Future Reportage - BBC, Videojournalism..6 ways and more- circa 1999

Multiple Video Journalism Reporting - 6 ways plus BBC and beyond from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Future reporting 6 ways. Here's one amazing adventure of a story from my archives 1999, dissected five ways and what I would do differently today .

I'll deconstruct the making of the multiple reports and the gear I took e.g. DV monitor, Sony Pro radio, Hi 8 etc. later this week

It was an extraordinary voyage. Ten days out to sea on a live aboard searching for a wreck, HMS Majestic, with a descendent of the Commander-in-Chief of Gallipoli and a crew of professional and serious sport divers.

My own drama included a near serious accident miss 40-50 metres down being caught up in a ribbon current and hyperventilating.

I almost ran out of air.

We found what we believed was the wreck in a series of day and night dives - the first time the Turkish military authorities had allowed us into the DMZ (demilitarised zone). There were still active shells.

The result of that report was deconstructed 6 ways:

BBC Radio: The 9 minute radio report went on the BBC World Service, a popular programme called Outlook.

TV: The TV version made for BBC3 didn't make air, so I posted it online.

I blogged and wrote a detailed article about the incident on my first site mrdot.co.uk, then viewmagazine.tv

ARTICLE

MULTIMEDIA SITE WITH BBC RADIO REPORT WITH PHOTOMONTAGE FILM PLAYING AT TOP OF PAGE. STILLS TAKEN FROM HI-8 VIDEO

NB: you'll notice there are no controls on the short film. This film was republished on the web back in 2003/4 when Flash 6/7 did not have controls. Wierd huh!

I made a Flash promo that was used to sell the idea, which BBC 3's commissioning Editor Stuart Murphy was interested in. Though truth I'm not sure they quite understood it back then as I must have shown it to at least half a dozen BBC execs.

FLASH PROMO

NB: the thing with this promo is its 120k in size, so that meant I could email me it as a viral on a 56k modem which was in use back then. If you double click the info button, you'll see a bit of animation.

I didn't write the article for Diver Magazine, but I am mentioned by its journo and if I'd known the journo well enough could have.

We got a slew of pics, some onboard and underwater to accompanying the report.

UNDERWATER PHOTOS

The year is 1999. One report divied up 5/6 ways. It's not rocket science. Trouble was the industry did not entertain the idea of being multiskilled back then.

So how might that change today?

Integrated Multimedia Video Journalism

I'd have made a series feature with more after effects - an anti-aesthetic film.

I'd develop a far more sophisticated Film multimedia site to this one, showing the coordinates etc of where we dived. This one has the Flash "photo montage" report.

WEB PROMO SITE

I'd have got my network together to stream on something like Livestation to braodcast live

I'd have networked this article with web 2.0 apps into a community of divers and also those who may have be more intimate with Gallipoli.

I'd have created a series of visual big screen interfaces e.g. IM6 and mobile promos.

FLASH PROMO SITE

It would have been scalable xml/php data so I can network it into any number of stories, particularly education.

I'd create a more robust sound slide show than the aforeshown.

The idea of multi-reporting though as demonstrated at Nato's War Games works more effectively along the lines of Swarming where we can also create multiple entry points into the piece.

So what sort of skillset would be required for this. Here goes: FCP, AE, Radio, Pod, Flash, Director, Photoshop, Cool Edit, Dreamweaver, CSS, PHP, XML, Blog.... and a CONDOM, oh and a PADI diving certificate.

I used a condom on a long microphone lead to get sound effects of the divers decoing at 10 metres.