“The more we experiment, initially the more we are likely to fail. The more we fail, the less we are likely to fail again. Then the more confident we become. The more confident we become, the better the experiments we conduct and the more successful we become. Videojournalism’s exactly like that"
Cairo state television is taking the plunge into videojournalism and are looking at videojournalism not neccesarily as a cost-saving device per se, nor exclusively a more hands-on-deck approach, but a combination of this and the emerging aesthetic.
Eminent award wining journalist and Nieman scholar Prof Yuen Ying Chan, now director of Journalism studies at Hong Kong University asked a pressing question couple of days ago during our session on videojournalism the future. "Wasn't I talking about cinema verite?", she asked.
The differences are as wide between the two forms, I answered as they can be the same. Videojournalism is the feisty bastard child which seeks to be more than the sum of its parts.
That view is shaping up from prelim ethnographic studies that has me somewhat surprised.
One of the UK's most respected film makers and author of "the story of film", called it impressionism. Granted its use was in an artistic praxis at the time and there followed a debate about videojournalism's schizophrenia.
Videojournalism has its problems, but in the manner Cairo TV want to adopt it, it gives a respectful berth to Cinema Verite, adopting more "accelerated verite" under the ambit also of that precious statement of the 50s "4th person singular".
I hope to make a feature about what happens. See you on the other side.
Footnote Through the eyes of a Child Director/producer David Dunkley Gyimah, 1993 The Line Producers, South Africa.
Two days ago at this conf in Bratislava, a chap approached me and said "Through the eyes of a child". I winced and then sheepishly said "yeeessss", naively thinking he'd seen the programme.
As it happens Tidiane, an award winning journalist in in Senegal, was the french translator/narrator on this features I made in 1993 whilst living in South Africa.
We'd never met before and here 17 years later were reminiscing about the prog and South Africa for the first time. Happy times !
Presidential Videojournalist. President Obama shows his shooting skills, but is he shooting stills or video? Picture WhiteHouse, Pete SouzaSee here for David's 100 Day Obama video played at the Southbank Centre to an original live score by composer Shirley Thompsom
You're a would-be videojournalist. You're researching a course and you're at a loss at
What to look for?
What outfit to choose?
You're now in possession of the most amazing piece of shooting kit - a stills camera that shoots film and you have a bit more time on your hands than the US president.
So options?
Do you go on a course to jump start your solo shooting career?
Do you go it alone?
When you open the directory for videojournalism outfits, there's the university and as many short course videojournalism training outfits leaving you a trite bewildered.
They offer different epistemologies as those who have done short courses and proceeded to Unis or vice versa will testify. Not least the length of study.
Consider this, a thought I'd like to stake in this piece, a sort of iambic pentameter.
"Dade dam dudum, dum. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water".
"online video part of 'the new journalism'? - original article 2005 on journalism.co.uk by Jemima Kiss. Here for the rest
There are now two schools of journalism. In one, the journalist must be accredited and trained. In the new school, we have bloggers, mobloggers and latter-day gonzo. You can attract a large international audience through blogging or podcasting, so a generation of storytellers may well bypass traditional routes of education and the mainstream if they don't feel the industry is relevant to them any more.
"
Television is your answerProfessor Leonard Witt, talking about Trust in the media from his 2005 Conference in San Antonio. You can see the film I made on this on their site. Trust is an issue I'll come back to later.
Many of us may chasten television, I did and ocassionally still do, for the manner in which it tells stories. But this semiotic exists for a reason. Its use dependent on its medium. There are horses for courses.
It's not the art of television journalism that is at fault as you pursue your new love. There are the most brilliant TV practitioners that ply their trade or have left extraordinary legacies for us to be informed e.g. Murrow, Jennings ( I met as an ABC news producer in 1994 in South Africa and was just awe struck), Bradley, & Wheeler,
It is its application by those no longer turned on by its creativity and the extraordinary association and connectivity with the audience that has reason to make you feel frustrated.
How many times as a journalism students have you screamed at the television reporter proclaiming you could do better, because a pun was not necessary or the reporter dominates disproportionately the message of the report..
But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Dadedum, dadedum
Television journalism was and is a necessary linguafranca and just as Latin begot common parlance e.g. Catalan English, French, Italian, so will generations ahead proficient in a paradigmal shift in visual factual literary story telling, be thankful to this form.
Which begs the question for you right now. You've decided to go on a short course. It's cheaper and provides a quick rush to build your confidence.
What do you look for in the background of the trainers?
A still David reporting for ITV's "London Tonight", circa 1998, from David's book and PhD study in which using phenomenology he shows how his background working for the likes of Newsnight, Channel 4 News, dotcom new media companies, Designer, Commercial Promo maker has informed his notion of visual grammar.
Television, yes, to impart to you an understanding of the foundations, but then something else, hopefully, an illustrative vision on how to push the form.
In learning about about composition today we still go back to the origin e.g. Caravagioetal.
Yet to break the rules, you need to understand them and many of the rules, we call "rules" are in fact guidelines, there to be broken by the innovator e.g. 180 degree.
Mind you my thinking comes with a footnote. In years to come again when we've turned over, we'll likely not teach television in videojournalism, just as you don't teach radio writing for TV journalism.
Or or taking form for for, you would not teach creative storytelling in novel form for print journalism
So back to Videojo how do you know your trainers will be able to place you in this new space?
Simply ask them.
look at their body of work. Bill Gentile has thirty years shooting in the field; he gets to teach me, yah! Rosenblum needs no introduction.
