Why not hang up on the President

So by now you've heard the story and gawped or chuckled as well as Congress woman Ros-Lehtinen hung up on a prankster imitating President elect Obama, except that er, it was the president-to-be.

So then Obama's new White House Chief of Staff Congressman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, probably looking over at his boss likely mutters, "Oba give me it here".

He then duly punches in the number, gets to who he is ( poetic license here, as I have no idea what happened) and she Congress woman Ros-Lehtinen hangs up on him as well.

Bravo Congress woman, cuz you know the lengths these prankster will take to make a fool out of you and she wasn't having any of it.

When the matter is resolved, they apparently do what anyone would do, have double-bent, belly ache laughs about it.

"Damn you hung up on me"
"And I'll hang up on you again. Next time use the code".
"Er we don't have one
( Made that up as well... sorry!)

Phoney President (hyiaa sorry!)
In American President Michael Douglas playing the title role gets a similar salmon in the face when he rings up his love interest a lobbyist played by Annette Bening.

Yah, she hangs up on him, but the president has an ace up his sleeve.

Before you hang up on me again, ring this number, he says.

Brrrrr. Brrrrrring... briiing.

Hello is this Ms lobbyist you don't believe who we are, cuz this is the White House telephone exchange. Moron!

Obama: "Hey "W", could you do me this one favour, it's probably the only one I'll ever ask you so don't get wise-guy about it!"

For Obama, no such luck, just yet.

In South Africa, renowned theatre director, Alan Swerdlow a dear friend shared a block of apartments with Cheryl Carolus (who would many years later become High Commissioner to the UK.

She was high up in ANC circles so it was customary for Madiba ( Mr Mandela to us) to drop by. Yep I was sat on the lawn on one occasion.

One day her phone goes and Alan answers. " This is Nelson Mandela, please could I speak to Cheryl".

Don't do it
"**** off Peter", was Alan's reply, and puts the phone down.

You see Alan had a good friend who did the most exquisite Madiba impersonation.

Phone rings again and this time Cheryl picks it up and of course goes into deep conversation.

Later, Alan, looking ashen-faced learns Mr Mandela wanted to know who the charming man was that answered the phone.

My own faux pas is inconsequential, but when Sabine Streich, the organiser of the VJ awards rang me up two years ago to say: " er you've won", I too told her to "**** off, this is not a joking matter".

Her response was a good as one liners will ever be:

" I'm German, I don't joke!"

There!

Go West - Life is peaceful there ( media tales)

Go west, life is peaceful there, said 80s sensational Brit pop act the Pet Shop Boys.

Twenty plus years on, Go East, could be a more fitting lyric, particularly if you work in the media.

Tom, worked for ITN, Sky and a host of other broadcasts before in 2006, he was struck by that big plank of wood that falls from the sky with the inscription, BOREDOM.

" I was pretty bored, with it all. Same stories, predictable, the fun had gone".

He mentioned to his Greece partner, lets up stakes, sell everything, except the car and go to Greece.

That he duly did and then through a combination of adventure and serendipity, one of Russia's most renowned broadcasters came calling.

When it comes to constructive critiquing, Tom, also an ex-BBC knows how to play diplomatically with words.

If you're pitching to work for a future employer, tell em what's wrong, without being smug and how you could fix it, without being a know-it-all.

So with his house in Greece, Tom commutes every week to Moscow to work. Yep you can re-read that last sentence again.

Back in the UK
"So what brings you over to the UK?", I asked

" My car is registered here and it needs an MOT, so I drove it from Greece for an MOT and I'm now swapping it for something else"

"Ahh", I responded, eyes pinced, "are there no MOTs in Greece".

"No, it's registered in the UK".

"Silly me. What do I know"

We moved on.

"I think if you're in the UK or West, you could be looking to places in the East e.g. Russia to put together your new plan for global media.. yep think Global'?

This by the way is not alien advice. I have strongly advocated myself, based on my peripatetic career that travelling to new places is the stuff that strengthens you personally and professionally.

A couple of acquaintances have been asking me to come to Poland, Moscow and China, to name a few places.

Relocating, though takes more than a laundry list and "things to do in Denver, or Beijing" as the case may be.

What about Africa?
A couple of old Masters students are set on relocating to East Africa to try their hands working for an emerging publisher. We've been swapping interesting emails. "What can we expect for a relocation package?", they've queried.

Tom ( and by now you'll recognise I have left his surname out) says Russia is ideal. The economy is holding out and there's work for journalist, in which quite a few newly qualified ones have taken advantage.

But get ready for the culture shock, he adds.

