Advancing videojournalism

"If the solutions to solving the world's seemingly intractable sustainable energy problems are so attainable, why haven't we reached them ?

Economist Jeffrey Sachs article in Newsweek proffers a poignant answer: we are facing up to the problems in the wrong way

Sach's feature deserves a film treatment.

And fortunately ABC's link at the bottom of the page points to a piece by World News' Charles Gibson.

I'm yet to see the report, but it strikes me how apt Sach's argument is to a profession I'm more familiar with.

New ideas can often present challenges delivered through any medium.

In print, it might be too abstract to grasp whilst TV suffers ignominiously from dumbing down an argument?

But we hardly need lecturing about the power of the image deconstructing complex ideas: see an Inconvenient Truth.

TV news, and now web video present at best a canvas to decipher many an analyses.

Instead however online news' staple diet looks set to reflect its real world model of divisiveness.

Read more

Push the button - Videojournalism

We all possess something that pushes our button.

As journalists and thinkers of the new unchartered discourse enveloping us, we can be as passionate as the next facebook about to hit us or as critical about why a new app won't work.

Today I did a bit of spring cleaning myself and in the process sorted out my often cob-ridden head.

In ten things that motivate me, I am introspectively, inspite of the myriad gadgets tried to get back to basics.

What is it that motivates me?

What is it that motivates you, as a manager, trainer, lecturer, journalist or even motivator.

So here are mine in no particular order but produced as short movie clips back on viewmagazine.tv

1. producing mash up visuals
A bit like a painter really I see an image or have an idea in mind and want to replicate, play with it.

A lot of what I put into projects stems from a small idea

2. Talking
Oh yes I like to talk and I'm thankful for the hosts that have given me a platform to share/ express ideas.

They can be new ones, but often I like the idea of testing what we might call traditional ideas that exist in our current paradigm.

Why do doors open right to left, when other prefer you push.

3. Talking 2
This is where yiou get the chance to interview/talk to a global figure.

Included in the clips are the BBC's DG Mark Thompson in a Q and A that's really apt.

If I could find my Mandela clip I'd post that as well, but in 20 odd years I have had the opportunity to speak to a fair range of people whose views make you think

4. Producing Stories
Of course who doesn't like a good yarn, but it's the thought of editing and constructing making one clip run into another; the outcome of which adds to the singular voice which is tha attraction.

Here I'm talking to the Ex Director of the CIA and a senior intel office in Washington

5. Creating new story ideas
From the Butterfly Vlog to modular interactive docs, the outernet and hyperlinked videos; just what will journalism of the mash-up generation look like in 10-20 years time. Here I have congealed lots of ideas into a Videojournalism Trailer.

6. Paradigms
Yes we all drive on the right, but if you don't venture outside your home state you prob won;t realise that other people drive in the left. And there not strange.

Quite the contrary they consider you a bit odd, but the idea is to broadminded and look at your new paradigm sideways.
In IM6VJ What is Multimedia, Naka Nathaniel, David Sifry, Dan Gilmor and a host of figures let us into their way of thinking.

7. Making things
Well that's often media, but not always. On a deep sea diving expedition we had to make a makshift microphone to lower to the divers below 30m.

In this clip, I'm in South Africa where I have carried out quite a few substantative VJ assignments, spoken to MNet's Carte Blanche and SABC. This story here will run and run - South Africa's new power employment force.

I'm back in South Africa late this year to talk VJ with a group connected to the SABC

8. Development
Nothing beats working with creative people and bouncing ideas around.

In this world you're either a giver, taker of both. It's great to receive, but to give is also thrilling and that doesn't exlude you as a student, lecturer or the low rankers in the high flying jobs. Everyone has a POV. Lets hear it

9. Connecting
Visionaries. Enuff said!

10. Anticipating
Not knowing, but hoping, pulling for something special. In every class there is a genius about to hatch. We may not find them now, but we should give everyone the oxygen needed to be fulfilled

Title Sequencing montage in Videojournalism

Mike Jones at Digital Basin writes:In many ways the more interesting evolution for motion graphics going forward will be the saturation of motion graphics as a common visual language, not only for 'intros' but for the consumate telling of cinematic stories and evocation cinematic meaning.