Be wary of abject recommendations. I spoke about this presenting at the World Newspaper Forum, last year. I once knew someone who approached scores of people for that cred letter. He eventually found one, and guess what pride of place it went. Front page.
A caveat though, as in any profession, there are some people who are autodiadactists or combine
conventional education with a penchant to keep rethinking. I can think of a few like this, but would not want to embarrass just yet. They possess that "kwa" to push you beyond the boundaries of your comfort, which is what you need.
"Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. dadadedumdade"
Teaching is a selfless act to others and a mirror reflection of ones self. That's contestable you might think as you're paying for the time to be taught, but the philosophy of teaching is not simply saying, this is a good film and this is how to carry a camera, but a psychological process leading to critical thinking and analysis, that enable you to be able to make your own judgement.
Why is a chair, this chair beautiful to look at and how can what I know about this chair be transferred to how I might build my website? The answers lay within us all.
The frame work is what teaching, building on knowledge, imbibing different socio-cultural indexes and pedagogical explorations, is all about.
Whatever videojournalism is, and I have my own convictions littered through out the history of this blog and articles I have been writing or contributing to since 1994, it transcends all that which came before it.
It has to in many ways otherwise is fraudulent of packaging itself as the new new thing.
Pic. David reporting from Africa on its first cross production between two African states using videojournalism: Ghana and South Africa ( 1997)
David is in Slovenia, Cairo and Chonquin in the coming months lecturing in "training the trainers" for professional TV execs and University Professors
There is art in this thing we do, a non-quantifiable asset often hard to describe.
Some see the words, others see the spaces in between that connect the words. Many see what the eye records, but the artist sees the syllogism, past the obvious, reinterpreting and finding new meaning.
Can it be learned, studied ? Why oh yes! But often it comes from study, that insatiable and tireless habit to know why.
There are few geniuses in this world who can tilt the power of transaction, cause and effect, to be asymmetrical.
In life you get out what you put in.
Many through dexterity and greying hairs have become masters of their trade, but have not forgotten the respect for their craft. The writer chews over every letter, syllable, that emerges from the tips of their frayed fingers to the keys and magically finds itself on the screen.
But today we ask for the Master and Jack of all trades. It's not uncommon. Renaissance was coined centuries ago.
But have we become arrogant in those ways? New journalism does not prescribe old journalism as dead. For without one you cannot have the other. Without the foundation can we build sky scrapers that touch new space?
And have the masters also forgotten that at some stage they too must relinquish their crown? Time moves on, but deference to them must remain. And we're not simply talking about the Cronkites.
There is art in this thing we do, but it is one honed through late nights, early mornings and a bid to see past that where many will tell you it can't be done.
For all the great writers, many of whom had lean years, there are countless others clamouring to get to the top. For all the great videographers, another tier of peers awaits the chance to proclaim their prowess. For every multimediaist, there are countless more playing with form who say they have seen the future.
There is art in this thing we do, but often art does not seek a common consensus. It is the confidence of you and appreciation of others. It is the he or she that sticks their neck out for others to throw invectives.
It is he or she who dares say something that many of us find preposterous, only to realise eventually the haste in our reply was ill-thought.
Camera in eyes, full site streaming at 1gb, gesture video calling up by voice recognition: the hapless thoughts of fantasists.
There is art in this thing we do and sometimes when you're not deluded, you're the only one that knows and sees it. Till others see it as well. That is the greys in your hair, solemnity in your voice and the skill of your pen and video.
An Iranian woman struggles to exit a wagon in Tehran's Metro. Image by YannisKontos at YannisKontos.com
The world is turning on its axis and in reference to Bushism's legacy, axis needs to reclaim its more appropriate usage.
Bluster-diplomacy is giving way to the more refined process of language nuances. Is there a cultural-socio shift really in the offing?
Obama's Cairo speech, Netanyahu's response, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's announced probe into Iran's recent elections. On the lighter side, Buckingham Palace planting it's own vegs in a new allotment??
These in retrospect may be the normal on goings as the world turns on its, yes, axis; night follows day, weeks to months and a new bout of things to deal with.
Yet if there is change a foot, we still haven't cracked the one which gives journalism sleepless nights: the deteriorating health of newspapers, with no cash injection life support to keep it going. Conversations are being held.
Hell, some as high up in Government, but it follows that all too familiar sound of the few discussing what's percieved good for the many.
It may not be the right subject bed fellow, but when the conversation started against Facebook'sownership of your material, it went nuclear, driven by you and I, then change happened. Actually a revert to common sense ground.
Perhaps, this pay-as-you-surf is not in our best interests.
But this thought was not what got me writing today. Though there is a relation. I've been clearing out my study; magazines and articles that date back to the early 90s, some in pristine condition.
The 1990s The late 90s came flooding back with a series or re finds and there in lay a lesson.
Does anyone remember First 9 months?
In 1999/2000 an amazing piece of work by a graphic designer doodling around with Flash 3/4 hit the web. It documented the journey of his first child - from conception to the final image of himself and wife.
First 9 Months was simply a stunning piece of work.
It had not been done before. Flash had not been used to the best of my knowledge in a way that brought together journalism, Graphics and motion graphics.
And what about Hillman Curtis's multimedia promos and in particular his story, as I recall about a journey, not his, across Afghanistan ( I think!).
What made it so mesmerizing was the use of typography in telling a story. There was no Flash involved, but you kept reading. This was the era of the wild west, legendary Saul Bass's reincarnation through the work of graphic designer Brendan Dawes.
