Africa paves way for innovatory UN style International broadcasts

I'm so excited by this.

Finally technology has become a friend in need, indeed.

Imagine nations reporting on nations, nations talking to nations, nations reporting to the people.

It sounds a grand idea. It is and exist in some guise for the BBC, CNN, Sky, Al Jazeeera - and many others have global posts in territories.

But Africa?

Probably one of the most ambitious ideas I have been involved in, which I would drop everything to replicate as the kernal for greater understanding.

Take journalists from Ghana, many of whom had never left the country before and take them to South Africa. And in time viser versa.

A coproduction no one had attemped before. Two nations that have so much in common but are seperated by. . . ?

Now finally, I can bring you that unique broadcast: The United States of Africa - a rich seams of programmes that demonstrate something awesome: broadcasters who have a measure of their constituents reporting on matters that aren't driven neccesarily by news but social relevancy.

There's an elaborate write up to this, which would probably make a book. But less speed, more haste.

At a WeMedia summit at Reuters last year, I became impassioned, even angry telling the audience that Africa, anywhere and our lack of understanding e.g. The Taliban, the this, the that is not a sympton of technological differences any longer, but ignorance.

Wild, wild ignorance. Fo every piece of new stock the big broadcasters are buying in, take the old if you want and lets use it in the fashion this idea illustrates: a UN style of broadcasting, designed to add to knowledge, than take away - and believe me that is being done.

This week I'll post the videos which includes some fantastic insert footage part of the broadcast e.g. Stevie Wonder playing for Mandela, A Boeing 747 in the studios with a slew of stars emerging, the first Ms south Africa to get to the finals of Ms World, a day in the life on the new immigrants ( we spend an overnight with Africans huddled in a flat whom the nexy day eran a living as traders. One of them had a PhD), a history of South Africa linked to Ghana, and much, much, much, much more.

And the year this took place, 1997.

Like I said Technology has finally caught up with us. And the second most amazing thing, the Ghanaians in this broadcasts learnt video journalism in 3 hours.

Get mentored, Get going - Young Journalists

Soon the summer breeze will still and autumn leaves daintly sneak onto the ground.

The din of chatter, excited screams, alongside dim faces: something stirs.

It's term time.

Another intake of enquiry minds looking for a career in one of the toughest, open-end career paths, the media.

I will be smiling as I ready myself for first contact. Academics will know that feeling, a weeny tinge of stage fright, and expectation. What will they, her, him, be like?

Huh! that grey hair has grown.

This time around I'm likely to feel a little bit different. My thoughts turn to the challenge, that the stakes need to rise. This for both an industry slow to catch up, but now trying, and for my own peace of mind.

There's nothing more enriching than to find new cohorts who crave the exchange of knowledge. I'll be asking, as I do, whether: "We can either do this, or we can go down the rabbit hole".

Here, nothing is scared. It was made by mortals and can be deconstructed and constructed anew. This year I will be seeking such a challenge myself looking to a PhD to indulge new lines of thinking and applications.

This year I also hope the essence, the new philosophy of journalism will be less unsettling.

Last year when I mentioned how as a print journalist you would have to acquire some skills with video, if you wanted your CV to be in the tray," next interview call back", the mood in the hall darkened.

Masters' student Kathy Land's blog captured the moment and afterwards in her blog.

Hello Kathy if you see this, I hope all's going well.

The job of a trainer/lecturer has many sides: knowledge broker, examiner, inspirer, friend. And in this rubik's cube of an industry, keeping up to date and being relevant with developments is a high priority to assist Kathy and her colleagues.

"Those who observe will learn from their surroundings. Those that look but cannot see will leave non the wiser". This gem I saw at a museum is so apt. Delicate, impressionable minds in the hands of professionals.

But there are some things, such as life experiences - a module within MBA - that we can't short circuit, but I like to talk about with students. Adhocly here are some observations and post it notes from my school of life.

1. Try and see lectures as a two way conversation. You too can contribute by asking questions. There's no such thing as an irrelevant question. But if you've read up on something, been curious about something in the past, ask.

2. Find a mentor or be grandfathered/mothered. Professionals in the industry love the contact with you, but at a convenient measured time. But please try not to start your email with "I'm looking for a job". It may on occasion work, but execs don't have a list of jobs in their desk waiting for you.

