What's needed in videojournalism training - a trainer's perspective

3.00 am and I'm just rejigging an edit from a video I shot on a videojournalism training project in Beirut.

The video provides a privileged view of how one major independent newspaper, Annahar is pushing ahead with videojournalism.

In many ways the concepts and thought bubbles at this paper are not so different from what I have experienced training in the UK, specifically a substantial number of regional newspaper journalists, the Telegraphs superjournalists and the Financial Times to name a few.

It's the value added which will often resolve other questions such as why a newspaper or broadcaster is taking on videojournalism, what it means for existing jobs and what it means for our outfit.

They're all emotive subjects invariably splitting views, and passionate ones at that.


Videojournalism's value added

(slide from one of the speakers whilst presenting in Podgorica)

But in the value added conversation there's always one question which comes up again and again. How can I be different from television and different from that other group there?

Because videojournalism's basics are such a low hanging fruit: put the camera here, shoot according to the rule of thirds, don't shoot into light, that after a weeks training, you could quite easily train others.

Fact is those that come to the Press Associations videojournalism training programme often do. Saves the company on multiple fees and many have indeed been successful training other staff.

But while the chords on a guitar can be easily memorised, jamming into a session when someone like the late Buddy Miles kicks in a drum beat takes a little more doing.

Comprehending the different approaches to the components of videojournalism, in say filmmaking such as Iranian Abbas Kiarostami to Bollywood, to news reportage of Ed Murrow and modern day less disciplined soliloquys is crucial.


The Creative Art of Videojournalism

Videojournalism Training from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Videojournalism is a creative art and is by no means a one-size-fits all and it's also a body of sharing, otherwise the disservice is cloning everyone to be the same.

By all means for someone starting out, here are the basics, but if your intent is to find your own identity swiftly, then it is the trainer's job to help you find that.

I often cite in my lectures with Masters students, "the wisdom of crowds" and thus at some point soon, the independence that they try things, which in turn spur new threads.

Essentially improv, testing my ability to find where they're going and make a contribution to that.

"OK that's very mimetic of Elia Kazan in East of Eden playing around with angular composition and space" or " OK the visual intelligence of stability plays a huge part in trusting you, so looking confident and smart pays off".

These however in the end are all choices, journeys of dual discovery, so I often call training regimes an exchange of ideas, because no one method if sacrosanct and even the best of rules awaits to be broken.

What's need in videojournalism training is the same thing I'd say for any other self expressive art.

It is the notion of helping develop the actor's voice, the videojournalist's eye, the confidence to be exposed to an array of goodies - from directing, producing, voice overs, editing, post producing - all core skills for broadcasters.

But videojournalism begs for more from TV broadcasting, so requires that bit more work. What's needed in videojournalism is the opportunity to work with the very trainers who can enrich your existing dialect.

It takes time. And truth this journey for news auterism is still in its infancy.

What's needed in videojournalism is...... you know the answer by now.

end.+


David Dunkley Gyimah has been a videojournalist for 15 years and worked in the media since 1987. He is a Senior Lecturer, Artist in Residence at the South Bank and researching as part of his PhD Videojournalism's creativity. He's looking forward to his first open videojournlism session being planned for the future for two days.

What's videojournalism gota do with the arts

"You mean journalism as art", one of my journalism board members emailed me.

I replied, "Well then you'd have to define journalism, then art!"

It sounds an incongruous pairing. Gene Hackman's character Brill in Enemy of the State says it:

"You're either very brave or very stupid".

Well its worth chuckling at the thought, but it's neither. Journalism and Art have cohabited for as long as...

Dandyism, Flaneurism, Addison and Steele, one of the Britain's first recognised journalists, circa 18th century, combined the adeptness of writing with being literati consuming the arts.

Indeed Tatler, the magazine was something of an arts magazine, not art, but the arts.

