Digital Cars

My car wouldn't start.

One minute a red oil sign illuminated the dash board, so I did what most people would do, bought the right type of oil 10 40 w and poured it in the right place.

Two hours later it refused to start. OMG I have a thousand errands to run, what will I do? Walk, or take public transport of course. It's healthier and less poluting. 6 miles there and back, I did what most people would do, I rang the RAC - a reputable breakdown service.

The mechanic, a jolly bloke, with a wiry hand shake appeared three hours later and proceeded to inspect the car. He did one a couple of those "stand back 4 metres from the car and tilt your head".

Mmmm had he a magic wand, I'd swear he could be Harry Potter aged 55.

"OK...!

And without even finishing his opening, I told him the history and how I came to my current predicament.

There is at least one thing I acknowledge, that there are few geniuses in the world. Most mortals, even the occasional doctor need a history, then by deduction and elimination they can arrive at a probable solution.

Mr RAC took out a mobile device; he measured the power of the batteries, shook his head and proferred his diagnosis.

"I think it's your sensor mate. I can't see the relation with your oil, but its def a sensor. That's a lot of money. What we can do is tow you to the nearest garage. D'you want to do that now or tomorrow?"

I knew RAC, like most services pegged to number of calls are reticent at spending too much time on one client as it brings them no more money.

"Er, odd though how it stopped after the oil", I said. I wanted to engage him again; prod a thought that might yield a eureka moment, but my car expert had run his course. He was out of ideas".

"Yeah, I would say 90 percent sensor", he concluded, gave me a paper to sign and off he went agreeing that if I needed to be towed I could ring up tomorrow. I'd just spent 80 ukp for the call out with no result. That, as you might say is life.

My neighbours are the most fab I have lived next to and duely worked to find an alternative solution; but they ascertained it would cost 300UKP from calling around buddies.

I went to sleep.

Next day I ignored for the moment the call out and struck an idea. I have a friend, he's an old class mate from thirty years back. He is, I've heard over the years, an expert mechanic. He is untrained, has no masters from Brunel - a great engineering university. What he knows has come from the graft. He has been hounded out by other mechanics aggrieved he's been taking their business, but, but he lives 25 km away.

I tried him.

I can come down tomorrow, as I have got a hospital appointment for my daughter, but I might have a small window so I'll see if I have half an hour.

He arrived by noon. We bear hugged. We've not seen each other for many years, then he set to task.

"Don't ever buy one of these cars again", he poked laughing. "See hear, it used sensors. It's all computerised which helps efficiency but is no match for the equivalent cylinder model".

He opened the engine with a couple of tools, looked at the spark plugs and noted though my oil levels were high, the oil wasn't the problem.

He turned the engine over. It chugged, coughed and then died. "Ok I'll return tomorrow with my tool box and have a look".

At 7 a.m there was a message. At 8 a.m he rang.

"Do you have spare keys?"

"Er Yes!"

"Have you been next to a micorwave?"

" I have been everywhere, not sure really"

"Could you try your other key and ring me back"

5 minutes later

brrrllhhh brrrllhh .... brrrllhh brrrllhh
" Hi is that you joe.. you're a genius, how did you know, it started almost instantly"
"Yep your key has a chip which was probably ruined by going to neat a microwave. I alway advise my clients to have a spare key otherwise that's a lot of money for a tow. but go to your dealer and they will reprogramme it for you at 30 ukp. I'll come down later anyway"

And so he did.

The morale to all of this.

1.The experts: whether they're mechanics from reputable breakdown services or even broadcast professionals, don't always know best, even when it's basic.

2. The core of innovation comes from experince and literally getting you hands dirty with the tools. Working in ivory towers is great for your pay cheque, but it doesn't neccesarily mean you have solutions to this new digital broadcast paradigm or computerised-engine car.

3. The meek will inherit the earth.

4. Those presumed to have no power, often don't want it. What they want is just to find solutions

5. And this the last from my friend joe when asked where my garrage was. Don't use a so called expert within a cluster of other experts. They are in control. Go where your business will be valued by someone willing to spend time and effort and not clock watch. This ladies and gentlemen has always been my own motto for the students, clients, or journalists I have worked with.

