Culture talk - Future TV

From Politicans, to Musicians, Poets, and Senoir BBC executives, each year the good people of Demontford University stage a week of open lectures where figures are invited to talk and anyone can just drop in - it's free.

In the past they've had the following

Louis De Bernieres who wrote ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ adapted to film and stage as well as translated in over 30 languages.

The BBC’s creative director, Alan Yentob.

Germaine Greer, currently Professor of English and Comparative Studies at the University of Warwick. A well known TV critic and famed for many things including The Female Eunuch in 1970.

And high profile journalist, currently writing for The Guardian, Gary Younge who delivered a personal perspective on how race and culture need to change for the 21st century.

This year I have been invited to talk and will be looking into the future of news and programme making via the web, something that I have been passionate about for a while.

This will be jargon free and walk through the landscape of news, videojournalism and a new short film I should finish by then, which has multiple video-hyperlinks - some part of my PhD studies.

If you're turning up do come and say hello. See you there and thanks to Tony Graves, his students who put this event together and digital connoisseur Chris Jones who provides this write up of the event and my talk.

Shoot Bourne on DV Cam

There have been various improvements to make video look like film. The Panasonic 200 shoots 24p, removing various fields from your timeline and now this.

If you want to blow your competitors apart don't even think twice. Bourne Supremacy on an ultra shoe string budget. Mind you I'm off to find how much it costs first.

5 mins later.....

Back again, I have just found out. I have cribbed this from their site here.

M2 Cinematographer Bundle: HD Edition for PL Cinema Lenses

Includes:

• M2 Cinema Lens Adapter

• Special M2 HD Achromatic lens

• 15mm Rod Support System - 18"

• Arriflex PL lens mount

• Redrock Hard Mount Kit, Shim Kit, and 82mm - 72mm Step-Down Ring

• M2 Cinematographer's cap

• Power Supply

• Carrying Case


M2 Cinematographer Bundle: HD Edition for PL Cinema Lenses.

Price: $1,821.45

I;m not endorsing the company per se, but the results truly are stunning and considering, not so long ago a lens on this thing her could cost you 15,000 UKP odd this looks a good buy.


Shooting in South Africa for a Videojournalism feature for Channel 4 News

BBC Ups Game

The idea was greeted with howls of "foul"; the corporation has done much to quell that, particularly with newspapers.

Some might have even thought the idea was permanently shelved after the BBC's financial cut backs.

But hyperlocal is back on the agenda.

Reported in Press Gazette this week, the BBC unveils a prototype for ultra local news TV.

Andy Griffins reveals details of the BBC's plans.

Last year I spoke to Andy and his number two ( I recorded an interview and presentation) and the plans as they were then, based on market research, were awesome.
I'll post that soon.

But hyperlocal sets up the dna of news as how its should be in the 21st century. News you can use.

Channel One TV coined that phrase: news you can use, in carving up london boroughs during its reporting/programme cycle.

It works.

Viewers will far more tune into a network which delivers door-step information, mixed with informative, education, entertaining national, and world news.


The question for newspapers is have they done enough, before the BBC's launches.

Brand value and a deep understanding of TV and videojournalism; the BBC has some 900 waiting to be deployed across their sites, some of whom are working regional already, versus brand value (local newspapers) riding the curve of videojournalism.

One things sure, inspite of all olive branches and the desire(?) by the BBC to work with local outfits, there will be casualties.

Back in my neigbourhood, I'll be giving a local feel of hyperlocal with a one off launch of a mag on viewmagazine.tv

This is the year of IPTV, hyperlocal, and maturing web video - as if we didn't know

REFLECTIONS

As we bid adieu to this year in expectation of the next, a look back on a few things, in no particular order of fun, frivolity and work, which are now deep memory pylons.

Most are just images which capture a moment and reveal their own story.

FT
One of the real pleasures was working alongside the FT.com team.

Sharp as razors, as you'd expect, but full of fun.

How often, from afar, we mentally prep ourselves only to be immensely surprised at the turn of events.

The digital pages of the FT will be one to watch with a new team unravelling new areas of multimedia reportage.





8 Days


It may have weathered, but as new outfits or traditional ones try out video and the rest, 8 Days still appears a favourite from my logs.

As with most of the dedicated films on viewmagazine.tv there's a sense of he movie poster about it; something that heavily influences my work.