What was, did not exist before. There was no standard. It was fresh exciting, anarchic , banksyish, sometimes, but above all it dared to do it.
Do what?
It!
That's all changed somewhat, though you can still find clusters of "the thinkers". The serial idea brokers, who play the numbers game releasing as many great ideas that see the light and many perhaps that slow burned away.
What happens behind the scenes offers value, which we sometimes give scant regard to. When we get the headline idea, the news, that's it.
It's milked, before the cow runs dry and then is slaughtered. Innovation yields to commercialisation. One source of news and that even might do.
Behind the scene Obama's Cairo speech, Netanyahu's response, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's probe into Iran's elections are fantastic stories, but what lies either side of them provides the sort of needed context to understand the complexities of these crucial items.
No it's not about the big story per se, but watching Rageh Omar's brilliant Iran feature, interviewing ordinary ( small "O") people gave some idea of how the schism in a state reported for its overall control, could happen.
It's the "either side" of the dominant news that provides us with both context and revealing content, which is why White House photographer Pete D Souza's pictures are so compelling.
Rageh is a highly skilled programme maker, but his pleading with an Iranian music star for an interview gave the feature that of-the-cuff videojournalism moment and pathos of the film wanting to be everything that TV doc features aren't in being too rehearsed.
For that moment I even had a heart chuckle remembering the Rageh I bumped into time and time again as we were both attempting to launch our careers with the BBC African Service in 1992.
These small cameras we have access to are something much bigger than often I find from the value given them.
Yes, they have multiple functions indeed for the big story, and even the obscure ones, but above all, they should allow for stories, a bolder approach to producing, not performed in that metronomic way of news, but perhaps more reflective of the whys?
And that's an axis worth looking at in greater detail.
It would be simple enough to assume videojournalism is an outright extension of TV news journalism, just as printing was initially thought to be nothing more than a medium to expand one's teachings.
But it misses the point that plugged into the environment, armed with a camera, you're across the myriad operas that surround you.
To be capable of hearing visuals, seeing sound, being empathetic with your canvas, affords the video journalism I have come to practice and teach that bit more credibility it deserves as an art form. Viewmagazine's David on The Videojournalism Manifesto Redux and how Vj is being used to produce international programmes.
I'm going to be on and offline intermittently for a while as I'm involved in a related project to my thesis which involves one of the largest creative content providers in Europe.
I believe the outcome/findings will be kinda cool for the art/science of solo Vjism. When I'm back in the swing of things, hopefully I'll have the interviews up with Nelson Mandela at a press conference, Louis Farrakhan the Nation of Islam and how we made the Obama film.
That these were the first regional journalists, from the Hull Daily Mail, Liverpool Echo and Press Association in the UK to learn videojournalism in a programme devised by David of Viewmagazine.tv
That James Wagner was the first dedicated journalist to report from Second-life, here talking at a summit in Sweden. Sadly, Second Life seems to be no longer in vogue.
When Reuters reported to journalists at the Online News Assoociation their findings being the first journalism outfit to equip reporters with the Nokia N95, Viewmagazine captured the discussion.
Christiane Amanpour, the venerable CNN Correspondent was more than a little surprised to hear about some of the advances in webournalism reportage and that branding herself online with blogs and tweets would open her up to a new audience.
At the premier on Dreamgirls Viewmagazine spent a cold evening interviewing the stars, and left the camera rolling so you could see waltz and all. (video to be re-loaded)
When the BBC provided info about its trials over embedded video Viewmagazine.tv captured it here.
It's easy to assume videojournalism is an easily acquired skill; it is, but if you've very little visual spatial skills, you're a shrinking violet and the last time you wrote something was for the school nativity play, you're on a steep learning curve.
Then there's the interpersonal skills. If you're a VJ of the kind I worked through, you've got to be as amiable as you are tough at making those split decisions [on your own].
Like any creative discipline, or for that matter any job, you've got to live through it and make mistakes. And you have to adopt a selfless and fearless veneer about failing.
Budding actors taking classes (did that) know a thing or two about how to fail, and getting to know themselves and those around you very quickly. There's something in that.
David in conversation with CNN's
Chritistiana Amanpour at the Front Line club
One reason why news discourse has moved very little in comparison to cinema's language or literature, re: the novel, could partially be put down to the entrenchment of news' classical episteme.
Just as an ill conceived and erroneous notion exist of journalists graduating from radio to TV, creatives within news, either move into docs or drama.
In its fifty years the dominant hegemony of news is to deliver the facts, thus rendering overt creative news programming as antithetical.
A fear of tinkering with this form or pushing any creative streak is eschewed. Blame the 70s/80s, with the number crunchers moving in and journalism realising its business acumen to turn a fast buck.
Thus if "You wanna be creative, go make movies!"
Thirty years later money making in news has shifted its heel into blatant entertainment e.g. Paris Hilton's new dog &^%$£@@!.
But as many social scientists will note, paradigms do shift, and the classical position can and is on occasion successfully challenged.
Videojournalism's changed news
There's a wonderful quote from Kubrick, where he says: "I want to change the form of cinema", and he did with what is acclaimed to be one of cinema's best film ending in Paths of Glory.
When was the last time you heard that from a news executive. There are so many factors at play here e.g. economic model, creative zone, historical habits that work against TV's half full status, exacted by some of its present 'gate keepers'.
This will likely change years down the line. History tells us that. We've only just experienced the birth of a new digital feisty form.
The auterism within videojournalism envelopes several iterations of many other creative forms.