Film Director and professor of cinema studies Peter Greenaway who's appetite for innovative film making is only surpassed by his eye for the artistic in his many installations and Julian Issac who's seminal film about Black UK in the 80s, Young Soul Rebel, demonstrate crossing boundaries.

Many BBC execs often leave the corporation to fulfill other roles such as running the arts.

I am neither of the above. I only mention them because I know and it adds, if anything, an interesting ellipse to any conversation on videojournalism and art practice.

But videojournalism dyed in news, awash with all its semiotics, is hardly a contender for the arts?

Well here's where I beg to differ in a big way.


Video is art
For the practice of shooting with a video camera was long, long exercised by artists, and yes it was news.

Indeed the inception of the moving camera under the Lumiere's may have taxed the minds of the brothers to how a) they would commercialise and b) whether it was art, but it didn't take long for the likes of Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902) to spot the art which could emerge from the moving camera.

What art often achieves news fails both in substance and longevity and when news of a kind is able to break into the psyche, we often attach the references reserved for art.

It is not the arts' place to explain, is the patter, but to evoke, cause reaction, make us consider, be reflexive and question the context of what we've seen and its impact on us.

An Inconvenient Truth is art personified within the walls of an environmental essay empowering us with richer knowledge to choose. What more could you ask for?


Art, Videojournalism and Beirut
My trip to Beirut to train some videojournalists also yielded a short ( 20 mins, ooops) film I put together on-the-fly. I blogged while I was in Beirut about how I am reminded of my first trip to South Africa.

Oh the ignorance. In my first visit to South Africa on the second day I was in Soweto being scared witless coming up against a Caspir (armoured truck).

But I was amazed at every turn. Soweto was right on the heel of Johannesburg. It had a BMW plant. There was a middle class base. In Yeoville a a new youth, graduates, more sure of the prize were forging ahead. It went on. The news I'd watched. The programme I used to present on the BBC did not equip me for all of this.

In Beirut, similar internal gasps. The city needs no introduction. Its wars are well known. 2006 and then further back. Those remnants still exist. Monuments left as reminders to those who are no more.

But the city's vibrancy is electric. The youth run are visible, strangely unlike the UK !@$$@. I did not have the time to venture far - something I hope to do next time - but my snap shot impression was some matrix.

There's a heady mix of the "beautiful people" who know how to beautify themselves. It's not for nothing, Beirut was once dubbed the Paris of the Middle East.

And, and there is an incredible thriving arts scene.

If you've watched the news lately you'll probably not know there were elections. No, because Beirut was not featured in full regalia on the international news front. By regalia I mean Before and After.

So that's where the job of a videojournalist comes in. Not me per se, but the group I trained with, already carving out an assortment of diverse stories.

If what we produce can in some way spur others to think and rethink again, then it may not be your classical definition of art, but it is without a doubt something that merits being called art.

And yes art can be in the eyes of the beholder. Here's where I quote Kant and his treatise on beauty. No, another time.

So what do I have planned for my tenure as artist in residence. Quite a lot, but that's another self indulgent post. Art huh!

Creative journeys to expand the mind

SMARTlab's ethos of practice-based learning is captured in Kate Sicchio's performance at Stratford, East London.
Here for her amazing showreel.

"What's it like?", he asked. There was a hesitant pause.

"No, really what's it like?"

In between the question and the actual answering, several contemplations computed, like the flapping time-change mechanism of a train station's timetable.

Either way you wouldn't understand was the final thudding-to-a-stop thought.

"It's OK!"

But that's such a cop-out, such a disinterested lie.

In the film The Matrix, Morpheus says to Neo: "Unfortunately no one can be told what The Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself".

That readily sums it up: "Unfortunately no one can be told what a PhD is. You have to experience it yourself".

Welcome to the house of pain you %$£!*&^$£@@!***!

Apologies!

There is no experience I can share with you that comes close to the emotional and physical ride of this study programme.