At a time when the West is feeling the crunch, perhaps the East isn't such a bad idea after all. I'm thinking whether to consider the South.

Despite the short time we spent together, I really enjoyed the experience of recently meeting one of South Africa's most respected media managers, Trevor Ncube.

Go South! Doesn't quite have the same ring to it as the previous two.

what would you change redux - videojournalism profiles

Three years ago, I asked some of my Masters students if they could change one thing what would it be.

It was a simple shoot; a wine red backdrop with a flat light source did the trick.

What I like about it is it's archival quality. Something like this gains more currency as it matures.

A year later, whilst in Cairo I caught up with one of my now, ex-students.

Rania has gone on to become one of the youngest editors, let alone woman editors, in Cairo on an English Language Newspaper that's supplied with the International Tribune.

You can hear what the class of 2005/6 have to say by clicking here

Future spatial navigation - Minority Report

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Now while this looks cool, its the gestures that I'm keen on.

And in time if those gestures can work from speech patterns, then that would be interesting.

Walk into room and tell you pc to give you news on Arsenal, funding and news in brief on international issues on security. And then hey voila!

I spoke to Adam Clayton Powell III some time back, who gave me an insight into the work of his students at the Integrated Systems Center at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of California.

One of the applications, you can see it here, but the sounds not so good.

Students would track buses via satellites. For female students this was immensely desirable as they could stay in doors and see the very moment their bus was drawing up to the bus stop, then calmly walk down stairs.

Jack Bauer - eat your heart out. Actually Powell's students gave 24 the idea.

What's the bet Sky News has this up in a couple of months. Bye bye arcane vid!eo wall huh

OMG - Video journalism what!

I have been somewhat tawdry posting in recent days, and it'll probably slacken some more.

The last few days have seen me at the coal face in submitting 5000 words towards my thesis.

Everything from reading newspapers like the Hampshire Chronicle, (HC) from 230 years ago, to more contemporary excursions such as Jenkins H., Convergence Culture Where old and new media collide, New York University Press, 2006.

It's exhausting, because not least it involves challenging paradigms, or making sense of them and thus has involved reading around 50 different books.

Foucalt for instance asks: What is an author and how much is required of them?

In announcing the death of Lincoln, the HC, April 29th,1865, says:
Appalling and astounding news comes from America, such as never before was borne across the Atlantic.

Try such language in today's Times.

The past has very little to do with our busy lives, while we try and make do with the 'here and now'. But history throws up so many answers for how we might cope with events.

Nothing you could say is new.

It's relevant to politicians, which is why President-to-be Obama has recommended to his newly formed cabinet that they read the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. An item on this was broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today this morning.

New tools
New tools give us new ideas to cope, or even help us push ahead with new methodologies and there are copious questions still warranting attention within the media and journalism.

This morning two emails that should help provide an insight into how we are developing and the trends abreast came through.

Sadly and understandably I won't be able to talk about the matter, if any, until after the events.

But the first, International Video journalism Awards will give an indication of the trends in video journalism, while the RTS, Royal Television Society Innovation Awards, will illustrate other trends in innovation.

In both cases I've been invited to judge submissions.

Competitions like the aforementioned act as a repository for a wide pool of work, but we also know there's untold untapped talent who don't take these routes, for a number of reasons.

We find them online or stumble across their work. And as the web blooms farther and farther, and new talent enters the fray, its important they play the game: blog, twit, deli. and the likes, and aggregate with kith and kin.

You don't need validation belonging to any number of portal sites. Get involved yes, but then build your own citadel.

What becomes of interactivity and video journalism?

Creativity at the Smart Lab this Friday - inventing the future

I'm sat behind my terminal writing up 5,000 words to add to my thesis, then I went searching for references and came across this text right at the bottom of this post. It made me chuckle.

Its context is my starry-eyed talk I gave at the National Press Club in DC. Here one of the judges, Mark Hinojosa describes what happened as he was about to turn in for the night.

Now, I have to say this text I have included here has little to do with self -sycophancy, but more the experience of Mark's son and the notion of judgement, which is highly subjective.

Because, because you will or have probably built something and the odd person, sometimes, even quite a few people will pooh pooh it.

We all make great critics, but ultimately if you think you've got a hang on what you're doing and the audience, persevere.

That's not to say we shouldn't take advice. I do all the time. The wisdom of crowds is a great lecturer; one that's deployed at the smart lab all the time.

But rule 1 of creativity is you may not be able to please everyone all the time, so sometimes it pays to trust your instinct.

Like others, I have had the rare opportunity to work with some fabulous people in my broadcasting career, in some of the most respected broadcast companies e.g radio, TV, advertising, design.