Game theory - story cube

1. Top David voice over for African wars project
2. David and Scott Rensberger share thoughts over videojournalism package
3. Interview Chatham House former head
4. Reporting with West African-US Special Forces
5. In New York -from making of an Intel officer


I bang on (British expression) about the Outernet and video deep linking quite a bit because a) I'm delluded and b) think within game theory it has the potential to do something.

All stories have a thread which have tangential roots elsewhere - an nth degree of culmination. Often we streamline that process to tell you a 1.30 linear story on TV news, filled out to 40 mins as a doc, if lucky; and then 1hour.50 mins if Hollywood gets its hands on and 4 hours if you're a Bollywood fan.

Believe me I have had my fair share of Seeta and Geeta, Sholay and The Burning Train -70s Indian films.

My parents are Ghanaian and I have spent a fair amount of time in Ghana and one thing that sticks with me is the powerful impression of oral storytelling. Sometimes I could barely understand the vernacular, but the stories, one person standing up and handing over to another person and so magically unfolded like a huge quilt.

While linking allows us to drill for info (much like my Ghanaian storytellers passing it on), its not uncommon for links on a page to take on that detached expression of news. The blog could act as the bridge between personalisation and impersonal to add/stregthen a story, but then. . .

Examining one of the Outernet projects I co-built a while back which was the runners-up in Channel 4s digital media comp, the power of play, cause and effect, win win, was an intrinsic variable.

Game theory cropped up again when myself and a colleague, Chris Horrie presented to Vin Ray - a senior figure at the BBC - our model of a virtual learning newsroom. The BBC subsequently acquired the idea, using us as consultants to build its flagship journalism training programme for its Journalism college. Nice! but nooooo we 're not rich as a result; our university didn't do too bad though.

Screen grab from 2001 promo for computer arts magazine exploring 3d web built in Illustrator and FCP
Spatial planning - the essence of information architect lends a hand in the next idea I'm currently coding. The IM6 project presented as a cuboid has an interesting rubikness about it, peeling back on a story within its finite sides: 6 in fact. But all connected in some way, which is where the numerated bullets at the top fit in.

I have long argued that a 3d interface web would be a boon for the representation of data and information, so I'm enjoying pulling various assets together. There's an end game which would likely involve speaking to someone at EA Games, but that thought is for another blog

Katrina=News=York Information not News

It would beeasy to be angry. Listening to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme an item, finally a piece (doh!) on the floods in New Orleans, Louisanna two years on and how victims of those floods are still suffering.

There are parrallels with what's happened in the UK e.g. York and Oxford. Indeed there are lessons to be shared between two different peoples touched by the same disaster, albeit the rage of New Orleans' flood arrived by differing traumatic circumstances.

At this point sit down and ask what the purpose of news is? Is it merely a commodity to race our insatiable appetiite for information. Is it public service? When it wants News does this and appeals very well. Editorial teams will judge what news items merit this special quality. Otherwise they are transient affairs - often for those not in the heart of the storm.

This is where broadband or news with space to spare ( 24 hour) has the potential to revolutionise our precept of news and its 21st century role.

If you're a resident of the aformentioned polar communities, there's information to be shared. The post- effect of floods bring on new challenges say the experts and I daren't say people could draw strength, hope, navigate their individual lives, but collective sufferings by having a continuous passage of sustained information, which in are modern parlance, unfortunately, no longer qualifies as NEWS.

Interactive multimedia video journalism

An early model included this, The Family, taking a doc and distilling it for the web in spatial form in 2001, but with more bandwidth I can now experiment with this- a rubik film cube through IM6. It's no where near finished. I'll add to it over the days/weeks.

Lev Manovic who is to New Media what Mchullan is to Global Comms touched a nerve talking about the narrative form of film makers harking to the Greenaways - experimentalalists, auters who massaged function and form.