3. In Autumn when you're starting your career that's the best time to start looking for a new friend, a mentor - someone who you think I'd love to be like you. By July the following year, first contacts are a bit late and everyone else is looking for a job, so... yep you've guessed Mrs Mentor is receiving a fair few requests by now.

4. Unless you're Madonna or Brad Pitt, your email ( which is the most convenient form of first contact) will not be answered immediately. Don't despair.

5. Devise a one page easy-to-read, fairly professional web page or blog, which would be of interest to your mentor.Embedd the link in your email.

6. In your email; three paragraphs max. A simple header and a polite sign off.

7. Engage, engage, engage. Unlike your previous life where when the bell goes off it's a relief, the end of lectures should be the time for you to want to test some of what you've learned.

8. Party and make friends. We're not all doom merchants. Play is an important part of learning.

9. Over the years the dominant group in journalism Masters are women. Men are becoming thinner on the ground and minorities almost invisible. The industry hasn't changed to where it should be for minorities. I recall the push for sex and ethnic equality extensively in the late 80s. So if you're from an ethnic background you've got industry inertia to wrestle with.

10. Experiment, test, enquire, be positive. Life's experience is as it says on the tin, and you won't find that always in fron the the screen. And if I am around on campus, as many of you have done, lets chat.

Shashank when did you want for us to get together?

BBC Reportage - How to make ground breaking youth current affairs

Each generation has its muse. Each generation either produces a legacy in programming for others to study or talks of one that stood above the crowd. Current.TV and Youtube are today's de rigeur. Look back in time and this is one reccommendation.

When the very idea of treating young people as adults, giving them a huge responsibilty to produce their own programmes in current affairs would have been considered ill-thought out, the BBC came up with Reportage.

In fact it followed on the back end of Network 7, Janet Street Porters creation. In this report on viewmagazine.tv, firstly a snap shot of the programme and one of its typical features as I cover juvenile crime.

And then on viewmagazine's menu a more indepth look at its contribution.

In case you're not convinced here's 5 reason why the programme had that little bit of something else and why if you're considering a current affairs prog, you could do yourself some good by studying it at making your own contemporary brand.

1. It was made by young people in their 20s, so they knew what was happening on the ground which they fed into the prog

2. It had an attitude. Everyone there would have been considered as top of their game. So rather than process stories the unit actively broke many stories that would have taken ages to develop elsewhere in the schedules

3. It had a decent budget.

4. It spoke to its constituents rather than patronise them and was allowed to experiment and in some cases fail. Programmes were pulled if not considered worthy

5. It operated almost like an agency. Everyone contributed. It was almost like BBC Training on the job as many of its staffers who left would go on to bigger programmes and have since become key players in British broadcasting

Watch it and make your own mind up. Video Journalism? Nothing is what it seems. Reportage was shooting with hi8s in 1992

Prince Rocks

Please join me in affirming what I failed to see the first time round, Prince's give away album via The Mail on Sunday absolutely rocks - all of it.

In part it could be because of a curve ball a friend threw at me via a video skype

"Hey man you're booked to go to China next year, around the Olympics".

"You alright with that?"

'Uh yeah, yeah, to do what!"

"You know talk IM6 Video Journalism and stuff".

"Okay"

But no, no no.

This is a stand alone gesture. The geek I am playing it at full blast on my Powerbook, led me to rummage through some oldies.

So join me once again upstanding to: Bobby Byrd, Bobby Womack, Living Colour - Cult of Personality, Cameo - Cameosis, Larry Young Fuels - Turn of the Light, Chocololate Milk - Actions speak louder than words, Expansion- Lonnie Liston Smith, Ohio Players- Pain, Stephanie Mill - Sweet Sensation - all fabulous tunes and part of 3000 odd LPs sitting behind me that I can't ****ing play because they're on vinyl and I don't have a frigginn deck.

Yeah I know I could get the CDs, MP3s whatever, but I'm ludditely attached to that feel of an old LP with a price maked £2.

What ! newspapers will go the way of Vinyl too and dissapear at some point? Really!

3d web

How soon before we're able to bend space and time around 3d sites. . .the outernet?

