When Obama Wins Versus When McCain Wins? - the programme

In 2001 I would undertake one of my last network television positions; it was time to try other things.

The last programme would leave me on a high in a high period as well.

It was the UK election and I was one of the political producers on Powerhouse, a Channel 4 Political Show, which had some of the best producers and reporters I had worked with Michael Brunson presenting and one Andrew Brown at its helm.

Micheal was one of those reporters every reporter ought to have studied. Among many things he turned pieces to camera around on the spot and with no notes.

Andrew Brown is the brother of Gordon Brown, Prime Minister.


Who Wins Concept
The show played a format idea pretty well imagining what life would be like under a Conservative, Liberal or Labour Government.

It was a mind bender to make; I produced one of the last ones, but the outcome yielded interesting results and dynamics amongst the parties.

In a sense, a classic piece of provocative TV, provocative in one case for Labour's team to take umbrage with the show when we assumed they would raise National Interest rates.

They'd made no such commitment thus far. But using the accountants BDO Stoy Hayward we crunched some numbers.

Looking at the US elections, Powerhouse thoughts began to take shape.

A programme that assumed firstly Obama had won and taking his pledges and running with them, attempting to determine the cost financially and the feel good factor he would bring or not.

Then a similar one for McCain.

Truth you wouldn't need a huge budget to do this; Powerhouse had a relatively small one compared to other network programmes.

You'd need to pour over their manifestos and archive to find how they're selling them for added info, then with the help of some graphics and avid supporters of both candidates set about with a non partisan number cruncher.

Like I said the results can lead to some interesting follow up exchanges and the films shouldn't be bad to watch either.

That said chances are it's already been done to death.. hasn't it?

Video Journalism -How to be dismissive

You're probably setting up a Video Journalism outfit or you're in the mix at the moment enjoying the wealth of talented video journalists showing their ware.

And some fine products they are as well.

You're asking questions. Many. Some are obvious, others sound cuckoo.

Any attempt to resolve them appears an act of absurdity. Like many you've got this thing sown up. What's black is black, the others white. No room for greys.

So you'll gather plenty of info, then refine, then come to your own conclusions.

With video what it is at the moment, the battle lines are drawn up for ownership of this form and its knowledge economy.

This expert this, and that expert that. Frankly it's tiring, and who can you trust?

If the answer you seek is outside your scope and you can't find the appropriate tech head, the simplest thing is to be dismissive.

We all do it; the more obvious for me in the next few weeks will be The Turner prize. I still might not get it, but I'd love to speak to the artist to understand how an unkempt bed constitutes art.

Answer, because the artist says so. Et Voila!

It's a highly personal medium. Video journalism is highly personal.


Video Journalism
14 years ago a newspaper outfit, Associated Newspapers who publish The Mail and Standard among its portfolio, wanted its own TV station.

It was the silliest idea you ever heard. They also wanted to advertise during the Super Bowl, but that never happened.

Some of the UK's most respected newspaper men e.g. Sir David English , and you won't find a bad word about him anywhere, hatched a plan.

They hired video journalists, many from newspapers. In 1994 and if you can remember what you were doing back then and what the industry was like, you'll understand the context of this:

They hired newspaper journos to become VJs. What the ^%$£* is a VJ?

And the pieces they turned in were pilloried by the industry.

"IT IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR ONE INDIVIDUAL TO DO VIDEO AND SOUND WITHOUT COMPROMISING THE STORY".

That's what they said back then. Question is as you go about your video journalism today, does that statement bare any truth for you.

After a while the comments stopped, and the VJs moved on, many now to television, the BBC for instance, making award winning TV films.

Fancy that, newspaper journalists and photojournalists turned Vjs now making TV programmes and winning industry awards.

How sweet was that for those involved. But then really, TV's had a habit of taken print journos into TV. Read Andrew Marrs a short history of British Journalism.

And if you're reading this from outside the UK, Andrew Marr is Scotsman journalist turned BBC Political Editor, now an-all-about-town radio and TV host.

Ponder still , the idea of newspaper men and women winning TV awards; sounds very much like the Guardian Newspaper which recently won an RTS ( UK's Emmy) last year.

Incidentally though the award winner looks to function like a video journalist he won it as a film maker. More of that in a minute.


How the Net grew up
In 1994 when we first went on the Net on 28k modems, 240X120 pixels was the viewing size, then broadband in the shape of ADSL and T1 lines got busy.

We could go 320x240, even 480x360 if we were lucky, but the codec, Sorensons, still tested us.