Some of those ideas congeal into contemporists: Minority Report, The Matrix. Momento. Film theorists will quote BattleShip Potemkin as a crossroad: revolutionary then, and still fresh now.

Figgi's timecode split the screen. Film makers are forever looking to expand the language or radicalise form via computer assisted design, new film stock (under-exposed) cinematography, Se7en or putting the squeeze on the story structure.

Some of the most exciting directors now e,g, Paul Greengrass (Bourne trilogy) The Scotts ( Man of Fire/ Black Hawk Down) transmorficate documentary and photojournalism into photo reality films that are "dirty"- no clean line of sight.

Just look at the trailer for ghosts of citesoleil.com a searingly disturbing film with searingly daring film making.

Is video journalism really a new profession? Perhaps. Can we really define what its is? Does anyone care? All the audiences wants is to be pulled down the rabbit hole. To be given their monies worth. So whether its vjism or not it's about pushing the end. And on the Net I believe there's no compromise. Until the web becomes the main platform (when??) producing online can't simply be about transposing TV's DNA. It has to be something more. We should be able to experiment. The medium asks it.

The film crew way; the vj way; and the IM6 Way

It's a matter of horses for courses. So symphonies will always be preferable as a spectacle and experience above one man and his band. Unless you're Brian Eno of course.

I love working in crews. The product is superior for the intended project. We can share and realise bigger dreams. But my approach to compound work has also been tweeked by individual skills. What I know as a videojournalist helps me understand producing, directing and editing and vice versa.

Mind you, what came first? Network production and team work at the BBC and Channel 4 before heavy lifting in videojournalism. Videojournalism allows one person to make a professional standard looking film.

There are many standards of video journalism. If you've got a camera and you shoot you're a Video journalist. The style I have gravitated to over the years has gradually taken on other elements, which leads me to why i'm posting this today.

Thanks for the email Siobhan. IM6, and there are two installments to come demonstrates something in excess of video journalism. It's design meets coding meets film making.

Infact It's 6 different ways of production and as i realised meeting other VJs pulls from different disciplines I have worked in which are:

1.Television - the Im here is video and post using after effects
2. Radio - the im here is podcasting
3. Jon Staton Poductions - Ad making
4. Academia - coding and web
5. Magazines - writing and copy writing
6. re-active - Design and web CSS

IM6 therefore adds to the strengths of video journalism. Imagine that! A team of four with the above skills working on multiple projects.

For Ewan Macgregor going around the world on his motorbike again with Charlie Boorman, there's a kernal of this working style within their team directed by one of the most gifted one camera- one laptop film makers - video journalists Claudio Von Planta - whose previous films include going/filming up the Himalaya with the British army.

As an IM6 You DONT have to neccessarily do everything, but what you're equipped with is the skill to understand the language of others ie geek speak. You're a linguist.

As an Im6 I now know how possibe it is to really make do with one of the slogans of the broadcast industry; "kill what you can eat".

From my A1 sony camera, the principle is the (1) video, but from that I have audio for a (2) radio package as you can hear on the Gallipoli package. Then there's the (3) stills that I have used to construct the story, and built the (4) site, and worked a (5) Flash and video viral promo for internet distribution and (6) the article and accompaying blog.

So Siobhan the idea in the training is to tool you up to understand how all these work coherently together. Then you choose how you want to use your skills, but things like compression, using After effects, typography, Flash, should not be as intimdating as they first were.

Remember the baseline is story telling. Simple factual story telling. All the rest merely enhance the process for varyiing methods of distribution.

Coming up a re-work dux of a 6 minute promo on Intel seeing that the Bourne Ultimatum is out and has got me excited. And to finally answer Siobhan' s question, yes I teach and train in this area, bt as seperate entities and am looking to offer this as part of a project in the future so please let me know what you're up to, yes and that means you as well. Thanks and I'm off to go on a bouncy castle afternoon.

Photomontages

Been watching this The Reach of War.

Some things need little production to make them work. It's purely the story. As a former freelance radio correspondent and producer who's reported on conflict, this has all the emotion of heroism and "where mortals fear to tread" about it, so reportage like this is special.