What you need to know about multimedia and possibly haven't thought about it that way before... next week

Rules governing shooting video online

For professional broadcasters these rules are quite stringent and can result in huge penalities by broadcasting regulatory bodies, but with video cameras and shooting becoming prevalent by the day what are the rules governing video shooting.

We'll call this "STREET RULES - our guide to a peaceful life filming"

This isn't a guide on shooting great video, but one on the ethics of filming, that should keep you as a video blogger etc nice and clean and morally outstanding. I'll go through these in some detail over the comiing weeks.

1. Risk Assessment and public liability - Know your surroundings and be careful. If you're filming a building site, the foreman WILL ask you to wear protective gear. Watch the bus and where you're placing your interviewee. "Phew that was a close shave". Don't fudge it. If a slate shoud fall on you without due care or you cause an accident it could make the difference in claims.

2. Are you insured for shooting on the streets/public places? Should you cause an accident are you indemnified? I have a policy with BECTU which is reassuring. Shooting the odd video may cause you to think, it's not needed, which is why look up the word "accident".

In Central London, in a bid to curb "loose shooters"; these aren't tourists but content providers, not neccesarily broadcasters, the authorities require you to have a permit. And if you don't under various rules including the terrorism act, they will ask you to stop. It's actually amazing you can't find a police wo/man when you want one, but take out a camera and "Doh, nooo!@".

3. Deception - Whoah that's a biggie, if you've been reading the British Press about cousin television.

Make it clear what the progs about and that ethically you don't doctor or alter the sense of the video to suit a different cause. This is all very well you may say in comedy progs. Yeah sometimes the victims see the funny side as well, but could cause all manner of defamatory proceedings if you get it heinously wrong.

If you're in the UK and you get a letter which is headed "Carter Ruck". Be afraid, be very afraid. In fact leave the country.

4 If you're filming for investigative purposes you may see fit to use deception as your way in. Ethically once you've got what you want give the body/figure a right to reply by letting them know what you have.

This could also help you as well as you'll likely glean new information, or have some corrected: "Oh that wasn't you in the car with my wife cus you have a cinema ticket saying you were at the movies!@" "OK". If you're subject disagreess then you'll pick up new video footage of that which you can dump into your film.

The indelible Roger Cook - TV's investigative reporters' reporter made a career of filming reight to replies and often getting thumped for it, despite being a big man.

Did you see the prog where he's in the car by his lonesome taking two alleged IRA men to task? Owwww you don't wanna get it wrong here.

5. The minefield area, labelled in the BBC handbook as "Access Agreements and Consent"
What are the terms of agreements you entered in making the film?

I once made a film inside Wormwood Scrub prisons on Lifers -Prison Inmate spending around 10 years plus. It was an interesting film of them talking about Art. They asked all the right questions e.g. where it would be shown? I was at a cable station at the time and said I'd try and get them a copy.

Well you know what daily broadcasting is like, so I lost track and a month later got a nice letter in the post saying:
"Since we never signed anything, we're pulling our consent for you ever showing the prog and will SUE if you do. We've consulted our lawyers".

I believed them and duely dispatched copies of the prog with T-Shirts and the matter cooled.

Oh and did I tell you the one when filming somone living on the street at a shelter for the Christmas and he mumbed in my ear: Do you like hospital food?

I'll come back to this, the intricate laws of libel, and how doc makers work around the law with the police when they don't have hard facts.

Nancy needs a manager

Nancy who does almost all the music at viewmagazine.tv is looking for you a manager.

Now Nancy is no ordinary woman. If you like Prince, Chapman, Prodidgy then you'll like her.

This from her myspace which go listen to her music

"E in motion is a young girl who was born in Swaziland the kingdom in the sky, in the South of Africa. her name is Nancy, born in 1986 she grew up listening to african jazz, american jazz, the police, brenda fasi, black mambazo, neil young, ronny jordan, jimi hendrix, tracy chapman, Duran Duran. and as she grew into her own, she started listening to a wider variety of popular music, from kwaito to heavy metal. "

She's just written a war song which I'll try and produce to Yannis Kontos' visuals.

Ferrari -part 2

Youtube chews this stuff up. I'll put a better quality one on a server somewhere even Viewmag.
Njoi

The Ferrari

Some nice ees from you regarding the initial look and feel of the supercars pages.