Yet often posts over solo vjism or multiskilling often yield an interesting stream of emails.

Firstly, it's as if one is mutually exclusive to the other and secondly, that as a multiskilled journalist you can't master the "inception to air" work flow, which once involved five/six people.

You can, I'm still learning, but it will become a contracted cycle in this meta-existence age.

One day a pod might just shoot off to mars with one astronaut doing the whole navigation and cruising.

If you believe in technological determinism then this is the space which is expanding and reshaping what we do.

So this week I'll be heading off to the Future lab play shop, where everyone and anyone mixes and mashes it up and supposedly creates more mayhem. Nice mayhem, if you know what I mean.

Here's Mark :

Mark Hinojosa:
I have to admit that the first time I saw this when we were judging – they send out the entry list to the judges and we look at them at home – it was about the 20th thing I had seen and I was about to bag it for the night. And I got to David’s site and went, “Damn, this is interesting.” So I went and got my 14-year-old son, sat him down and said, “What do you think?” And I watched him navigate this, totally caught up in it. I mean he was just flying through it, reading some of it, clicking on it, making me think this has got something to show me.

I really encourage you to go visit this site, viewmagazine.tv, because one of the things that you’ll find in it is that David does a lot of the things we don’t do in traditional media. It’s a very point of view piece. There’s a lot of opinion. It’s very first person. It’s very much following the reporter’s experience through the situation. So you’re caught up in the storyteller aspect, not as the objective outsider looking down or the fly on the wall looking in on it, but as a participant moving through the experience. I find that very engaging, and I think it’s something that you all will find engaging, too.

More here

Condoleezza Rice - how luvely

BBC News presenter Fiona Bruce's bonhomie isn't always so expressive, so what did she mean with her quip about US Secretary of state Condoleeza Rice?

Ms Rice, a concert pianist, was today performing for the queen, whilst her Brit Counterpart David Milliband's opposite half was on the violin in the quintet.

The piece ended with Ms Bruce exclaiming: "How Nice!".

Was this Brit sarcasm at its ironic best or did Ms Bruce truly appreciate the spectacle?

Either way, I couldn't help giggling at the screen thinking: "don't you just love the English language?"

Are you a blogging linguist - Chapeau blogawards blogohpedia

Chapeau blogawards blogohpedia are looking for new and exciting words to do with the nomenclature of blogging and those that get accepted are given an opportunity to take part in the 2009 Chapeau Blog Awards competition.

So far some of the entries include:

• Blogcott - Boycott of a product or activity initiated on a blog and spread throughout the blogosphere by linking from one blog to another.
• Bloggernaut - One who spends a great deal of time in blogland
• Togger - A blogger who blogs about clothes and fashions.
• and my own 5 O'clock alpha waves thinking, Vlog Butterfly.

There's still a number of letters that need submissions, as well as existing ones that could do with that oft-thought obscure word, such as blagger, which I would have thought is a blogger who's very persuasive at getting their own way.

BTW it's also a Brit term around the same description.

or TWOCKER - a crim reference in the UK, but would do as a blogger taking without consent.

Anyways here's their details. Better hurry up as it's complementary before the 1st december for getting your word in and entering the awards

VJ awards deadline - a new style of videojournalism?

Video journalism the "it" thing at the moment.

Is there a new style set to emerge?
Will its maturity yield a new taxonomy?
Are the rules of video journalism specific to regions?
Do you need to put stand ups in the form?
And how can Vjism bring about a more expansive, credible, and innovative form of journalism in the wake of media closures?

While these specifics may not be answered, the entrants to the VJ Awards 2008/9 may give some clue to video journalism's maturity and direction.

The competition closes on the 1st of December from its already extended deadline. Your chance to win some cash and get noticed, but you'd better hurry with less than 24 hours to go.

Go here VJ Awards 2008/9

The amazing Angela Grant - Interview

Picture by John Davenport from Angela Grant's portfolio

Coming up this week, a video interview with the amazingly talented and humble multimedia journalist, Angela Grant.

Angela's site News Videographer has become required reading for anyone practicing multimedia and video journalism. It's a people's site, with Angela moderating.

I'm a big fan and caught up with her in Chicago, when she was a training at Camp VJ.

She's self-effacing and shoots way way above the time she's spent in her job, and like the pro she is admits she's still learning.

It never stops.

The interview I'll post either tomorrow or Tuesday is us ( Angela, Rob Montgomery an I) talking over dinner. It's a bit noisy, but Angela's answers engage you so much, you'll soon forget about it.

I shot it on my small palm size Canon stills camera. The following day I did a more considered interview on the Sony A1, which I'll have to fish out some time.

