Videojournalism - the drama

REPOST

Editor: so you one of those VJs?
Senior Editor: what!
Editor: VJs!
Senior Editor: DJs?
Editor: VJ, VJ, short for videojournalism
Senior Editor: V-O-D-O-O J-O-U-R-N-A-L-I-S-M What's that?
Young guy: Hey Ol Man It's video journalism. Not Vodoo, Not Vagner spelt with a "W", Not venerable. VIDEO. But I guess you're too past it to know we stopped using film in the 80s.
Everyone looks stunned.
***n it. I'm not going to get job now so I might as well speak my mind.
Trouble with you guys is you see a guy with a camera and think cheap. You'd balk at the idea of seeing Velázquez hold his own brush. Or that it takes two people to drive a car: one on the gear lever while the other shouts "move away". We've moved on. But I guess you still think Citizen journalism is some one's dyslexia for Citizen Kane.
Stop. Look out of the window and watch. We're now in colour. Video. Video. One person and a camera Phut! ( Shakes his head)
Door shuts
Senior Editor and Editor: What a strange man!
Senior Editor: So who's next outside?
Editor: Some guy with typewriter sowed to his head. Calls it blogging!
Senior Editor and Editor: Ahhhhhhhh

Series tweetish 1 here Does he get a vest

TV going videojournalism

David's back in the Mid East this month helping state broadcasters with plans and logistics to set up videojournalism in their newsroom

In many ways television news is as close to videojournalism as football is to field hockey. Both sports I love by the way, which have a ball at the centre of play.

That's why any announcement about television going videojournalism creates such a fuss. As a former network television producer, I get the arguments.

Yet I also know where videojournalism, IMVJ or cineVJ as I call it can play a huge part and I'm looking forward to what results the PhD research I'm involved in yields.

I have been practicing and writing about it in trade magazines since 1994. These screen grabs below come from a 2001 edition of the magazine "Producers". I'll provide a link for you to download later in the week.

Videojournalism's sole gain is not necessarily its soloism, though it's a strong feature. One of its true zeitgeist is enabling the practitioner to perceive what works where and how to accomplish it.

Think of it as the mechanic who has a good grasp of a cross range of cars. My local mechanic knows cars like the back of his hand; he builds them and also races them.

So its with great excitement - finally the point of this post - that I'm back in the Mid East this month working with a state broadcasters on maximising videojournalism in their newsroom.

And believe me it's not just a news gathering, more cameras to spare, exercise.




David writing in The Producers about a new world order in 2001. Videojournalism is tool agnostic. In the rh shot I'm shooting with a digibeta 700.

How anyone can make a good film - aesthetic videojournalism

Re:sounding motion was a short film made to complement the performance of a group of dancers and musicians shown on the big cinema screen of the Royal Festival Hall on Friday 26th, March 2010

The aestheticization of videojournalism is not a new phenomena.

It is shrouded in past iterations of different forms; just the word videojournalism may be somewhat novel in its acceptance of such a standard. No one ever calls a news item aesthetic !

But what does it mean?

Certainly not style over substance or otherwise a vainglorious attempt to dress mutton up as lamb but a distillation, to communicate as efficaciously as possible maximising the impact of what's said or envisioned.

You may end up playing the above video more than once; your behaviour, influenced by the affect of an aesthetic. The frame choice, mood, experience - all part of a complex interactive mesh.

Master Class
I aim to deliver a Master Class lecture at the University of Westminster for Masters students very soon (courtesy of Albert Gachiri).

Here, the focus is to illustrate, via an interactive forum, my own background as a practicing videojournalist/ artist in residence and findings from my PhD research how aesthetic videojournalism is crucial to our solo ability to tell more informed stories.

That is more informed stories of the same stories, taking into account the variables that allow us to enrich those moments.

The other notion I posit is how the very essence of "the story" in itself requires further interrogation in an age when the idea of story teller is no longer univocal. The concept of video-hyperlinking unravels ownership.

On page 44 of The Documentary Handbook (2009), under "Flying Solo", documentary maker, lecturer and author Peter Lee-Wright writes:

" His ( David Dunkley Gyimah) conception of videojournalism stands in stark contrast to the newspapers and broadcaster who see VJs as a cheap alternative to crews and traditional working practices"....