You can't see it


Using the clone tool in photoshop I comped this image to illustrate how some of us just can't see it, this new Event Horizon.

Disturbing somewhat!

In a film (was it Greenaway?) I recall a beast had his eyes in the palm of his hands.

What was that film again?


IM6 VideoJournalism


I've often interchanged this coinage IM6 or MI6; the latter more interesting as that's the acronym of the UK's foreign intelligence service.

But this image was one of 6 on viewmagazine peeling back the idea of integrated multimedia video journalism.

The main window is the deep sea dive off Gallipoli which includes the BBC World Service report from Gallipoli


VideoJournalism circa 1993


How far we've come.

An image of an old colleague from the days when we lugged around a huge camera costing 40,000 us dollars working at London's equivalent of New York One.

Rachel, now a professional motivator, has recently been knighted with an MBE for her services to Afghanistan teaching and empowering women with communication skills in radio.

More here on the videojos 10 in 1994




Take a 300,000 US dollars car, a network TV presenter and me, the VJ, and this is what you might get from an unrehearsed shoot.

My friend Kevin was taking the car back to Ferrari's base and asked whether I wanted to come along.

He was late and so wasn't really up to many of the sequences I threw up in the air as we drove.

"David, sure, maybe some other time, but I'm a bit late returning the car".

But this is waht we got and you've been generous.

Perhaps some more tests in 2008.

Any sponsors?

The Ferrari 599 GTB isn't she something here for viewmagazine.tv which has far less compression or if you prefer here on Brightcove
Or here on Youtube.

Part 1


Part 2




The Superstar-in-waiting

And how, how can I forget the amazing Nancy Ginindza - a former student of the University where I lecture.

The head of the course, Kienda called me up:

"David quick you gota come and listen to this".

Nancy's music, raw energy is the stuff of William Wallace.

Kienda and I have spent a few late evenings at her gigs trying to capture what she does.

She hasn't broken through yet, but if we can still play a part - great.

Looking forward to devising her promo in the New Years



Same song with visuals




Happy festive season

Media Critique

Mike Jones over at Digital Basin provides a critique of the Manifesto on video journalism posted a while ago.

He makes some salient points, and provides, within the quality of his assessment, his own ideas as well.

He writes:
In particular i find myself grappling loudly the notion that the media producer is Not just Editor and Camera operator but that their toolset and creative options are much wider than that - motion graphics, design, interactivity, on-line construction.

But I also see a flaw here with an element of David's manifesto. In making a significant point about the role technology plays in empowering the independence and flexibility of the VJ he specially singles out Point 17 as "My (meaning YOU as a VJ) software includes: Final Cut Studio, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, In design, After Effects and Flash".

That's what we do. GREAT!

A critique saying what's wrong and offering a solution should be entertained, even if the author ( ie me, perhaps you) disagrees.

No one knows anything that is too much.

Solution solving
In the middle of a shoot with a crew or a project, when things unexpectedly go wrong, those that know me, will recall my penchant for saying:

"It's about solutions, not problems".

David: "OK stop for a moment, we know what the problem is, lets get over that and come back to the "why" later, but meanwhile how do we fix this? What is the solution and our options? "

So Mike's own intervention moves the dialogue along: the critic offering nothing is like the howl of the wind, the critic finding time to offer up solutions is like the howl of a wind bearing drops of rain proclaiming it's about to rain buddy so go grab an umbrella.

I gave reasons for the contentious (17), so why not hop over to Mike's blog and if I'm not being too presumptious, if you're not already one of his, click his RSS.

Meanwhile in conclusion to the thread on problems and solutions, a thought on this process, often besieging managers.

Part of our own traits within this behavioural pattern (Sol vs Prob) can often be our worse enemies.

We expend so much energy on a blame culture, as opposed to a particpatory one; one that's buit on meism rather what collectively we might achieve that, it's any wonder we can move ahead at all.

That doesn't mean giving the crown jewels away, so yes you can still monetise, but at the same time give ownership.

We do it many times in different guises: the boss hates all your ideas, so you find a route to place the idea with your boss convincing him/her this money spinner was their idea.

In journalism the "me and them" that still festers bares it soul around an age old pattern: Older people are wiser, those with years of experience know better and you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

If 2006/7 was the period of touchy feely, one suspects 2008 will show some interesting paradigms.

The critique quotient may well rise.

Broad shoulders anyone?