It does not discriminate. It does not favour. It hurts your sinuses as if you were tussling with nature's elements and it leaves you exhilarated when one of its several summits has been breached.

At this point there are two broad reactions to this description. This moment where you are in reading this text you can either say: stop whining or phew.

Frankly both work. That's why this programme is unique.

You hate it, love it, would quit, would push further, and those feelings are wrapped in a big ball of energy, that releases unpredictably. A Nova of sorts.


SMARTlab week

SMARTlab morning warm-up sessions. A stand-up massage on each other in the lab's space.

One giant step.. It's been a week of that. Small steps, and the one large one, working towards finding a new plateau for creativity.

For the last year and half we have gathered. Some have been gathering much longer, much much longer, but the motive is the same.

To scratch that itch. The question: Is what I'm doing, what I am about to tell you about, does it constitute new knowledge?

Can that knowledge, your epistemology, can it stand the rigorous bludgering of others - those with bigger shoes before you.

PhD student Will Pearson takes five, before the next programme.

The answer is not yet forthcoming, but the belief matched by physical work is what will provide a window of exploration.

No one can tell you what it's like.

There are many programmes, but I can tell you of only one, and draw on comparative hearsay and the grapevine: SMARTlab.

SMARTlab is The Matrix. It is the matrix of the most incredible people you will ever come across. Not just, as I'll explain in what they know, but, and this is crucial, in what they give.

SMARTlab is the gift lab, run and managed by extraordinary people, whose head Prof Liz Goodman, for the uneasiness of sycophancy I shall just nod and say enuff said.

The ethos draws people from different strides of life; many accomplished at something over many years, thirty is not unusual, at their peak.

And now they are trying to wrap that in theory. When we stand in a circle, it's very easy, as many have testified to say: "Frankly I don't know why I am here".

The Meaning of Life


Bruce Damer, like everyone else embodies this selfless learning, a figure whom on the other hand will leave you in awe and utterly breathless. His background includes NASA. His PhD addresses quite literally the meaning of life.

Bruce is creating the EVO grid which will simulate the beginning of life and how we came to be.

That line in the Matrix rings in my head when Cypher exclaims: "Jesus", after asking Neo if he knows why he is here.

Chrissie Poulter researching theatre games unpacks one of four bags replete with books to demonstrate the level of work involved in away weeks at the SMART lab

A glance to the left and there is award winning Cathy O'Kennedy, dancer and choreographer, researching The Devine Normal. I cried at her presentation this year.

It was so, so beautiful as she spoke about her influences, her own journey and read out her mission in what reached my ears in poetic verse.

Minutes earlier she had danced mellifluously. The dance alone I would have paid to watch in London's West End in the same frame of mind not to long ago I watched the acclaimed Sylvie Guillem & Russell Maliphant's PUSH at Sadler's Wells Theatre.

Steve Cooney's research in Melody and Rhythm eloquently deconstructs music, to show how he has devised teaching aids to understand scale, how the Beattles used chords to set the mood followed by those meaningful lyrics, where in Steve sighed to say that's the brilliance of song writing.

A day earlier Steve had been playing with Sinead O'connor . Here he is on the right in this video with Sinead.

"What was the set up like it Steve?" I asked.

"Oh there were three of us on stage playing to a big audience. I imagined big as an understatement, something more Glanstonburyish.

And it goes on forty to fiftish cohorts at full strength sharing this space, presenting to each other critiquing - all with the aim of adding something that little bit or lot more to what we know about what we know so far.

All the while we are guided by a team of experts.

Interactive videojournalism
And somewhere in there I'm wrestling with my demons, 25 years of media condensed into this singularity of studies aided by many extraordinary supervisors, particularly Dr Chris Hales and Dr Sher Doruff.

David Dunkley Gyimah my work) combining visualisation, narratology online with videojournalism.
Here for early cube IM6 Videojournalism

Can I show how video through various constructions induce different emotions? No that's not the PhD, but an aspect of solo videojournalism wrapped around an individual with the skill set of online innovative spatial production.

