DOES TELEVISION JOURNALISM HAVE A FUTURE – AND DOES IT MATTER?

Before he left to join google, Newsnight's Peter Barron gave me this interview.

The write up goes as follows:

"With ad revenue in freefall, the BBC licence fee under severe pressure and online news sources rapidly expanding, this session will examine whether we need – or can any longer afford – journalism on the small screen".

DOES TELEVISION JOURNALISM HAVE A FUTURE – AND DOES IT MATTER intones the programme.

The Chair of this debate, bringing together experts in the industry and academia at the university where I lecture in the 19th & 20th of May, is Nick Pollard, former Head of Sky News.

He's joined by:

• Helen Boaden, Director of BBC News
• Simon Bucks, Associate Editor, Sky News
• Dorothy Byrne, Head of News and Current Affairs, Channel 4
• Robin Elias, Managing Editor, ITN

My head of journalism, the principle organiser suggested he would like me to join the panel, logistics and events on the day allowing. He spotted something, that feeling perhaps he needed an outsider.

The Journalist Outsider
I'm the outsider. I'll explain.

Firstly, nothings broken! Producing a conference of this size with the said contacts is a herculean exercise in VIP contact management and value. Not least getting all your experts' diaries free on the day, so we'd want to be there. I'd like to be there.

There's also no doubting that between this august line-up the audience will be drawn a vision, a reality of broadcasting in the future, which will be deeply knowledgeable and insightful.

But you could also subscribe to McLuhan's notion of :
If you want to know about the water why ask a fish.

The panelists will be talking about TV journalism, so we're on diamond-hard Terra ferma.

But if there is a threat to TV News, if there is an alternative, if the net has something up its sleeve what do the alternatives have to say?

There are three broad threats to TV News: technological, creative, and financial. Though financial is a linked the two.

For the technological threat, shareware platforms, play out services such as the BBC iplayer and the rest, like many I have an informed view, but I'm not in the lab and wouldn't know how to calculate the ohms variance on a capacitor from writing code.

For that then I'm not the right person. If you follow my posts you'll know I'm passionate about videojournalism, multimedia and innovation, whether in the production process alone or its application to television.

I have worked in TV, know most of the panelists by sharing a stage with them at past conferences or worked for them, so like so many people could provide an intelligible view, but I'd easily defer to the MIT technologist or TV Execs calling their IT board level strategic meeting.

If 2005 was the apotheosis of heightened TV exec nerves (what is this thing with social networks?), 2009, despite the C.crunch is a more assured time for TV to take stock.

A Clearer TV Journalism Future?
How? Well in part most of the foresight technologies that threatened in 2005 are now here. New ones continue to emerge, but truthfully nothing is, or was as devastating as Youtube. Nothing appears to threaten that dominance and destabilise the present equilibrium.

Now everyone knows what everyone else knew back in 2005. Sky has rolled out an ambitiously successful web service, Channel 4's highly unique show is on the web, as is ITN's.

And the BBC has recently turned its newsroom into a multimedia one (an exclusive video interview and tour follows shortly with the BBC's head of Multimedia News, Mary Hockaday). Embed video is no longer a fad and then there's the Iplayer for good measure.

So like I said informed knowledge:

• I worked under the chair of this session, Nick Pollard for a number of years and interviewed him recently.
• Julian March Sky's supremo for their web manifestations showed me some of what he had planned at Sky way three years back. Simon Bucks I have met many times. Here he is inspecting my Sony A1 camera at an ONA meeting.
• Some time back, I met with Robin Elias at ITN to assist in a programme I had in mind. I worked at ITN for a couple of months, and spent many good days of five years at Channel 4 News freelancing.

Six degrees there, connecting everyone, Not so an outside after all? But I am.

My Views
I have an onotological belief.

That whilst the web has been a major player and all the networks occupy the space, and the value of their content has not diminished in news terms.

In fact, as a jury member judging their output at this year's Royal television Society Awards for Broadcast Innovation I would say the bar has been raised. However my belief which qualitatively I'm exploring is that this is not it.

