Making of a multimedia Journalist

Some proof reading - typos etc, links to refine and pre-loaders, and hopefully that might do it. Do feedback Pls.

The making of a multimedia Journalist - a snap shot guide here

1mb connection would do you fine. Click image for bigger pic

The Tape Bunny

.. and so the moral of the story is to always label tapes. I misplaced a tape and had to go through this lot.

Oh that's only a quarter of them.

I once met a guy in Falaraki whose job it was to insert those little weeny tiny toys you find in breakfast cereals.

COULD MY TASK BE ANY MORE TEDIOUS GRRRRRRRR

The making of a multimedia journalists

A six pager on the making of a multimedia journalists -a rough guide out on Thursday

Phu-dunk

Knee deep in some flash coding and a couple of pages that expand on the theme of Multimedia - should hopefully completed by tomorrow

The Videojournalists morph to integrated multi media (video). Rewrite the rules. The Outernet

Breaking the rules of programme making - one camera, one VJ

Be one of the network film makers, clock up over 1000 hours of films, with nothing more than a camera and laptop. google: Claudio Von Planta

Breaking the rules of videojournalism

Image from Apple Pro website. Truth, they're only ones and zeros.

The Video Journalists Manifesto.

WHATS' NEVER BEEN DONE AWAITS TO BE DONE

1. I am a video journalist: I crave creativity, loathe that which is predictable. It is my job to look for beyond the headlines and surface story; beyond what may be known as the agenda, trusting my convictions to tell a more expansive story.

2. I can move alone in any terrain. Experience is my blanket. Swarming (groups of Vjs coming together) increases my range.

3. I will be told by those who believe they know best that it can't be done. I must accept that they don't understand my job, my limitations. Nothing is impossible.

More of the Video Journalist decree here

Understanding there is a paradigm shift

Qu. What can you see?

One of the biggest threats facing us isn't the deludge of new applications and hardware tools on the market; all of which I'd play around with if I had the chance, or even the trend-to-dismiss web 2.0, but the mindset that predetermines how we perceive what we do.

If you can't see the three images above, if you're not prepared to, then you're missing out on the "aha" syndrome.

More on New Journalism, New thinking

Knowing there is a new skillset?

Video Journalism in 1994 in the UK - the beginning


Video Journalism now
Aggressive video produced within hours, here's what you need.

Final Cut Pro - the trick in FCP use is in its key frames.

Sound Pro - Film? It's all in the sound.

After Effects - create incredible film tones.

Compression technology e.g. Quicktime
Interview, film, produce a one on one interview and post in 10 mins


Web site CSS build
Dreaweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop,

writing for SEO, link-rich building and the F-plan


multi media and Flash
The cube is inspired by the rubik cube and game theory


Contents
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
More on game theory and story cube

Photography


audio & Radio
David editing at BBC Radio 4 - a documentary made in South Africa, circa 93

Web analytics + web 2.0

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Appreciation and marvel at other people's work and the market place. History is one of your best teachers. A historical perspective in a contemporary setting may reveal new links, thoughts, multiple foundations. NB The idea of linear narrative (middle-begining-end) goes as far back as Aristotle

Keep up to date, trawl the net, read the mags -learn by inspiration
More on inspiring video journalists

Be allowed to experiment. Be Allowed to fail. For it is only through our flaws that we learn. It is only by falling off the bike that our parents put us back on. And by failing and falling, we learn not to repeat our mistakes and with any luck and great humulity we appreciate the generous offerings of others. Learning not to fail, by failing is good.

Learn not to stand still; that your view is just as important. That somewhere beyond the horizon is a new paradigm for a multi-modal, multi media journalist and that whilst we may not ultimately get there, we'll try our damnest to find out what it is by heading off swifty in that direction. CF The Outernet.

Image from What is multimedia feature looking across three continents. Trailer here



David Dunkley Gyimah in 1998 working off his G3 cutting a film. In view the VX1000 - one of the first prosumer cameras. More on David's work see Viewmagazine.tv

multimodal journalism

There's a lot I don't like about this already, but as a first brain dump it should, most likely will change.

I'm producing a piece for the Press Gazette's Dominic around multimedia. The piece is likely to be a linear video.