Read more of Mike's post hereon Title Sequence Montage - 25 of the best title designs


++
It's become a point of amusement that some film makers refuse to work with the industry's king of motion graphics, Kyle Cooper on the basis his cinematic credits can often outshine their movie. see Wired

What you've picked up here Mike is a general, perhaps unperceptible in my wee world, theme of how multilayered, condensed, narratives can convey a story akin to the best 'MTV' promo narrative.

This heightened sense of music, compositing, sequencing, Man with a movie camerish extension pushes all the right buttons in online videojournalism film making.

Director Tony Scott, Michael Bay, Greengrass and a slew of film makers use the dna of motion graphics as 'breaks'/ 'narrative arcs' within their films.

While my argument is not that Vjism growth is purely motion graphic driven, the complexities of visual storytelling told simply in MG will go some way to advance the next phase of this nascent story telling form.

I thought calling IMVJ - integrated motion/multimedia Videojournalism might help me think along those lines.

Media Producer

Take something like Final Cut, add something like After Effects, include a play out algorithim that enables HD to fly down the web, add green screen technology and blue sky tech to control an array of lights and sound from the stage, then package this all onto a PC and then ask how much would you be prepared to pay for this.

£50.. Yep it could be yours.

I'm sitting right now with the guy, who on his lap top has shown the demo and is se to work the encoding the back end.

Some things sound like dreams

A day at Press Association

Great to see the two editors, Catherine in wine red polo neck and at the back head just peaking, John, also playing to Duncan Raban's "Broadway- I did it my way" pose

Picture by Duncan Raban

School Report preview - an amazing idea

BBC Radio 4's Today programme - THE bastion of BBC News' public service radio in News and Current Affairs, which is often credited with setting the day's news agenda previewed an excerpt of an experiment tomorrow.

School Report features pupils from UK schools producing their own news.

This morning Radio 4 featured about 2 mins of a news bulletin from a group of participants, in which the news presenter demonstrated as much aplomb as a season pro.

But it was their choice of stories and the ensuing interview which provided an interesting debate - gripping and enlightening.

Their bulletin, as Radio 4's presenter Sarah Montague would comment more or less mirrored the station's.

Phew ! A sign that would indicate Radio 4 more or less reflects not only what the x million of Today's listeners like, but less prominently the youth as well.

X by the way was 5 million at one point

Asked if they the students found the news difficult to assmble, they commented on the sheer weight of items they had to wade through before making informed choices, but added, the exercise demonstrated it wasn't only grown ups who could claim to be the arbiters of news story telling.

What's interesting in compiling their news using Brit newspapers and to a degree the Net as research is you might expect the stories they picked to be of the same news agenda.

Ergot most of the newspapers on a strong news day run more or less the same news agenda.


Same old or different news
The results with this experiment, while brilliant in one regard, highlight aspects of a project by RTE's Editor of News Michael Lally, who gave over his network to a community to tell their own news one evening. ( click image on page for video)

It was a good exercise but they ( the community) ended up adopting our mannerisms, style of production. They more or less became a version of us.

While I doubt very much anyone of the broadcasters involved in tomorrow's School Report exercise would have been prescriptive, there should, I believe be some nudge to ensure students become more experimental, in both content and production.

Looking at the BBC's website, the variation in news at a more local level appears to ilustratate a break from traditionalism - though that's me speculating.

But it does though propel a much talked about issue within the narrow confines of media and broadcasting, which is Local, hyerplocal news making.

If at a local level the dna of news, its function on the ground, how it impacts local communities can be enriched by pupil and citizen news, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

So could the same experiment be replicated by citizen journalism?

Yes was my answer.

No was that of Channel 4's Mark Roberts.

See what you think?

The Embryo of 21st Century Journalism

John Angeli, the UK Press Association's Editor of Video made the point - PA is looking for fresh ways of harnessing the video beyond the 2 min news package, which would entail geo-specific clips delineated along a timeline of events.