"While the experts trash around in uncertainty, it is a good time for the innovators to show their stuff...from the core investigative issues of public interest and accountability to the new forms of storytelling that Gyimah champions" (pg47)

If you're on the Masters programme (print pathway or broadcasting) reading this, then I hope to stage it after the Easter break and if you're allow me to say this, I believe it will benefit anyone with an eye to video or visuals of some sort. Details to be posted soon.

More on videojournalism here www.viewmagazine.tv

Viewmagazine.tv circa updated from 2005

Preview - Multicamera Solo VJ shoot

Sorry. I'm up to my eyeballs with work. But here's something I have almost completed which you can see here http://www.viewmagazine.tv/dance_soundmoves.html - Preview - Multicamera Solo VideoJournalism shoot.

The 3min film showcases Sound Moves - 8 young talented dancers meet 8 young musicians at the Southbank Centre.

The score isnt the one playing on the day Friday 26th at the Royal Festival Hall where this short will be screened. Requires a few more tweeks.

I used four different camera set ups JVC, Sony, Canon, and Flip with blocking techniques to capture straight off. No, I wasn't being extravagant.

Multicamera VJ
Each gives its own aesthetic. I did this on international shoots working in television, but it was truly pricey working just two.

On shoots such as Chicago, I'm directing myself ( see running shot). I tend to conceals cameras in vantage points to get what I'm after.

Shots in this film are heavily saturated and "crushed" - all for a reason. I'll write this up more comprehensively sometime but now its back to McQuails Mass Communication Theory.

ITV hosts Diversity in UK Newsrooms

Post will be going up on journalism.co.uk

ITV hosts Diversity in UK Newsrooms

Twenty odd something years since I clutched hold to the dream of being a broadcaster, the arguments for inclusion into the industry, diversity in UK Newsrooms, has not dimmed.

Is it about time broadcasters were brutally honest admitting there's little chance of solving this problem, or that they need more time and resources?

Tomorrow David Dunkley Gyimah, a former Channel 4 News freelance producer reports on how the industry is damned each way and that the solutions lie in a system not yet invented.

Revolutionise the form to be functional

Three events are running concurrently on my laptop and desk mac.

Each morning is a sprint, a brain dump of alpha wave thoughts to writing up chapters for research; form following function.

Some of the data is coming in, but it will be a series of ground hog days, which I must accept will drive me to watch birds flying an marvel how they do that.

I was at a China knowledge bank meeting earlier this week and shared my woes with Technology expert, the Guardian's Dr Aleks Krotoski whom chimed PhD, "oh yeah" ; hers she admitted still fresh in her mind. "Take time off when you finish", she advised.

My chapter on interviews for book has just been submitted for first drafts, slowly methodically they're taking shape.

The extreme difference, the writing style is utterly different and so I sit at my desk and look for the plug that says: "fluid and accessible" before hard wiring it into the base of my head. The Matrix, Oh yeah, t'is true. Form must follow function.

I'm midway into completing a film, which is one of my most ambitious in videojournalism as I can now push the form into enquiry mode, rather than the aesthetics of journalism which insist we close the argument.

The videojournalism shoot
The videojournalism shoot involved four cameras simultaneously fixed with different set ups. I know what I'm looking for, it's not superfluous.

Using After Effects, the front end animates around a visual theme not unlike that seen in Heroes. My vision is firm, but I have a second shoot for the flashforward sequence to work.

Meanwhile, a cold bead of sweat gathers on my forehead: I have a load of marking soon, Online and TV.

But if I'm really excited, it is the prospect articulated by the director of Southbank this week and the plans shaping up for next years epoch Festival of Britain.

To say its huge is an understatement, but I have so many ideas to feed in, that I have been scribbling furiously on train journeys in between Baudrillard and the next project, Cairo and China.

Time to get something to eat. Have I reached the stage when I must diarise that as well. Perhaps not, it has little do with form, however much to do with how I function

How tos.. film and pull off the big interviews - Videojournalism

One of my many interviews. This one with the former head of the CIA, James R Woolsey, which took place in Washington DC.

It forms a series of "how tos?", including interviewing Nelson Mandela at a Press Conference, to the great an late Eartha Kitt and turning the tables on my old friend Riz Khan. The how to exposes tricks and tips through out my career and some great flaws.

I was once mortified after my equipment failed me interviewing Sir Douglas Hurd, a high ranking Tory and then member of the Conservative government.