Later at 2mb upwards the experience started to get even richer, the h264 codec kicked in and sites like Vimeo and Blip now encode at wider, less, compressed sizes.

And if we trend extrapolate that idea, in the wings soon we'll be a hosting player, or you might even be trying it yourself at the moment at 800 by 400 pixels.

Actually you already do it when you expand a video full screen except that the video's native size is often much smaller so you lose detail on the blow up.

If anything Apple Trailers encoded in different size formats offers that true experience.

Newspapers will continue to eschew television, solely because of the TV's own policies and licensing, plus the cost factor, but if any newspaper were offered a TV broadcast opportunity for free, what's the bet they won't take it.

Anything that leverages your product is a gift.

TV never the altruistic sort is in it for the money, so if it rings your newspaper asking for your video, even agreeing to pay for it ( you know what I mean) then it's a tipped hat to your work.

To that end Travis Fox and his films like: Rebuilding a Fortress, Rebuilding a life - the story of sheet metal worker Michael Flocco who lost his only son at the Pentagon on September 11th, is what most media orgs e.g. newspapers, websites would like.

Travis site says the ff:

Portions of the video aired on MSNBC and NewsChannel 8, a local Washington, D.C., cable station. CNN, NBC, and Maryland Public Television have also expressed interest in airing parts of the show. Finally, ABC will end their daylong Sept. 11 coverage with a re-broadcast of the story on Nightline UpClose.

The new film makers
Mighty impressive!

Something else happens when you're watching Travis' film and a host of others I could mention. You're watching a film; there's nothing to say this is a piece of video journalism.

This is the grey area I mentioned earlier.

At this stage there's very little to distinguish the way Travis works to someone like Molly Dineen - a highly respected British documentary maker who works her own camera.

With deference to Dineen and Travis, her starting base of docs might be different to Travis, but they're touching each other in their work covering long formats.

Video journalists making long format documentaries might just be panned as another silly idea.

But it's an obvious transition for anyone interested in pushing their art.

Many one person camera-sound crews renowned for their work resist the word video journalist and you can see why.

One of the strongest voices is the incredible Scott Rensberger (US)- one of the most awarded journalists in the business.

Scott knows stories, just like Bo knows football. And when we spoke in Spain last year we shared a lot of things in common. A good story is a good story and the label, well?

Why would you want to limit yourself?

By the way Scott fans, I wouldn't countenance for a moment comparing what I do to Scott. I said we shared similar thoughts. [Phew! You know some people....]

So there you go.

There are other questions, whether you a Video Journalist should film "smash and grabs" or work only constructs.

BBC VJs are strongly advised from ambulance chasing and filming incidents such as accidents etc, so said one of its Vjs to me.

Should your Vjs be allowed to work the beat, or work to a daily news belt?

Should you need a VJ sub editor to act as a second set of eyes or do the VJs publish straight to sites.


In 1994 we went through very much the same cycle of questions; some were resolved better than others.

18 years on the passionate debate and swiftly dismissed points of view continue.

If anything for some of us history is repeating itself and that is sad as some of the clues to the future lie in the past and by that I'm not even talking 1994, but 1966 when the first Cine (video) journalists were employed at the BBC.

Pixels without Borders

Just completed the prelims for Pixels without Borders and will post url later today.

It features the work of the incredible Yannis Kontos, a world press photographer winner and recipient of 18 different awards.

More recently he exhibited at one of the main museums in Greece, following on from a Picasso exhibition.

In line with early work circa 1999, [ see Blue Print article] this is a theme in exploration and non prescriptive navigation [ game theory] in what I'm attempting in providing different states.

There are some obvious omissions as this is an installation piece with some new ideas for accessing and playing.

The best part of the afternoon was spent cracking the code in action scripting and phase 1 works pretty much okay, Whilst Final Cut and subtle use of After Effects were used on the pics.

An equally remarkable set of prints will undergo the same treatment, following coyotes and immigrants crossing the Mexican border.

Many people have died on this venture. Yannis picks up the story from both sides.

Later today I should at some point post Laura at Journalism.co.uk a piece on video journalism etc. and then its back underneath the bonnet to get mysql and php to work a raft of new word press installations.

Video journalism Kit bag Canon HDCM0S et al

Wait for it... What's in the kitbag?

Today I have gone Geek head.Side by side - some of my old kit- the trusty VX1000 - s0me work horse. It once fell inside the sea ( Dardanelles). We fished it out and in a couple of hours was working.

My Nizo Super 8mm provides some lush footage when needed, and then bottom right is my Uher -a replacement of a previous version which saw action in South Africa and its conflicts.

