exists in a dynamic state of flux between two similar but different chemical structures.

Madder still when you left the practice of the lab and went metaphysical talking nucleophilic reactions, you entered the philosophical world of chemical reactions. OMG, there I go again.

And then you learn that power of empiricism. Science got better by testing and retesting. And each time a "rule" came along, there were others looking to finesse or even break them putting themselves up for peer scrutiny.

Beirut by night, Cheek by Jowl. Commercialism rubs shoulders with the legacy of Beirut's struggles.

In videojournalism we can go molecular as well. How do you get good pictures for instance. The trainer you're working with will tell you "rule of 3rds". But why is it 3rd and not 5th?

And might it be considered that the rule of 3rd was a matter of convenience for George Field one of the progenitors that lent the rule, which really is a guide.

That's not to say the technique isn't invaluable and is responsible for some of the best images around but packaging as it is makes good commercial sense.

The rule of 3rds is benzene inside the lab. So what happens when we go to the drawing board?

For that we have to indulge in cognitive reasoning. The science of seeing and perceiving. You see words on this page, but what you perceive is something different. How do you make sense of these words, and why will its context mean different things to different people?

See you next week

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David is off to the Welsh valleys for some RnR and great walks across the felds.

The future....videojournalism?

Been a busy couple of weeks and there's no let up. A number of things are planned which may have some currency.

I was at the Beyond Broadcast conference and interviewed some of the key speakers. web TV launches are nothing special nowadays but Don Boyle's venture has the element of station launch about it, so what is Hibrow TV?

Rob Chiu, one of the UK's most talented and young motion graphics artists. He regularly presents at Flash on the Beach and OFFF, shot his first short story with a crew and high end production gear which included Red cameras. I shot a behind the scenes and should put that together soon.

Why online tv makers fail to understand audiences. There's something like the law of diminishing returns here in that the nuclear proliferation in video and videojournalism non curated appears to be baffling for users.

Dipping in and out of a service like Youtube may be fine, but many still want a dialogue with the brand. Simplicity is good. That explains the ipod and bbc iplayer. I'll be returning to my own site and deconstructing it for this purpose.

And fusing video and online narraritives. this year I have set the Masters student the challenge of telling stories to pull in interest, how are they doing?

So just some of the things I'll be looking at in the days ahead. Not to mention material from Beirut and an important discussion on leadership from one of the UK's leading innovative leaders.

The makings of a good leader

As a young girl Jude Kelly would stage plays and charge family and friends to attend. She wanted to be a director. She became one, a very successful one.

But she says it was not about her per se, but about the act of giving something to others.

Her beliefs have made her one of the most sought after directors and personnel in the arts, not to mention the works she's accomplished as the cultural director of the London 2012 Olympics.

In front of a collective that nurtures leadership qualities, she offered a candid and personnel testament of leadership and what's expected from good leaders.

This could quite easily have been a TED talk, inspiring in its content, deeply illuminating in its delivery.

"I purposefully today wore clothes so you could see my body shape, because line of sight is important in judging people", she said at the beginning.

Leadership, very much like the arts is about innovating, finding spaces and creatively filling them, she concluded.

You can watch the film I shot about her this event in a couple of weeks.

Beirut, I should try harder - A Videojournalist's tale

Viewmag’s David at one of Beirut’s thriving Art Bazaars, which comes
alive at night. TRY HARDER - is the title of a short film

A personal poem

Returning from Beirut, I'm reminded why I wanted to tell factual stories.

But I should try harder.

I recall in 92 how driven by idealism I made my way to South Africa, looking for the next generation.

And knew then I should try harder.

There as with Beirut, a state was shaking of the yoke of its perceived image, pleading for the documentarists:

to try harder.

To see past the news, the simplified mimetic discourse which feeds a cycle of recycled news.

That's why we should try harder.

For invariably, in all communities, states, our minds ferment more complex thoughts which require the light of day.

To show just how hard we are trying.