Bound by semiotics, with one eye on social behaviour, creatively there are horizons we could touch now to strengthen this thing called news. To that trend extrapolations, and various qualitative procedures yield something which my gut's been feeling.

Last year the BBC failed in its bid to launch local broadband networks to support its brand of videojournalism. The BBC will pitch again and I reckon win.

Video journalism offers, or at least should do, a new language of information enlightenment. It's value is not so much its speed, economics, or swift turnaround but as viewers will know from my magazine www.viewmagazine.tv, something within the vein of rich media.

Videojournalism also allow for a levelling of the news agenda. Ti's the night of long so far in the UK with thinly sheathed knives out.

The mix of old journalism and the new
The Telegraph, a newspaper, has with good old fashion journalism demonstrated in sequel upon sequel the public's insatiable thirst for the story of the year, thus far: MPS expenses. This news could be strengthened further with quick turnaround vj docs, which would also broaden the agenda.

Incidentally is the word TV becoming redundant with this congealing of different bodies e.g newspapers online, Manchester Evening News, The Guardian?

TV News will stay, but I'm equally interested in how the web and Now journalists work in new discourses and news that has the value of that sweeping us at the moment. The death of regional newspapers, for which many TV outfits depend is in itself an issue.

On a train recently I over heard a passenger, an employee of a municipal council in South London lambast their uselessness. A prime territorial ground for journalism, fact gathering, and videojournalism, I thought.

The future of News is not so much that it won't be on TV, but that it will continue to attract viewers by the nature of what they cover and how.

Regional, closer-to-home TV will increasingly matter and the way we do it for TV does not necessarily make it work online. I guess that's what makes me an outsider.

Either way Journalism in Crisis at the university of Westminster, you should be there, Otherwise here's the link for viewing online on the 2 days and the blog from students.

Is photography future the video frame grab?

Esquire ups the ante in picture aesthetic. No not the model!

It was always going to happen and has been on the cards for yonks with newspapers grabbing TV frames.

Occasionally it draws ire from the photojo community, but as this shot from Esquire which prides itself on glossy pics demonstrates, the video frame is not to be sniffed at.

Yes, according to Esquire this is a video frame as opposed to a photo pic, which is likely to prompt scores of plenary sessions and conferences asking: Is photography's future the video frame grab?

There's a good article on the Nieman Journalism Lab site revealing what the snapper used: a Red Camera

My two pence for the relationship between videojournalism and photography goes something like this:

I worked with a Nato-assigned photojo. In his own words he hated video cameras. He couldn't see the "moment" when using video. As a videojournalist we exchanged notes. Videojournalism for me, I told him, was a dynamic flux between the instant, situating oneself to anticipate the inter frame, the "visual moment" and prompting the appropriate narrative, where applicable. e.g. anti aesthetic VJ shoot
I do a lot of work now with some amazing photojos, e.g. Yannis Kontos, who get the video moment as well which can yield interesting results c.f. pixels without borders

Incidentally with a dop adapter to small handheld cam like the sony a1, I'm quite ofay with this cine-look here, which will get even better in the future.

Burma VJ

Many congrats to 'Burma VJ', by filmmaker Anders Østergaard, which unveils how a Burmese video journalist reported Burma in September 2007.

And the form still has bags of cinematic license in story telling to go, but Anders points the way.

In 2000 whilst relaunching the form we called this swarming, mass cameras released and then cannibalised for its content

It changed our world and we cried anyway

Car seat belt.
The volvo PV544 had the first belt in 1959, but the resistance to wearing it en mass had to be enforced with laws. It was the Czechs that led the way in 1969 and despite speed dummies being pounded to show the damage we incur in accidents, we resisted. Despite the lives it saved, we cried about its introduction anyway.


Sneakers
Produced in the 1800 from a simple rubber sole design, in the 30s two brothers began to build their own franchise after differences: Adidas and Puma. Initially targeted at athletes, before it became fashionable, your parents would have resisted buying you a pair because of its extravagance. Shoe makers stored up their own anger fearing a dip in sales; some made their shoes look like trainers, and still do. During the NY transit strike of 1980s as people were forced to walk miles between Queens and Manhattan, the sneaker really took off. Despite its obvious benefits to our feet, we cried about the second shoes we needed to buy.