Tell me a story - The art of storytelling

The room, animated with the whirring din of conversation, wine freely flowing, all of a sudden died to a gentle hush.
The throng of guests all seated slowly began to rise, parting like the chorus line of a black and white 20s film.

There he was.. the man...and he was heading my way.

I wiped the palm of my hand on a napkin, bowed my head gently in expectation and extended my hand; a colleague sitting nearby did the intro.

Mr Mandela this is David…….

At that moment brimming with deity conscious I looked at the official photographer.

He looked back.

And then shrugged his shoulders, mouth upturned gesticulated at his camera; the film had finished.

And that was that.

My encounter with Mr Mandela is but a hard copy of an image available only in my mind.


Emotional
If you’ve laughed at or sympathised with me in some way, then it may well be because I have told a good story.

The grand denouement of meeting a figure many of us would want to encounter; the picture which we would have wanted to show mum, dad, family and friends but alas no film.

Grrr the chances of that happening; the chances of any of that happening.

The art of storytelling appears as an article in this months Havard Business Review (HBR) from an author Peter Gubber who’s credentials as a film maker and executive with Rain Man, Batman and the Colour Purple behind him shows he tells far better cracking stories than I do.


It would be a trite difficult to at first think there is a philosophy that underlines telling a good story, but this article and a fair few before it brings the issues bang up to date.

Gubber delineates four areas of storytelling crucial to the form as follows:

Truth to the audience

Truth to the Mission

Truth to the teller

Truth to the moment

With such momentos as a storyteller never tells the same story twice and the unwritten contract between author and audience.

Sadly HBR's article is locked behind a pay wall and it wouldn't quite be cricket to recount the article chapter and verse, not to mention the ethical implications.

They want to make money on it, so be it.

But it did have me reflect on my journey looking at the art of storytelling particularly with a video camera in hand.

At its basic level videojournalism is point and shoot, and in some cases that's enough for the story when it's unfolding as a dramatic event before your very eyes.

But there are many times when its the construct, a visual-auditory jigsaw puzzle which relies on more than what's in front of you.

I often use this example if you want to play along.

You're driving 50km/hr on a road and a ball bounces in front of your car.

What do you do?

Now, instinct, don't think, what are you about to do?

breaking instinct

If you work in the police force you'd have been coached to slam the breaks; there is a child running after that ball.

Instinct, learnt or otherwise is a powerful reaction to what we do; film making no exception.

Sometimes it comes from practice; there's a reason why actors graduate to directors or news makers become doc- film makers.

The art of making mistake after mistake and refinning that moulds a different perspective.

The art of videojournalism; perhaps the boldest transition to newsmaking, as one person carves out the whole news journey, involves more than a multitude of knowledge nuggets involving tech-push buttons and point and shoot.

I'm reading the HBR article again and agree with all their points, but if I were to sum up videojournalism in four points it would be

Passion

People

Perpectives

Preparation

And briefly before I let a yarn go sour, it goes something like this.

I'm nuts about video and it's look and feel; how it can be manipulated; how the sound adds to the video; how what's usually out of the lens adds to he story; how leave people to do so and they'll tell you what the story is; and rather contradictory how you've got to work the story to get the best out of people and it.

If it looks easy, it may be because it is, but I have got into the habit of discarding my first idea - too easy.

Where's the hook e.g. emotion, draw etc?

People, people, people; at parties I'd be in the kitchen listening to stories and different perspectives.

And then the prep work that goes on behind the scene and on the ground, by the-seat-of-your-pants and by engineered desire.

And that in a nuteshel is it, unless that is you want me to flesh out some, and if that's the case then this story is not as bad as I thought after all.

to be continued. . .

New media training for the newsroom Continues

Following on from recent posting on New Media training for the newsroom, one of a series of video clips to drop into the theme.

This looks at the classic interview/ Q and A/ you see on TV.

In many ways it's the easy pick - the low hanging fruit.

I have shortened the timeline of the process but the technique should appear obvious inspite of a muddled audio.

This was a sequence picked up by another VJ and I wasn't miked for the process.

Three different shots which visually move on the narrative to give you various cut aways and establishers.

Somewhere in an archive posting is an interview with 7/7 survivor Rachel North done in the fashion described.


INTERVIEW, CUT AND POST IN 10 MINS

We ran an experiment at a Skup in Norway.