We've just completed our annual retreat, one of three in the year at UEL, living off 4 hours sleep for the last five days - 6 hours the previous weeks prepping thesis chapters and the rest.

So this is in way an introduction to the group, and a journey,and something I intend to come back to again and again in the hope of continuing that ethos that drives us all; creative journey's that expand the mind.

Time now to sleep. Bliss a full generous 6 hours.

Introduction to SXSW

SXSW from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.
Just got to the arena of SXSW and signed in and did this short introduction video blip.

Apologies. I'm using the A1 Sony's mike. I hadn't set up and then realised I need new battery for me Wireless.

More stuff soon.

This took me 15 mins to put together.

The by product of a web site II

You're a writer, want to become a journalist, have film making in mind as a profession... could you think of blogger or put together a website?

First thing I say to friends, clients and students is do you have either?

Of course the world could do with more websites like it needs global warming.

There's enough, way enough you're saying, that phhrer another one.

But a couple of things.

Call it the long tail or the attraction of micro communities, someone somewhere might just knod their head sagely at your piece of artistry.

And then a friend/contact/lead you never had the day before is old news.

The ongoing debate, and it's still seething; some of the Masters students I lecture to, raise this as well - do you really need a web site? Do you really need to understand CSS and grid designs.

"I'm a journalist... I just wanna write".

There can, I believe be nothing more carthartic than having completed a degree and whilst gunning for that first job building something of yourself.

And, and if you're in the right place at the right time, and that's not chance by the way, but playing the numbers game, you might just impress that potential boss.

And with a whole load of tools on the web, you may not even want to go down the design/css route.

Tamer Al Mishal - a student last year, now a correspondent for the BBC in Gaza is one of my heroes for how to use your web site.

The purists may carp at some of the rawness and lack of design aesthetic here and there, but Tamer knew what he was doing and when you look at it you'll understand what I mean.

He uses the less accepted, but prevalent format of "tables" fo the build, but...

( This year we had online journalists getting deeper into CSS, SEO, RSS, and info architecture see London Outloud and London Alternative)

Apparently BBC bosses at Tamer's interview were so suitably impressed by his web knowledge, VJ skills, and rapidly changing media theory/ethics, and, and that he knew how to sell a story about himself ie PR.

It's shirked by traditionalists and the Brit cultural position is to play this down, but in a very noisy environment as today, you'll want to flag up something you're doing, even if it's a tiny weeny bit.

So

Mobile phone production

Cross post from responding to a piece on Andy's site about a late night conversation how indespensible mobile phone story telling could or might be one day.

The driver was one Fee Plumley ( in the middle of above pic) who's been in this space for quite a while

So here goes. . . The thread for the piece can be picked up here over at Andy and the pics from the night including the one here are from his photo stream.

It certainly was some conversation. What time did we leave the drinks bar? 1.30 am?

For me the conversation resonated something like this.

Fi does a range of projects with the phone. Right!

But could it become a must have for journos in say the same way the A1 is fast becoming?

Its obvious benefit is that it's on your person. An increasing benefit is that you can post straight to your blog.

And what else?

I don't doubt it has huge value, but perhaps like video journalism with its rocky start, we just haven't seen the trees from the wood yet.

My thoughts, trend extrapolating ( oh dear I'm off again) is that it should/might/may be beg a new visual language.

I remember talking to Clyde Bentley, Associate Professor of Journalism at Missouri School of Journalism who told me some years back now that Mobile programme use in S. Korea is huge.

In visual narrative, I guess it's more of the FBCU's than the CU, given the screen size.

And while it may be great for Citizen jo and "open wide" shooting, what about the construct?

One major K.app I said to Fee would be when the handset either by max-fi/wifi or some device lets you broadcast straight into a TV show/site or say with millicent.tv you stream live with multiple cams.