There are a few choice moments in this interview coming up.

On two occasions Rob an I get into a spirited discussion about Angela as if she wasn't there.

David: Angela are you being magnanimous?
Rob: I don't think she's being disingenuous
David: No, no, I didn't mean that.
Rob...

Meanwhile, Angela's looking on bemused as these two idiots (us) then look at her and realise what we're doing.

I'd love that as many students watch this only because, it's incredible when you realise Angela's been a multimedia journalist for two years, yet as I put it, it seems like she's been around for ever, which starts off another amusing dialogue between Rob and I.

Anyways, the amazing Angela Grant coming soon.

Have camera, will travel; travelogue Video Journalism and the Kwa.

Have camera, will travel - Travelogue Journalism.

Looking through my tapes, I came across quite a few labeled: Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Norway, UK and so on and realised they 're travelogue tapes from some of my travels, which I just haven't had the time to put together.

Undoubtedly, a key outlet for video journalism are programmes about travel and adventure.

Way back at Channel One, one genius of a Vj, Dan Rowland, made travelogue programmes his own.

Dan had that something that made you miss dinner to watch him: a vital point, as whilst anyone can be a VJ, not everyone has that kwa quality.

Dan Rowland covered Europe as a soloVj on a programme called Eurodan. The shot on the far left from 1995 shows Dan as one of the first VJs to perfect the walking Stand up/ piece to Camera.

The kwa - you can't buy or fake it, yet it's something an audience implicitly knows you have or don't and the more personal the programme the more the audience relies on the kwa to make sense of you.

And yes often the audience can be divided, but by and large that kwa is something that you can spot: a natural born performer and often it lurks amongst those who often are unaware of their star quality - that chemistry.

Have you got the Kwa
Dan was belly-ache funny. In the flesh, he was extremely like able, but give him a camera and he was Harry ''the travelogue-artist" Houdini Magic!

If Michael [ Rosenblum] can recall there were many times he had everyone in stitches and if I'm right Micheal wouldn't have said no to Dan joining his outfit. BTW if you haven't seen Michael's kwa [presenting], do

Some people have the kwa. And for some people the kwa takes up the room even before they enter.

Online, Amanda Congdon's kwa was certainly presenting Rocketboom, Christiane Amanpour's is in the front line of wars; and Noemi Hernandez, a News presenter on Spanish TV, a Masters student two years ago irradiates kwa personality.

I once met and shook hands with ABC's great Peter Jennings when I was news producer for ABC News in South Africa.

Peter Jennings was Kwa personified.

You can have many attributes:

• great reporting voice [incidentally have I told you the story about eating chocolates before going on air]
• great creative skills
• great reporting face, and they all matter

but without the kwa, well?

And the kwa is one of those things that can be hard to pin down. But, but, you do begin to develop an eye for it, working around others who have that 3rd eye.

And when you do it's instinctive. A creative music producer will tell you, that s/he can sense something in the opening bars, and take out their cheque by the chorus.


Looking for the kwa

Me, aged 11 at boarding school in Ghana. Check out the Michael Jackson "Off the Wall" pose. An appeal for the kwa?


In my broadcasting days, I led such a peripatetic life working with some key producers and directors within Channel 4, and BBC that I could see how commissioners made subjective judgements hiring around the elusive kwa.

Whilst working at the BBC, the editor of fabulously hipster Def II programme would tell us the reporting crew: "look straight down the lens and flirt with your girlfriend/boyfriend. Huh!

Believe me though if you weren't up for it, you got shown the front door.

In radio, one of my all time radio producer editors [BBC Radio 4] would say slow down and speak in your natural voice and just be yourself. If you had the kwa, you'd know.

I don't know that we (my co-presenter Cheryl Simms and I ) had it but we managed two years presenting on BBC GLR. Often it's easy to develop a chemistry kwa with a co-presenter which is why a lot shows double-head.

Rob Montgomery from Visual Editors has a wonderful mellifluous Kwa radio voice.

And then in teaching, some people have the kwa. They walk into a room and it's "nuff respect".

Ade a music lecturer at the University of Westminster consistently has herograms scribbled on a cards telling him how *****ing brilliant he is. Ahh the power of the kwa.

TV and agents work on the premise of a limiting the supply of Kwa-ites that way we the TV audiences are forever left wanting more.

Online obviously it's a different matter, and even if you can't don't have the kwa, you can always count on the long tail. Some one's bound to like you.

Travelogues are such personal essays, that the danger is what you might find interesting may not have the same value outside your immediate group of friends.

And if you have a nasal voice or a Tyson lisp, that might just prevent your kwa quality from shinning through.