It uses a reel which you edit with a razor and a edit head placed on the device.



Side by Side - so you can get a good feel of their sizes. The A1 which I recommend for newspapers journos is highly concealable, but look at the Cannon HD CMOS, cost 500 UKP compared to the Sony A1 1600 UKP

The question is does the cannon measure up?


In the palm of my hands you can barely see it.


The other device in the ruck sack which replaces the uher is the Handy Recorder


Last Friday I shot Sandy Jadeja talking about the markets and also managed to secure some work placement for students interested in working finance stories.

I'll post the story shortly, and also give me feedback on the Canon.

One thing to start off with. Because of the codec the camera uses, I could only ingest it into Imovie 8 on my Mac.

And then of course the ideal package, the Digi beta 700 [cost 25,000 UKP ] - shooting for television news

No Frames - photography meets videography

Photo copyright Yannis Kontos

"The photograph, its singularity in capturing a moment in time has held fast from its inception via the camera obscura but in a digital age, is there more that could be delivered?


No Frames is both a digital exploration of the textuallity and aesthetics of photography and an attempt to discover different narratives states available to the user".

David Dunkley Gyimah,

Creative Space
Its nearing Phd week, in which we all gather at The Smart Lab for intense sessions of methodology and presentations.

The beauty of these gatherings is having colleagues with disciplines markedly different to your own add to and critique your work.

It often takes a new set of eyes or someone not close to your work to help create fresh ideas within the cracks and identify new threads.

Smart lab's mixture of disciplines is ideal for this with figures such as technologists: Bruce Damer, NASA work - artificial life; Allison Waugh, behaviourists in Architectural Spaces ; Rachel Armstrong, a medical doctor turned Science Artist and many many more extra ordinary people.
Photography and Videography

Video and photography - a more obvious coming together on Viewmagazine.tv. providing a backdrop.

If you've read he Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea - a gripping true story of the wretched and fatal trek by men crossing over from Mexico to the US, then you'll want to see the photographs of Yannis Kontos.

Yannis' photos follows Coyotes and then picks up from the US border where these immigrants risking a grisly death make their way across desert wastelands in search of a better living in the US.


Pre Olympics
Prior to the UK's Olympic bid, I was invited to a creative meeting at Canary Wharf, the 25th floor of a building where in a round setting some of the UK's household names in the creative industry brain stormed ideas.

I had a proposal around photography. Sorry, call it video-photography, which I would later show to one of the key figures within Arts - Olympic movement.

It sounds obtuse here without going into a whole lot of detail, but it would later become one of the planks of interest in innovation in story telling and The Outernet at Smart Lab [different definition from that on Wiki].

And because life is circular, this week I have a meeting with the same key figure from the Arts.

Some of my colleagues have already critiqued the lengthier proposal; the brief version I have inserted above and I'm grateful for that.

Within the Arts there are huge opportunities, as well as challenges for visual story tellers, which are often delivered as personal interpretations.

But are the two strands video journalism and digital video art so different. The obvious answer is the simpler one.

But if we explore areas such as cross media platform working, gaming and follow the work of the Prix Ars Electronica started in 79, as video was taken off, there's a different debate to be had.

It's worth remembering that the movement video journalism has a rich seam and lineage dating back to the 60s and in particularly the 70s with excellent work from Czech visualists [ &^! lost the link.. mist find it].


Television and the Arts
Not withstanding the Turners and Bookers, television increasingly finds it difficult to report or convey the Arts to a wider audience.

Yes we all have moments scratching our heads, but there are countless moments when a story captures the zeitgeist.

Earlier this year I reported from the South Bank how Edinburgh Festival organisers felt television had abandon the arts and a possible remedy using video journalism.

And recently I noticed the South Bank featuring an exhibition Art by Offenders: 5,000 entrants. lifers, high security patients, immigration detainees submit their works to the annual Koestler Awards.

That brought back memories working a story of inmates at Wormwood Scrubs, a high security prison, making works of art.


art prisoners from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Their art became the canvas for them to talk about themselves. I spent a weekend on the wing.

I wish I could show you the whole 10 minute video, but by now some of the inmates serving life - which can often be 15 years - may be released.

They did not sign any release forms at the time and even if they did it would not have crossed anyone's mind this would go on the net.

But this was a more obvious marriage of video journalism and Art, but the challenge, the challenge, is to push the boundaries of this creative video form so that it says things only it could only do, tells a story that is not prescriptive, turns a white piece of paper into a montage of feelings, and looks for that which is not obvious.