An interview with four questions, one edited out, cut and posted took ten minutes.

Because I'm shooting to edit, my timeline in FCP is clean.

All I have to do is mask the question I have removed and provide enough drop in shots to make the interview look interesting.

A decade plus ago, perhaps even now, TV will tell you you need two three people to execute that interview.

In 1994 we proved then, as now that a lot of the visual cues and language of TV was outmoded.

There was a swifter way of doing it.

Today a lot of my interviews tend to be handheld; that's a conscious filming style which allows me to work more creatively and swifter.

You can see an example of a more fluid interview here - one I did with super blogger and academic Andy Dickinson and respected Doc maker and also part of the MELD team Paul Egglestone

Video shooting in London ? You must read this

If you ever plan or have shot video, particularly in the City of London, expect to get stopped by the Police.

And it matters less whether you're holding a small DV Camera or are the Financial Times.

In one of my assignments with the FT, three of its VJs were ordered twice by different police to produce some ID and a chit showing they had permission to film.

If you're a film crew, yes. If you're a journalist not obstructing public pathways etc. no.

The last set of police we encountered were not prepared to budge when we demonstrated aptly who we were.

Now I have a communique from one of the UK's leading Media Lawyers, himself also an Editor, and a senior figure in one of the UK's largest news outfits saying in effect: THE POLICE HAVE NO JURISDICTION TO STOP YOU FILMING ON PUBLIC LAND.

Careful Now
But, beware they may still find ways of scuppering your vital shoot on the day.

Firstly by quoting a law that does not exist, and if you resist while making the call to the City of London Press Office, issue you with a fixed penalty notice for obstruction.

That's £80 around $160.

Best bet, play it cool and note the badge number.

On the other hand, lots and lots of police men and women are very accomodating and will balance the risk of querying you against the backdrop of terror in the city.

Read below. Many many thanks for Mike's help here

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear David.

I spoke today to the City of London Police press office and was told that there is no need for journalists and broadcasters to have consent from the Corporation of London for filming in public places (not all areas of the City are public, I gather).

In the event of some police officer telling you otherwise, ask him or her to contact the force press office and ask about the current guidance.

If you have any problems, please let me know, so I can take it up with them directly.

The press office did stress that it was reasonable for an officer to check that people claiming to be journalists could show that they were working for a media organisation, or doing media training.

The force has a policy document available on its website at:
City of London.

This states, in paragraph A 1.2.12: (I have added the emphasis)
A.1.2.12 Photographers and broadcasters Press photographers and news broadcasters have a right to take pictures or
film wherever they wish, so long as they are in a public place and are not causing a public nuisance or an obstruction.

Police officers have no legal right to prevent photographers or news crews from taking pictures during any operation or investigation, if they are outside police cordons.

If there are legitimate concerns that photographers and/or crews are getting too close to a crime scene, the cordons should be moved.

Police officers should work with the media, where possible, to assist in providing them with a reasonable vantage point as this will make management much easier. If difficulties are experienced during handling of an ongoing incident, officers should contact the media liaison officer.

The force website is at: cityoflondon.police.uk - go to News and Information in the centre of the page and click on Media Centre.

When that comes up there is a red box on the right of the page marked Download (PDF) which contains the Media Relations Policy document.

Hope this is of some use.

Mike

Editor
Media Lawyer
W: Medialawyer.press.net

war video journalist

Been watching an old edition of Overthere and felt the need to post from seeing a number of videojournalists around me holding their camera in that, "hello mum I'm here way".

If you have a dvcam, first thing tear the strap off that allows you to "palm" the device.

Secondly let your body become the human tripod, holding the camera double handed away from you.

That way you also cushion the movements.

It enable youto canter with little shakes

The CDRom Videojournalists

At least it's one facet of multimedia journalism that we may not have to contend with now.

But looking back on my archive, I come across files created within Flash ( circa 2001) produced for CDRoms.

Not as easy as it was then as it is now and the more apt DVD write-software was a mortage-busting affair

If you were engaged in CDRom production at the time - a term which wrapped together everything multimedia - then did you like me run through excesses of CDs figuring out compression data rates against processor speed reading the stuff?
Interface of CDRom

It was a futile event though as I doubt anyone ( broadcasters mainly) that recieved CDRoms had little idea what to do with them. Er stick em in your computer and they auto play, yes go on!.