Planes
The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell, played by Gary Cooper chronicled the trials of Mitchell's attempts at proving the worth of air flight and air power. The Wright brothers were having their own battles with the military, who were initially dumbfounded at this contraption and its possible use. But the Wrights and Mitchell persevered. They needed the funding, which only the military with deep pockets could provide. In spite of what we think of about planes today, our best brains back in the early 1900s lamented its introduction.

Channel Tunnel
An hour and a bit travel to Paris from London sounds a no brainer, but mooting the idea of a channel tunnel, circa 1870s, brought red to the eyes of the exec sea farers. Building a tunnel would not only not work, but it would be highly unsafe to travel beneath the sea and open up Britain for invasion. Also think what would happen if there was a leak. Despite this the channel tunnel finally burrowed through. Can't think what we'd do without it, but the sea execs still wish it wasn't here.

Printing Press
Aw shucks you know that story, except Guggenheim, whilst he was the first, wasn't the only one at it and the keepers of the Christian faith were apoplectic some businessman had wrestled power away from them.

The Internet.
The whole planet is interconnected - a new electromagnetic cloud to worry about. Newspapers were last seen in museums. P-interfaces using souped up blue tooth allow you to vocally call up your requests on your system. The wwp (philanthropic) has made funds available for micro payments to be credited to your account as a content provider, after the top 20,000 leading newsproviders protested by turning their screens black for a day. It's believed a bit like the Marshall Plan at some point the slush fund will be work itself and people accept paying micropayments for content. Pubs, clubs and scores of outdoor venues relay films to their clients on virtual screens. The world has not collapsed as feared. Webernalism has usurped journalism - a system that loops in and out with info. Despite all this we lamented the introduction of this new thing.

It is within our nature to reisist the new. It's happened through out history and will continue, and we survive.

Barack Obama: 100 days (live event, London)

Barack Obama: 100 days (live event, London)

QT movie of live video projection at the Purcell Rooms, South Bank Centre (UK) to accompany the original live score of emerging talented composer and conductor Shirley Thompson and a classical ensemble.

This piece was nerve wrackingly put together with hours to spare after the White House's Pete Souza made available pics under creative commons.

Additional material from Obama campaign site.

It looks like Sound Slides but was cut in FCP using key frames to give it rostrum movement.

For more details on the making on this and other multimedia features go to viewmagazine.tv

Young people plead the future

Stay with this. You're inclined to initially think Schmutlzy, or what a young person has to offer in the debate over climate and the environment. If the authors here ever want to turn this into a cinema Videojournalism piece, I'm ready.

Thanks to noemi for the link

Art videojournalism -Why the Arts and websites should embrace art-videojournalism

24 hour news at an end says former Sky News boss Nick Pollard from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

You have to give credit to the suits, for the primacy of video programme making as a commodity to sell invariably boils down to news.

Trouble is it's transient, often too transient. When was the last time you kept a newspaper. No wait! If you're like me, almost everyday.

Today I threw away video and design magazines and a small mountain of newspapers dating back to 1999.

But I digress, my point is the journalism in video, as in videojournalism can be a swift transaction that takes a lot of effort to sate the appetite, with not the best of returns, literally.

Fifteen years ago, we came by the same answer, so the videojournalism station I worked for diversified and some of its popular and non-transient programmes involved arts and culture (A&C).

For the Vjs we could be more creative with the form. For the listeners a chance to have us respond to ideas featured in their local newspapers or quite often sent in. Yep social programming circa 1990s

I never quite understood how important A&C was in the early phase of my broadcast career, but over the years have looked to consume much I can get my hands on, because as you likely know more than I do, everything we do is seeped in A&C.

It's an unbroken timeline, unless you count dark ages.

From the Internet, a revised version of the Victorian telegraph; to news of import captured in their own way by the artists of their time e.g. Caravaggio and Velasquez, A&C is our DNA.