He cited the shooting of Rhys jones, the 11 year old liverpool boy shot in the back of the neck by an assailant, as an example.

Inspite of the comprehensive reporting John added, he couldn't quite get a grasp of the location of a nearby pub from where the fatal shot is said by police to have been fired.

The pub ismentioned as a crucial location by investigators.

Multimedia reporting could perhaps provide added information, John suggested.

It prompted Visiting Lecture Tanja Willmot who teaches online journalism to ask whether, wrapped up inthe definitition of multimedia: graphics, video and the rest, journalists should be made to learn such new crafts.

And that for me is the rub.

I hope to expand on this on viewmagazine.tv, but first at the heart of what PA is doing, what Tanja was questioning is the very traditional definition of Journallism.

Journalism ~ writing for a journal.

Firstly a great thanks to the Press Association for welcoming 20 or so international master in journalism students from the University of Westminster, and a special thanks to John Angeli and Catherine from Multimedia.

Once upon a time visits of this kind were weighted in terms of benefits towards students, and while that might be the case here, it also, I hope, gives media companies like The Press Association the chance to see how the present crop of new multimedia news practitioners are thinking.

Multimediashooter What the heck!

One of the sites online which is a treasure trove of amazing multimedia is multimediashooter.com.

I recommend it to almost everyone I come across, students and industry. Only last week presenting to a Chinese delegation I urged them to go look.

I logged onto the site today to find this. Very sad.. very very sad. My heart goes out to the team behind it.

I hope he can find the strength to resurrect one of the web's finnest sites

viewmagazine.tv menu

here for menu

Amazing talent - Lord Byron Lee - the art of new story telling

Once in a while an amazing person crosses your path and you simply find yourself saying, "wish I could work with them".

Lord Byron Lee is one such person: a stockbroker in the city ( london) by day but in the evenings, he can be found entertaining his friends with his catalogue of stories.

Cecil B, Orson, these names are too grand, but Lord Byron Lee triggers thoughts of these immortals.

We've just filmed him in a studio and will soon put the drop in shots.

Meanwhile, a short burst of this amazing talent, who's just penned "The Stockbroker's Tale", the scourge and killer instinct of working the stock market in the city.

Happiness is

Happiness is running out of petrol on the autobahn on your way to a talk. Nice!

Videojournalism corpsing

So I am giving this talk to a group of Chinese television execs in London for a couple of days to gather TV industry intelligence and I'm corpsing.

I mean corpsing big flipping time.

I'm speaking and within "pencil throwing" distance almost the whole room is busily doing something; emails, talking about whether any of them have spoke to their family, what they're going to eat etc.

I get to the part of my powerpoint where I'm trying to distinguish between: is the web a platform to place media or place to platform media and I might as well have undressed, though the thought of that urgghh!

Have you ever had one of those outer body experiences where you can see yourself and you end up thinking: "OK (chump) what next?"

Sobering, very flipping sobering.

Translators looking at me, I'm looking back and I'm thinking: should I, shouldn't I: You know drop something utterly nonsensical into the talk?

Coward! Ah well, only 50 minutes more......

By now, the goto Multimediashooter.com to see some great work, has been swallowed into a great big black hole.

And then, then I break down into fits of laughter. I'm corpsing and having a private joke, otherwise I guess it amounts to nervous laughter. Though I'm not really nervous.

I borrowed this thing once from a presenter I saw: He runs into the hall before the start and instructs everyone to play along with him by laughing.

So a minute later everyone's screaming with laughter, and as new delegates enter looking bemused, those seated laugh even louder. Wierd, but a great way of getting everyone on side before you tell em what you'er going to talk about.

No such luck here. Corpse some more.

I very rarely open up Viewmagazine.tv when talking. I guess it smacks of self-aggrandisement, but I thought ah well sod it, so first to

VJ Rubik Cube

Then seqeued into that maestro of motion graphics Rob Chiu - and this great title opener - pure sex

And then a hyperlinked film

And then it all went calm. Can't tell you exactly when I was in some strange place, talking about this an that...