Just as cubism is a sibling of surrealism, derived from impressionism rebelled against realism.
Videojournalism - painting with video - has its lineage.
It's one reason photographers, journalists, graphic designers, visual journalists have all found their own independent windows to enter the form and recreate their own magic.
Me, the peripatetic life I led as first a bi-media journalist/producer from 1987 within the BBC, (radio and TV) followed by employment in several different media companies, my educational background, and own personal interests have come to shape a strong sense of:
How videojournalism works: TV versus Print Journalist.
Its strengths moving forward, working in stations.
Video film's emotive level.
Videojounalism's technical vs the creative.
Its flaws.
Videojournalism journey.
And more .....completing a PhD. You can find latest works here on my site viewmagazine.tv and Mrdot
How your past influences the present
From the BBC, I learned the purpose of the pre-shoot script, from the agency WTN, which would become APTV, I learned how to spot and cut-on-the-fly sequences coming from multiple satellite feeds demanded by broadcasters. The 'bird' - sat 41 was permanently fixed on the Mid East stories.
At ITN/Channel 4 News, how to play with words and produce in situ, whilst staying true to the journalism. From the many years of applied chemistry how to turn abstracts into the physical and embark on one experiment after another; LSE - the economics of course.
Whilst starting off as a videojournalist in 94 how to spot a story and carve it up several ways, then turn it around in a matter of minutes.
Nelson Mandela Tribute Concert 1988 Wembley - BBC Report with Peter Gabriel, Natalie Cole, Anita Baker, Neil Kinnock MP and Nelson Mandela
From Radio 4 and BBC radio presenting, the power of the voice as an instrument. This perhaps is one of the less recognised assets for a journalist. How to attenuate your voice range without seeming supercilious.
At ABC News, the American way of doing things; New Media, an appreciation that online it's all connected; with ex Saatchi head of TV Jon Staton whose agency re-active y re-active where I was a creative director, the emotional pull of the video and copy. The fewer the words, the better.
There's much we all bring from our past into our jobs and VJs blank status ( I mean its relatively short life span) means it can be directed into a number of routes.
But for that to happen, it requires practitioners stick their heads out, talking and sharing the form, discarding the dogma (we all sadly suffer those at times) that accompanies new skills and also enjoying the fruits of their labour in making public their work.
To rephrase Nike in relation to how you might get vj'ed up, means being reflexive about how the sum of your past add up. What is it? "Just Live it".
Find out about Integrated Multimedia Videojournalism at Viewmagazine.tv with a number of how tos and interviews ranging from the former head of the CIA and Quincy Jones
It's the stuff of Isaac Asimov, except that it's really not so far fetched.
The snippets of news from Razorfish's report [see last post], the general uptake of new apps and their volcanic explosion, revival of TV integrating new social tools on line e.g. wiii on the net etc, all add up to something akin to a grown up web in the offing.
So far the net supports a number of apps, that, with the exception of the obvious mobile ware, is largely fixed. But the very variable that constrained the Net, will be the Outernet's gestation.
The context, "Internet"; inward looking makes empirical sense. Outernet, sees the Net and apps work all around us e.g. an audio twitter demand that calls up a programme and turns your followers' TVs and PCs into a TV screen, [Orwell] or triggers an event which changes the music at Dance club "100Z"
Sensosor related apps, iris scan receivers that give more info on pleasure you derive from videos.
Beahviourial science drives the Net The work of Martin Lindstrom in Buy-ology, a New York Best seller points to this. In his book, Lindtsrom conducts a number of MRI experiments. [brain scans] to unlock meaning to our actions.
Attaching people to probes that give some idea of their thinking, if we can, and some sort of nano sensors will do that, gauge behaviours of consumers via the web, then we're climbing new levels.
And what if we could conduct the same real-time studies for watching video. It would crystallised some of our own thoughts but also reveal new ones.
What makes a good video, and what makes a bad one - a loaded question which envelopes aesthetic, codes, visual design, psychology of lines, tone, mis en scene. Frankly a whole panoply of signifiers.
Couple of years ago, I filmed myself on one of the huge monitors in the heart of Time Square (I'll post that this week). The gig was arranged by Reuters from an Online News Association Summit. But what if the tech-set existed to do that myself with my twitter flow, at a cost of course, but triggered here from London.
Why Not?
It will be difficult to know what the Outernet is, you'll have to be there to see it - I am reworking Morpheus' line in The Matrix, but the reality is closer, believe, than we think.
Two decades ago I abandon a career Chemistry and Maths, for a more exciting one in the media.
Now it's the technologists and science who'll be pushing the best part of the Outernet. I need reversioning.
Some times an idea is ahead of its time, sometimes they've got to come around again.
The report above looks to the future of metaverse journalism - taking in a number of areas via video journalism.
But then it's inspired something more cine-based which I'm working on.
But how to get it out? I could use the web etc? but what else?
Couple of years back the digital card made its presence and as an idea before its time caused some amusement.
But now its back in vogue and the file capacity has gone from a dinky 25mb to 100mb and more.
Digital card for carrying anything from a full movies to film pitches
So you can carry the trailer, the web site, the film pitch, what ever on that business card.
If business cards are meant to ac as visual prods to elicit contact, then this digital card, the size of a credit card goes one step further.
Box of 50 digital cards which I'll be dumping my trailer on
The trailer should be ready before the international video journalism awards, which I hope to preview here.
p.s Added belatedly from David ( sitbonzo) comment. DO NOT try putting these into Macs or PCs without a tray otherwise its curtains. The cd needs to be placed on a tray. Thanks David
By the time James had picked up his camera, paused to inspect its array of galactic buttons then train his eye on the view finder, the panel of three had pretty much made their mind up.