Today, the Guardian newspaper featured: Culture on Television: a lost art? The article illustrates how the disappearance of a major Arts TV programme, The South Bank, is bad news, and asks whether digital channels could provide an alternative.

Arts - Videojournalism's Ratings Winner
Should media execs and newspaper proprietors be concerned? Why yes! For one thing, done right it's a ratings winner.

"When you read the annual report it's the arts programmes that create value, our content is at the heart of what we do", says Channel 4's arts commissioner Jan Younghusband.

Another quote in the article that caught my attention was how "Arts organisations are becoming producers". This indeed is nothing new. But the use of video reportage is relatively a newcomer.

Reporting the arts as a videojournlist is less about the revolution about doing all by oneself, but about relating context and providing a hmmmm insight for others. It's not news, yet can be, so calls on creative video productions and a clarity in reportage.

Somehow the more knowledgeable and worldly you sound the more we're inclined to embrace you, which is why Sister Wendy Becket could become a hit almost overnight. Er, no she's not a videojournalist.

During the summer, I have a number of ideas for the South Bank centre, our own august arts body. Out of the blue last year I produced a report about the Arts and TV and that was well received, but I also intend to illustrate how the brand of videojournalism I have been honing over the years attempts to in some way treat some news events artistically e.g interviews etc.

Why?

Because it goes back to the matter of primacy of video making as a commodity, that hopefully the it's something you're likely to come back to watch again and adds value to the quality of news.

It's all in the pitch - videojournalism freelancing

There's a scene in Black Hawk Down where a nerdy Ewan Macgregor's character explains to a bewildered superior about how the taste of coffee is all in the grind. He's not wrong!

But it had me thinking at the art of story telling Videojournalism, or otherwise and that it's all in the pitch.

As the number of videojournalists explodes, they'll come a time when just as a features editor may commission a writer, it's likely they'll set out their stall for videojournalists to offer stories.

Channel 4's news film fund already does that, not discriminating against full crews or Videojournalists, in so far as the story is right.

And you don't get to the story, without the pitch.

Last week I had the task of listening and reviewing 24 of our Masters students. A post is not the forum to discuss how they fared, but they will know the emphasis we place on this.

Pitching is an art form, and differs across genres, but the basic principle is the same.

In roughly 10 seconds you're going to tell a story that's going to light your listener's fire. In 10 seconds you're going to paint a vivid picture of what could be. In 10 seconds you're going to create an illusion powerful enough for your listener to buy more time from you.

"Uhum tell me more"

Working at Channel 4 News as this recommendation from the Managing Director in 1999 illustrates gave me the chance to observe a facet of pitching and also often refine and make my own.

In fact such is the art of pitching, that I have considered it a chapter in a forthcoming book for a US publisher which is gradually taking shape.

There are two yardsticks that measure the value of a pitch. What is it? And why should I care?

In other words, if you're planning on going for an interview for a media job, chances are you've listened to your potential employer's output and found something to offer that suits their style.

Furthermore, it's got to be a story, which in all likelihood your listener has either not heard before, or you have a unique way of saying it.

Remember it's a pitch, not an exposition of your ability to hold and dispense of a great deal of facts.

And all great stories involve a person or persons you have or will get access to rather than a big themed issue.

And if you're really up to speed you'll spend endless hours sometimes rehearsing it. TV is all about creative ideas and those that know how to speak in that mimetic fashion of experienced pitchers have a career ahead of them.

The video journalists Manifesto.-redux soon

Q. In 1994 the UK launched its first thirty Videojournalists, then about fifteen every three months to 1998, when the station folded. So where are they and why haven't we heard about them? Next month I interview the man who convinced the papers to part with $50m UKPs for the venture.

WHATS' NEVER BEEN DONE AWAITS TO BE DONE

1. I am a video journalist: I crave creativity, loathe that which is predictable. It is my job to look for truth.

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

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

4. When they look at a blank piece of paper they see nothing, when I look at a blank canvas, I see the orgins of motion graphics, film and information coming together.