No frames then may not sound so absurd after all.

Video making, Video Journalism, Film making, Film Art?

(VIDBLOG) I Just Left - Europe 2008 from justin on Vimeo.

I stumbled across this:

Here's what the author says of himself

I spent 11 days in Europe in September. I went without a plan, by myself. All I knew is that I was going to visit Berlin since I had a friend there, and that I needed to fly out of Heathrow on the following Tuesday. Everything between was more or less played by ear.

The first days were lonely, I was lucky enough to meet some cool people at the hostel I was staying at in Paris and traveled with them a bit. Berlin was great since I already knew someone and could easily get to know all their friends. It was just such a fun, spontaneous, adventure. Exactly what I wanted it to be.

The vidblog was edited sequentially, meaning I didn't rearrange any of the shots in time - for the most part it's an accurate, linear showcase of who I met and where I went. Enjoy.
To his site

Is it video journalism, Video art, video story telling. Does anyone really care, other than its really really nice!

I don't know whether the author, Justin, is a film maker, but he's got a great eye and is playing with twin narratives, compositions, sound scapes and 369 sequences, plus the movement and music.

Fibonacci's man of the times - financial video journalism

Like to reintroduce you to one of the most extraordinary people I have recently met, Sandy Jadeja, market strategist who predicted the crash, the Dow hitting 14,050 and oil run with a high degree of accuracy.

Now I know what you're thinking because I might be equally cynical, but as I said to Sandy, when I listen to what he has to say, it's extraordinary.

It's a sentiment echoed by many seeing email up email sent to him.

Sandy, 20 years of market experience, uses Fibonacci's numbers to arrive at his predictions.


He kindly replayed some of his most recent seminars and powerpoints to camera, so in time I hope to bring these to you so you can make your own mind up.

But I'm won over.

Pictures courtesy of Sandy Jedija
Copyright Keith Saunders

The Super Multimedia Journalists - The Telegraph

(left to right) Heidi, Harriet, Jonathan Mike( their principle trainer), Nick and Rachel
Had the good pleasure of meeting the Telegraph's trainee super journos yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Super journos because since last year The Telegraph hand picks a handful of grads and post grads to embark on its year plus long trainee scheme, which frankly should be the envy of many organisations.

This year five emerged from the 800 or so number, and like their colleagues last year are a truly nice bunch.

Full of vim, able to master the intricacies of video journalism very swiftly, and brain power you'd gladly welcome on any pub quiz team.

No coincidence they recently won the local quiz contest against local favoured teams in Howden, PA's North of England headquarters.

Last year
I'm told last year's lot have all found jobs and doing very well, with posts that include deputy foreign affairs editor and features writers.

The Telegraph's programme places a strong emphasis on multimedia journalism, giving the trainees rounded skills in being able to meet the modern challenges of print and web reportage.

And after spending time with PA, they'll be on various secondments throughout the UK with regional newspapers.

It's good grounding and if anyone remembers the BBC's much envious 12 trainee appointment schemes, you'll recall the regions played a strong role in providing trainees with multi tasking skills and stomping the husting for stories.

So yes I'm grateful for opportunity of meeting them and will feed some of the video I shot of them into my Phd Studies on Innovation in Journalism.

Motion graphics story telling

The financial crisis running story yields an interesting assessment of TV and online reportage.

I posted a week or so ago how I thought newspaper video journalism was found wanting.

Broadcast TV News must be chewing its finger nails as well.

The emerging convention looks set on the use of motion graphics with typography at its core.

In some cases I think they work; others, the compositions look below par.

Motion graphics is a strong feature of graphic design, but perhaps rarely understood as 'journalism", more information design.

It comes from the graphic department, so there!

Online video makers and video journalists have FCP et al and After Effects to help them tell a complex story using graphics.

And why would they?

The reasons simplified are to help tell a a complex story, reinforced by figures and power words.

However you get the feeling, looking at the broadcasts, that it's also down to a lack of pics.

It's an area that video journalism should excel at being able to drive stories pictorially. Yet the evidence is yet to be convincing.

Perhaps its tradition; traditionally finance stories have been difficult to make as they're not visual enough. But you might also add that if Vjism has little time to experiment, play around with form, it'll fail to push visual grammar into new exciting areas.

And if you're asking film makers [at least the ones I know] do this as a matter of course, particularly in stock and say location.

I know they're two different beasts, but there's a lot video journalism or cine-journalism borrows from its visual sibling.

And reporting the story of the century [ early days] should be a cinch.

Apparently they're either prepping or shooting Wall Street II in the city. Any more news on that!