Media is such a harsh terrain, particularly if you plan on being in front of the camera on TV.

Developing the kwa.

Some people have a knack of spotting the kwas.

A talent scout, your mother, Mr Jones - the second grade teacher. Sometimes those who've lived the life have a leg over, but that doesn't guarantee they'll be right, which is why critics and the public can be divided over a talent.

We may not like Simon Cowell, from American pop idol and X-factor, but more often than not, he's got the Kwa x-rays working.

So what do you do if you think you don't have it, but want it? Well a couple of things.

• Weekend acting classes - just for fun, but it'll bring you out of your shell and give you confidence and let us assess your strengths. Yes even though you want to work in TV!
• Work with Talent - Get Grandmothered or grandfathered as we say. Find someone who has the kwa and seek mentor ship. News presenters like Trevor MacDonald could pass on an encyclopedia of tips that gives you more chutzpah on air/online.
• Get your friends and yourself to be brutally honest. Thinking yourself brilliant is no bad thing, but then finding out you're not making any headway can be shattering.
• And don't worry about it, you can work behind the scenes making programmes - sod the kwa.
• And finally, be yourself. This media, online blah blah blah is transient. Fame is transient. There are no rights ( semantically) and wrongs - just opinions.

But here's a leaf I think comes out of Peter Jennings Kwa quality. Be humble. The bigger you get, the more humbler it pays to become.


Now what about those tapes from Jordan?

Mmm still can't find the time. But did you know spending an evening in the desert where it's deathly silent; no sound at all, is very eery. Whrreerr!

Politics - the whiff of a bad scent

A British politician is investigated by the police. They visit his home searching for evidence. His daughter is said to witness the event and is distraught. His wife is distraught.

The politician is held for questioning for 9 hours on the basis:

"on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office".

He denies any wrong doing.

The police, Special Branch, continue their search at the House of Commons;think the offices of a congressman as the equivalent.

The Home Office Minister makes it clear that Police independence is paramount and that the investigation is into a a series of breaches, systematic leaks from within a government department which handles sensitive information.

Did the home office minister grant the warrant for the search. She is not committed. But denies any involvement in the case.

Will she apologise for the way in which the police went about investigating causing distress to his family.

She does not commit. It is a police investigation.

Rightly or wrongly, there is a bad whiff about this.

Read here for one of the UK's most respected journalist's Joshua Rozenberg's take on this case. Very interesting indeed.

In the late 90s/ early 2000s I worked as a producer on a political programme edited by Andrew Brown, the brother of Gordon Brown, Prime Minister. Politics can often be predictable at the best of times, but I was wondering how we'd get our teeth into this, if the programme was still running.

Video Journalism at play

http://www.viewmagazine.tv/videojournalism_conf.html: what is video journalism?

Video journalism is the Bauhaus of television's news' pictures - a shift away from the staid 3:6:9 approach television has stuck to doggedly.

At its best use it usurps the ideal of standardised pictures, discarding order and predictability instead for self expressionism and a leaning towards auterism.

As a movement the form merges a graphical and photo journalistic stanza; a poster cover depiction of the moving image, where each shot matters, each shot counts.

If Capa lived to capture images on light- weight, hi-tech cameras, he'd be the classic video journalist and his dictum that if you're not close enough you haven't got the shot would still count.

Unlike television news, VJism mimics the language of film making [cine-vjism], itself predicated on the frame-image[ c.f storyboarding]

**The New Rules **

Vloggers, video bloggers, will undoubtedly rule the net and indeed lead the charge in video journalism: their short, sometimes idiosyncratic, deliverables well suited for a medium in which time is compressed.

It's acknowledged that video journalism has its roots in a number of early forms; the advent of film itself, yet more specifically from the likes of Slim Hewitt, a one man camera man/producer at the BBC in the 60s.

The use of video VHS, hi-8, and early digicams predates the meta-trans-digital age, which has seen video journalism come into its own, yielding divergent nascent forms.

Here, increasingly the construct of factual based features is being tested with offerings from solo VJ. Simply placing a television hit online, does not guarantee success.

The rules of contraction apply, as does manipulating the exposition in the visual essay.

Today in the new paradigm, video telling is also influenced by the paradigm and socialness of the web; the way we write, consume text, spider key words and inhabit the virtual world.

The equipment, whilst important takes ebbs in importance between primary and secondary importance. Knowing what you want without waste and eschewing churnalism is the key.

The USP is flexibility, individuality, immediacy and being light on feet.

Continued..

Video journalism is not a one-size-fits-all.

NB In Nick Davies' Flat Earth Video journalism is mentioned and how it's being used in Churnalism. Practising reporters/video journalists simply don't have enough time to double up on stories leading.