You can teach a young man to fish, but there must be instinct and curiosity, otherwise all the will in the world will fail to yield a profitable worker.
Holding the camera upside down didn't help either.
It makes you ponder.
It sounds unfair but with 100 more applicants to filter, that will do.
The attractive presenter who entered the fray would probably not have known, but she barely had time to stoop. It was the blahnicks wot done it.
She might have taken a cue from a friend in DC who turned adversity into admiration.
Walking up to the interviewers in her points, she stumbled, toppled over from snapping her heels and immediately remarked to fits of giggles: "Well I made a right heel of that then didn't I ?"
She got the job she wanted and wore sneakers almost all the way through her contract working as a fairly active press officer.
City recruiters hiring for some of the posher traders around London's Thread Needle Street know a thing or two about your footwear.
Your shoes are a mirror into your soul and leather soles ala Grensons and Blahniks say more about your fiscal ambitions and a penchant for the good life. In the emerging world of video journalism, you'd do well with more practicable footwear.
Ones that allow you to show a quick set of heels trailing that rogue defendant outside the courts for a quote.
The beginnings of a multimillion pound industry? Video Journalists aficionados and practitioners gather at the 2006 VJ Awards in Germany. Top upper left corner, David filming the event. For the 2008 awards and submissions go here
Are you a video journalist? The application says "Video Journalists Wanted" and often lists a string of personal skills, qualifications, knowledge and experience one must exhibit.
" We're looking for reporters who can film and edit", one newspaper editor told me.
"Filming's not so important, we can teach them that, but tenacity and an enquiring mind is what we want" said another at the Press Association's Video Journalism Training camp in Howden.
The criteria is loose - a reporter with the obligatory film skill plug-in.
Of course there's some logic here, but its weak spot lies in assuming the new shiny video journalism training is about re purposing reporters, though understandably many are trained this way.
It may work short term, but for the long term it renders video journalism's where next trajectory stifled.
Managers often believe you can unbox a videojournalist just as you can his or her gear that has just been delivered by UPS.
You could draw an analogy with newspapers making their text available for their print edition and the web.
Until recently, many editors believed, and some still do, that 50 word paragraphs culminating in 2000 word articles that appease city commuters, will equally do for the web.
Step forward Jakob Nielsen, who's been proved right so many times, it's any wonder his name hasn't become a verb. "Can you Jakob that mate? You know make it tighter".
Today, the emerging consensus is different. We read differently on the web compared to the physical print.
It's a fairly level playing field at the moment as most recruiters do a fair bit of groping around for what they actually want.
Plus, really, the terms of employment are for the now, more or less, happening in-house with reporters, designers and photo journalists being trained up.
But it won't always be so.
Just as broadcast networks ask specifics for their reporting, producing and whatever other jobs, and newspaper eds want examples of your clippings before testing your knowledge of Mosley Vs News of the World, Video Journalism will soon get busy.
I made this, but then how could you be sure? 20 second sting for interview with the BBC's Peter Horrocks, Head of News and Multimedia Newsroom.
A showreel illustrating short and long piece and stand up may be a pre-requisite, though as Channel 4 executive Stuart Cosgrove talking about the value of showreel for reporters said to me some time back: "They can be of relative little use, as you've no way of verifying who really made it".
Surely, in today's open-access self policed net, you'd have to go to some lengths to disguise what's yours and what isn't, though you'll always find those driven enough to fake it.
VJ Camera mounted on a weighted pod or manfroto with some practise provides the perfect steady cam effect to provide floating shots for stand ups/ piece to cameras. More from the video journalism Manifesto.
Difference in Video journalism The two broadly speaking VJ packages call on different strengths: one for fast turn overs, the other for considered, well-honed pieces.
Broadcasters make that distinction within their own parish: the news reporter's 1.20 min package makes them King and Queens of the complex issue turned simplified package, though not everyone makes the cut.
Video journalism circa 1995 from David's archive - a one paragraph note in a civic newsletter prompts David to talk to a local citizen who has won a major battle with her council to remove road humps.
Whilst the doc feature maker is the maestro of the complexity and confusion of the exposition made accessible. Both are as similar as chalk and cheese.
The latter is akin to watching hetero cyclic chemistry breaking down into its constituents on a good edition of hit US drama CSI
Sorry! I remember doing that as Chemistry undergrad: it's left an impression on me for life.
So Video journalism begs schizophrenic quality. Can you do long and short? And are you a natural on screen.
Never mind soon also specialisms will become part of the landscape e.g. Gardening VJ, and Crime VJ to name a few.
Though I'd argue the distinction between whether you're a one or 15 minuter producers appears to me to be less onerous for seasoned video journalists, and for a reason.
A synergistic working relationship exists between photojournalism and video journalism. Here in Germany where video journalism is practised extensively by newspapers and broadcasters, it's easy to spot pieces inspired by a photo journalistic bent, rather than a broadcast one.
Reporter or Camera operator DNA If you cast around, many of the more prominent video journalists who've made names for themselves most exhibit particular traits.
While front of camera work requires screen confidence which can often lead to the "celeb-ego", behind-camera work is about letting the film speak for itself: style and substance.
It may be a generalisation but most admired VJs place a higher quotient on their film work.
Celebrated one man crew Scott Rensberger would prefer if being on screen wasn't always an ask.