We're going to be testing an initial ad space buy for this. We've got a number of high performance cars and invites from the EU. It's all a question of time really for me.

But I do like the feature we're considering of the school for mechanics - women only. They drive high performance cars and are shown how to deal with some of the more pernicious problems vehicle owners face e.g. changing tyre, spotting oil levels, changing spark plugs and

The first part of the film is up. The second will follow shortly.

Couple of things I have spotted. I have "crushed" the blacks to get this high contrast look, which has bleached the film in place. That's the effect I wanted, but has overcompensated on other areas with low light, so there are heightened shadows, where I'd prefer them not to be. I'll correct this by going back to the original rushes.

The original file size was around 3gb. So to get it down to 48mb and 55mb before artefacting and some fraying of the images, I have been brutal with the compression. I'm going to ease up on that as well.

This film is really about "look". On Youtube it looks aweful. Hopefully over the weekend I'll have the time to change and then reconfigure a panoramic 800 X 540 on a different server so you can watch it in full size ( Yummy).


It will yield no difference to the story, but make the film much brighter. The gamma ( light) on a windows PC tend to, by default, display images that are darker when compared to a Mac.

But hopefully when all those glitches are solved and I have introduced sime rigorous SEM the site should begin to work itself.

Then if you are interested and you values/brand are smiliar please email Ads@viewmagazine.tv which gtes looked at by Kienda - very nice chap.

And he'll do some whizzadry pokery of calling you back. There, hard sell done.

Back to creative and why Multimedia is about playing with time and space rather than entities.

Good read, Red - from blogger, writer, now author

Rachel North (yep that's not her) was caught up in one of London's Tube bombings. Couple of years earlier she's been brutally sexually assaulted. She features in this August's Red Magazine.

Yep call me Metro Man!

I interviewed Rachel for Viewmagazine when we were both panelists at the WeMedia Global Forum. She's a gutsy, strong, focused woman.

After the Tube ( Subway) bombings her voice became louder; not in decibels, but reach. She became that rarest of new journalists the super blogger, then soon she was writing for the nationals and now she has a book out.

Here's a her story here in video. Apologies in advance. I'm using production methods available a year ago, so you'll have to wait for the video to load. In time I'll change that to the latest production methods which plays almost instantaneously.

kerching kerching kerching video on the net

One of the world’s most powerful ad men, Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP said on The Today programme ad spend on the web for digital services ect is expected to rise to 23%. That's a lot of kerchings.

Some very clever agencies are devising ways of tracking their spend. Doughnuting ads between video features, similar to TV is an increasing prevalent method. Then all manner of web tracking resources can be cross referenced to find peaks on the page.

A colleague from the Online News Association Kathryn Corrick (facebook) gave a wonderful demonstration on matrix analysing.

We're going to trial something at Viewmagazine.tv soon. ( see next post).

As you've probably realised there are no ads on viewmagazine. I have been pretty reluctant begging questions from friends etc. Er, how do you do it? "Vodoo subsiding" :)

c.f vodoo economics

Traveling light with my movie camera- Gonzo Film Making

Cameras throughout the years

A response to Cliff Etzel at bluprojekt which I think warrants its own thread entitled, Gonzo TV and travelling light with my movie camera.

Of course if you're film making you've got your kit of parts n' all with you, but on occasions it may just be you and your lonesome camera. So, what is a man and woman supposed to do? Here's an abridged.

. . .with my movie camera

Having worked alongside some VJ folk in Berlin who were v. professional I noted they were carrying quite a chunk on their backs.

I also discovered from a fraternity of VJs from four corners of the globe, there are different dialects and approaches to Vjism. Vjism is not a one size fits all.

In the UK, when we started off, (a few years back here's a timeline), we packed, but soon many of us ditched everything for just the camera. I do the same for Journalists I advise on training courses.

• "What you really don't need, leave behind".
• "You sure about those shoes, you may have to run to pick up sequences ?"
• "Yep keep a clean shirt on for those pieces to camera".
• "I'd probably change into some trousers (pants), what if you need to get on the shot to get that shot"

On more advance courses I open them up to filters, steadycams etc, mike arrangements - all solid TV stuff, but It's really horses for courses and what makes you the VJ comfortable.