But it was the beginning and the end of an era.

A friend who works for some of the big ad agencies in the city (london) ruminated over the multi-faceted production era we're now in.

Trouble is though she adds, we're interviewing many broadcasters for positions, a few from the big guns, who have very little idea of the digital bread crumbs; how one piece of work starts and then leads back to the consumer.

Thank goodness CDRoms are more or less a thing of the past.

How soon before the web in its present guise becomes redundant?

Videojournalism or web journalism

A story that you may have experienced.

A head of department said he'd tried to pin me down, when asking what I liked doing, working online or video journalism?

Both, was my reply, I see no difference with the two.

Today, he got it.

Multimedia journalism is a composite of online and video journalism, I added, though in its best guise the seams are invisible.

You'd find it a tad more confusing if I said I like making promos as well.

Couple of years ago, I got asked a similar question with regard to radio and making TV programmes.

One informs the other, the other nurses the former, was my reply in a round about way.

Good TV draws on an understanding of sound production and good radio is like seeing pictures.

Which is why some of the best radio reporters of all time e.g. Alistair Cook, Mike Wallace, and Richard Dimbleby possessed a poeticism, brevity and craft of language which would see them equally take charge of and colonise this new medium (back then) called Television.

Frankly I have never quite understood the brouhaha over bi-media.

Now into this swirling media cauldron comes graphics in illustrator and photoshop, mash-up programmes or APis, editing on Final Cut, posting on After Effects, animating on Flash and the rest.

For many it's all a bit daunting really. There were good times, easier to understand times when we knew how to trade information.

Now many of us watch glazed over by the blinding array of things we're asked to do.

To a new generation born into it, it's water off a ducks back. Truth it's all one and zeros.

Learn it, don't learn it. It's about choice.

I remember the telling-offs from my father when I attempted to have the TV and wireless on at the same time, whilst browsing a comic.

"One thing at a time", he'd throw his voice across the room,"and turn those off".

Today the phone's ringing, I'm blogging skyping at the same time, TV's on. . .

This from the late Douglas Adams for The Sunday Times on August
29th 1999 called How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet. It's a weight piece. Here's a snippet.

Everything that's already in the world when you¹re born is just normal;

Anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is
incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out
of it.

Thanks to Christine Fox - a fellow video journalism trainer for sending this through.

HD Podcast TV

Couple of months ago Apple notfied all its podcast Itunes users requesting we export to Itunes at HDV at 640X360, as opposed to a standard many use which is around 480X270.

It's the future was the underlying postscript, because Apple's TV attached your flats screen gives you the experience of watching TV without the paraphanelia of broadcast TV.

So this morning via RSS I popped up the Washington Posts HD feeds and I cliked their latest offerings: a piece on "A Four-Star Tasting" from its food critic Tom Sietsema.

The file was around 116mb and took about 11mins to download on a 1mb broadband pipe. The video itself was 3 mins.

The Washington Post, like the New York Times has been one of the pioneers in Videojournalism and it doesn't take rocket science for anyone to glimpse the future.

It's a future where Washington Post or in the UK Telegraph TV resides as one of the main channnels on your global TV network ie the Net.

Faster connections 10mb, plus "bit torrent" type software which also facilitates faster connectivity, and more intelligent aggregating sofware will allows all to assemble their own news.

It's where you decide so intuitively what you want watch on the day .

Imagine you've chosen Dafur. You're still a stickler for 30 mins broadcast. That's how long it takes you to unwind on the dinning table. Old habits die hard.

Your RSS tells you all the Dafur posts:

BBC, Washington Post, Africa TV, Parliament TV, The People's Podcast TV. . .

"Do you want a presenter or not?"

Yes, I'll have Trveor Macdonald.

"Sorrry Trevor has limited presentation", says the software

"Ok I'll have Mary Rayner".

Mary Rayner is one of the new breed of cyber presenters, who's has been recording links for the best part of the day which gets called up by you for any number of the videos you've chosen.

If you think that's pie in the sky, it's what held Channel One together 13 years ago, a juke box held all the reporters' videos and the presenter spent the day reading links that could be pulled together by the news desk producer.

In this broadcast made in 1995 I'm presenting an item on what the newspapers say the web wil be like in years to come. It's not live. At no time did I see the report before I made my links.

So the future is a huge agency model of quality video from newspapers and magazine's being made available to anyone, almost similar to what APTV or Reuters do already.