For a presentation next year at Cultural XChanges, I hope to have built something germinating from this.

From working in a newsroom, Channel 4 News, Newsnight, ABC News and so on, there's a lot I think I can pull out which may have some use to an application with embraces teh conversation both in and out of the news construct.

The Past and Present
Old timers of BBC Greater London Radio will remember an innovative lunch time news room, which attempted to recreate and sometimes create the drama of finding a news story and reporting it, in many cases even chasing up the interviews and keeping listeners informed.

It was a brilliant and only on rare occasions gimicky in deconstructing news in much the same way as Zoo radio, again practised by another GLR stalwart Chris Evans in the early 90s.

So taken by the concept that when I was made a presenter on GLR circa 1990-92, myself and co presenter Sheryl Simms tried all manner of disruptive radio techniques to garner listener interests.

But this is all about the conversation here.

Civic Conversation
I'm drawn to the civic journalism movement of the late 90s- early 2000 from J-lab which sought to dig deep into the heart of journalism and redefine how we do what we do to make reportage more wider and inclusive.

Paul Bradshaw eludes to this conversation in his brilliant blog on 21st Century newsroom.

Conversations are indeed circular and never ending and if you've visited my posts in the past you'd have come across my despair for the set agenda which wall gardens what's important enough to be on the news agenda.

There has to be a better way. The Channel One model - a juke box of news - meant you could still see your linear flow of packages, but the producer could cherry pick at will throughout the day.

Today, we'd give over choice to the consumer so you'd flick over to the running order you so desire, with the editor's recommended choice still there for your delectation.

Aristotle's legacy of narative weighs heavily here; a beginning, middle and end whilst living in Ghana for many years, I know the traditional delivery of news in the villages IS conversational, picked up by elders and pushed along by gatherers at nodal points in the discussion.

There's something to be said about that. News pieces are not fixed, and often what happens off camera; the gathering process is equally interesting and influential.

So back to the above; each screen is expandable. cf Ted Talks

Influences
The secondary influence is a piece of work made in 2000, The Family.

On the main news package are video hyperlinks ( See Trust in the Media package .

Within the interviews are nodal ports that allow you to drill into the 5-10 minute interview, which allows you to segue back into the package.

The timeline of events gives an account of how recent the story is ( this is an abstract), as well as how the story unfolds.

News as we know doesn't just happen, at least the construct. There's a whole discussion going on

For instance, rejections from those who don't want to contribute, and then a shift in emphasis towards accommodating a new objective, the hunt for new voices (always a prob for broadcasters) to explain matters.

In newsrooms, this often takes on a voyeuristic quality.

On one of the big stories in the early half of the 90s concerning child abuse, one senior figure who was needed for Newsnight, needed the tacit agreement of the government to come on the programme.

Some of the background stories, indeed may be difficult to tell.

When does the news start and stop? When do I tell my interviewer we're on the record; infact we're always on.

But those can be worked out.

Two things quickly: firstly in the multimedia piece I can show behind-the-scenes chat ( the work up to the interview) between Ozwald and Riz (khan), as well as Riz and Gerald Scarfe - Sunday Times... fascinating. ..

Also I'm closer to an experiment with one of the UK's biggest news brands to provide a timeline of a news event - done non- linearly - all of which I hope make some point about circular and the spatial news.

In effect multimodal, multi-entry and multi-mashed-up-media pieces, which could as a great many people are doing already make the playing field of broadband ( article for Journalism.co.uk) pretty interesting.

Multimedia Video Journalists 101

The doodle needs clarifying, perhaps soon I'll provide an illustration, but what it wants to do is to explore the overlapping quadrant between the seperate disciplines which it's suggested in the media now make up multimedia.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, computing and graphic design have a different outlook to what we as journalists regale in as multimedia.

But this in itself suggests some difficult questions in journalism not just in offering a multitude of media, but a canvas and discipline positing a multi approach and mesh designed.

Adrian Holavaty is someone who so obviously occupies that space. On his now famous ChicagoCrime.org, we would now want Xml data pulling in video to correspond with the crimes.

