Monday, February 11, 2008

Accelerated news making

Digital Video has been around for at least ten years now, DVcams much the same, and whilst programme making and film has been heavily influenced by its presence, one facet of TV had remained resolutely unchanged.

Consider the strides made in the written word, the fluidity of language caught in new contemporary forms, magazines such as Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, News Statesman, Arena and The Face.

Examine how digital has alterted the form of film making from Mike Figgis' Time Code, The Matrix to Beowulf.

The intimacy of this non celluloid form has created a slew of altered states, new horizions, a language which modern day lexicons have either been ill at ease accepting, or not bothered at all.

You might ask why TV News terms e.g. two-way, oov, Piece to Camera have not been joined by 21st century aphorisms.

Of the many people who deride videojournalism, it's the unconventional nature of the art, that leaves them feeling uncomfortable: Vj is nothing more than dirty TV.

In the 90s, the very idea of camera operators doing sound in a bid for the networks to cut money drew sharp breaths; doing everything well that's plain daft: if it's not broke why fix it.

What's more videojournalism is to them an imposter of TV News production as it should be.

Continued...

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