And in many cases it's been driven by the young, the successor generation,

who are trying really hard.

Their endeavors often go unnoticed, their voice drowned by three letter acronyms of news internationalists.

Are THEY really trying hard?

It is not the job of news, the argument goes, to tell anything other than that of news value.

But try this hard description for size then.

What is news?

Videographers, artists, bloggers, photojos, journalists, designers have within their reach the potential to show how THEIR view can turn yours on its axis.

Hard. Try. Try. Hard. Though I might add not through propaganda.

What is art is a perennial question ?

That which challenges us unlike no other to perceive beyond our station, to reprocess ingrained thoughts.

And that's why it matters.

Returning from Beirut I've rekindled the flame of why story telling keeps me awake.

Because the more we try, the easier it gets.

And the more easier it gets, the more we should most definitely try harder.


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I sat down and brain dumped the above this morning, digitising footage for which I plan to make a short film from Beirut. Sadly, I hadn't planned any story or interviews, so really haven't done myself justice ( I was here for other, specific, reasons looking at the work of other VJS)
But in any case, I figure I'd like to go back soon and in this case I should try harder.

Videojournalism in Beirut

There's lots I can say, but alas don't quite have the time at the mo, but please drop by over the weekend when I'll round up my visit to Beirut and to one of the top newspapers and there incredible team of Videojournalists- a real joy.

You say VJ, I say Videojournalism, some say Videojockey

CTRL ALT SHIFT - from V.I. Artists on Vimeo.

A tad long perhaps, but this interesting film frames the practice of Vjing. That's video jockeying.

Interestingly, it's now a recurrent theme. "I'm a VJ", which then follows a period of acknowledgment, only for at some point someone to say:" Oh I thought you were a VJ".

I am, but that's video journalist.

So what came first in that entangled debate of the chicken and the egg?

Though the term seems to have become popular around 2000 ie video jockey, you could argue early video artists and even the psychadelics of the 60s might have called themselves such.

Much further back, you could argue Georges Méliès - L'homme orchestre (early film, 1900) and his contemporaries were early incarnations of video jockeys.

Yes it wasn't video, and sound would arrive later, but the lead into special effects around Vaudeville were early incarnations of using projected visuals in live entertainment.

Equally video journalism, the practise, not necessarily the use of the exact tools has its roots bang on film's emergence, with the bolex et al playing a hand in where we are in today.

In practice these semiotics and simulacrum are never quite clear cut, but there is a great deal of common ground and appreciation of form.

One uses music to carry narrative and motion; the other uses narrative to inform music choice motivated by the performance. And then when you watch a video documentary by a video jockey about videojockeying, what then?

And even where there are no obvious mind melds, there's every reason to look at this burgeoning form and ask what can be borrowed, inculcated into either.

Experimenting in the grey zones

A VJ piece live at the Purcell Rooms to Classical Music - the Shirley Thompson ensemble

It's in the cracks of semiotics where some of the most interesting and passionate debates take place as much as new developments.

Whether its in the basement jack or the multimillion pound extravaganza roadshow of U2, or the corporaredom of the AV industry, to the heightened launch of the next BMW series behind discordant visual themes, or any number of the zeigeist VJs to the film makers turned installation artists like Peter Greenaway, it's the experimentation of the form that is vital.

Incidentally, one thing that is very common with my shoots, is something called the dance - an as live shoot of a film, bit like drama, where I am being influenced by narrative and music.

Videojournalism Fight Club - Viewmagazine.tv from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

You'll find quite a few on viewmagazine.tv and the recent Fight Club piece (posted two day's earlier) or Obama video projected live over Shirley's Classical score are examples of how live VJ videojournalism mixes its form.

So what came first VJ or VJ.

Yes I agree with you. Who cares? So long as you come away feeling nourished.

Video Journalism Fight Club

Videojournalism Fight Club - Viewmagazine.tv from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Just for the fun of it 100 stories in 40 seconds - pure mashup nonsense

Respect to Rob Chiu - Ronin for audio