But could we, without tampering with thre core of the story, give it a more visceral and gutteral sense? This is what radio does very well.

I had the benefit in my early career to work alongside some of the UK's best/award winning radio producers who produce for that bastion of radio, BBC Radio 4.

Radio as a medium, podcasts, and the montage here at the audio level can do some extraordinary things. It may sound strange but there is an iambic rhythm within the voice as an instrument that conveys all the elements of a symphony.

Micheal Kamber's voice reaches some of those. His narrative is compelling, because he's describing scenes in which he was present. But, perhaps, perhaps, the absence of a radio producer mitigates some of the stronger elements.

This is not a criticism of Michael. He is photograper and a damn fine one.

In making, perhaps what I might consider one of my best radio documentaries for BBC Radio 4, The Successor Generation, I made the point of "getting into my interviews head" when they were at their most relaxed. (* just noticed I need to reload SG - shummin wrong with it)

The pauses and um's become accentuated. You're like a tobogganist visually and mentally unravelling the course/story. Your voice begins to retell the stresses and reliefs. I'm not sure how "The Reach of War" was produced. The narrative and pictures match so the a half way house of matching pics to Michael's story perhaps was key. That said in video journalism, as in photojournalism ( obviously) the pics drive the narrative. So what could you do here?

The package - the name given to an assembled story - worked incredibly well with "actuality", where you could hear background atmos ( soldiers talking/ helicopters etc.) More of this would have stretched the photo docs narrative. On its own you could even make a doc work in the observational doc mode.

Yannis Kontos another amazaing photographer has given me his pics for a brave trip he made to mexico to cover people traficking. I have since advised Yannis to take a small mp3 recorder and leave it running when in the field.

Photo package and flash will get better but for the mean time one thing they do lack is the ability to mimic rostrum shooting with the zooms and pulls. Flash isn't there yet and unless you know the code, tweening between shots produces a stutter ( yuk) effect.

We'll always be drawn in by war pics. By dint of what they are they portray human kind, people at their rawest. In coming blogs, I'll talk about shooting video in the field as a video journalist - a dangerous pursuit, particulalrly if you're on your own.

But in developing training for those who want to shoot conflict, whether its firefighters at work, ambulances attending to a scene, hospital wards for gun shot victims, one of the key's is to shoot "dirty".

Black Hawk Down is a film I reccommend and the Bourne films. Here a combination of documentary compositional structuring and its visceral gene work incredibly well in taking you into the guts of the story

and some

Hollywood has movie making down to a formula, so could we learn a thing or two?

More on that later, but in the meantime a short trailer on super cars and some changes to Viewmag - how it originally looked - retro within its 18 month cycle.

And what about the idea of everyone making a film? Hoping to get an interview probably in a couple of months with one of the hottest directors and hottest films in the business. Just got back from a short break so need to rewire myself back into my mainframe. Email and no phone and blogging for a week. AWesome

nature

What is nature, the Economist asked some three years ago andI enjoyed being one of the sampler readers.
What is nature? Well I'm down on the moors for a week to experience that idyllic end of nature, woods,plains,forests,walkings. No cars, No phone's no Net connections. A life back in time. Simple clean and linear living. Will I be able to withstand this?

The tao of talent and passion

Functionality many of us possess, passion we might muster, but can we see and recognise talent?

On our way home from filming the Ferrari 599GTB - a rare car I have been told - Kevin Haggarthy, a man with one of the envious jobs in the world testing super luxury cars started a conversation.

"Many of us can control a car, but few can drive one" - a treasurably didactive exchange then followed. The essence, that the talent to drive a car becoming one with its chassis, the ability to read the road, assess the future is rare. The height of this is that rarest of beast, F1 drivers.

The thread in this resonates with the two professions I have been privy to: the media and academia. Like most professions, the function of day to day work becomes second nature, but at times we're called on to tee off beyond our par, then something else must kick in: talent and passion.