In using the term "Gonzo", I do so metaphorically, to give people an idea of Vj's personality. But the truth is I have always been light and "aggressive" with the camera. I also shoot "dirty" as a signature. One of the most outstanding directors around to shoot "dirty" is The Bourne's Paul Greengrass.

"Dirty" means there is often no clean line of sight between you and your subject. The camera becomes another person looking to engage, so you often see "warts n all". It also begs a radical form of editing. I hope the auters don't mind but this is Gonzo.

Gonzo should not be misconstrued with shoddy, just as no one would have called Hunter S Thompson's work second rate. And no that doesn't mean I'm comparing myself to the King of Gonzo.

It's the expressional form of shooting and editing, the language that mixes narratives, dialect, and form - doing away with civility. Is Videojournalism the "Rolling Stone" of TV? That's debatable. But Rolling Stone Magazine's eminence in the 60s was its redefinition of journalism.

Video journalism goes some way to doing the same. It's a state of mind as much as a fresh functional form.

A lot of the times I also don't want to be seen filming. There are laws governing "secret filming", particularly for broadcasters. But I'm not secret filming, I just don't want a sign up saying camera/director shooting.

Reason?

I mean to be inconspicuous enough so there's no acting on anyone's part.

I can't tell you the amount of times I've shot footage of the police or been out with them and going light has helped tremendously.

On network TV stories in the past with time and a nice budget, yep I've had the whole shabang. Successor Generations for network Channel 4 News made from South Africa is one example. I even had the DVW900 camera. (see previous post "Small cameras=cheap TV, Yes? No?")

On some shoots on viewmagazine it's been tripoded ( carbon fibre tripod v. light) and miked e.g. Sony Dual Channel Radio mic

For example Dream Girls, which I got two of my former students to do and we had oodles of time.

But stories e.g features, news current affairs "waiteth for no one" - that's my motto.

In docs and current affairs, I prefer to move quite fast around the story, eschew set/up reconstructions and am constantly thinking: "have I got the story". 8 Days is probably the most visible and high profile of this - all handheld sans filters etc.

This doesn't mean if you're packing lights, mikes, filters etc this isn't apt, so long as you can work it pretty fast- great!

Again, it's about choice. I'm no Spielberg, oh no, but on "Saving Private Ryan", they stripped the camera of all luxuries to achieve that "frenetic" look landing on the beach.

When it comes to shooting light I'm not alone, quite a few VJs/ producer /directors I know e.g Claudio Von Planta shoot "neat". A lot of my work is about post - where it's necessary, so untreated video is a boon.

There's a scene in the Ferrari film where a man drops by in his car just to say hello, and I immediately engage him. Though he saw I was filming, I didn't want it make a song and dance about it, so I continued to film without looking at the monitor.

Like I said VJ is a state of mind.


David Dunkley Gyimah is completing his PhD which includes future journalism in video. Go to Viewmagazine.tv for films

The Ferrari - the Ultimate Performance Car!

Part 1 of the Ferrari. You can read the accompanying article on viewmagazine.tv.
Part 2 loaded at some time today

Unfortunately, Youtube's compression takes away from the aesthetic. The original file size was 3gig, before I reduced it to 55mb as you can see on viewmag. Youtube them does its own mash-up. They'll get it right soon.

Wiki Scanner

Th truth is out there.

What the $£@&*!

Ok this is an easy one. You're at a traffic light ( Robot -if you're in South Africa). Your window's are down, it's been hot. Two guys crossing the road throw a wrapper into your car. So what would you do. Drive off of course.

The vehicle's owner got out to challenge the youths and got stabbed. He would later die. Something's very wrong. If you're travelling to the UK, probability and the law of averages suggest you'll be fine, but have a bad day; wrong place, wrong time, and that's it.

The UK in the 90s did an incredible job of victimising DUI ( driving whilst drunk). Some people still do it, but the sense of bravdo attached has been diminished to idiocy, potential killers at worst. It makes you think why they can't mount a sustained campaign against this disease.

One of my former students made a comment in a vox pop: "what if". What one thing would he change, I asked. The way the media operate. They shouldn't just report but follow up, change things.