Hillary Clinton speaks to Mark Riley

Good friend Mark Riley got an interview with Hillary Clinton on the credit crunch and what happens if the US' $700 billion rescue package fails.

There's some interference on the line and I'm emailing Mark about the rest of the interview.

But there are some things to mull over in this.

Video Journalism Reel

Click To Play

Video Journalism Reel.

Looking forward to an important meeting next week, which mixes video journalism with installations.

Comments welcome as usual

Can you tell what it is yet?

You know here's a controversial thought.

When you strip it off all its gubbings and place an Arri or 16mm in their hands and then pay the sound person to go off sick, cuz this new camera you have does sound ( WHAT!)
video journalism is film making.

BUT something else is going on and in my best Rolf Harris impersonation.

"Can you see ( slab of paint here) wa wa wah what it is yet?"

Multiskilling should not be entertained, broadcasters told Video Journalists

Michael Rosenblum poked me; been a lot of chatter about Channel One lately.

Whilst I know there were organisations that shied away hiring any Channel Oners in the mid 90s, it wasn't the station per se, it was the idea that you could be multiskilled that was vampirish.

I mean have you ever heard anything more silly.

You can't possibly be a reporter and hold a camera; next you'll be telling me you're Harry bl***ying Houdini.

Back then if you said you did radio and TV, you were either very confused about your career or very confused about yourself. Mmmm might I have been both.

I'd spent a good 18 months before then living and reporting in South Africa doing TV e.g. ABC News and the series "Through the Eyes of a Child" and Radio for the BBC World Service and Radio 4 [ First Time Voters - doc].

In South Africa's still apartheid smouldering cities, if blogging was around then, you'd surely want to have done that too. More confusions £$@!!

Actually blogging was around, not quite out in the open yet.

One day I should just write what it was like reporting from South Africa: brilliant, surreal, dangerous, a world of contradictions.

Here I am on the eve of the election. A bomb has gone off in downtown joberg.

The impact was felt in the house I was living in, some two miles away.

The BBC World Service rang up, and as an ABC News Associate Producer, I got down their prompt and passed the cordons to inspect the damage.

Our camera shot some scenes, I had a friend fire off some pictures, did a piece for radio, then filed a print piece for a friend in London. Mmmm early multiskilling!!!





BEFORE MULTISKILLING
Prior to South Africa and just before Channel One I had seven years odd working and freelancing at the the BBC , including Newsnight and reporting for BBC's hip pre-incarnation of current.tv, Reportage - where we unwittingly used hi-8s for drop-in shots [Beep should really do something like this again].

Channel One was empowering, but it was way, way, before its time.

After working for them for two years and heading of to WTN and then four years regularly freelance producing at Channel 4 News, I'd meet the then head of ITN Stuart Purvis.

"Poor you", he would say, "Poor Channel One, but you taught us everything we wanted to know".

This was a classic case of early adopters and if you've looked back through social history and innovation, most EDs get it in the neck.

Oh yes irrespective whether you're good or bad.

AFTER MULSKILLING
Today some of the most talented on screen journalists around come from Channel One.

Tomorrow when you wake up to BBC Breakfast if you're not careful you'll be greeted by not one, but three: Chris Hollins, Julia Ceaser, and Tim Muffet in which it says on the BBC site:

"...he cut his TV teeth as a Video Journalist for London cable station Channel One - "a completely multi-skilled approach to television, and an incredibly steep learning curve" says Tim".

Then there's Guy Smith over at BBC London, Crime Correspondent etc..

And behind the scenes there's a whole army, so that's that then.

It clearly has paid off for some.

In my next post how to tell if your spouse secretly fancies your best mate.

Now I have just located this tape of Channel One, with the great Late Sir David English and Michael Rosenblum.

Er, I'm not nostalgic for it... C'mon you have to move on, but I admit as an academic now it makes for great thesis material.

Get the new Video Journalist Camera

Ooops sorry!

Actually the Panasonic Video journalism camera saw the light circa mid 90s, briefly.

It did have some good features, but then disappeared. Wondered whatever happened to it?

Meanwhile over at Mediashift interesting post about a lecturer requesting a student stop blogging the course.

There's more than that, but this an archetypal scenario where technology is ahead of policy.

I first got blogged in lecturers about three years ago. In fact some students felt I was telling them they wouldn't find jobs.

The industry is a changing I said. " Oh dear" my thought bubbles returned a week later when I read some of their posts.

We talked about it, but it took a couple of BBC bods et al to talk to them later in the year, before their fears were assuaged and a new post brought on a wry smile.