In this month's Harvard Business Review the question of Talent and Talent Factories is adressed and makes fascinating reading. The upshot, what caught my attention: Fostering commitment, building engagement and accountability are values that sit at the heart of a company's bid to create and manage talent.

And companies we learn are pretty bad at this: the ability to create talent growth by nuturing staff, stimulate the work force, provide long term goals, is little more than gesture.

On the back end of that, two incidents. Firstly, a seminar organised by broadcast magazine (UK mag about the industry) called Future TV. The speakers, all eminent people, hail from the world of TV. Yep not a single "outsider" to tell of the greens of new ideas yonder in California, New York, Norway or closer to home in the bed rooms of the wunder kids.

But what really came home was the lack of any indication towards creating and managing talent. The organisers would have done well to have any number of university or business industry fellows addressing the issue of next generation talent. In this case with reference to the newsrooms. That is talent that might see the present structures re-adjust for the next phase of Net tastic, post 8mb. It's amazing how linear TV still is.

Secondly, a major event staged by a union I pay my subs to BECTU ( Broadcasting Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union). The quest is to get more people of colour into the News industry.

While admirable and long overdue, the question once again? Where are the structures that create and manage these schemes for ongoing success? No doubt there's a cluster where you are, but that's a rarity.

If managers really are serious about pushing boundaries, then they've got to as highlighted in HBR have some strategy to foster, pool and grow talent, because in the end everyone is richer for it; a real win win situation.

Yeah - now that's what I'm talking about

What's always wowed me about film sites is the quality of picture from the compressed output. Have a look at Bourne Ultimatum to see what I mean.

Obviously it's shot on film with quality far far superior than DV, but we can touch that void. One way is to shoot using the HDV format if you're using any of the prosumer cams 10800i wide angle - which also gives that neat cine-wide look.

Export with the H.264 codec applying just about enough compression above 800 k. Then run it again through Flash 8's excellent codec for high end video and you should maintain the integrity with the outcome of small file size.

It is an art form, so there is no one size fits all, but play around within the aformentioned and soon not only will you be selling that script with a jaw dropping aesthetic. For 8 days, I was able to reduce the film from 3.1 gb to about 34mb prompting our senior mac technician to say below.

This is an IM6 film.. click pic.. whose compression I'm also pleased wtith.

Comment by: Robert Ojok -
David this is really great considering the size of the file and the compression. The quality is great even the sound is very audible.

Incidentally 8 Days wasn't shot HD but Judge the results for yourself.

Thanks to the World Editor's Forum for the article they published today called Videojournalism: How-to implement it and why newspapers can beat TV

Honestly I didn't use the word: "ignorant", but thanks to Jean Yves Chainon for allowing me to shed some thoughts on the subject.

Is this the most amazing car in the world?

Long day. Currently at Kevin (Hs) houses musing over the day's work. Weekend tested this and filmed, it's a Ferrari 599 GTB. I'll post a prop blog soon. Just whacked and need to get home. The film will be up soonish as one of the last Im6 reports.
Kevin H's has started a blog. With the cars he tests, I look forward to the read ahead.
p.s we got it up to 140 mph, from around 30mph in a couple of secs. My guts need realigning. :)
This Photo and many more fabulous ones by © Warren King. email here warren@wkphotography.co.uk

IM6 3rd installment

Hopefully it's becoming a little clearer- Im6 now up. Watch out for the next installment soon and the wrap up, accompanied by an indepth article

His name is ERIK HUGGER

The BBC has a new figure in the house; the futures house, that joins together TV, Net, Mobile Ok so it has many clever people, but be afraid, be very afraid. Erik originally from Microsoft is a walking Tsunami brewing with ideas and getting things done. Really after 30 minutes talking I just heard myself repeatedly say , "Damn".

Do fries come with that shake; music with that newspaper

Hahahahaha that's er stoopid idea.

Where can I buy it? Sunday newspaper The Daily Mail rarely finds the dinning table of my house, but today for the princely sum of 1.40 ukp it came with a Prince. No not Charlie, but the one that dare not speak his name.