And it all ended rather differently to how it started.

NB: If you'd like to learn more about videojournalism then you can bookmark this videojournalism site here which details what Videojournalism is, videojournalism projects with say the Financial Times, and how it broke for newspapers in the UK.

VideoJournalism Training

Image: news executives in Berlin discuss the virtues of videojournalism and the future of journalism on the web

Visual journalism, do you need training ?
Either way whether it's a one year or one week course you'll have to push treacle. Ultimately, even with the most inspiring trainer it's all about you.

A senior newspaper exec returning from DNA, the news event in Brussels, tells me talk of videojournalism and how well it's being executed was quite sobering.

Of course one of the recuring themes of videojournalism is how it's generally inferior to TV; it's been a big stick since way back when, though if you read some of the comments here about the UK's first and only VJ-driven station back in 1995 from industry figures there was then and is now light in the distance.

Critics do have a point, but the validity cuts both ways.

There are in any discipline talented beings and those found wanting.

Videojournalism stands in the locker room more naked because:

it's the low hanging fruit - anyone can do it.

More VJs means of course a greater number of people who may not exhibit nominal competence (whatever that is)- same thing happened with photography.

In photography the industry sought to differentiate the amateur from the professional - you'll hardly hear that distinction in Vjism. That is you're either a VJ or not.

The training regime is dramaticaly different within the industry, primarily because there is no one standard. It means different things to different people. So whilst TV makers believe its roots are in TV, newspaper execs tend to believe its something geared towards the photojournalist.

Training levels are also different to the halycon days of TV and its mandatory training when if you wanted to work in TV, you went to various courses and then had to jump through hoops as a freelancer, before after months or years of showing how good you were you finally given a contract.

This last point can be a sore one for many professionals whom see a generation of televisual practitioners assuming the rank of TV producer/videojournalist after a few months following say a weeks training.

Slogging is still the standard bearer in the mainstream media.

At an industry gathering for young wannabe media people and interns one BBC exec lamented how they have to vet candidates calling themselves producers working in the industry when their experience amounts at best to that of a researcher.

Snobbishness or does he have a point?

No Short Cuts
It's easy to take this practice for granted, something my co-colleague Rob Benfield - a former TV director, commissioning editor and all around 35 years veteran - and I discuss ever so often.

Students on Masters courses have a year to practise and experiment to hone their new skills and even then that's just the beginning.

A view therefore is long/short course training can give you technique, but the creativity is all down to you.

In fact a simple principle offered to students can provide them with adequate VJ technique in 15 minutes. We used the same standard to train Ghanaian journalists filming in South Africa in one evening.

But ultimately the visual grammer of film making resides in the student's passion for experimenting and possessing a growing catalogue of film/VJ knowledge and deconstructing technique.

You simple can't learn a language by treating the training day as a surrogate.

Quite a number of VJs hail from an industry where visual grammer is part of the discourse. If not they're pressed to practice day in, day out their new language, visual language, just as you would do learning a 'foreign language'

Does this mean short courses don't work?

Not at all. Fot many of us , short courses have been the necessary taster or even spring board to a mor indepth excursion.
I learned CSS in 4 days and how to drive after 15 lessons.

CSS was not going to make me a creative web designer, my susbsciption of Computer Arts and Web Design would help there, coupled with a few death marches and as for driving a Lewis Hamilton, I'm definately not.


Technique and Form
But there is technique and form used in training that short circuits reading a whole 500 page manual.

They are distilled observations, tried and tested means, converged practices between one discipline and the other.

Modifiled versions of the classic Aristotelian Arc, at which point you're either thinking "what!" or "yeah".

I noted skimming online that Media Bistro has a seminar: How to Use Plot to Structure Your Fiction - The secrets of building and creating powerful storylines.

Appled to film, which Hollywood invariably does - which explains why movies can seem formulaic, it's the great fall back position for VJ making.

The message from DNA according to the Executive I spoke to who's at the forefront of shaping his international media organisation is that Training Matters.

