Video journalism combines the skills of radio, motion graphics, cinema, TV and online, so what's next?

If you could combine the skill of radio, the art of motion graphics, the eye of photography, the mis en scene and arcing of cinema with the compositional language of television, newspapers and blogs provocativeness, and behaviour of online, I believe we'd be closer to understanding Video Journalism.

The powerpoint for my talk goes up on WAN in the next week and hopefully it's self explanatory.

Sadly I couldn't expand on some of the underlying emerging issues, which may have had some interest.

Principally how video journalism and the language of video is under going it's own reforms.

The parallels are not far off from the changes to the written article world in the 1700s, when publishers Addison and Steele's equitone prose opened up the word to a voracious and brand new audience.

And yes there were other factors that played into their hands, but their style contributed enormously to their own success.

If you were to launch a television station today, then video journalism suffice nicely

There was an initial argument, which still holds about video journalism's intimacy and as such the depth to which semiotically a report could go.

Here's an example.

During the floods in Hull in 2007 that blighted huge communities, broadcasters were out capturing carnage and sufferings, but few were able to provide a tier of reportage which meant documenting a more intimate aspect by staying over with any of the families.

In part it was cost and logistics related. Also those huge beta cams aren't the most suitable cameras for closed confined, high risk-assessed spaces.

A videojournalist could have provided something very different, in the same way a photojournalist released from their studio plate camera provides a level of intimacy firstly in where they can place the camera, and secondly, how they compose the picture.

For the VJ, all this while writing the article, thinking up the narrative to the appropriate bed of these pictures.

However, the Net really does change everything.

As a film maker or lover, you'll recognise the enormous range of film styles that exist, and so these too are available to video makers.

We've really just started to dabble with video and its potential, so for the moment a point-and-shoot approach may just do.

But there's no getting away from the audience and their level of sophistication, not necessarily geared to high brow stuff though that's also the case, but in distinguishing between new styles, story forms and languages.

In film it could be styles of the 1920s - French Cinema - Von Trier's Dogme and then the more agitated film making of late in 24, Bourne, The Shield, where singular narratives entwine with multiple ones and the camera exposes multiple points of view.

All in all this is an over simplification, but the overall point is video journalism goes way beyond point and shoot and also the structural form of television journalism.

I'm not by any stretch of the imagination claiming its better; it's just different and well suited for contemporary media story telling

Media Industry and Cold Showers

Trailer - Prempeh College from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.
We woke between 5.30 and 6.0'clock am.

Shower time was between 6-7. The water was freezin cold; there was no hot water and often as a junior, you'd shower last giving way to seniors.

There on followed a brief half hour spell of book studying, before morning assembly at 8. 0clock.

By then your bed had to be immaculately made, because during assembly, the prefects and housemasters would be roaming the dorms looking for the unkempt.

Punishment could take an assortment of creative tasks: weeding with a cutlas, painting a long patch of grass green, or even sitting in the baking sun.

First classes were at 8.15 ish, followed by breakfast (porridge) at 9...

And so the day progressed, a regimented flurry of dos and don'ts.

I remember it well because our old boys, school mates still meet up each month, about 50 of them to look at how we might help one another.

The cold showers always get a good laugh.

It's what traditional media is getting at the moment; a cold shower, and honestly it isn't pleasent.

WAN was brilliant for many things; the chance to learn, meet contacts and also be reflective.

It's also provided me with added zeal to find ways to make good of these "showers".

This new horizon does not seem to have expanded the agenda, the digital paradigm for learning and enacting upon new nwe things amongst us.

There are great ( haven't there always been) social issues that merit deeper, wider attention, that digital storytelling can nail.

I'd like to see more black/ ethnic activities in the digital ecosystem of mainstream , where we not just pay lip service to "unity but look towards greater innovation and sharing in the media driving discourses, rather than reacting to them.

We are about two/ three years based on current trends, and innovations waiting to break free, away from more disruptions.

And just as we said five years ago, "what video online, you're having a laugh".. we're ignoring the signals again.

Yep a cold shower.

I really looking forward to mixing it up with some of the peope I met and those from my Phd programme.

Only thing I'd say is: Don't bring a towel. This shower never finishes.

The Osmond's revival

Indelibly imprinted on my mind, "I'll be your long head lover from Liverpool"; the track from a bonny Donny Osmond.

Years on I might well have met my unlikely idols.

( Hey it's cool to go retro so, ease up!)

But alas I'm up to my kneck with other bits and pieces, assessment's and Phds and the likes, so I sadly had to decline.

But think about the footage and what I could have done with it. The financial company where the Os are backing a charity, gave carte blanche.

"Revival", now that's a word which we're hearing less and less of - almost unheard of in the newspaper industry.

As I prepare for WAN, and complete my keynote [ that's keynote - apple] on training needs, expanding on themes from Camp Videojournalism I rang a senior industry figure, whose eyes and ears pick up the slightest tremors in the industry's demeanor.


News on paper
Well, there's a 5 percent down turn and it's also looking pretty grim he said. What may be a viable solution is to offshore some of the capital intensive and running work costs.

"Journalist based in the UK, seeks designer and layout in Malaysia" could be the headline. What's apparent he added rather matter-of-fact is that in 10 years time at this rate, the world of newspapers will look anything but.

Though, yes, I still love the smell of papers in the morning, and I still love to instruct students I'm supervising and the rest to layout their creative ideas on A3s, the notion of your news on paper may become an anachronism.

Meanwhile it looks like newspapers have had their fill with video journalism. That is video with journalism as according to my contact many are now revising their online operations in search of something more than traditional video.

There is a world of difference between video journalism and videojournalism, not just semantically but how one is designed for the time-attention poor netizen in mind and the other which er may just about satisfy your craving for information.

The Ning Journalist
Back to newspapers, print may be feeling the pinch but the the Net continues to exert its primacy as a medium for news.

Fancy that. I so remember the chatter from news people that that would never happen. It has and continues, but as I'm likely to mention at WAN the response, let alone level of proactivity from some media companies still looks pretty thin.

If you never considered yourself a Ning Journo or network journalism sounds like train connection written up by a scribe, then you might be in a spot of bother.

"What's the best route for snaring a job?" one Masters grad asked me.

I have no idea, but you do yourself no favours by not getting your head wrapped around mash-ups, word press and building a community".

Crazy times huh. Crazy horses - the latter one of the Osmond's hits. Shame I couldn't get to meet em, cuz I might just have mentioned there's a great site lurking some where beneath there current one.