Within the video report video hyperlinking would provide greater detail about events and suspects, and so on.. .

But how to build that, and when and where?

Paradigms are never comfortable and don't be alarmed please, I'm not sggesting the above is.

One minute the earth's flat, next someone's telling you it's round.

Paul Bradshaw offers a paradigm for his 21st century newsroom; you either get it or it might take a while, and when it doesn't work for you do not be dismissive.

I still recall the words of the then Head of BBC News Interactive Richard Deverell saying we haven't scratched the surface of this new medium the web and what it has to offer.

Multimedia journalist - a jack of all trades and master of all.

A bit like a special forces solider - skilled in the use of many things at a high level, but a specialist in one area.

And the act of swarming in small units for the multimedia journalist would work just as well; popds of three four people, putting out whole multi-entry packages, rivalling thw work of 30 team broadcasters.

Hey john get the google map up, Can you correlate it with this breaking stuff. Tag this station. Use the video synth to create the events timeline.

This may all seem like gobledegook, but then. . .

Tufte is someone worth reading for visual design

When bloggers ruled the earth

There is a precedent.

Tony Blackburn a venerable British DJ started off his career at a pirate station Radio Caroline.

Soon the 'legit" enterprise, with presumably a nice pay cheque came calling, in the shape of the BBC.

You see Tony Blackburn was good and had a huge following.

Today it isn't uncommon on the airwave wars for DJs to leap from one station to another, be it pirate ot otherwise; their earning power determined by the number of listeners they pull in, which affects advertising.

So how easily will this be translated to bloggers?

If you're Adrian Monck with 305 subscribers and rising or any number of the top ten bloggers in the UK, at what point does a newspaper exec say:" We'd like you to write for us".

In Adrian's case he does a fair bit already, but lets extend the exercise to those starting off their careers ie the Tony Blackburn effect.

Writing good copy is the linchpin, knowing how to write for search engines is the added glue to making your career really sticky.

And those involve a few principles.

The best writers will always find their way to the top; you get found out sooner or later.

For the myspacers doing for blogs what they're doing for music getting ranked at least gives you more eyeballs and in a global market - the 5 percenter effect or put another way Chris Anderson's long tail kicks in.

So expect the question in interviews soonish.

"hello Mr Burn"

"hello"

"So you want to work for us? Do you have a blog?"

"er yes"

"What are your matrixes?"

"Er 600 subscribers, 3000 daily readers, and around 70 comments daily"

"And how much would you be looking for?"


Press release
Mr Burns a prolific blogger joins the ranks of Times Spectre, aged 24.
Says Mt Burns, I'llbe hoping to engage with the constituents I have come to know,
But also with a new swathe of readers.....


P.s The same could also apply to Video bloggers

End print, the rise of the online-only news’paper’

Editors Weblog reports that in Finland a newspaper is its print circulation for an exclusive online-only news’paper’
"Last week, Finnish business daily Taloussanomat announced that it would no longer publish in print by the end of the year" .

Reluctant multimedian's

.. so a couple of weeks into looking at multimedia, with one interview pending within the BBC - with the good hand of Peter Barron, editor of newsnight that could come together - what have I learned?

Profundly the different interpretations of multimedia, particularly at odds with the current manifestation.

I interviewed some graphic design students who gave some interesting views; one was adamant that what newspapers were doing was not multimedia.

One senior figure within the multimedia industry who has lectured, trained scores of students; one famously who would work for Negraponte, expalins how the term has evolved.

And he says implicit in multimedia is multiple interactivity, something I'm drawn to.

As journalists, it appears the low hanging fruit for multimedia is photography. Nothing wrong with that at all and there are many journalists who take fine photos.

There's a saying in broadcast journalism that, if the shot's not in the package it won't be missed.

It's a generalisation.

But if what we're doing now defines the dynamic era of multimedia, then indeed that's what users may come to expect.

The summit may always be shifting, but in redefining multimedia, is there a fundamental approach that needs adopting?

I posted this some days ago and have a lively talk with Adrian Monck, Head of Journalism at City University recently.

The pool for selecting journalsts often resides in English, History, mainly the Arts.

The Sciences tend to be rare. That I know as an Applied Chemistry graduate.