So I'm disappearing from these pages for a while as I have a number of deadlines. Admittedly I can't help the occasional quick blog, but all my writing and time is going into two big exercises.


Did I tell you I actually like making videos? I have got a couple more to produce, including a TED like interview featuring some of the most amazing thinkers I have come across e.g. Zann Gill, a former NASA personnel, is building the next social network as part of a study for her thesis.

Bruce Damer, another NASA person, is attempting to create life from nothing other than a computer simulation. They and others truly inspire me.

Inspiring people
But alas there are only 19 hours in a day, which starts at 6 a.m and concludes at 1 p.m. I have posted some new vids on Viewmagazine.tv including an interview with the fantastic Brian Storm founder of MediaStorm, whose work is mind-inducingly trail blazing.

I'm rebuilding parts of my site from html to css etc. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to seeing what our International Masters students are doing. They should be online with their new ventures.

I'll post a link for you to see the fruits of the six weeks labour with Flash, Css, Photoshop - and more importantly understanding the semiotics of online

Having watched "Hurt Locker" I was going to change the interface of viewmagazine.tv to show how to replicate the DVDs titles. I might do, but truthfully I'm up against time.

Still if you're a videojournalist or an outfit I'd love to hear from you.


We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit
Aristotle

Journalism's deja vu why... the past matters

David as a freelance World Service radio journalist in Cape Town settlement in 1992

I'm peering through the window; the fans of my hard drives are now audible - an irritant, almost.

And I have now seen fit to turn of the other two monitors, three will do fine for the moment. Yes I am a screen geek, but that's for another day to banter.

Journalism's deja vu and why the past matters is a reflective thought from building up a list of to dos for a study, which is also the making of a film I'm investing quite some time in.

It goes back to 1987 as seen through my eyes, an interpretive approach to the changing media. Oh how the past really matters, as I popped open a Hi8 (obscure thing) to watch on its designated player and rolled tape from the settlements of Khayelitsha.

For once, now we might truly recognise there is no grand scheme, no jewels of utter profound thought - though there are shards of occasional brilliance - in manufacturing media.

The year of 1987. Thatcherism. And how desperately I wanted to work in broadcasting. I'm black, a chemistry undergrad transitioning and haven't the foggiest how I might soon transmorgificate myself from post studentism to broadcast professional.

I wrote a piece for our student newspaper, a heated debate at the university about the emergence of AIDS from Africa discovered in Reese Monkeys. Yep!

Black is important. In 1987 colour was heavily politicized, student affairs was akin to a class struggle.

Later in 1992 when I landed in South Africa and was summarily invited onto prime time radio, you could forgive the host for asking the number of blacks who worked in broadcasting.

I digress.

Journalism back story
Reflection! What was once so, those distant times, why do they matter? Because journalism thought it never had it so good, short term views ran the course, the beneficiaries of the so-called professionals arbitrating on our behalf, became a self interest.

The past matters for context.

Over the years any number of outfits have changed, shed past ways, looked to the future, shed some more past ways and then made pronouncements about how right now they are in the here and now.

We heard it on the news again this week with the BBC's new policy javelin spearing two hitherto stations, you've probably never heard of. Martin Sorrell, the Stan Lee of advertising says we're (advertising) back. You can wheel the patient out of the critical room.

How prescient of Oliver Stone to resurrect Gecko. There's a looming irony.

Never mind hindsight, but its worth asking and firmly if you're privy to the change business. We all are as consumers, so how really different will the future be? For one thing our views of truth, Walter Benjamin suggests, which is shaped by institutions, by any account has not gone the way of the recession.

There is disquiet over the Tories intended fisticuffs with broadcasting should they toe poke the election. It looks too much like Murdoch's manifesto says the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland

.."the BBC has decided its best strategy for self-preservation is to suffer a little pain now to avoid a lot of pain later".

There is a sense we might be slow walking, not into old ways - that's not possible - but parallels of ways we've co opted that reference those ways.

Goldsmith University's research unveiled early last year that the Internet hasn't significantly altered the structure of journalism seems true to a large point.

Plutocracy rules. Old money, old ideas buy power. Witness the non dom tax debacle of Lord Ashcroft and traditional media tail spinning. Their news is our news.

We've sniffed a bit of lax in the system, but it's only a bit and apart from the odd subject agendas are made in corporate boardrooms.