And it's not a one stop shop.

Sadly that can often be misconstrued for trainers making more money of their clients; that should not be the case.

Training matters because film, videojournalism is a living art and it will evolve during the passage of time.

Having said all that, I loved reading about the advice the director and husband of Madonna Guy Ritchie gave his friend Jason Statham when Jason felt he needed acting lessons to launch his hollywood career.

Naah you'll be like the rest of them from RADA was Ritchies advice, and look where it's got Statham now.

What's the web for?

REDUX Metaverse reportage - next generation web journalism

3D Police Officer & 1st Responder Training



NOTE: The above video you're watching is not a game, It's a real time event unravelling in which the avatars you see represent real people at their computers controlling their actions.

Trainers use these scenarios to familiarise recruits with what potentially might happen in real world

Dreaming up New digital meeja words

Dreaming up New digital meeja words
0. Drummer - act of leaving comments in various blogs thus combined sound of person clicking "send" constitiutes one beat which turns into a drum roll after the 4/5th comment
1. Prowling - the act of hovering over a blog wondering whether you'er going to post, because no one else.
2. Nipping - the act of watching a vlog/video and following a different trail to the one intended.
3. Toxing - leaving unhelpful critical remarks in a blog
4. Veeping - Video hyperlinking, not common at the moment
5. World - already in usage, but not common, reference to working in 3d virtuals.
6. IMVJ - integrated multimedia videojournalism - conceptualising and completing multimedia project combining vid,pics,text
7. Face off - leaving facebook for a while, not updating and the likes.
8. ambient -current noise levels pertaining to what the chat's about within your blog amigos
9. Einstein - multimedia packages incorporating citizen journalism c.f E=Mc2 e= multimedia with citizen involvment
10. Percy - Videojournalism package along the lines of fly on the wall - no reporter speaking. Named after Percy, one of the earliest filmjournalists using a Bolex Camera 1960s working at BBC
11. Ronin - Videojournalism package with Jump and fast cuts
12. 369 - videojournalism package modelled on TV news template
13. FPS - For Petes sake - Invariably used in Flash project when action scripting isn't working
14. Jump - Jumper - someone who excels at different softwares - FCP, AE,
15. Andy - a super blogger
16. Zoo - revived 80s word revealing behind the scenes for a show or multimedia packaging.
17. webologist - someone who knows everything eabout the web.
18. Gore - early uptaker to the web who purports to know everything
19. RIP - Rankle your Internet Provider after your site's been down or been deleted through some terrible mishap - Happened to me once
20. Absolute F***er - someone who's so cool online you just wanna be their friend.

How much is enough?

The site's up, films and multimedia loaded. Shiny new thing, glaring at you. Satisfaction. Job well done.

Some will criticise, because that's what they do; others will muse and offer critique-based solutions.

"That doesn't work because you've broken the line".

And then there's your own internal alter ego.

For some people, it's just never enough.

When did Pollock know that was the last brush stroke?

How could the four year old know she'd finished her master piece: a sun flower?

When is enough, enough?

Bouncers
Firstly the critic who offers nothing does not help you. If you can, continue the journey.

The one who offers you a reason why it doesn't work, is the friend to hang onto.

They constitute the "bouncers". You bounce ideas off them and they come good.

And at some point you begin to question yourself as if your list of bouncers surrounded you.

You become your own best critiic.


Natures bouncers congregate
PhD seminars, The Smart Lab, is exactly like that.

Non ellitist, which cuts against the grain of thinking, each person has a defined goal and in the midst of others is trying to find new windows, clear direction.

And all the while, surrounded by people who ask questions, simple ones: why does that do this?

Flâneur flâneuse kila mapping, New forms of music Online, online spaces, perfomers using their dance to create digital paintings, Virtual Nomads visualisation.

I did not understand all, but I got let into a new world, out of my confort zone, which in turn sparked new ideas and I was always all too ready to say: I don't understand".