"Sometimes I'd have to go wash, get a new shirt on then get back on location to do the stand up" he told me at the EUs regional TV Summit.
Video Journalists, tend to be comparatively less image conscious: you only have to place the photo journalists in your organisation alongside the reporter to know what I'm talking about.
Either way being humble helps a load, firstly because frankly there is no one descriptive methodology for video journalism packaging, so frankly no one holds the golden fleece. There's technique yes, but a multitude of emerging styles; some good and some, er, leaving room for improvement.
You would not have Spike Lee tell Clint Eastwood he's a rubbish film maker even though they clashed, head's buttin,g over Flags of our Father.
But a fair few VJs enjoy a public scrap over films. Personally, it's just not cricket.
Being humble, the hallmark of veteran media personnel, does not underscore other traits: namely a quiet steely confidence; the self starter; the go-it-alone or team worker who can do marvelous things in the most trying of circumstances.
Being industrious is a huge boon.
After her camera seized to work from shooting a piece in sub zero temperatures, one Channel One Video journalist used a hair dryer to get 5 Min's of work time before the camera sized up again.
How to shoot a piece in 5 Min's?
It's doable just as I'm forced to create a piece from the standard 3 minute EktaChrome cartridge stock from my Nizo Schneider Super 8mm. What a mouthful of a camera!
Vicky and Andy represent the norm for the next generation of video journalists. Formerly both print journalists, after a fruitful period as newspaper video journalists, they've moved over to television, Setanta Sports and Border TV, where the VJ format, particularly in sports, allows for greater creativity and maturation, if so be, into directing long formats and promos. etc. More from the video journalist revolution
Watching out for the nascent video journalist Asked about books or novels you admire, most of us wouldn't struggle for an answer, citing the novelist to boot.
But questioned over your favourite film and then the director how would you score?
If you're one of those that has to be kicked out of the cinema because you're still reading the credits for the director and DP and Editor, then you're a film buff, even a nascent video journalist.
If you can cite your favourite reporter as well and why, then your Brownie points are on the up.
If you can take a decent photo and know how to bring it alive, then you have the "kwaa".
These might count as identifiers.
To know how to play football, you've got to play football.
"Bo knows football"; he was passionate about what he did and you could tell.
If you're a reporter going into video journalism drop the mac coat and the "reporter alert" halo.
Working low key or even stealth will often bring you better results, if not more verity from the event.
Award winning photo journalist Yannis Kontos is all of 6.4", but appears invisible to his subjects, working so fast and appearing so unassuming, where as the archetypal sound bite set up shot in broadcasting can often eat into your schedule and look staged.
This is a profession that requires getting into the trenches sometimes and getting your hands dirty. There's nothing glamorous about it, even when you're covering the glam stuff like film premiers as Sky's LA correspondent Dionne Clark will tell you when she Vjed Dream Girls for Viewmagazine.tv
Exciting yes. Glamorous uh uh!
At Al Jazeera to see friends, an impromptu interview for a job takes place around me, with managers asking how I might package a report. Often when any new technique fails to confirm a professional's own reporting style it can be dismissed out of hand. Video Journalism interested the managers, but they couldn't see what it might creatively offer.
Recruiting ads and methods differ. The Telegraph's trainee super reporters go through a rigorous psychometric test, not as their executive put it so they're all the same, "but to eke out different leaders, so even if we get one nutter in there we won't be displeased, we want them to be different".
With the maturity of video journalism, candidates moving about jobs will most likely be required to show a level of creativity and workpersonship ( tis a word?) unknown at present.
"One thing that has surprised me about the award winning VJ work I have seen is how conservative it is - in aesthetic/stylistic terms. Especially in light of the explosion of creativity in cinematography in TV and the movies.
Unfair to criticize a nascent craft for not pushing the envelope obviously. But without a new aesthetic is VJ condemned to just look cheap? Is innovation the provenance of the big bucks brigade: Top Gear, John Adams etc?"
FT.com Editor James Montgomery sees this too and acknowledges that in time it'll develop; he wants video journalism at the FT to mirror the standards and style of the newspaper.
And that visual gene is one which will become prevalent amongst many outfits with video journalism at its core.
Only question is what footwear will you wear at your interview?
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Footnote: if you're interested in online teaching as a video journalist instructor for one of the world's most renowned photo agencies and you've the relevant experience drop me a line in early September and I'll pass your details on.
David Dunkley Gyimah is a VJ Trainer who has trained broadcasters and newspapers all over the world since the mid 90s. He is set to consult for FilmMinute - the 1 minute international film festival, which is looking to become the biggest online film festival in the world
The good people at SXSW sent me a nice email after I suggested toodling over to SXSW for some inspiration.
And while I'm at it giving a combination master class of new areas of IMVJ and some things to chew over. You know how to knock off quick professional interviews; how to go anti aesthetic or anti-realism, cutting a trailer blah.
I'm thinking of trying a live layering so build multiple film drawing in aspects of radio, motion graphics, dv film, video journalism and what nots.
Incidentally and I'll expand on this, but I have been away for a couple of days and really got back into radio ie pods, so we'll be tearing up some rules and digging up some radio interviews which I have dumped onto a refurbished viewmagazine.tv
Video Journalism Life is a series of short snappy articles on viewmagazine.tv, which in houses some rare but interesting video e.g. 10 mins clip of the doc "Birth of a Station", which tells the story of Channel One's launch.
If you're into video journalism this may interest you as you'll see how video journalism was introduced into the UK some 14 years ago.