5. I start a dialogue. My packages can be open ended, begging further questions and dialogue. My work is never done. Each thread leads into a new tapestry of ideas and dialogue, which I relish. Herein lies the possibilities of deep video linking.

More on the videojournalism manifesto

@Sci Fi London - Artificial life to life

Described as "cutting edge science based on experimental evidence", tomorrow I'll be down at SciFi, London at a uniquely stimulating talk before disappearing on a bank hols Monday into my own research.

I'd strongly request you come down to Sci Fi London if you've any interest at peering at the future of the creation of life through artificial and synthetic life forms.

I'm chairing the debate - a fancy way of saying I'll stay the heck away from any dense debate and let them continue uninterrupted. I got a degree in Applied chemistry, not a PHD

So it features some of the most respected figures in their field, two of whom I have come to know as cohorts on my research programme.

Dr Rachel Armstrong talking here about her cytoplasmic manifesto. The nub, gene theory to explain meaning of life is incomplete.

Preview to SCi Fi London - Rachel Armstrong @viewmagazine.tv from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

And then Bruce Damer whose work in simulating life through synthetic organisms has seen him work with Nasa, among others, will present his video.

Here's the line up from the sci fi London Page

Profesor George Attard School of Chemistry, Southampton, whose diverse research activities span the traditional disciplines of physical chemistry/chemical physics, materials science, biochemistry and immunology.

Peter Bentley Popular Science author whose field of interest includes Evolutionary Computation, Engineering Design, Computer Art, and Artificial Life.

Rachel Armstrong SF author and doctor, who has appeared extensively in the media and at international conferences speculating on the future of humankind, non Darwinian techniques of evolution and the challenges of the extra-terrestrial environment.

Barack Obama 100 days - Photojournalism meets videojournalism- UK Concert South Bank

An early pic and video of yesterday's Barack Obama: 100 Days, an original score composed by one of the UK's most talented composer's, conductor's Shirley Thompson.

I'm changing the audio to stereo some point tomorrow. The video sound version here was recorded from the ambient surroundings of the control room.

There's a whole story around the production of the vid, that I'll post over the weekend. For the meantime, front page of Viewmagazine.tv

Video Journalism overall muscle power-speed

Vjism - nimble, less load, small, if you're not fast, what's the point?

It's not that as a videojournalist you'll necessarily be quick. The project has a lot to do with it and I believe so does your experience, which comes from developing a critical eye c.f Cahiers du Cinema.

Truffaut et co studied so much cinema, that they were ready to go it alone sans baggage.

There is no substitute for experience and bloody mindedness. The film isn't finished until its finished and then some.

If you've never done a TDB, till day break, you're missing something.

No I'm being facetious. But a televisual mindset heightened by VJ practice, knowing appropriate short cuts and techniques goes some way in alleviating deadline nerves.

In part and I've had this confirmed by many of the former C1 videojournalists, shooting 2 sometimes 3 stories a day over years, varying from politics to crime quickens the senses.

And there are praxis exercises I use in advanced videojournalism e.g. Track & Rushes, Image-syntax etc. for those who already know how to shoot and are looking for speed.

In Norway, as an exercise approaching an interviewee cold, it took 9 minutes in total from an initial meeting to the interview being online.

Here's one I demoed in Podgorica - Macedonia

Untitled from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

And here's the result with effectively little editing

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

Now there's no bravado in speed if that compromises professionalism. That's not what this is about.

Tomorrow I'm going to test that theory for the umpteenth time again. The Obama Video I have made for the Orchestra will have to be redone in a matter of minutes, as new stronger material has been pledged.

Recent Updates (August 2010)
Lots of interest in this short piece, so I wanted to update you.

The Obama Piece took three hours to do before the main orchestral performance. You can see that on viewmagazine.tv after the preview on the site illustrated below


The issue is a balance between the premeditated which TV often subscribes to; the researched item must fit the shoot, and looking for and interpreting fresh material.

I remember reading a review of Japanese actor-director Takeshi Kitano and his fim Brother in which actor Omap Epps said he was amazed at how many scenes they'd get through in a day. Kitano, shot one scene, got his cover shots and moved on.