Throughout the week the press has been trailing the move as a revoultion in itself, purposefully grabbing aggrieved music shop owners to say the inevitable: " We're really pissed this guy's giving away his music when we've supported him for so long. Now he kicks us in the teeth".

The deal to have his whole CD carried by a newspaper could be the equivalent of buying a plane on the Net. Yep E-bay reports that's long happened as well. Difference is Prince is a commercial brand with a slew of joined up businesses behind him.

Reports of 1/4 to 1 mil have been mooted for the Purple one to have been carried straight from his paisly park to the people, and that money presumably negates overheads and shares of all manner of calculations e.g. promotion, CEO's lunch, Prince's taxis. So Mr P must be feeling peachy.

Sight unseen, without breaking a sweat tracking sales, his pockets are laden with gold. The reaction from the record shops has been amusing. No, correction! The quotes pulled out from the media for public consumption are amusing.

Music is not a church of the altruistics, so the first thing a record boss is asking when they stock an artist is :"What's the projected sales and our cut".

You sell, we take.

The idea that the record shops have been hard done has a bit of schadenfreude about it. The equivalent perhaps of saying: "I just had to turn up to Prince's exclusive gig at the Cafe de Paris, otherwise can you imagine how embarrassed that would be for him". Incidently, no ones talking about how brilliant it is for consumers.

Me, whether it came with a paper or not, I'm there. A life-long Prince fan, as an undergraduate I'd rather go hungry than forfeit buying or searching for his vinyl. OMG that word, vinyl, sounds soooo. But behind me lay a stack of albums collected within my under and post grad years as a music lover and DJ.

A precocious young man burst on he scene with this album and wow, have some of that. Then the track "Kiss", playing at a one of London's funkiest clubs in the 90's "The Cat in the Hat" made me punk-dive for the first time. At Wembley stadium for about three seconds I held onto his smallish no-label yellow jacket, before some hood wrenched it away from all our sweaty palms. I guess he wanted it more, but he did let me try it on.

No doubt they'll be ooming and umming in the music biz about Prince's dishonour, but expect many other artists to follow suit. It's simple: the net, Myspace, whatever, give an artist direct access to us and that's what every artists wants. No doubt also the music bosses will want to woo back Prince to the table for a better deal with his next release. Not a bad strategy Mr P.

In one year Prince becried how he wanted to just get his music out but his mighty label, with the law of supply and demand in mind, wasn't having none of it.

So next week a Jag with the Sunday Times, a diamond encrusted ring with my cornflakes. Welcome to the third way or as Harvard Review would write this quarter, the integrated approach. More on that on viewmagazine.tv

Meanwhile, I'm off to listen to Prince and incidently talking about amazing artists get some of this: Nancy, abs fab singer songwriter with an a generous and groing base.
+++++++
5 hours later... Ok for the mean time the ever prescient Prince has pulled another anthem. As with 1999 that got wheeled out for every occasion to mark the millennium, Planet Earth the first track will become the trademark for all that's wrong with the planet. It plays around with old Prince and something Isley Brotherish. Expect to hear this played to death, unless the planet and everyone dies first. Urggh how morbid.

Why aliens make rubbish journalists

**** me. Who would have thought. So according to this paper ( click to enlarge), I was versed in the codes of computer and online language to take this end of first year exam in 1986.

I'd never have guessed. Chemistry was a searing passion, actually a poor substitute if you asked my father who needed a medic in the house and since I'd been pummeling the Sciences for the last five years, this was to be my calling.

Our Head of Department and lecturer, one David West, was the stuff of chemistry legends; a dry wit, often dour and the ability to expose the imposters who rather than crack Sn2 nucleophillic pathways the night before, had their head stuck up hedonism.

"What, er really... about that much"?, was my reply, when he asked.

"Mr Gyimah, you should be spending 3-5 hours a night on your books".

That was after the 9-5, 36 hour regime of Physical, Organic, Inorganic Chemistry and Maths. "Er yes about three and a half hours that's how much I'm spending". Crock a lies.