All Change
And journalism, well it still hasn't fully recovered, question is when it does will it be the one of old or a new one in place - hardly a topic to debate really?

So why does my longitudinal study and the forsaken tapes I have kept from my first broadcast to recently running around Beirut training matter?

Well context Watson, context! Will comparisons with the past truly show how earth-moving this flux has been? Is the change we're witnessing a symptom of Darwinism - evolving - rather than a revolution?

To academics who chew the cud of words such lengthy studies are boringly necessary, because they often reveal not som much the changes made, but what was missed and truly could have been monumental.

Like I said, the next pronouncement you hear from your favourite media will be telling you how they've now got it so right, journalistically, in employment (don't mention the CDN), and socially.

You'll find out whether that's the case in another ten years time.

Street Life Moscow story - Africa in Russia

Congrats to the Post. I really like this story and told Mark Scheffler on Facebook, adding this was one of those subject areas so anemic to the media body-politik that I don't doubt if there was more viewers would watch.

I certainly have done, 2x, and would like to see more.

Structurally its use of narrative and expositions until the character appears in vision mimics flashback (Cinema). In broadcast terms known as the oov - out of vision shot in which you hear your subject, but very rarely see synch (talking to camera)

But it's how you use it in a cinematographic frame work that separates the two.

The temporality and duration of shots contribute to an aesthetic more along the lines of direct cinema - the observational doc, rather than any videojournalism semiotic we could posit - and believe me they exist.

But this is a moot point between the two genres as there are significant differences in intention when film makers of the two set out to work. And the effect is accomplished in the state of being (dasein) immersed in this episodic narrative - a day in the life of...

As often in films of this kind there is no definitive conclusion to the arc, though here the characters mournful state of not wanting to go back and door exiting is a good anchor to close on. That said the words "I don't want to go back home" constitute a hanging shot.

You can almost hear the D minor chords and the slow zoom.

There's a lot of credible 'vantage camera work'. The train scenes takes a lot of steely work from the film makers to maintain composure and tone to affect the viewer.

The shots, while some may have been directed, they are unconstrained enough to attract the trademark, realism e.g. being sandwiched in the train, then isolated, yet with a camera running with only a few commuters enquiring along the lines of who is this man.

Subject- driven narratives
This in part comes from the subject, but it's also thumbs up towards the film makers. Your success is your subject's success at telling a story.

Most difficult bit about film maker is often the thick skin to knowingly invade others' space that they may question. In the UK you'd need unknown number of permits, and then release forms for those who believe their inclusion is more than decorative.

Equally the arc seamlessly compressed time. You shouldn't notice it and you don't, unless you consider the non-diegetic slates, which are organically used very well. Often a flaw in VJ pieces done not so well is the inability to play with psychological time.

Its affective enough as a stand alone, but I'd hedge network TV would equally find this strong yet also seek to claim some of the threads mentioned. e.g. living in a room with others. That is the dark side is alluded to, the exploitative circumstances they (other nationalities) live under asks to be followed up.

Yes, this was NOT produced for network TV - an other (sic) semiotic medium.

And therein is the window for a more expansive piece. This is a rich seam which deserves a wider canvas. That said on its own it ticks a number of considerable boxes.

As such, this manner of deconstruction becomes an exercise in film discourse for the viewer - as they'll simply enjoy it, sod whatever I say.

But like some stuffed up suit, to understand VJ it doesn't go amiss if you can make some sense of the visual language. Remember there is a fundamental difference between cinematography and a strictly event-driven news piece.

Postscript
Last moth I was a juror for the UK's highest awards for television; the year before a judge of the International VideoJournalism Awards in Berlin. We don't see enough personalised stories which tackle anguish, displacement, etc within the innovation of news (RTS) / videojournalism

In 1997 I lead as series producer and director a team from Ghana to South Africa executive produced by CNN's head of Africa, Edward Boateng, called the United States of Africa. In 6 days we put together 6 one hour programmes. One of the issues we came by was Ghanaians, some grads, with PhDs living rough in Hillbrow - 15 to a room.

They eked a living selling produce. We followed them from 4.30 in the morning from within their rooms to Soweto to film them and then back on their stalls. It was pretty disheartening. It was filmed as a straight linear narrative. I then sent a VJ team to town to ask how endemic this was and how indigenous South Africans felt.