Similarly if you liken cinema to a language, as James Motano in How to read a film does, you can begin to understand how n improves ones skills. I have spoke about this at length on other posts. Also see the Matrix Lecture for approaching a subject sideways

So, as I write this, I'm rarely making any mistakes and crossing them out; as I speak to a friend I'm able to string together coherent sentences.

There is no difference, only that constructed in the wilderness of semitotics to the way we may think when we arrive at a scene. I consider myself the same as a newspaper copy editor, able to spot the buried lead.

Speed at the expense of accuracy is one thing; speed; the artists' temperament is quite something else. See you on Viewmagazine.tv

EAT from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

Eat

Survive the fall

"'Come to the edge'. He said. They said, "We are afraid"
'Come to the edge'. He said.
They Came
He Pushed them
And they flew."

Guillaume Apollinaire

It's not how you fall down. Everyone falls. It's how you get up again

现今的录像新闻是一种最先进的电视新闻产品

现今的录像新闻是一种最先进的电视新闻产品，它是可预测的电视新闻作品的一种另一种形式，（而电视新闻从其开始产生时就在顽强的克服自身弱点）。录像新闻是下一个时代的电视新闻：它的新闻制作不受到传统新闻制作模式的限制 － 英国录像新闻记者领头人和录像新闻制作指导，多个国际新闻大奖获得者， viewmagazine网站制作者 David Dunkley Gyimah 说。

David是英国媒体领域的杰出人士，在其22年的职业生涯中，他先后在英国电视广播公司， ITN4频道新闻，ABC新闻和一频道工作，其中一频道是英国第一个录像新闻的电视台。 他运用自己被广泛公认的教学模式已经训练全球上千余记者，这些记者来自与：英国金融时报，芝加哥太阳报，和英国媒体协会。其中在英国媒体协会，他协助并且创办了录像新闻节目。

Barack Obama: 100 days - Video journalism

Nearly there! As featured on Viewmagazine, Shirley Thompson a composer and conductor tipped to be a contributor for London's Olympic 2012.

Shirley has scored an original and oustandingly uplifting piece : Voice of Change, which will be played at the Purcell Room, South Bank Centre, Thursday 30th April 2009 at 7.45 pm.

It fuses, classical, gospel, jazz, drum and beat. Pure magic!

The gathering features the BBC Orchestra; Katherin Jenkins - Opera singer- who's opened a couple of big Rugby games; and Mark de Lisser from the BBC's Last Choir Standing.

I have been asked to make a video accompanying Voice of Change.

There's quite a drama behind how this whole thing is coming together, video n' all. This isn't the place to talk about it, but a Video journalism piece behind the scenes afterwards, might shed some light.

As a footnote, what an amazing thing, amazing thing...

The Big Videojournalism pieces - Successor Generation

Showing on Viewmagazine.tv, one of the videojournalism features made for Network Television, Channel 4 News. South Africa's recent general election provides the currency to look at this feature.

Channel 4 News, could not afford to send a reporter to South Africa, so I explained what I had in mind and paid my way to South Africa, without any gear.

I had about a week to put this together from a standing start. Finding good subjects had its moments. The piece was about the Successor Generation, Young black South Africans- future architects, now custodians of South Africa and the new schism seeping into society.


Gayle had already featured in my BBC radio 4 40 minute documentary. An extraordinary powerful woman, articulate, well respected, and most definitely in my books a future minister.


Itumelang, amazing talent. Then the editor of a youth magazine, now working with some of South Africa's brokers. If you look closely you'll see the camera I'm using: the digibeta 900.

I might be a big fan of small cameras which have their place, but cameras like the Digi 900 give you a breadth of control and texture unparalleled. You'll need to have a good understanding of the camera, white balancing, lenses etc.

At the times of hiring it, the average cost for a digi-beta with the lens I'm using was about $50,000
In Cape Town, Beth, whom I worked with on one of my first features in South Africa circa 1992, Through the Eyes of a Child talks about the problems she still faces.