I hope they're all doing great things out there now.

Blogging Inside
Clearly there has to be some tacit agreement on blogging et al. It's a fab tool, but can be disruptive and personalises an ecosystem where the free-flow of ideas should be encouraged.

Also, you do need to be a wee careful. Most universities operate a policy, which while blogging may not have been considered, does cover areas related to conduct and behaviour. Check the small print.

Me, sometimes on occasions I say all sorts of things about my work with industry, in which I'll then throw up Chatham House rules.

But ultimately it's going to be about trust.

Great TV Shows influencing video journalism

Every major rule of TV is broken here, starting from the first 20 secs. This is a classic, two different franchised shows are meeting at the seams. Homicide and Law and Order and looks who's the felon.


Virginia Heffernan,The Medium columnist for The New York Times Magazines has had viewmagazine.tv on her blogroll for the last year.

Thanks Virginia.

Her latest post: "In This Week’s Magazine: Character Issues" is about TV dramas post- The Sopranos that are so cinema-size in their scope that you almost need a Hollywood star to carry the project.

TV is no longer the poorer screen of cinema, with a slew of ground breaking shows in the 90s.

It allowed me to reflect on how US dramas have affected my work and I'm sure you could come up with your own show paradigm.

So I left a comment on her site, seen here below but failed to flesh it out and pay dues to others.

"Probably amongst a bevy of video journalists on this side of the pond, the most influential drama piece to make cross my tele was “Homicide - Life on the Street”.

What the trio of Attanasio, director Levinson and writer-director Tom Fontana conjured was an aestheticism to grime.

In film study it evokes the UK’s free cinema movement of the 1940s and 50s.

The writing was natural, the characters laden with personal issues looked like they’d just rolled out of bed, and the shooting, the shooting…..

Well, handheld, up close and personal, with audacious povs and tagging.

It was so anti nicey, re: Crockett and Tubs…. Ah those memories, that I’d often imagine Baltimore’s real supers pleading with the show’s team to ease up because of a real drop in recruits.

The video journalism movement, at least from some VJs, sweeping through newspapers owes a lot to Homicide.

The quality of the show, its DNA, threads through quite a few shows now I think e.g. The Wire, Shield, and yes I might add even the Sopranos.

Docu-drama packaged as drama at its best"

The show however owes a great deal to Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon

David, a Baltimore Sun reporter hung out with the city's homicide unit for a year and from his pieces emerged the characters of the show. Simon served as a creative consultant on the show

There there was Stephen Bocho's Hill Street Blues "Russian two-step" camera work.

However Homicide went a step further using high speed grain super 16mm stock, as opposed to 35mm, and hired a documentary maker Wayne Ewing, behind projects as DOP.

What happens next is breath-taking - a total disregard for any television rule, that any lecturer, producer, or exec carved in the tablet of film making.

Where MTV shows and pop videos did this for effect, Homicide had the camera narrative carrying the dialogue, and vice versa.

There was a tension between the two that presciently today has come to be referred to as "Bourne".

For Homicide, there were jump cuts, shot repetitions, and the blocking and tag [ I'll illustrate this in a future post] was like ballet.

The 180 degree rule did not exist. Let me say that again. There was NO 180 degree rule.

Recently, another documentary maker has pushed even harder at this format. Yep you're ahead of me: Paul Greengrass.

Watch: Bloody Sunday, United 93, then Bourne.

Often when it works you don't need rules, the medium becomes a creative canvas, but you need to know the rules inside out to start with, then as the child spoon bender said to Neo, to bend the spoon, imagine there is no spoon.

To bend the rules.....

Metaverse journalism and digital business cards

metaverse journalism from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Some times an idea is ahead of its time, sometimes they've got to come around again.

The report above looks to the future of metaverse journalism - taking in a number of areas via video journalism.

But then it's inspired something more cine-based which I'm working on.

But how to get it out? I could use the web etc? but what else?

Couple of years back the digital card made its presence and as an idea before its time caused some amusement.

But now its back in vogue and the file capacity has gone from a dinky 25mb to 100mb and more.

Digital card for carrying anything from a full movies to film pitches

So you can carry the trailer, the web site, the film pitch, what ever on that business card.

If business cards are meant to ac as visual prods to elicit contact, then this digital card, the size of a credit card goes one step further.