Though we filmed on DSR200s we dumped all the tape on D6s, so apart from that which I digitised at the time, I'll have to investigate how to pull of the data. Because it's worth a follow up some time.

UK TV news Awards - a juror perspective

The biggest cheers of the night went to: Television journalist of the year, the contribution Gaza's TV team had made to recording events during Israel's campaign incurring huge risks and the lifetime achievement award to Breakfast TV's Peter Mchugh.

The victor for journalist will be talked about for a while. For she, yes, she now occupies a status in that rarefied space of foreign correspondents which until now, if I heard correctly from the host, has gone to men.

Sky New's Alex Crawford joked about why perhaps it had taken her so long to be recognised. Not using contraception drew raucous laughter. Mums rarely get to report from the battle lines. Bosses see a liability. Womens' lib movements can loosen their belts one more notch.

She was in strong company. The BBC's Ian Pannel whose fearless reports from Iraq have earned him enormous respect from his peers looked a shoe-in. My career started off at the same station, Radio Leicester, where I recall Ian doing the bulletins.

There are wider implications for this year's awards. I'll come to those in later post and a more personal look at the night.

RTS Awards - Television still the place to go

Tomorrow by this time, we'll know who the best news broadcaster in the UK is, with regard to innovation.

In fact I have a strong hunch who it is as one of the juror and the debate we had, but that wouldn't be cricket, so you'll get nowt from me.

But as awards go from the UK's most prestigious: the RTS, what does this tell us, at a time when media is generally having its legs hacksawed.

TV is in great shape!

Well like most things there's always a caveat. TV has turned the corner and the imminent threat has been obtusely exaggerated.

So what of all the new media buffs, chomping to elbow TV aside?

The catch!

It's not the programmes per se, but the device of a mini cinema screen in your living room that looks set to continue to death do you part.

Truth it was never under threat, only the poor substitute for programmes that wash across the screen.

Online video has eaten into some of that market, and TV has itself learned that its virtual upstart is now a partner, like it or leave it.

The fact that the RTS honors the excellence of broadcasters engaging in innovation illustrates how TV has changed in our times and from the two years I have been involved that they (broadcasters) are attempting many ingenius ways at attracting eyeballs.

And that's where if you're a student of news' new media there's comfort. The misnomer with multiskilling was always a dilution of skills. Not so!

At the interstice of videojournalism ( programme making by one person) and Net semiotics is the power of the future broadcaster.

We've only first generation yet, but the trend sees the emergence of a new generation of TV person who straddles the old ( traditionalist) and particularly the new.

Who can find fresh ways of telling that story, while seeking the idea platform. Who isn't just a processor, but leads in the evangelism of story telling that stays longer than the assumed fleeting flashes ascribed by Baudrillard's Ecstasy of Communications

Tomorrow's RTS awards then should be viewed as not just a celebration of television, but for the television new mediast who's more loudly being recognised.

If you're joining TV's la la land, you may want to take stock with your new "jack of all traders, master of all". Your name could well be written on the next award

Youth Angst - Videojournalism behind scene

Youth Angst, Gun Crime, Bullying - Videojournalism behind the scene. I'll write more about Rob Chiu's shoot soonish. This was the last thing I created on the A1

Videojournalism- Behind the scenes film making

Rob Chiu, arguably one of the UK and Europe's young directors.

One of the least publicised uses for videojournalism has been its ability to capture behind the scenes.

It's not a novel idea. Truth or Dare or In bed with Madonna and Gerri Halliwell to name but two have all been covered by soloists. In the latter case, the highly acclaimed doc maker Molly Dinnen.

In fact you can't sniff a DVD extra today without a behind the scene, shot by a DV camer.

Often though their contact cards tend to say, "film maker". But frankly, capturing behind the scenes, asking the right questions, and being able to read situations is a job made for a videojournalist.

You could argue the closeness of docs and videojournalists, however often there's a fundamental difference in turn over time, and the obvious disadvantage for a rookie videojournalists is confidently staying the course.

Rob Chiu's film Fear and Love - a scene.

There is a different skill between the sprinter and the long distance runner, also reflected in the videojournalist and doc producer.

But it needn't be so.

At the Southbank's recent gathering of high profile names in the Arts, it took a lot of trust and a shooting taxonony that was un-doc like to engage the participants.