Bassie, couple of years earlier, she'd been crowned Miss South Africa, and runner up in Miss Universe. But again like all my interviewees a formidable mind. I didn't take as many clips from her as I should have, but packaged here interview later as a self contained one-on-one.

The lengthy feature Seven minutes plus is not as easy at it looks particularly if you're starting out, but my Masters students should probably rest in the knowledge that everything I'm telling them in terms of character building, and exposition plays up here.

This sort of feature could take us up two weeks when I was at the BBC on Reportage with a team. Today, as a videojournalist this should be anything from a day or more depending on the set up.

I'm currently writing a book about my time working across as many broadcast networks and how some of this stuff works. I'll keep you posted :) Drop me a line if you're interested in learning about training programmes.

Gimp your twitter site

In response to earlier post, if you don't have photoshop to spruce up you twitter site, Rob suggest you try GIMP.

I have not used it before. It's free. So what are we waiting for :)

If nothing else passion for what we do

Recently I felt compelled to recount a story to students. If I could give it a name, it would be called "the passion of what we do".

Passion; the kind you see on the football pitch particularly from an Milan player scoring a goal, or a six year old running their first competitive race at a school event, or that climber seeking to scale a mountain, walk large distances, with that burning desire to succeed.

Emerging from the subway, I witnessed an argument between a road sweeper and what appeared to be a bystander.

I'm not the type to stick my nose where it's not needed, but I'm equally not at home walking away from something when you think there's something you could have done, or should have done.

I can recount times when I'm halfway down the street, only to double back to the amusement of a companion because a broken glass lay precariously in the street waiting to injure someone and which I ignored first time around.

The argument
So after a few minutes of gesticulating, the bystander left the road sweeper prompted by the command: "get away, you don't know what you're talking about".

I enquired. The road sweeper who's name it turned out to be kojo said he was accused of being lazy. The man standing next to him was also a sweeper and was chiding him for his sloppiness, that he had to do kojo's clearing up when he took over kojo's shift the following day.

Kojo explained: "This can't be. I cannot be sloppy. I know this and my bosses know this. And if I had been sloppy, why would I have won Street sweeper of the year last year".

More was said afterwards, and as I left I spoke in Ashanti/Twi a language I rarely uses but am well versed in from Ghana. I said to him "well done".

Kojo I could see took great pride in his work, and after 9 years at it had clearly not lost any passion, so the accusation must have hurt.

Passion. It is that which drives us and that which makes us seek out that we do not know, yet seek to understand.

A school I went to in Ghana burrowed that them and the word "faith" into its charges.

You can be anyone its lecturers would often say, with passion and faith.

A sermon delivered one Sunday has always stuck with me. To a sea of white shirted and shorted youngsters, the evangelist spoke about faith.

We all have it he said, because if you didn't you would not attempt to sit in this chair, you would not get onto that bus, you would not drink that water.

For every time you carry out such an action you depend on the notion of faith that what you're expecting will come to pass. The chair will not collapse, the bus will move, and the water from the tap will quench your thirst.

The passion of film making
Film making and communications, our work we do employs faith and passion.

For even though we require a skillset, a knowledge of how to, guidance of where to go and what to do, our passion is a redeeming quality that others feed on and off to make things happen.

If you are passionate about your work, others will step forward to aid you in times of need. If you are sloven, then it should not come as a surprise that people aren't rushing to support you.

With passion and faith, the " I want to know" drive, the rewards often materialise.


End note: I got into thinking about this after constructing the Obama video, then Shirley Thompson, the composer rang. I have just come of the phone after 40 mins.

The making of the Obama score follows its own drama, one which she now has a documentary maker shooting.

It involves scripts going lost in the post of rehearsals on the eve of the event, of key members attending to family matters, of the BBC Orchestra commenting on the score. Passion and Faith, Shirley Thompson has that in abundance.

Twitter.com/viewmagazine -Designing twitter background

So there you have it. Twitermania - this year's blog fandom.

A colleague showed me an article. Blogging is dead. It's soo passe'. So fickle is our ferreting for the new, that blogs are losing a bit of their sheen.