You could view what he said as rather naive, but he is onto something. In Ghana, where he lives, television has a strong social role. I'm not naive enough to believe TV makers should also become police. Make the programme, catch the culprits, but is there a role TV could be playing that until now it isn't. It does Live Aid to save the world!

A five second message strategic across targeted progs about the cause-effect of knives. Oh wait, that's already being done. They're called ads, and once the client runs out of money, someone else takes that slot.

So what's the solution? Cuz do nothing and, well. In the 0.2 world can traditional media be allowed to also multiskill and have a conscious?

Deja Vu

Rewatched Deja Vu - Denzel Washington again today. One of those films in the genre of Minority Report, which was a big influence in devising an Outernet interactive display - which viewmagazine.tv was just a part of.

The direction is as stylised as is possibly could be coming from Tony Scott. The scene of using "google Earth" resolution to whizz around the city was particularly enjoyable to watch. Some fine folk at a Californian University have more or less perfected that, and the point where the Deja vu Unit tap into a city cam, all doable. Now if they could just figure how to go through worm holes.

But equally satisfying are the sort of online sites: Deja Vu, Bourne, ghosts of citesoleil that combine strong aesthetic values and an array of multimeia offerings. By the way isn't ghosts of citesoleil something? Trippy! What a bar this doc raises.

If I'm ever in need of inspiration, I turn to Apple's trailer site. Incidently, but then you knew this, most of the film sites use the same codecs you find in Final Cut - h.264

In the end it's all about experimenting and finding what works.

How do you shoot a car sequence - or even car show

This week I have finally got through to finishing off the Ferrari piece after some final project markings.

Anyways, so how do you shoot a car show with no budget or using videojournalism, without any rigs, jibs, dollys, reds, aerial mikes, filters, specialised lenses, mounts, and so on ?

All I used was the A1 Sony in HDV mode, the rest is Gonzo.

The Tao of Multimedia

What's the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao got to do with Multimedia?

Following on from the Tao theme - an article which I hope adds to the debate about producing Multimedia packages and how one might go about it. I quote a number of very well meaning people. It's a bit longish but I'll post some bits here in a couple of days and the main article on viewmag.

Meanwhile here are a few passages that give some flavour:

1)Interactivity and Multimedia is part logic, part dysfunctionality. That's because our comprehension of language, our sense of narrative is linear and as follows logical. The Whorf Sapir hypothesis describes this simply as language shapes the way we think. The way we speak is logical and so we have a tendency to present themes in this manner.

2)Mutimedia and Interactivty is more than divying up linear features and placing them on a timeline. It works at an intuitive level if you're one of those people who thinks interstially, sees an object and can think up seemingly unrelated links at first sight which have depth later, you may make a good multimedia producer.

If you're too logical, apply to CNN as a reporter. TV reporting is about resolution and closure

3) In 1995, a residing New Yorker showed how multimedia is a multiple sensory affair and at its core structure IS considered Art. Auriea Harvey, a graphic designer and artist set the on and offline world alight with her work which would also grace some of the best museums.

When I stumbled upon Harvey in 97/98, she was a wave of new fresh air. Her site has since changed; I confess I liked the earlier one. But she wrote rules that did not exist, she created forms that were fully sensory and immersive. I kept a cutting of hers on my news desk for many years. This, what she does, leads; as opposed to the many of us that follow.

4. Early cinema early contains some allegorical forms of how Multimedia would come to see itself 100 years on. Watch
Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show Directed by the cinema pioneer Edwin S Porter in 1902 and Life of an American Fireman.

And who are the latter day Gladiators?

Over there

If you ever managed to catch Over There, the action drama series developed by Steven Bocho ( NYPD, LA Law) then watch out for the embedded video journalist.

Probably the only TV product I can recall where they give you a generous view of a VJ at work. I'd be demonstrating the style on previous VJ sessions - cantor movement of holding the camera steady and moving fluidly- before this fell into my lap.

Typical huh! Producers put out a show hoping you'll like it and what grabs my attention - an embedded VJ.

I was slouching in my favourite chair one Tuesday evening watching cable, saw the show, and leapt out to grab a VHS.