That same approach was used on this sizeable budget film by Rob Chiu, arguably one of the UK and Europe's young directors - known as the Ronin.

I got asked along to his debut commercial shoot and two days ago, Rob emailed to ask if I could produce the behind the scenes for a Dazed and Confused interview.

Fancy that. There was a time when pics and text would have sufficed. Not any more.

Coming back to the footage after a long absence made it interesting. Often I turn over films in the moment. The camera in shot, used on the production was The Red, which made my A1 look weedy.

Red Camera

But that's the point, "weedy" gets me into those small tight areas. And since acquring a JVC with shallow depth of field lens, I'm able to push the visuals to something approaching a cine-state.

I'll post Rob's film tomorrow, but the point with all this is to draw focus to the invisibility of behind the scenes film making

The joys of failing - Fail sooner rather later

It runs counter intuitive to what we know, to our sense of achievement and why we are programmed to be embarrassed from childhood at coming last.

Structuralist Rudolph Arnheim made the observation regarding the way we're taught art at school.

First we're allowed to explore; our hands and bodies become brushes for canvas, but by the time we've reached teenhood, any form of experimenting is usurped for classical methodological teachings. This is art and this isn't.

Thank God for the impressionist.

The joys of failing - a segment of an upcoming videojournalism book illustrates, more so than now what should be a penchant for failing. And the limits for failing should always be measured to bring out the best in us - to fail spectacularly.

Fail and fail again and then fail no more
Failure yields two broadly different reactions: resignation and determination.

So there is an art to failing that allows one to go from zero to hero in a short amount of time.
The skill from the trainer is to know where the student has touched the void, exasperated and can ill afford to fail any further.

But we are a resilient kind and where we are able to fail spectacularly, there is often no where else to go but to slowly climb and seek success.

Some cultures are perceived to reward spectacular failures. Note the difference between the dotcom entrepreneur who blew loads of money on a great idea and became contrite, knowing where it went wrong.

The entrepreneur is either eminently hireable as the manager with great wisdom that they won't repeat the mistake, or a dud who should be shunned for ever.

In 2001 this scenario was rife, and many dotcomers now with established companies will admit to "getting it horribly wrong", "wrestling within the pit of their stomach" and then the eureka moment.

In many ways they themselves understood the value of the turnaround. When you fail greatly, you want to succeed in kind.

We're all products of this mantra, which can also be translated as "there's no gain without pain" or "how low can you go".

Our postmodern attitude to teaching reflects this. We're supposed to offer, and offer is the operative word, students pearls of wisdom. Quite. But that should not negate the one thing they and we all should manage. How to overcome failure.

I've said over the years, make that mistake here now and cataclysmically so in industry you

• don't make the same mistake
• you know how to manage failure.

Failure must nor be feared, for it really is the Ying within the equation of unity and will be balanced out.

The fear of failing is a tonic, but it should be managed from the beginning Fail sooner rather than later. Some of my biggest failures was never settling in any of the broadcast outfits I worked for: radio, TV, agency, advertising etc.

The onset of that was having to learn the technologies and semiotics of the different media I worked for and I count the individual failures as key. e.g. deleting the rich contents of a web site from the server because I didn't know what I was doing and failed to ask the right question. Believe me, its never happened since.

• NB: In computer hardware testing, the job was to see how swiftly you could crash your computer. How soon could you get it to fail.
• Everything fails, everything needs a contingency.
• Admitting something is failing e.g. present news discourse is the first step to addressing what we do next.

Videojournalism - a brief visual history - the future

A brief visual history of videojournalism from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

David Dunkley Gyimah provides a visual journey of videojournalism starting from 1995, a year after the web became a feature for UK newspapers to the present and cinematic praxis.
Includes the influence of BBC Radio and TV e.g. Reportage - the BBC's 80s current affairs series, the current.tv, of the 90s and then to the UK's first regional newspapers turned vjs.

Interview clips include CIA former boss, Quincy Jones and Chatham House. Videojournalism's aesthetic is mentioned, as well as new techniques - all wrapped together across continents, Chicago, Cairo and South Africa - explains the z principle of video film making. Shot on sony cams vx1000, digi-beta and Ah1. Watch out for the uber talented Rob Chiu.