Below is some more information about the pages and some of the build techniques behind the videos I mentioned last week.
Fig 2.
This is a broadcast from the 1st January 1996. I'm presenting and reporting is video journalist Jon Gilbert, now a network reporter for ITN.
The second report is video journalist Guy Smith, now the crime correspondent for the BBC's London News station.
Both would be using a Beta 100 camera. You'd be hard pressed to know they shot and did everything themselves.
The language is very much VJ for TV: 3 shot ratio, the camera is steady with the action controlled within the lens etc, but done extremely well with stand ups/ pieces to camera.
Advanced video journalism takes account of camera movement. That is non verbally I can intimate the feel and mood of a scene by the way I shoot you.
Last week I spoke of how VJ then moves into doc, film making; more on that in just a minute
Embedded Video The page uses an example of embedded video but with a stronger aesthetic ( which I spoke about at the Batten Awards here at the National Press Club in Washington DC. I'm still highly indebted to those that gave me such an illustrious platform to share my thoughts.
Click the pic and you load the FLV with controls behind. You'll need Flash CS3 to perform this function because of some of the actions scripting and once you either flag up or indicate to the reader there's video, they'll click, that is if they want to :)
Fig 3 Style over substance
This page also uses embedded video; the previous page shows a personal time line of video journalism aligned with projects I have undertaken including national and international station building projects.
Soon after Channel One's launch a filmic aesthetic, influenced by the DV film movement starts to emerge.
In 2000, Washington Post Travis Fox's piece of a construction-worker father grieving the death of his son from 911 is an indisputable strong indication of video journalism's strength at doc features.
In fact you might argue some talent have become digital film makers with a news bent.
Is that skin to video journalism? Either way does it matter.
The award winning Molly Dinnensets up an interesting discourse. She's a film maker with the medium of film. Is she a video journalist, if she carries a DV Cam?
I'm playing with semantics, but it's worth a moment of thought as a massive new wave of video journalists emerge.
Fig 4
No lights, a camera and plenty of action - an article from October 1994 about Video Journalism on British shores, with contributions from a range of figures e.g. Nick Pollard whom two years later would be headhunted by Sky News to become their head of news for a decade.
Fig 5 Dimitri Doganis was one of the original Channel One Video Journalists and at the time one of the youngest at 19, I think.
Today he would likely not call himself a video journalist, for he is a multiple award winning doc maker and executive producer.
His films for TV and festivals you've probably seen: The Siege of Bethlehem is one of my favourites, a film which captured a global audience.
If were to ask Dimitri how influential Video Journalism was to him, I've some idea what he would say. He'd likely say TV presented a different discipline and it helps to be around collaborative thinkers, but his overall understanding of the work flow and multiple disciplines was lit as a vj.
If like the scores of good producer/directors I know now in TV, you have a VJ background, you'll more likely to use their techniques to enhance your output. The most obvious is giving cameras to your subjects and trusting what they'll come back with.
If I were working as a producer/ Director for any outfit covering the Georgian- Russian conflict, I would be offering basic training and handing out cameras to residents.
I'd also have had engineers attach sensors to modified cams which could be offered to camera operators in the field, who could place them at strategic view points.
In the future I will look at how new technology in cameras e.g face recognition and remote cameras will strengthen video/ video journalism news.
For instance, I have recently been told that the BBC is developing a camera that can withstand extreme temperatures and be remotely controlled to film in the Antarctic etc.
Good ideas are good whatever the period. And casting an eye back to pre-web 2.0 one of the companies I worked for RE-ACTIVE. NET has aged really well.
The concept for this small commercial/ Ad agency was to mix video journalism and Multimedia. and the site, which garnered huge praise from the industry still reflects that.
All the credit goes to Rosalind Miller, the creative director whom in 1999/2000 would, with Hillman Curtis, make me marvel at what Flash and action scripting could do.
Simple sublime, you really must go and play with the site, if nothing else for the zen haunting bars that float around when you run over an image.
The key then as now is by mixing up different forms, we learnt from each other and came up with some interesting ideas.
A lot of what I came to appreciate, though I already had some existing Flash skills ( that's how Rosalind and I met) came from observing Rosalind at work.
The last still is commercial work from the XTP project, which is now spreading across London Underground.
What is it?
You see those new screens which play soundless ads that are replacing posters, yep.
Viacom asked if we could produce a set of ads to demonstrate how they would work with what was called 5 degrees of motion that gave clients an aesthetic as well as pricing model. Rosalind's designer aesthetic was just ......!
Design+Interactivity+VideoJournalism = commercials?? **^* $ Not so radical after all
It's a moot point, but the Videojournalism evolution enveloping, by and large newspapers has come by stealth.
If youtube and the lot hadn't demystified how easy shooting and cutting a piece of video was, we'd all be going about our merry business.
Newspapers would be looking to redesigns with newspapers and TV would be pressing ahead with its HD and new division of labour.
Note: shooting and cutting a video is different from shooting and cutting a good film - one for the purists here, though Youtube has some blinding films as well.
By stealth, and increasingly by design now, we've become a media of video shooters/journalists/commentators/conversationalists.
It's so low hanging fruit that it almost requires no qualifications.
But without the whole web 2 thing, where would video journalism be?
It'd be around: Michael Rosenblum, Naka Nathaniel, Travis Fox,Scott Rensberger et al would be doing what they do, and doing it darn well except they'd be less eyeballs on them.
The explosion in newspaper video journalism changes all that. The question of ownership or custody of the form becomes an area of interest.