The package on Ron Edwards and his virtual worlds and how videojournalism would work inside is but one example of the adage: if you want to know about water don't ask a fish.

The solutions for what we often might try to achive live beyond the boundaries of what I already know, that at least is something I have come to appreaciate.

Hillman Curtis' Flash expertise, Rob Chiu's amazing Motion Graphics... peoples whose experience play into the hands of videojournalism, which simply can't be a manifestation of an old language refined for a new era.

Getting your bouncers to work
We often get so wrapped up with own ideas we miss the tree from the woods.

Here is where your bouncer works. They don't mollycuddle you, wrap you with cotton bud comments, or turn their nose.

They're trying to get you into a space where you might realise your own flaws, and in cases explain better your own understanding at convincing them.

At Smart Lab we had these 10 minute presentations, punctuated by immediate and overnight feedback from the 20 or so other cohorts.

It was as exhilirating as it was nerve wracking.

The experience is one to adopt. In some cases it already exists now, online, through comments and emails from those we establish a bond and relationship with.

Three more rules to add to the evolving manifest of web and videojournalism.

Protect your bouncers

Protect your golden hour - each time of the day you have a peak creative zone. Identify it and make sure you do nothing else during that period but creative things.

Protect yourself - If it hasn't happened it's waiting to be done. It's never enough

Shirking health and safety and release forms

So far not everyone's paying atention and vid is so new to newspapers, they see no legal requirment as TV does.

So I guess its going to takle a serious accident before risk assesment forms are given the respect due

Video Shooters - Police step up stoop and searches

"The law gives the police officer the power to search you, anything you are carrying and any car you are in"- Form 5090, issued by community police in London.

If you're a VJ then expect to be stopped and searched if you're shooting on the streets of London, particularly central London.

Inceasingly the police are steeping up their stop and search on video cameras issuing them with a document that often involves a comprehensive background search and you filling out a detailed form.

Now one organisation is seeking clarity.

Last year I posted how PA's lawyer Mike Dodds had brought the matter to the attention of the City Corporation Police.

But alas it would seem little has been changed.

So what d you do if you get stoped by the police?

Metaverse reportage - next generation web journalism

In this month's Harvard Business Review, Metaverse platfroms ie Second Life et al are crowned as the next phase of the web.

It's easy to chase shadows in this future where every day a new product and semiotic for the web, its participation and indeed story telling unfolds.

But the signs seem to suggest, if not so obviously, that 3d virtual platforms could expand the machinations of web functionality.

At the moment we may or may not be participants, but greater web speeds and a generation born into avatars and bebos may exhibit different attitudes.



Will you gather in a virtual world to watch films? Will a chunk of your income come from your alter ego living and breathing in an electrical medium?

The Matrix dared suggest a ludicruous future, which caught our imaginations nonetheless, but in Forterra's Oilve virtual system, where participants live in Iraq and Afghanistan modelled on real towns, accidents can happen.

Ron Brown, the European disributor of Forterra, got accidently shot during a training execrise and his his avatar violently hit the floor.

Attach sensors to the body and as Trinity would tell THE ONE, the body can't live without the soul or something like that.


Metaverse reportage
In the latest video on Viewmagazine.tv, I dig out excerpts from my days reporting conflict in Africa, West Africa and South.

In Ghana the US Special Forces are teaching Ghanaian Paratroopers low parachute deployment.

Paras jump at either high altitude or low enough under radars and open up their parachutes with minutes, sometimes, seconds to spare before hitting the ground maximising their chance of escape.

It's in military and emergency exercises where AUGMENTED REALITY, virtual world's like Forterra are gaining in popularity.

Next month in what might be a first and very trippy, I'll be in Forterra as a videojournalist reporting on issues that have an impact on the real world.

Exercises which Nato undertakes in its annual war games, which I have reported on also feature in the video package.

There's a lot of material I have had to exclude, but by next week I should have the template for a hypervideo package.

Will metaverse really rule the web?

If you can afford it find out from Harvard Business Review, otherwise, here's my uncompressed version of the video on viewmagazine.tv

read also Dusan Writers post