Computer language circa 1986 was understanding conditions and the logic of mapping out a request. Type in your name here. If it matches go to... If it does match, loop and go back to the name again. Simple in principle but a test of stern logic.

The bulk of us chem students were sooooo, how do you say: SQUARE. And having three years earlier arrived fully minted from an eight year protracted holiday ( some holiday) in Ghana, I was beyond square, a polygon mess of ideas and rationale.

My A levels which were supposed to get me into medicine or another substitute Chemical Engineering had been a moronic failure, though I did spend the previous year at South Bank University for a month reading Chemical Engineering, but the class was too big and unwieldy and the lecturer's voice didn't project.

Yep what a reason to turn your back for a year on further education.

By the time I'd applied and been accepted by Royal Holloway Bedford and some other, I'd thrown a crumb of crisps onto a map to see how far I could get away from London.

Leicester it was then. Another certainty was a burning desire to break from the yoke of something I had to do against something I wanted to do.

Journalism was a strong draw. The embers of my first piece for my college mag on the Neutron Bomb some five years earlier were still smouldering. But now then, how do you become a journalist? Those I saw on the television and newspapers had pointy heads and double barrel names.

Come to think of it they were the mirror of the alchemists of the science world; the one I occupied, but the two couldn't be so far apart, electrons on different valencies.

How do you become a journalist and what do they do?

With what could be described as an African lilt to my accent, I would later discover any chance of a broadcast career was so out of the question. But the college mag became my lab and in time I was bold enough to enquire about helping out at our local BBC station, where one afternoon a junior minister literally gave me the break, and not one I'll ever forget, that would ruin any pretence of a career. Robert Jackson was a junior education minister in the Thatcher government. More famed for his quip about explosives in his luggage at the airport, he would be one of Thatcher's martryes.

Some protestor pelted him with eggs when he arrived and I was on campus to cover it, with my alleged African lilt. Trouble is I ran out of tape at the crucial period. I now know the reason why I can shoot to edit in videojournalism without waste.

Next day during lecturers I had inadvertently soared to the heights of mini celebrity amongst my closest friends. Barely out of nappies in training, a second piece reared its head. Douglas Hurd, then Home Sec was in the area.

They must have been muttering, that is the editiors, "Try not and **** up this time". So guess what I did.

"Dear boy, how long have you been doing this?" The reel to reel tape in my uher had dropped and unspun all the way across the length of the floor. By now Sir Douglas' aides bemused, perhaps almost in hysterics were waiting patiently for this Journalist ( small letters) to stop doing his impression of Hansel and Gretel.

From then on chemistry and this thing called journalism would lay side by side rarely touching each other, until one day I got the biggest shock I could recieve at such an impressionable age and stage in my career. I discovered I was black.

. . . . to be continued

( from David's scribbled mind-book: Why Aliens Make Rubbish Journalists)

IM6 2

It's only when we have nothing are we willing to learn something. Just let go. . . Not my words but for me apt nonetheless. Second installment of IM6 online

UK national newspapers racking up the anti

. . .And then there was a mini explosion. This summer sees the "Swan Syndrome" - looking elegant but pushing some hard work- for a clutch of British newspapers go into video drive.

The Guardian's appointment of former Press Association Robert Freeman to the job of head of video will now see some of their new developments take shape; namely embedded video ie inserting video within the body text.

I have met Robert several times whilst at PA, through my good friend and wonderkid Ms Asha Oberoi who snatched him from the BBC. He's a good choice given his development background formerly within the Beep.

The Guardian will also be the first to use agency feed to develop in-house material working in tandem with their very popular Guardian Films.

To SHOW OR NOT TO SHOW

Having worked for Worldwide Television News (WTN) agency before it was subsumed by AP to become APTV I have got some idea of the agency- led video approach to news.

Agencies are principally suppliers of news video rather than end users, so even when they do produce for the networks, they use, obviously, voice-overs rather than stand-up or pieces to camera.

It'll be interesting to see what format the Guardian deploys. I have been told.