But what if we started to nurture or look for multimedia journalists within graphic design, computing, what might we yield?

There are many questions and some illuminating answers in the feature I'm making.

The more I ask, the more I know. The more I know, the more knowledgable I become. The more knowledgable I become, the more I want, The more I know, the more complicated it all becomes... and then I'm confused.

Multimedia huh ?

Faculty Pics

Test Images for Record label in university

Videojournalsim- music

The University of Westminster has a unique perspective on music.

Ok it's attracted a few hot industry names, Walden, Stevie Wonder's producer, Jay -Z and Russel Simmons....

But ask the heads of department and the one thing top of their "I like" totem pole is that they have a record label managed in the University with the full backing to nuture and sign bands.

Today we're going to meet to look devise the look and feel of its online site. One thing about walking around bug institutions in the inspiration from architecture and the dim lit halls.

Should be fun

fantasy football - next fantasy boardroom

It sounds like the daftest, or hairbrain idea going, but then they said the net wouldn;t work.

So imagine the New York Giants, Yankees or Manchester United was put on the market. Cost 35UKp a throw and you could own a bit of the club.

You make decisions about the team, to what merchandise gets sold.

Imagine that, you wait till vting day them the manager announces a decision has been made: American Idol sports-style.

Then again, it's peach of an idea.

No wonder the press went ballsitic for a piece of the news.

The team Ebbsfleet United... who?

Ebbsfleet united, a name so obscure in English football, that if it wasn't so fantastically true, you couldn't make it up.

So 20,000 fans have a chance to flex their armchair managerial muscle from their webiste Myfootball Club

Next week how social networks penetrated the corporate boardrooms and showed how to really run a company.

This story will run and run.

Not a bad stroke of PR

The VJ revolution in earnest

By the time word got around about Channel One, the applications came flooding in.

Everyone with a gene for adventure wanted in. I know this from one late evening reading a whole batch of CVs and applications left on my desk.

But I have jumped several montha ahead.

The managers had certainly devised a novel way of sifting through the 800 applicants.

A camera was left in the middle of the floor and candidates were invited to pick it up and play with it.

The interviewers used this as one method to eliminate those they thought just didn't have a chance in hell.

The day I pitched up for my inteviewer, a short bespectacled - almost geek-looking guy was emerging from the corridor to the interview room, with blodd pouring down his face.

Dan Rowland, probably one of the most gifted videojournalists for our era, demonstrated from the get-go the lengths he was prepared to go for his art.

In this case it was road-eye level.

A group of cyclists were riding by and Dan spotted the perfect photographers shot.

Trouble is Dan got so close that, you guessed, one of the cyclist clashed into him reconfiguring his face.

The interviewers were aghast.

Did health and safety cover this?

Meanwhile the trickle of bodies were beginning to assemble; all young, eager, and with a touch of the" we know we;re doing something awesome" aboout them.

Training was intense, but no one could warn you about the mishaps.

For my sins the frame of a billboard would leave me concussed, sidelined at home for a week that I almost missed the launch date . . .

continued.

A very British history of Videojournalism

A very British history of videojournalism probably warrants a slim book. There's a lot to be said. The title says a lot for me as it's always been a reluctant media form, but belatedly has found growing support

You could argue it started in 1994 with Channel One TV, but you could go further back to the 60's the Cliff Michelmore era and a BBC producer film maker Percy, whose surname I should dig up.

In 1992 working on reportage the programme used hi8 to film, and then there's the BBC's Correspondent who would disguise herself as a member of the cloth to film clandestine stuff on foreign assignments.

But 1994 is an epoch moment nonetheless.

Channel One modelled on New York One was a revolution, like Today's Telegraph studios, which has never been replicated. It did however attract all the major broadcasters from around the world, attempting to model their outfit on a sation whose budget was miniscule compared the networks.

Remember also if you didn't know the first VJs in the UK belonged to a newspaper company, Associated Newspapers.

The press loved and loathed us in equal measure and such was the vehemence from broadcasters, Channel 4 and BBC, that it would take another seven years - a bidding war between the BBC and Channel 4 - to gain the services of Rosenblum and re-introduce the format in the UK.