You might even choose your TX by reporters you love to watch.

So what will we watch?

I can't help thinking we shouldn't throw away tried and tested news techniques, but the immediacy of videojournalism and its narrative, as opposed to the TV videojournalism narrative now being touted, has to be a strong draw.

British TV bound by the rules of Ofcom seeks to be impartial and objective: "He said, but she said".

There will be many cases where bound by strong ethical reporting, publications will seek to inform their audiences through opinion reportage.

Can anyone tell why they're still fighting in Dafur? What both factions want? Why the international community still waits?

Overall video will have to become more aggresive in its filming techiques and there are signs some of the broadcasters are already experimenting.

Channel 4 News recently on a piece by Lucy Manning on education, and Alan Johnston recouting his captured days in Gaza are just two examples.

No doubt as video journalism and its method of delivery expands new techniques will emerge.

It will take a brave MD or News Editor that ignores it

It's all about public knowledge

Had a good session with the next generation of journalists currently on their Masters program, who are keen to get into some Css and multimedia Flash Design. Brill!

World Editor's Forum Jean Yves tells me they're planning a write up on videojournalism after recently paying a visit.

I look forward to it.

I have no idea what he's going to say.

Meawhile a good friend rings up and asks if I might be interested in directing an ad. Er, ???

This thing we do, it's about knowledge; public knowledge.

There was a time not to long ago when irrespective of the years spent in a newsroom; mine started in 1987, editors believed, probably rightly then that they held all the cards.

My, the world has changed and some of the most interesting ideas are coming from those who are asking basic questions.

Why do we do that?

Why is the report 1.10"

Why do you have to close your report ?

Why?

This thing we do is about public knowledge.

Today's news featured items on MPs expenses and one senior UK figure investigating irregularities in company audits retiring from public office.

Sir John Bourn was comptroller and auditor general at the National Audit Office

His expenses over three years amounted to £336,000 on 45 trips.

£15,000 odd for a holiday with his wife. There was no suggestion of impropriety and he was cleared on any wrong doing last June.

Perhaps it just didn't look good.

There is, I guess, more that should be done in the web news media world around these issues.

Meanwhile, Press Gazette has entertained an idea which looks at Multimedia in the UK, which I'll probably do a VJ report around, so if you're doing anything interesting in this area please drop me a line.

email me here davegym@hotmail.com

Like I said this thing we do is public knowlege

Rendition - shoting styles and braodcasting

Directed by Gavin Hood, Rendition, a taut thriller ( nice site and use of masks as well) stars Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep and Jake Gyllenhaal around the much-publicised practice of carting off foreign nationals for interrogation on foreign soil.

As highlighted on BBC Radio 4's Saturday review, there was a healthy tension between the director and DOP about camera movement. Should it hover, stay where it is, or adopt this evolving "dirty shooting" art form - so prevalent in Bourne.

Yesteday Channel 4 News, where I freelanced for four years towards the 2000, indicated its intentions with this new style by featuring a story about education, with all the hallmarks of the camera being the subject.

Channel 4 News has always been about innovation and risk, so I hope they continue.

Where the VJ element of this adds further to the story is extreme personalisation.

Storytelling has invariably sought to tell the story through someone, to give it empathy and meaning.

Vjism - the size of the cameras, the nature of the vj, and stories element, gives an edge to really get a personalised view of the story at hand.

We're seeing two broad forms emerging then.

VJ made for TV - using the same TV language but with one person - sounds like a cost element could drive this.

Or Vj as is own fluid language, were personliasation opens the story further, with potential fast follow ups and the ability to keep the story going.

Going back to Radio 4. Guys I love the programme. But it would be a good idea if

a) you didn't give the plot away
b) or say something like. . . ( Right I won't say that either otherwise it might ruin your viewing experience.

Just stop it Saurday Review

Children of Men - Creative Videojournalism

"We took a documenary approach as if you were just following characters with your DVcam in the year 2027"

Says Alfonso Cuaron, writer director of Children of Men.

It's one of those films videojournalists should study.

Most of the revelatory stuff is on the DVD bonus where Alfonso talks passionately about his craft.

The DV cam reference is quite pivotal, as is this comment here

"Part of the reason why we chose to do Children of Men in very fluid long takes was to take advanate of the elements of real time".