This was always going to be one of the dangers of video journalism from an exec's point of view. Here, in this report, one UK regional newspaper made the decision that VJs would not write articles and VJ at the same time.

Creative affairs at Wemedia

Been over at Wemedia - game changers - and in browsing came across the ff, which is pretty neat/cool/ok. You know what I mean.

Zefrank.com's Social network for two - Groovy animation against sing along track

Peter Gabriel's social news see it, film it, change it : Witness.org

Out of this world creatures. think Darwin meets disney: Spore

Giving to a cause and looking hip doing it: social vibe

If something's out there, beyond our galaxy - you'll likely discover the answer here: Seti

What can't you say about the Huffington Post? Obama go

For more good stuff go to Wemedia GameChangers . I'll post some more tomorrow

Damn it watch this. Iraq montaged through film and pics: reuters

Adieu she says

.. and so to another colleague who has just left the BBC to set up, I wish her all the very best.

18 years with the BBC, in almost all of the current affair departments.

Is she missing it. No she says.

After a while you cross the proverbial rubicon.

You either stay the course for the long game, the news animal you are.

Or you cut your losses and bail.

At 40 plus, the news beast hasn't got less ravenous and you aren't so zippy.

As another BBC bod put it, whom I now work with. I achieved everything I knew I could.

Now that's every reason to move on.

Now he's taking stock, a broadside view of the industry, and has a few ideas to impart.

Video journalism - BBC Interview. Deconstructing the snatch multiple angle videojournalism interview

Results - How to create a multiple angle interview in 3 mins from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

This is the interview above. And below a second camera shows how I made it. Here's some more tips below.



Untitled from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

David interviews Mary Hockaday, deputy head of BBC Newsroom

The r-o-interview which in Video Journalism stands for Reverse, over the shoulder, interview is one of the quick fire interviews every VJ should have as part of their kit of tips and tools.

In the second interview you see me move the camera to two outside -the-zone locations.

In most interviews that will do, though as you'll see from the further links to interviews below, there are at least four more spots to increase the arc of the film.

The arc of th film refers to creating a level of interest before the film flattens. It's a Hollywood term, as much.

At the point I ask a question, there's an L cut or split edit, so the impression is created that indeed the camera on me constitutes a second lens. In this instance I haven't crossed the line, but in many cases I do, but it's still hard to spot because of the parrallex affect.

Essentially crossing the line is a visualisation stunt the brain has difficulty rationalising. Done well however and it works to make your film more creative.

Watch Bourne or any of the contemporary films and you'll see how creatively it's done.


Deconstructing video Journalism some more
I have played with the gamma and some other areas to give the video a false sense of depth of field thus mimicing 16mm.

I have also constructed a slow zoom. This is for two reasons.

Firstly, the zoom , a movement-image affects the pace of the film. Remember the arc again.

Secondly, I'm masking what is not obvious in the film, a jump cut and the extraneous use of the hand held microphone.

If you look on the second video, you'll see where I have positioned the mic. Yep right next to me. This is where the purists lament my basic lack of techniques.

But the mic you see in question has no function for the interview.

It's what the interpreters on the left side of the screen are listening to for their translation to Russian, French, Serb etc. Sorry I should have explained, we're at an international seminar.

To a lay person therefore the microphone looks out of sorts so I have hidden it altogether.

It took 5 mins odd, 3 mins to edit, and 5 mins to upload. I spend 20 mins rendering the effects attached to the video.

If I had archive of Mary I would have dropped that into the film. It adds value, but has to be relevant to the subject.

Here, below are examples of interviews using tripods etc. For hand held and tagging interviews, hopefully another gig will come up when I can show how that works.

Interview Yahoo's VP for Product Strategy, Bradley Horowitz.

Interview Rachel North, who survived 7/7 bomb in London. An example of a quick snatch interview. We were on the same panel and I spoke to her soon afterwards.

By the way, there are no controls on this video. If you used Flash before 2004, then you would have noticed Flash did not have a player system. I'll redo this interview with a player at some point.

David Dunkley Gyimah is a jury member for the RTS Innovation Awards 2009 and International Video Journalism Awards in Berlin 2009. Currently a lecturer, he's been a broadcaster since 1987  working on programmes like Newsnight, Channel 4 News and ABC News ( South Africa) and has been a video journalist since 1994.  More

Inquest for BBC Reporter shot in Mogadishu leads to admonition from Coroner

The story of Kate Peyton is tragic. Very sad indeed, both for her family and friends and for the people she worked with at the BBC.