Box of 50 digital cards which I'll be dumping my trailer on

The trailer should be ready before the international video journalism awards, which I hope to preview here.

p.s Added belatedly from David ( sitbonzo) comment. DO NOT try putting these into Macs or PCs without a tray otherwise its curtains. The cd needs to be placed on a tray. Thanks David

US election outcome - definitive

Chatham House audience applauding end of Professor Green's perfomance presentation

"You know many people think Obama walks on water". That line yielded one of many hearty laughs.

But then the man standing up stage is probably one of few who's seen the long plank of wood Obama uses.

If Professor Paul Green, Director of the Institute for Politics at Roosevelt University and a political analyst for WGN Radio in Chicago wants to leave academia full time, I'd wager he's got a guilt-edge career on the talk show circuit.

You couldn't laugh hard enough and in case you're wondering this was politics - a particle physics journey into the underbelly of US electioneering.

This was contemporary vaudeville politics delivered to a modern day audience. Superb!

Dim the lights and imagine you're live at the Apollo or the London Palladium, except we're at Chatham House, that august institution whose name is lent to the sonorous Chatham House Rule.

You know: the information you're hearing, you can't tell anyone where you got it from or reveal the speakers identity, except the wordings more taut, but stolid enough to scare anyone into thinking you're part of an exclusive club.

BBC Reporters often make good of Chatham House rules and speakers from attending closed talks. As a producer I know I have.


Professor Green's revelations.


The bullet points of Professor Green's delivery:

• Obama will win the election, but disappoint afterwards. The US's problems are too huge.
• Obama's fund raising machine is unprecedented and you ain't seen nothing yet. Come election day, the millions of volunteers, buses etc Obama has in what's referred to as Obama Camp will simply leave you breathless.
• On television, commercials will be interspersed with programmes, there's a visual onslaught in the making.
  

Professor Green spoke about how Obama beat Clinton; how McCain doesn't have an in with value voters, a karl Rove manifestation of people who make decisions based on religion, abortion, capital punishment and same-sex marriage.

Shot on a Canon Ixus 70

And in case you might be thinking this was a partisan lecture, he criticised liberal women reporters for their snobbish approach to undermine Republican VP runner Sarah Palin. And that McCain had given good as he gets, just that he's not so zing in age.

"Attack her [Palin] for what she says, not for who she is", he said

This is what Chatham House does best, attracting the best minds to share an insight into their rarefied world. Professor Green's been to more political gatherings and party nominations than perhaps he can remember.


Chatham House

As a member of Chatham House, and I have been since 1994, I'm pleased to see how video has become a feature of their events.

In fact it's been one of the ongoing points I have had the pleasure of talking about to previous directors to the current one Dr. Robin Niblett:

• Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, here being interviewed by me.
• Dr Chris Gamble, who wanted to know how to promote Chatham House to a younger constituent, which led to a number of online promos.
• Dr Jack Spence, my mentor who got me interested in Chatham House.

For the many years I was a news producer, Chatham House became a regular haunt, with a healthy number of speakers being invited onto Channel 4 News, a move guaranteed to earn me browny points.

Were I still in network TV broadcasting I'd surely be ringing up the news editor to suggest getting Prof Green on the programme.

I'm told the video of Professor Green's speech will be online soon, but I also feel speaking to Chatham House's events manager, the institute could increase its reach online by having some of its video downloadable, with a creative commons license [ link back to us] and the company logo.

Why because as a brand, Chatham House delivers undiluted news, indepth analyses, material untainted by personality reportage.

And truth we don't have much of that around, at least from what I saw today and believe me, you'll want to see this.

Postscript:
The press and boggers came in for a ticking off, but if you want to follow the campaign with real indepth articles Professor Green recommends Realclearpolitics.com a listing of the best articles around.

911 - the chronicled events should be accessible

There is a chance a generation may be unaware of events such as the First or Second World War, The Bay of Pigs, The Cuban Crisis, Falklands War, The Final Solution or use of the word, Jesse Owens running in Berlin, Lockerbie, The Civil Rights movement, landing on the moon... and the list goes on.

Why are they important. Do I really need to qualify?

They're of such magnitude; they shaped where we are, attitudes, cultures, people and politics, reinforcing words such as hegemony, neo- whatever and paradigm.

A collision of classical and contemporary history with underlying philosophies that remind us where we go wrong.

We know of such events, even if we were not born at the time because cinema, television, radio and now the richness of the net informs us.

Producers set out to retell these stories, to keep those memories alive which yields memorials and days of commemoration.

Video is a powerful tool here and its ubiquity should be such that any of these historical events should be available to watch and view without remuneration. They are part of the public psyche and have their place reserved.

So last week as I showed the events of 911 to new cohorts.