Voila a minature sat kit on the cheap.

Or what about having the lens on a rotating gimble or attached to key hole camera so you can do clandestine stuff?

My A1 despite its size would have been too intrusive.

Just two ideas. I'm sure they're more.

Fees in Leeds on Monday. She might be able to enlighten us further.

Creative Journalism & the confessions ( David's) of a would-be creative journalist

NB Otherwise for a 600X300 viewing experience: file size 17mb go to Viewmagazine.tv here.

After speaking to Paul Egglesone and Andy Dickinson behind MELD, David reflects on his own background in this hitherto undefined space of journalism creativity.

I confess I didn't comprehensibly realise what Meld was from the press release, until their launch and later interviewing the architects Paul and Andy the morning after; Mike Ward on the day itself.

It wasn't the press release. It's my head that needs sorting.

I need a clear out; one of those Johnny Mnemonic downloads.

The evening, from looking at the attendants and how upbeat Team Meld were, came of very well.

With the exception of me running through a makeshift keynote (Apple) trying to marry too many themes in a 20 minute window, but I have a new plan for their next outing.

Creative Ditherer - The 90s
Back in the days, I recall the many meetings I had job and project hunting.

One minute I was at Newsnight or Channel 4 News, the next I was out of work with no prospect in sight for finding work.

A meeting with a senior BBC Journalism executive Vin Ray in the late 90s will always live with me.

"Mmm good CV, seems like you've done a lot, but what do you do? What would you want to do?"

And then followed my explanation, stretched, bended delicately propositioned, as not to seem a ditherer.

I filmed, reported, wrote for magazines, was freelancing for radio.

To many, and I am not attributing this to Vin, I was either a media whore, confused, befuddled at my calling, or I was this bit- too-clever who still didn't know what he was about.

I never did get a follow up from Vin working the reporting boards in the BBC.

I can imagine the oh so many reasons for that.

All journalists are ambitious and you could argue there are just so many spots going available, however. . .

At BBC Breakfast where I was freelancing as a producer I bumped into an old mate from journalism school, the indefatigable and steady hands Daniel Boecher.

A new crop of journalists were coming through the ranks and I knew quite a few of them: Daniel, Iain Pannel, now Egypt Correspondent - whom I recall seeing shift at BBC Leicester, where I started my career. Paul Kenyon at BBC Panorama, we worked together at BBC GLR and Rageh Omar from my days at the BBC African Service.

I wanted to be a reporter, yes, but a weeny bit more please. Can I make a film?

There appeared no place in the industry to do that.

Journalism is creative with a "c" that varies in size depending who you talk to.

The morning meetings elevate telephone discussion and diffused idea to what you see on screen. And some of the aforementioned journalists are among the most creative in words, pictures and delivery.

But the medium of TV and journalism has parameters that you can not stray far from.

Beyond the VJ days
Videojournalism circa 1994 showed you can expand, but by 1997 I was having doubts.

The industry wasn't interested and I was stuck with a skill set going no where.

And in between that hiatus rather than concentrate on a singular path; how not to run an economy on an economc downturn, I invested more time in other aspects of visual story telling, meeting the likes if Jon Staton - an Ex Saatchi head.

And along that road came Flash with Hillman Curtis; graphic design, I have the first issues of Computer Arts, and then more DV stuff.

For me back then it was part about survival and part about enjoying a wider canvass to play on.

No one could have told me about this future convincingly, where being "confused" has a currency, though a number of magazines and experts flagged this up.

One of the most rewarding jobs to date in this new pot of the mash-up has been with Rob Chiu of the Ronin.

Rob's short film here looks at Global Refugees. It will likely do for its audience something news will not come close to. This is hard bitten story telling meets.

He rang me up asking if I could be in the animation, reporting sim world sound like real world. Here's the article I produced for viewmagazine.tv .

You can hear me in the first few seconds. . .