No one who enters journalism suspects they might pay with their life.

Kate was 39 years old from Suffolk. The circumstances surrounding her death were heard at an inquest today.

The outcome, reported on BBC News, the coroner would be writing to the BBC requesting that journalists are not put under pressure to prove their loyalty to the organisation working in risky areas.

Kate, it's reported was a talented journalist and producer who had first worked in Africa in 1995 and was nearing the end of her contract.

So it would have been likely she felt she had to take the assignment, a colour piece for BBC World Service Television in Mogadishu, to demonstrate her commitment.

The Guardian reports Peyton told a friend, she was "always reluctant to go to Somalia".

The BBC it's repiorted felt the "colour piece" was important.

Kate was shot and killed a few hours arriving in Mogadishu coming out of a car.


In the line of duty
A couple of CNN documentaries including "journalist killed in the line of duty", give some idea about the perils of reporting in hot spots.

And the de facto ambitions [ I don't mean this in a bravado way, journalists want to do their best] of journalists, and the need for media corporations to extend their coverage means there is always a risk factor.

Joburg April 1994 - a bomb blast in the capital

In this picture here on the eve of South Africa's troubles, Barry Sandland a journalist [on my right], now international web editor for MSF was recently stabbed in the chest in downtown Joburg. It just missed his heart.

Richard [ far right] who was visiting me, I'd warned to be careful as he went for a walk. He got mugged at knife point.

And I had a few scrapes myself. The shots in the towsnhips and centre of town, and completing a night time ride in the murder capital of the world Katlehong, running around Soweto, as a journalist I interviewed emptied a whole clip of bullets into a potential carjacker.

He reported himself to the police who duely told him when he enters three clips ( a clip carries 7 bullets) then he had something to worry about.

But I was young and still had my nine lives and as a freelancer wanted to impress my editors back in London.

Kate was by all measures highly experienced.

In 2003, a 24 year old video journalist Richard Wild was killed as he stood on a traffic island waiting for a taxi. As reported in the Guardian, it's unclear whether he was targeted because he was a reporter as he was not carrying a camera at the time.

Observer senior reporter Jason Burke is reported saying he'd visited a Palestinian refugee camp, and excited at filming the whole thing himself "thought it was going to be his big break".


Tough Call
It's a difficult call. At a time when jobs are scarce, many journalists will feel inclined to raise their hands to undertake the assignment many others might shy away from.

Rageh Omar, now famous, was young in his career, when he freelanced from East Africa with considerable risk. I knew him well as we criss- crossed each other in the corridors of the African service selling our reports.

In reality that assignment could make all the difference to you as a "can-do" journalist and your bosses deciding in committee, you're the right person for the job.

It may even win you an award. Mark Norman, a regional journalist from the BBC, picked up Circom's first video journalism awards for EU broadcasters with a report from Iraq.

There's no doubting Mark's talent, but cowering under a table as insurgents' bombs rained on his location, added to the drama of his award winning video.

There have been many occasions when I have advised freelancers looking for a fillip to their careers to consider reporting from remote areas, whilst at the same time strongly countering with the risks.

And in reality, the deconstruction and dismemberment of media houses means freelancing and finding pockets to report from which aren't crowded may well increase.

Safety schemes and risk assessment programmes will thus become a pre-requesite and even then one's safety can never be fully guaranteed.

Our thoughts go out to those who have been injured, fatally or otherwise for merely wanting to do their job.

• Here for reporters without borders.
• A website/fund has also been set up in memory of Kate .
• Background piece The Guardian - Peyton was not wearing flak jacket
• Committee to defend journalists
• Response from Somalia on the day
  

Is the Guardian going hyper local?

It would be a brilliant tactical move if as reported by Paid Content the Guardian Media Group really is considering starting local news websites around the UK.

It's been barely a week that the UK's regional newspapers loosened their belts and took in a sharp long hale of breath after the BBC's stalled bid for hyperlocal news.

I mentioned newspapers should up their game. United against the BBC it was easier, as separate entities, businesses' with different boardroom strategies, it may not be that simple.

Fiscal tightening, a worsening economy. Now could not be a more worse time to invest in video.

And whilst video journalism is relatively inexpensive compared to a full blown TV Newsroom, an important fact is often overlooked.

That is the capital costs for new inventory will have to be worked against the amortisation of legacy stock.

Change one thing in the equation and you may well have to change a chain of others to ensure an efficient work flow.

Investment matters
But there is instruction the newspapers could take to heart, history unfurling a solution worth looking at.
In May 1846 a group of American newspapers pooled their resources to maximise their range, news gathering from Europe.

Back then the Internet was the catalyst, a Victorian Internet - The Telegraph.