At Channel One, much to Rosenblum's annoyance, we were being taught one aspect of videojournalism only to be told by management to adopt a televisual convention.

There are I say today at least three identifiable genres of VJism.

So here's an account - a personal one with film from the era - which I will expand upon.

The originals from the Channel One TV still meet up but many have gone on to carve out big careers in the media.

Nothing is original!

Boston-based rennaisance reporter Joshua Glenn is a genius. This show he's produced, Braniac audio slideshow puts the Rarebit Fiend under the microscope.

The classic 1906 comic strip written by Winsor McCay demonstrates so aptly that nothing is original.

Everyone's borrowed from someone e.g. Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Few artists e.g. film makers are original.

Rather reminds me of how Tarantino films were disected and found to contain several reference - some shot for shot of classic King Fu flicks.

Any please please watch this and chuckle. Thanks Joshua

BBC versus Telegraph

Is Guy from the Telegraph by any chance speaking about the BBC?

Yesterday Journalism.co.uk reported the launch of their new multimedia newsroom.

Guy says some interesting things in the interview which is part of a bigger story

Tell me a story - IM6VJ

Guy Ruddle Daily Telegraph Podcast Editor talking to Viewmagazine.tv David about how multimedia and the Telegraph is the future

My head hurts.

I have five books in front of me - one an original from MIT - which started off multimedia as we know it. (re- Negraponte)

I have been furiously writing in a note pad, surprised, challenged, disagreeing, but understanding that the discourse is what I am looking for deconstructing videojournalism - already deeply influenced by photography, film and sound.

This morning I filmed/interviewed Guy Ruddle at the Telegraph who spoke about their multimedia offerings and how one national broadcasters has been pressed to look at what the Telegraph is doing cuz they're 'wopping' us.

I'd already thought the package with Guy, the Croydon Advertiser doing Sound Slide, and Al jazeera's Riz Khan was way incomplete, so I crossed over to our graphics department where two heads of Graphics further aroused my interests.

Their bent, multimedia has altered in meaning in delivering everything the computer can offer into a commodified entity. The end user is still king, but there are significant spaces to explore.

So I'm reading through Stewart Brand's The Media Lab Inventing the Future at MIT and Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality.

And this is why in part my head's pounding. There are so many ideas about ideas, thoughts within thoughts, links from present stations to new ones that I have taken a break to "brain dump" - some kind of cartharsis.

It still strikes me that the geometrical spatial plane online and interactive narrative can further 'disrupt' present flows.

Actually, I should say links away from the status quo.

We're back at video hyperlinking which I demonstrated in the Trust in the Media video and now with some new action scripting (some kind of "tell target") could be deployed towards a new experience.

And what if this piece of work - seven years old- was modifed so each narrative linked off each other in a factual based story.

And what if we could xml narrative data on-the-fly, so further explanation could be given of background info provided.

Yes it's all about the end user

Photographers making slide shows

David Berman from the Croydon Advertiser takes sound and prepares to take a pic. Below, I'm getting David to explain the process

One of the main planks of a piece I'm putting together on Multimedia had me down at the Cenotaph in Croydon.

David Berman, Chief photographer at the Croydon Advertiser has devised a series of Sound Slides and yesterday's events gave me an opportunity to see how he and his colleagues work to produce them.

If you're in the US this is a no brainer, but in the UK market very few newspapers comparatively, per the total number on the market, are using this multimedia methodology as effective as the Advertiser or Sitbonzo - the site which hosts their work.

Thoroughly nice man and his colleagues, why else would they work on a Sunday :), also took me through the process and it afforded me the chance to look to make a short film about them - stand alone to the bigger film.

It's not rocket science he says. But by the end of three plus hours shooting etc, they were putting the finishing touches for it to go up. And here it is, Remembrance Sunday Very nice and very solemn.

Two interesting things to look out for.

David and his team of photographers have editorial control, and place a good degree of value from their managers in acknowledging their work.

What is multimedia, why do we do it and who cares is the angle I'm taking.

less of a face to facebook

That's three friends so far I have advised to take down their birthdates on Facebook. That's a little too much information that leaves you wide open.