David is in China, Egypt and Australia later this year where among others he'll be training in video storytelling, videojournalism and the psychology of news film making.

TV News .. truth, trope and tiredness

We blithely watch the news unaware sometimes of what's being fed to us.

We might tutut - even roll out that oft-repeated phrase, "there's nothing on the News", yet we rarely if any question its convention of production, if not the content.

News - a pensioner - is still going strong. But look deeply and there are signs of the machinery at work, and like it or not, there's rust.

We've had a technological revolution, but not a social one in figuring how to bring to the viewer the era when news had us huddled in fascination, rather than derision.

A number of items caught my eye today.

Prime minister Gordon Brown's revelations on ITV was the coup for the beleaguered network and must have had BBC execs venting their spleen, for they were forced to run the other side's clip, such was the power of the PM showing a ne'er seen caring side.

The item was a stand alone one, but by the evening broadcast had transformed with a bolted on Tory leader David Cameron - showing us he too cared.

The mis en scene of his home provided a secondary level of semiotics; what you might call the an unwarranted connoted signifier. Hey people look at my crib, like it? Tory central office must have been working its socks off to get Cameron to gate crash Brown's quintessential moment.

Which is what you can't say for Labour, as within the same news bulletin, Cameron was shown in triumphant mode trying to give the SNP a kicking. We care and we'll listen...and well, A- level students probably now know how to let rhetoric work. Don't forget the pregnant pause at the end. There!

Haiti News
Matthew Price's stellar work reminds me of Fergal Keane in his challenging days. His reports from Haiti are devoid of cliche and replete with the subtleties and delicate touches of reportage that are a conversation rather than sometimes the foreign correspondents' heckle.

Elsewhere on a different channel, a young pop star, whose intentions may have been generous in flying to Haiti managed to arouse darker clouds over her visit.

There was a time when charity work could be done away from the glare of poptabulous headlights. Those days are numbered. Every pop star has a favourite charity for good or ill and airtime insidiously is now courted.

The conversation might have went something like this.
I really want to go to Haiti
manager: You can't it's too dangerous
But I'd like to help
manager:OK let me make a call
Minutes later
manager:PR says it'll handle everything
PR then rings News: If we go with a pop star will that interest you?
News: Oh yeah, when's the pop star going?
PR: I'll get back to you
News Diary pens in for future planning date of pop stars visit
News report delivers a favourable ( wouldn't have it any other way) report
Everybody is happy

As I was saying there was a time when discretion mattered. But that's not the fault of News is it? There had been a slide in TV News figures since the mid 90s which has now more or less leveled out.

Its hegemony, once within toe cap striking distance, has shown other news pretenders (web n 'all) a new set of heels.

There is a way of getting credibility in news if you're interested, but so long as alternative news source seek "get me rich (money/popularity) schemes", traditional news with its power base of contacts and brand loyalty will go on wupping online TV's ass.

Videojournalism how easy is it 2

Picture ©2010 Dominique Brewster

Some time ago in Podgorica, Montenegro, I demonstrated to newspaper execs how easy it was to conduct a "three camera" interview with one.

Journalists who've attended the Press Association's course on videojournalism will have seen me display at least five different sort of interview techniques.

They'll also laugh at my deconstruction of news I've given since 2000 and how to circumvent traditional news structure derided by Mssr Charlie Brooker

Whether it's an interview, which you could say is easier to produce than a package, you've probably at some point wrestled with this thought.

Videojournalism - how easy is it? You simply pick up a camera and shoot.

This question disguises an oversight: every one's got a stills camera; not everyone understands composition to the point it's a perception/abstraction auto event.

Everyone's spoken down a phone, but how many of us talk within the optimum tonal range and can do what the best telephone sales people do or grip you on the radio.

The voice is indeed an instrument - politicians go on training programmes to often drop octaves - c.f. Margaret Thatcher. President Obama's oratory skills come from years on the hustings.

Videojournalism Verite
Many of us have would have acted as some point - the school nativity play. Journalism's performance blends the verite and the conceived. It has to be seamless otherwise watch out Brooker has you in his sight.

Now as a solo videojo you don't have the benefit of the camera operator to tell you your shirt collar had birds dropping on it.

Television news taught us to write for the eye, and we're now glib with it. We know the written word doesn't cut it and that if we're to take advantage of videojournalism's intimacy, we'd do well to attenuate our script accordingly.