Alfonso goes handheld with one take in key areas of the film. Of course a Sony Z1 is not an Arri, but still you could achieve comparable effects for online/ the small screen.

In doc formats working a room or scene without resorting to cutaways often entails a sense of knowing where the subject is.

It boils down to prepping the room or scene; one of hte 4 preps I brief VJs on.

Children of Men employs an elaborate camera and bespoke car to achieve one famous scene, where the characters have to slide in and out of the way of the cam on a robot crane.

No such worry for the VJ, but as in series like The Shield" the camera should be able to fluidly move and if you're planning to run without a min steady cam, then try the military "clear house" walk.

The film has overtones of Ridley Scott's - though yes they are very different.

Buy the DVD and also visit the site for an example of how to present a film on online using masks.

Very nice in fitting with the film

Videojournalism Interview : Next Generation multimedia journalists

Guest hosting today Charlotte Bailey who is one of the chosen 10 recruited by the Daily Telegraph's multimedia training scheme.

The program aims to equip this cohort with all the modern skills of multiamedia including videojournalism.

So Charlotte how do you feel doing this?

Charoltte: I feel pretty challenged by the whole experience to be honest. A year ago I would not only have questioned the need for this training but I would have wondered what it was all about in the first place. This is an area which is completely new to all of us.

David: So what have your colleagues been saying?

Charlotte:They've been surprised at how quickly they've taken to it - both practically and also in the sense that I think we've all be surprised at how much we've enjoyed this. We are all, at the end of the day, writers, but this is refreshing for us.

David:When you went for the interview at The Telegraph that must have been tough. What was going through your mind? When did you find out you'd be choseen from how many?

Charlotte:I had spent two years or more gathering work experience. I hadn't done a journalism course and so I suppose I got here via a route which is not that common these days.

I had worked with a lot of old-style journalists during periods of work experience and they had all taught me some great basic skills leading me to follow more practical routes of learning my trade.

Then when this job came up, I saw it as a chance to get some theoretical training and to finally make a move forwards into something more concrete than just regional work placements.

I filled in the application form, and as they all say, did not think any more of it.

I got a call from my dad saying I had got an interview and I have to say it took about a month for the whole thing to sink in.

We had been chosen from 700 and 32 were interviewed.

David: Cool, the chosen few - that must feel good.

Now you don't have to make me blush or anything or if you want, I have thick skin, but how did you find some of the things we shared...?

She's having to think about this.. that's a good tghing shes says. :-(

Charlotte:This has taken a bit of thought and I surpised myself with my hesitiation to be honest because I have had a lot of thoughts going around my head today about what videojournalism is and how i'll fit into it and I suppose this was the problem at first - I didnt know where I fitted in.

But at the end of the day it became clear that this wasn't the question at all, that there was no need to make efforts to fit in around a pre-formed structure but that we create that structure for ourselves.

This form of journalism not only allows us to inject our own ideas onto a piece but allows us to form a piece as near to how we envisage it on our minds as possible and being able to convey our mind's eye to other people is an incredible force.

David:So to any student or professional reading this, any advice on the multimedia and vj front? You know any pearls or slivers of wisdom?

Charlotte: Well, being the conscientious student that I am I would sum it all up in one simple ratio - 3:6:9.

we're both laughing

No, but seriously, without brazenly flaunting my new-found techy speak, I would advise that we don't shut out this form of media before we've given it a go.

Talk about it, have a look on some of the news websites and just become aware that this is already a big part of journalism.

David concludes: Everybody had a voice.. thanks Charlotte.. now time to go back and tidy this up and post. Getting late here. BFN

Charlotte: Thanks and I'm going to have to get away now too and rest up - if I'm going to be a VJ pro by the end of tomorrow..

Tony's come into the room. He's the head of training at Press Asociation. Anything to say Tony?

Tony: It's great to see lots of smiliing faces walking out of a training room at the end of an 8 hour day and to see people reluctant to go home.


Ok that's it . . .

Original post before David rudely interupted:
Having spent most of our first day's training kneeling in fields, sprawling across pavements, and generally behaving more like the SAS than Lois Lane and Clark Kent, I find that my original thoughts as to what journalism was all about are beginning to show some cracks...

advertising using video journalism's craft

local advert

Independent Television experts suggest there's something like a billion pounds untapped in uk regional advertising.

That's businesses who can't afford a national TV ad, but might look to a newspaper.