So what if now, online news makers pooled their video.

I understand how video made in Cumbria will be specific to that region, but here's where the VJs rethink more laterally.

The 1st quadrant body of the video could be loose enough to refer to any community. This might give rise to an evolving format, and a new video agency could emerge.

It would foster competition amongst newspaper groups. They'll become their own arbiters of the content and the politics of aesthetic.

To quote an old MIT maxim: demo or die.

The point, doing nothing is probably the worse option and doing something may require cooperation of a kind mustered to take on the BBC.

How much time do the newspapers really have?

When multimedia dreams come true - Yixiang's story

She was like any other international student.

Eager, if not a little unsteady. Willing, if at times somewhat confused.

If it wasn't the bullet-speed variable accented English she had to get used to, it would have been the weather - muggy, grey and oh so uninspiring.

But Yixiang, proud to be in the UK, fulfilling the wishes she harboured for so long, soldiered on.

Yixiang, slight, with an infectious laugh, at first by default, went about things the not-so-easy-way.

I once invaded her privacy enquiring about the province she grew up in China and whether her parents could afford her being in the UK. The question, I suspect at the time had the undertone of.."are you rich?"

The response was courteous and parried. She was like so many other ambitious children, whose parents could just about afford to give their daughter the dream she wanted to pursue: study in the UK.

That's one of the few times I pried into a student's life.

Emerging Yixiang
In the second semester, Yixiang lit up. She became more enquiring. The shy girl was now doing twenty questions with me ever so often.

In fact there were many times when I'd appear in the door way, spot Yixiang and then think "oh no!"

By now Yixiang would have spotted me and made light of the distance between us, with another question.

Yixiang, I just saw you thirty seconds ago with the same question, I would bemoan. We've laughed about it many times since.

Then I'd set about explaining or sending her off to the library for the specific book.

What Yixiang might have lacked in the quick grasp, she more than made up in her undiminshing zeal.

I'm certain if I'd set her a task in the freezing snow, I'd come back three days later to see her persevering to finish the job, with indentions in the snow; more questions.

Last May, she mentioned she was applying for a BBC Scheme. What would they ask? And what did she need?

I listened and it was clear as always she had the answers, but was seeking validation.

You write and I'll check, I mentioned.

I didn't have to. Armed with her blog, her videos, radio packages et al, I would learn later that she ran over her interviewers.

They asked one question and Yixiang turned into a Banshee extolling what she had done and how, and why she needed to be a BBC Intern. She got the place.

Behind Yixiang
What I haven't told you was she was the last interviewee and first saw and applied for the position with a day to spare.

Her BBC mentors spoke highly of her. At the point she was into 3 minutes of her 8 minute soliloquy, they'd decided to giver her the much coveted place.

In final projects, Yixiang, back from the BBC, would burn the candle both ends and was rewarded for it: a distinction.

She had managed to convince some of the best musicians from around the world, studying at the Royal College of Music to film them, write about them, become part of their lives.

The email traffic between herself and interviewees is the stuff of book plots. You don't get to be one of the best musicians in the world by not wanting to control your own PR.

The Now Yixiang
Today I heard back from Yixiang, doing some shifts at a local newspaper nearby, but now, now, she has secured an internship with CNN International.

Many of us teared up. Yes I did as well. Brilliant!

That little shy girl has transformed and continues to do so.

Her willingness to learn and general outlook is intoxicating, and if she will afford me this indulgence, it's something I kicked myself about, attempting to study for my degree having spent many years in Ghana.

And perhaps like Yixiang not quite understanding the environment around me.

So please raise a glass, water-filled even, for Yixiang, and for the triumph of perseverance, the right attitude and that age old mantra - if you want help, you must try and help yourself first.

Last week I received an anonymous email. As I recall that moment I'm smiling now. It was from the RTS, the Royal Television Society, an august body, requesting whether I would be interested in being one of the jury members at the 2009 awards.

I smiled because in my heart I believe in years to come one Yixiang will be emailing me to say she's been invited to judge the extraordinary work of others.

In my heart, there are many Yixiangs, but only one Yixiang and she is testimony that dreams do come true.

I pray and hope her new custodians, CNN, take good care of her.

Class of 2008 - the cool hunters, hire her

pic by david dunkley gyimah

One of the Cool Hunters I have tipped to do great things in the future. I talked about Alex to the Russian delegates at our media gathering.

Alex was one of our Masters students from last year. Fiercely independent, creative and not afraid to get stuck in.

She went off to Georgia just before it kicked off to make her final project doc.

She speaks fluent Russian, Chinese and English.

Hire Her.