Like zoo TV or radio - a stalwart of the early 90s is this the point where we can speak our thoughts as opposed to just deliver the facts and thus in the process not short change the viewer in what we've seen and heard.

Consider the point in this video where mid interview Ozwald makes an alternative point. In traditional news that would have been edited: I kept it in and it's been a source of interesting discourse in the US.



If videojournalism is the blog of the visual world, then it might be worth considering this.

Is videojournalism a happy accident in how the advent of technology has spawned video making or are we daring to design something that is as much about the sign of the times?

And consider this, which in years to come will I predict normalise - that videojournalism will become the apex of the inverted triangle. Because as a more acceptable and rigorous language takes hold we'll learn that the art of voicing, directing, producing, editing and creative hypervideo linking will be something highly, prized. But then you'll be a pro by then.

By the way it's happened in the literature world!

Videojournalism - how easy is it?

David working on radio, (physically) cutting tape for a BBC broadcast circa 1988 Nelson Mandela Tribute Concert 1988 at Wembley Stadium - BBC Report with Peter Gabriel, Natalie Cole, Anita Baker, Neil Kinnock MP and Nelson Mandela.




I have spent the last few days underneath two bonnets: one for my continuing research towards my PhD and the other chapters for US publishers. I'm getting schizophrenia.

Couple of things I did notice and that is: I have all my landmark ROTs (recording of transmissions) since 1987 when I first broadcast, so if only I could indulge in a phenemological essay - which would be a study of individual broadcasters and their work since 1984, when I became interested in the media.

That journey would include working for Janet Street Porter and Reportage. Couple of weeks back I bumped into Hardeep Singh Kholi - we both worked on the show; and then hosting a show sandwiched on different days between Peter Curran, Vanessa Feltz and Chris Evans.

There are many more celeb collisions from BBC Network, ABC News meeting Peter Jennings; playing too close to the edge in South African townships and Deep Diving in Turkey.



History of broadcasting - personalised
But truthfully this would be about the epistemology of broadcasting - a bit like how I have represented videojournalism with this timeline.

Alas some other time though as the track I have taken is more in keeping with finding out about the work of structuralists and how it compares to mine.

The book I hope is a faster read, where I indulge a little speaking about the early influences of Indian films such as Seeta and Geeta, Sholay and the Burning Train. And how Chinese cinema deftly handles space.

Incidentally, the reason at least for now you're not seeing many videojournalism insider guide articles ( yes since 2004) I have written a fair few, is because of my publishers - that's my excuse anyway.

But if you go fishing on viewmagazine.tv you're find more than your frees worth.

I'm in China in July and my wish outside of my work will be to meet and talk to documentarists and indeed videojournalists.

Image: Sholay, creative commons Wikipedia

Here are some of those images annotated



Training a new generation of journalists on the Daily Telegraph


Filming with friend, Riz Khan of Al Jazeera


Filming interview with uber VJ Scott Rensberger

Presenting the news at Channel One TV
Working as a producer on UK leading Politics Show, whose editor was Andrew Brown, brother of the UK Prime Minister. CV Reference here

The Russian Chess Maestro - filmed interview


A panelist (out of shot) with CNN's Christiana Amanpour as chair

Interviewing BBC Supremo Peter Horrocks


Studio work talks show on policy debate with MBAs

A letter to myself - for future records

Wednesday: 10.00 following a telephone conversation with a PA.

I'm writing this blog really to myself, but it's also contemporaneous notes as records for the future.

I went to an osteopath last week in Dulwich South London, recommended by a friend and advisor, after a crick in my neck. The osteopath was good, thoughtful, and after feeling around my neck told me my c7 vertebra was inflamed from the way I had slept.

However his assistant, a senior woman, had an awkwardness to her mannerism that was unbearable.

And to cap it said the most bizarre thing when I asked her for an invoice:

"David", she said "We don't give invoices cuz our prices are so low".

What nonsense ! I thought. It cost me 33UKP.

I tried again. I don't know when I'll be in again as I'm traveling I said.

"Well try and come back it's for your own benefit and you can pop by anytime in the evening"

Actually I needed to cancel the appointment otherwise I'd be charged.

Because of my friend I declined to tell her that I won't be using them again. But for such a professional looking outfit from what I saw, this exchange sans invoice was quite strange.

Customer care is still important.