The sequence below is from a local business, my tax advisor, demonstrating various points; video journalism's aesthetic, the Victor Kayem approach to ad-info updated, and how one shoot can become 5 different spots.

more soon

University lecturers of the 21st Century - Data Intermediaries

There is a romantic ideal I have of universities which borders on the Aristotlean.

Ampitheatres with lecturers and students exchanging views which cover a breadth of subjects, tutorials where students swap roles with lecturers, and greater links between academia and industry, where we oscillate from one to the other.

The University of Lancashire's case links its academic institution with Johnston Press one of the most successful news publishers, to examine the newsroom of the future.

And there's more, which it would be wrong to talk about now.

So the question I wanted to know was what might universities look like in the decades ahead?

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Westminster, Dr Geoffrey Copland, since retired claimed universities were one of the few places that had not embraced the Net revolution, comparing it to the travel industry where you can do almost anything online.

I discovered his views from being asked to present at Digital Hollywood and made this short film - The Future of Universities.

Full article and short interviews with senior educationists e.g. Dr Elizabeth Goodman here

In this edited short film Dr Copland mentions the ff:

Student working from a home base

No face to face lectures

There will be celebrity lectures

Students will devise their own curriculum

Students may opt for a full degree or part of a degree

They may take modules and cash in their credits later, so a degree could take any length of time

Lectures, notes will be open source ideas

With the wealth of information, lecturers may occupy a role of data intemediaries- sifting what's relevant for students

We live in interesting times. What do you think?

NB Views expressed here are in no way a reflection of David's current university and its policies. These views are personal.

Successor Generation - Videojournalism's 7up

David shooting with a Digi700 camera for a Channel 4 News feature from South Africa

It is an incredible feeling as a journalist, sociologist, or an interested party to see change within a nation take shape before you.

The Civil Rights Movement of the US, Glastnost and Perestroika in Eastern Europe, Thatcherism and the politics of self - these provided genuine reflections of our changing attitudes.

Often documenting them yields first time rough drafts; a snap shot of history by the hand of the achitect.

Nonetheless they are visual documents for new generations to ponder.

Truth, I don't by any stretch think so grandiosely about this work or others.

But watching this film - a version of which was made for Channel 4 News - is a strong advocacy for videojournalism and  why we must persevere to tell non ageneda stoies.

The Successor Generation
In 1999 working as a freelance producer at Channel 4 News, I learnt the programme had no plans of reporting South Africa, five years on from its historical elections.

The most would be a short report from the studio.

So I did what many others I feel would do with 18 months prior experience reporting from the region in 1994.

In that year BBC Radio 4 commissioned me to make a documentary following the lives of four South Africans.

They were about to vote in their first election.

That documentary proved a huge success, which is why I went back and shot this piece.

There's lots today I would have done differently. That's progress.

But what they have to say here is still relevant today as it was back then.

the ultimate risks of video journalism

Yannis Kontos on night patrl with the US Marines in Baghdad

Nine dead in Burma including a Japanese photojourmnalist.

No one wants to hear about such tragedies.

And when journalists lose one of their own, it is equally hard to swallow.

If the mere act of going to work carried such ominous risks, it's doubtful how many would opt for this vocation.

Some however are aware of these calculated threats.

Katlehong
More than a decade ago reporting from the townships, I opted to go to Katlehong, then designated the murder capital of the world.

We signed away any rights apportioning blame to our hosts, a local peace group, should we meet a deadly fate.

The previous day, a dozen people had been shot.

While they're have been a number of journalists who've been sadly cut down, there's been a high ratio of photographers and cameramen who've been killed in action.

And it may well be as more and more videojournalists enter the profession, we'll have to introduce guidelines and be more stringent in our vigilance of their modus operandi.

Videojournalism's Risks
Video journalism and photojournalism share a lot in common, not least Cappa's famous dictum:if your pictures were not good enough, you were not close enough.

Camera operator may shoot from afar, aided on many ocassions by a second set of eyes; their reporter of producer.

As a videojournalist, you walk alone.

Meanwhile today I hear from a colleague: if you're a journalist or blogger associated with the foreign presss in Baghdad it's certain you're using an alias and you don't want to be captured on screen, for fear of reprisals from insurgents.

Getting to the truth is often a burden too heavy. As a journalist or journalist student, in these times you realise you're treading in large footsteps.