It's not unexpected, though blogging isn't and will not quite crash and fizzle. But our penchant for the sound-bite 5 sec clip news; the average length was 20 sec at one point is being mirrored in the new matrix of digital media.

And yes presumably at some point, which I tongue and cheek posted about a while back, the Tweets 140 characters will be under threat.

Two words: " tired"
12.03 : Got job
12.05: I'm so happy. Ur uh! That's three words doh!

Twit backgrounds
So after some attempts at uploading the background, an exercise in bite-size branding it's up.

In the event I trawled the web looking at the number of outfits providing design templates. It's huge. In the absence of Photoshop et al, a worthwhile pursuit indeed.

If you do have pshop however it's worth a punt at customising your online presence

I wanted something that flagged up Viewmagazine.tv and played to the wonderful shoot by David Berman, but was also mindful of being to excessive.

The result I think looks more like a DVD cover with pulled comments from a number of key figures.

Is it worth it? Well you can never tell, but personal branding certainly has moved on since I wrestled with the idea of even having a site.

The rest is the ambient awareness posts that presumably draw in an audience. Supposedly the jury's still out on whether feeding the cat constitutes a level of excitement to draw massive followings.

But clearly there's a celebrity quotient at play; celebrity by your friend's standard and those than don't know you.

Paris Hilton could seemingly sneeze and that'd attract 500 more. Reason, people just wanna know. For me, perhaps you, no such luck.

Then there's the volume. Imagine living your life through tweets ala Truman. That is every half hour a tweet. That's some doing. If you're like me I go in spurts. My life aint that interesting!

And then how much do you follow? This new simulacrum culture of open sms is still sorting itself out.

But ambient awareness is a strange phenom. Hey, I sense a cat rescue coming along.

David tweets at twitter.com/viewmagazine and is producing a video for Classical Composer Shirley Thompson new score for Obama 100 Days, and truthfully it's turning into a min-drama. I need more pics

Videojournalism diary log-leaving orbit

Fans of Capt Jim T. Kirk will recognise the play on the title.

All in day's work having slain a Klingon, fallen for some beau, and had an existential discussion with Spock.

Moments of grand illusion, as this moment I feel like I'm having a Kirk moment, except for the beau. Yeah shucks.

I haven't stopped writing. Our Masters in journalism students are in the final furlong of submission: online journalism and videojournalism. There have already been notable successes in their ranks. But some heavy lifting remains for the coming days.

Meanwhile the Obama video for the South Bank. I have produced a first draft. Reason? I'm still not satisfied with the footage and pics I have, but ever the optimist, I'll push harder next week.
Thanks to Tom ( Kennedy) formerly Wash Post for the contacts his throw me.

Miami University are compiling a multimedia template of ideas, so had a delightful Knight scholar ping me for info. We'll do it, we'll definitely do it.

Next week I'm looking forward also to seeing supervisors of my Phd prog. Liz, the Dean of the programme had some good news around the Outernet, that I have been obsessing about, but not mentioned in recent posts.

I need to give my Phd more love, even though it consumes my waking life. The more I know, the more I understand, the more I understand, the more I know, the more I know, the more confusing it becomes.

Last time I used that was in an article about South African politics, when I was thrust into its politics at the dying end of apartheid.

Logbook some more
This week South Africa went to the polls to elect a new government. I miss South Africa. But hopefully will be there in the Summer doing some training and catching up on friends, and people in documentaries made in the early 90s.

Then it's a 500 days or so towards chapters for my book, which has been very cathartic in some way, committing years of trials and tribulations to this thing we do to paper.

I'm interviewing one of the heavyweights next week in the videojournalism firmament. He Julian was responsible for bringing video journalism to Britain in the mid 90s.

Julian I have recently discovered was the class mate of Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones) at the London School of Economics and has more than his fair share of stories to tell, that made a gathering of us laugh.

Mick: " **** this I'm off to get famous
Everyone else: Yeah yeah yeah.....

Videojournalism... yeah what's that? Should get back to shooting a story at some point. LOL