Not nakedly, but in refining something for that publication and this publication.
What is it is scrutinised over and over again.
Guidelines are set up to help the
Some say it's shooting TV, others say it's more than that: another language in itself.
Some say you can't cross the line; others say the line was always designed to be crossed but creatively.
There is a kink we've approached and as one of the thousands of VJs who's passionate about the form it is this.
This is what videojournalism is. This is it. This, it!
How do you go from Battleship Potemkin to a film like Gladiator. A lot of money :)
How do you get from photography at the turn of the 20th century to the Magnums and Pulitzer photographers?
Money again :)
How do we go from the classic but now seemingly tame beats of Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five's Rappers Delight to the more complex synthesis of P Diddy?
More Money?
I guess there was a lot of experimenting going on.
A lot of the things we never saw, heard, that sunk without a trace were all part of journey.
Video journalism.. I figure we've...correction I have really only just begun.
Former army personnel Ian Hamilton looks on in contemplative mood standing next to Anzac war graves. His great uncle was the Commander-in-Chief of the UK/Anzac force. Today Ian is a successful lawyer living in Canada
Yesterday I posted on a story that was mashed up as an Example of multiplatform Reportage.
Outernet interfaces and multimedia game theory stories . see The Family
Video hyperlinnked film
And a stronger series of linked SEO linked stories - Some interesting stuff coming out SEO and page leaking.
The report itself warranted this multiple approach. It was a one off. So you could debate the merit of stripping a story for other platforms. :The "Kill what you can eat" approach is game-specific.
As with most VJ pieces I make, they're unrehearsed, though I do give myself time to think through, visualise what the end product might just be and if there are any risk assessments.
We were going to be out at sea for around ten days, so I needed to take as much stock and gear, but still be mobile.
The call itself came out of the blue: a hoarse voice, Turkish, asking me if I was David and that he understood I was a diver.
I confirmed this and the caller hung up.
Minutes later, a PR woman called explaining the nature of the previous call and whether I was interested in covering a unique expedition. It would mean diving to quite deep depths. I had three days before setting off.
Ordinarily sports diving involves plunging to depths of 30 metres on normal compressed air. However we would be going to 50 metres plus, so something called a Tri-mix is required.
This is where the relative amounts of oxygen to nitrogen is altered to prevent serious injury or fatalities.
This was my risk assessment. I did not have any diving gear at the time, but was told they'd supply and I'd meet the ebullient and highly knowledgeable John Bantin. John Bantin is the Jeff Jarvis of In the dive world.
Bringing the pieces together I put a call into BBC WS Outlook to sell the piece. I knew their house style as a listener, and had many years freelancing for another department of the BBC World Service while reporting from South Africa.
One thing I have learnt though, it doesn't matter what your experience is you have 8 -15 seconds on the phone to a producer before they'll either say "send something in" or thank you.
8-15 seconds is the length at which you'll say something on the phone in one breadth, one para, before pausing.
And if you know radio, it's about the pause.
The pause in an interview is where the producer is looking to edit you down.
The producer bought the piece, added his own instructions and wished me well.
For TV, I got what was a tentative nod from BBC 3 - an outlet of the BBC focusing on the 18-35s - though in truth I did not hold out much hope as BBC 3 like any commissioning outfit has a long lead time, and BBC 3 was notorious for giving the nod and then letting you down as I discovered, and I have emails between myself and commissioners to prove that.
Frankly I should have done more to sell the piece to Channel 4 News, where I'd previously shot and produced a piece on South Africa
Charting the end in mind It's important to recognise whether you believe to have the skillset. Different media require different approaches though one often dovetails into another.
With radio it's all about painting pictures with sound. I needed a long XLR cable for my mike and condoms to wrap around. That way I could lower the mike into the water to get the sound effects of the divers coming up. You can hear this on the radio version.
Video journalism was about finding characters and drama to tell the story and fortunately I wasn't short of that, including a revolt on the boat as conditions and food were deemed below par.
A visit by a Turkish historian, who was keenly awaiting one of the divers was pure video/television. The historian harboured deep feelings about ANZAC forces who killed his family and now he was waiting to forgive and meet the descendant of the Commander-in-Chief who ordered the battle.
For the video I had a Hi-8 camera. My VX1000 was out of commission. I added a mobile monitor playback to my luggage.
That way I could monitor what I had and was lacking by the day. Also in my pack, my canon E0S, bakelite powerbook - which looks ancient today and Sony Pro - for radio.
Avoiding Disasters Disasters are part and parcel of big shoots. The actuary's approach is to minimise, but also have a system that allows you to function where something goes wrong.
The first thing to go wrong was my tripod did not come of the Turkish airline, and by the time I had enquired it was in the air off to somewhere unknown. I would eventually get it back after the expedition, having to tip baggage handlers along the way.
Then my video camera fell into the Aegean sea. It was a split second. I was accidentally nudged on the deployed boat - which is pretty small.
The camera seized up for a day, but amazingly worked again after it was put out to dry. Next time I thought I'll get an underwater casing.
Four days in i knew I had a strong story and my blog would reveal how on my last dive, I got sucked in my a strong underwater current which nearly proved disastrous. Subsequent days we couldn't dive at all; the water had got up to 2/3 knots. Not ideal for diving, and on one of our night dives, some conga eels took a liking to our night torches.
Next week I'll talk about building the Flash, multimedia elements
Through the eyes of a Child Director/producer David Dunkley Gyimah, 1993 The Line Producers, South Africa.
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