Talking to my former editor at Channel 4 News, Peter Barron, whom I worked alongside at BBC Newsnight in 1991 ( I was a researcher, he a producer) we discussed the crowded news market, and that consumers will inevitably be attacted to the brand and that comprises both the personality of the product and the people behind it, on radio, and in front of it, TV.

I have something penciled in with Peter; more on that down the line.

The FT has also recently completed a round of appointments for video journalism, together with a head of video - a former agency figure.

The Guardian like the FT will now be in the position to woo news broadcast viewers to their sites and if those original stories that splash front page are anything to go by, TV News has its work cut out. No indication whether the Guardian will adopt video journalism, unlike the FT. There is, I tell clients, a world of difference, particularly also with IM6 that's being developed.

The Telegraph is also reshaping. I have two VJs I have worked with on the paper and look forward to meeting up with them for a session in their boot camp later in the year.

AND THE NEW INNOVATION IS?

I had the pleasure this week of meeting up with journalists retooling themselves into VJs. The skinny is their two former colleagues whom I trained are shooting everyday and developing very rich work.

With all this, we're likely to see some movement pass strong traditional video news in a bid to enrich users. Gripping news aside greater collaboration between multimedia teams and journalists could throw up metatagged news video.

Fancy that, the manner and news approach to your news will influence the tags and vice versa.

The manner and style of video, stripping the exposition and jettisoning impartiality whilst being objective SHOULD become a strong feature ( see 18 Doughty Street).

The whole point about pushing the news paradigm involves training up journalists to break free from present nomenclature. Why? If it's not broken why fix it. Is it broken? If it is, fix it. There's no point apping the BBC in style and policy. The BBC by dint of its public service and remit for instance must be impartial and objective.

But there's no reason for others to be - a strong point made interviewing Channel 4's Stuart Cosgrove.

My abstract for my PhD involves delving into the aformentioned, plus some of the stuff you can find on view magazine.tv

Question: how long should it take to edit a three pronged news item a point put to a number of key figures. You decide. I'll come back with who said what in a the near future.

1. 7 hours

2. 4 hours

3. 2 hours

4. 30 mins

5. 5 mins

And finally IM6 interview with Chatham House redux on view shortly

Cars cars cars

One of them is a Ferrari 599 GTB and the other is a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX. Over the weekend a friend who drives cars like this for a living has asked whether I'd like to come with him to hand in his Fer for the Mits to test at Silverstone in preparation for a 24 hour le Monde race.

Naturally I said yes. Why should some people have all the luck. Give me the chance to test a new lens and also some speed camera action

film on im6

Developing a film which also takes a look at extreme video journalism called im6. Your feedback welcome as always. The site being developed for two days will be the opening page of viewmagazine.tv

BBC Video and industry changes

ONA meeting at the BBC showed the BBC technology wing experimenting with different video forms, particularly with embeded video in the text. This is a feature that is becoming increasingly prominent. This august at least three national newspapers will be embedding video in their articles.

I must be careful I don't come across all knowing. No that's not my intention, but embed video was one of the ideas used in viewmagazine.tv for which the good people at the Batten Awards judged the site.

The BBC trials are prerry expansive and imprssive with a dedicated video producer for online part of the set up . Jemima Kiss at the Guardian wrote this of the meeting.

Kathryn Corrick, (her facebook here) delved into the world of web anayltics with some impressive new tools and I had a go at showing some of the areas I believe emerging journalists ( Masters programme) will occupy.

I shot a piece from the meeting and ordinarily would have posted by now, but I'm pretty tied up with meetings and final student projects. Yes even though it yakes me about 20-30 mins to cut a piece, it's the motivation. Sorry! But I will get round to it so you can see/ hear some of the excerpts from the meeting.

Meanwhile a couple of pages on viewmagazine.tv give some idea of my thoughts where I beleieve there's acres of innovation.

8 Days is being polished and the thing driving me at the mo is IM6 Videojournalism - a sort of extreme video journalism. It's in its incubation stage but this should give some idea.

Also talk of gatherings, this network has a lot to say for itself.