And it's that collaborative space of interdisciplines, which thinkers like Paul, Andy, Mike Ward etc are carving out. A playground where we've all had the same thoughts staring at a blank piece of paper imagining what could be.

So I tip my hat to the MELD team for making this happen, for giving form to these thoughts, guidance to a world which only looks to become more and more complex.

The Future?

Worry about now said McLuhan.

Last year I met Vin Ray again. A colleague and I had devised a game, News City, based around Simms to test journalists and their reporting skills.

The BBC's Journalism College paid us as consultants to show them the bonnet and have since built their own. Version 2, 3 and upwards is ripe to be made.

What both Any and Paul say on tape makes clear what MELD is about.

And so version 1+ at Leeds, I have a plan, to pull out a few collaborative pieces that add to the conversation in this space.

Rob Chiu, Nato, the brilliant mashup guru Rob Montgomerry, and the new telegraph multi media journalists will do.

Like they say If you want to know about water don't ask a fish or as Andy adds, it's not just about the end product, but the process.

MELD - When old and new media collide (UK)

While in the US my many friends revel in the dynamism of work and play in this interactive sand box, we in the UK have been sorely lacking in sticking are heads out.

Well OK we haven't then, but there's comparatively little PR on our ventures.

Take the Telegraphs new dedicated multimedia journalists - the first in the UK to go through the whole gamut of this black art. Nada!

So I believe a toast is due to Paul Egglestone, Course Leader of MA International Documentaries at the University of Central Lancashire.

Paul an accomplished doc maker, together with his colleague Super blogger and respected all rounder Andy Dickinson will be hosting MELD.

It looks like a fantastic idea knitting academia, industry and a number of agents together. (see below)

I have crossed paths with both, but this time am looking forward to sharing a few drinks and ideas, as Paul has invited me to be one of the talkers.

I have got a couple of tentative ideas; the most recent a small film I'll see if I can finish on time that looks at the first multimedia journalists hired by the Telegraph, who I had the pleasure of mixing with for a bout of video journalism.

See you at Meld


Press Release

MELD:

A convergence of platforms requires a convergence of skills

Journalists know how to find a story and to tell it well. Interaction designers know how to get that story out to the right audience. MELD will bring the best of both worlds together to find out what happens when the two worlds collide.

The role of the journalist is changing. Affordable and connected technologies (blogs, YouTube, Flickr etc) means that everyone can make and broadcast content to hundreds, if not thousands, of like-minded people across the globe

How will the skills of traditional journalism fit into this shifting digital landscape?

How will a story stand out from the crowd when everybody is a reporter?

What will give professional comments and analysis more clout than an amateur blog?

How will journalists adapt to stay ahead of the breaking wave?

How can they harness the wisdom of the crowd?

Successful networked journalists will be open and interactive. They will understand how to facilitate and collaborate

MELD is an ideas-generation and development workshop designed to explore these issues

Selected journalists will be paid to join selected new media practitioners at a five-day residential lab. There they will learn the necessary skills for success in the connected world

The lab will be held on 10-14 December in Preston

Teams will work on real briefs from Industry partners, including some from Simon Bucks, Associate Editor, Sky News Online. Projects will be designed through a process of collaboration, ideas generation and development before pitching them to industry partners with the resources to make the ideas into reality

This is a unique opportunity for freelance journalist and interaction designers based in the North of England

The project will be launched at two evening events:

MANCHESTER EXCHANGE SQ. Selfridges Moet Bar 10th October
LEEDS Boutique Bar 15th October

For more information mail info@meldonline.org or phone 0114 221 0454 and put “MELD Enquiry” in the subject line if you would like to come along or find our more

MELD is brought to you by the Department of Journalism and Sandbox at UCLAN with Just-b. It is supported by the Northern Edge and the Northern Way

Ends

Press contact: Greg Povey, 0114 221 0454 or mail info@meldonline.org
Limited press passes available