I made the point, that the video I'm showing I have no currency to air or transmit online because the tapes belong to an organisation, most likely an agency.

Free to use

Now I have worked for an agency myself, WTN, World Wide Television News, before it was folded into APTV.

But I am of the belief that some things should be free- to-be accessed by anyone to watch and reproduce. True Creative Commons at work.

Visual material from Nasa is, and the BBC's Director General has spoken of and allowed some of the BBC's content to be downloaded and mashed-up.

While I acknowledge how the business of video selling works, it does sadden me that to get access to such footage, you'd have to pay anywhere between 1000 UKP per minute upwards.

Just as there are public works of art, granted you can't paint on top of them, there should be a repository of public video, so events such as the aforementioned are kept in the conscious.

If you're a philanthropist or benefactor, I can think of one way of spending money for public good, that many, including myself would be grateful.

In the meantime, all I can show you is this tape cover, with the stark words that will forever make us pause for thought: WTC.

Gotcha Journalism - getcha life

It's come to be known as Gotcha Journalism, a supposedly emerging dark art which Palin supporters are expressing fear over; dirty tactics from the press.

I'd call it pap, (paparazzi) tabloid and in many cases plain forensic interviewing.

Perhaps the coziness between the executive and the press has become too chummy. " Hi bob, Hi Sarah". Be careful what you say otherwise we'll revoke your white house press corp privileges.

For Gotcha in many ways reveals a flaw in not being able to ask those obvious and necessary questions.

Gotcha is about pulling those skeletons from the wardrobe. Gotcha is having a go, which as a journalist you're supposed to do.

May be the people that bemoan Gotchaims have never been "Snowed", "Humphried" or "Paxed", three of the UK's most formidable interviewers who put the fear of a studio in just about any politician.

Today's late Brian Redhead had a few gotchas; his the more solemn type; stealth and grace, you never saw it coming.

And I might add I believe I have watched a few (Ed) Bradley interviews that were classic Gotchas.

Gotcha Oscar

For Britons, Gotcha, sounds all too familiar. Noel Edmonds setting someone up for the pranks of pranks, but that's light entertainment.

In the arena of political interviews there was Margaret Thatcher , Gotached from a housewife, Diana Gould, asking why the Prime Minster sanctioned firing on the Belgrano during the Falklands Conflict.

Gould added the Argentinian vessel was heading away.

Thatcher's husband Dennis later berated the show's producers mad that his wife has been"stitched up by bloody BBC poofs and Trots.

Thatcher's Defence ministerJohn Nott was famously Gotched by Sir Robin Day when he was accused of being a ‘Here Today, Gone Tomorrow’ politician live on TV.

He got so mad he pulled of his mic and marched out.

Gotchas make for good TV, but there is one major achilles at hand.

If the interviewee has nothing to hide, nothing to be afraid of, is of sound mind and temperament, there's nothing to be Gotched.

Gotcha journalism, more Getcha life, one that stands up to scrutiny.

Films projected on the underground/subway -XTP video journalism

It's been springing up all over London's tube/subway network; projectors showing images as commuters await the next tube.

I looked up at it and managed a smile before swiftly firing off this pic.

Back in 2001 my colleagues and I were approached by Viacom UK .

They had a wonderful project and had seen our work and would we be interested as part of the pitch for an innovatory approach to advertising on the underground.

Re-active.net, based in the heart of Soho was managed by former Saatchi and Saatchi Head of TV Jon Staton, with Rosalind Miller, a brilliant designer, now lecturing at St Martins and me mixing my prod/dir/cam skills; video journalism into something more aesthetic.

Our office was shared with the ad copyright duo who were responsible for such advertising gems as: The car in front is a Toyota, and Audi 'Vorsprung Durch Technik' .

It really was something to see how everyone brain storm around the room leading up to the shoots.

Working with Viacom we devised 5 degrees of motion, which would:

• be used as a pricing tool for clients wanting to advertise on the network
• experiment with motion, which had to be risk assessed - some images psychologically may have a moving affect on commuters and were to be avoided at all costs.

You can see the fifth version here, ( 5th degree of movement) which I produced/directed and shot, with Jon Staton, former head of TV at Saatchi and Saatchi executive producing.

Whilst the stills and animated version can be found here. by clicking XTP.

Rosalind Miller, creative director at re-active, oversaw the Flash and After Effects work.

We had a week or so to out together five adverts, which were eventually part of the big pitch.

I'll come back to this when I locate the brochures and DVD.

Funny how relevant all the playing around in early days of DVCam/ video Journalism has become.