I have since got the DVD. The two screen grabs show how to hold a DV Cam to give you wide 270 degree shooting ranges. You pivot from your hips and your arms act as a jib


The first grab shows the VJ with the soldiers. The show's makers very kindly give you a view of what's being shot by colouring the VJ's shots blue. Neat!

If you really want to get the technique right go talk to a Marine and see how they hold the turret of their gun when they're "house clearing", the walk rubbing their knees and "cushion' their steps by bending their knees.

Alternatively, a camera person who works close to presenters on live shows has the skill. Here in the UK it would be those working Top of the Pops, Big Breakfast etc. or more recently say, Big Brother.

Word of warning though if you are working the field in hostile zones, take added precautions that other combatants don't mistake you for a soldier.

There's a classic TV News shot from the Intafada caught on camera. A camerman squats to take a zoom shot and someone watching him believing his has an RPG takes aim. The cameraman is violently yanked away when his friend realises what's taking place; the bullet barely misses him. OK he wasn't a VJ but you get my drift.

A lot of 8 days has me "crabbing" and "tearing" shots, and also Conflict and Warco - where I'm yet to post the full video of a training exercise which was so life like, many a few reporter broke down crying.

Image taken from War Games featured on Apple's web site
Please be patient with the two links. They're using Flash MX protocols, so don't load as swiftly and play out well as current Flash VL files

Extreme Transparency

It goes by different names, but at its heart boils down to one thing, telling the truth, but also revealing the process by which you came to that.

It's a mighty interesting conundrum if you're any one of the ff:
a) businesses/ brands contemplating blogs into your realm
b) Managing crisis management
c) A media/broadcast channel.

We all know so much more than we did ten years ago ( media literacy) and have a means to talk to one another en masse ( unlike ten years ago) that if you're trying to bury, suffocate, nudge something to the side because it does you no favours, forget it.

It used to be the preserve of whistle blowers and leakers but now the means to disseminate info do away with grand titles of old. "I'm simply telling you what it's like", guv "and this time I am being honest, cuz i blog it".

In the last couple of weeks we've seen a slate of it: RDF-Queen's miscalculated sequence shots, ITV's miscalculated press release over its Paul Watson's documentary.

And no doubt there will be as many more in a year as there was likely in five.

While back I did a big job for one of the humanitarian agencies. Persuasively deny, hold your ground and be prepared to back it up if neccessary. Politicans are accustomed to this in the counter. You ask a difficult question and they side step it with their own. The reporter pulls em back.

But now we are a nation of sleuths. How do the big PRs advise their clients on damage limitations? Simple, in my book, be honest and own up. Mea culpa; resistance really is futle Mr Borg. Offer solutions why it won't happen again, reveal the process which enabled it to occur, and offer extreme transparency as a fall back to the audience

Here's the editor of one of the UK's most influential news programmes, Newsnight shedding some more light on Extreme Transparency when I caught up with him some week's back. Peter Barron's trials for blogs et al has for the moment come to and end.

The Social Police

Policing Social web 2.0 jumps from the matrix world of one and zeros to the sapience hedonistic world, or is that the other way round. Matrix fans will correct me. But next time you go to a night club in London and you find a strange person watching you, you may not neccessarily need to be alarmed.

Relayed to me, the police are increasingly deploying detectives with behavioural science skills. Their job to study hedonists, figure out who's giving off conflicting body/verbal signals. It comes in the wake of growing ( can't verify this) claims of rape.

I'd be interested to join the group. In my on air TV career, I did quite a few reports with the police. I'm about to post one of the earliest. Circa 1992 out with Manchester police looking at Youth Crime for the BBC hit series Reportage.

If you're not familiar with Reportage, it was the BBC's jewel in the crown for young people making current affairs progs. If you examine the broadcast industry, several huge names came from that camp.

The standard of TV making was revolutionary and will still hold up now. It's a shame there's nothing like this anywhere at the moment. Current.tv, Resfest are great repositories for finding cutting-edge films, but at the BBC you got first rate training on the job. In fact it was the era where failing came as part of the job of trying to be innovative. That doesn't happen today.

So if you're reading this and you're an exec, a playpen for youngens to experiment with film and the web, not to follow what's already there, but to be bold enough to drive new ideas, would be welcome by many.

Another observation. The gene of crime is as decrepit then as it is now. No, you'd argue it's worse. But the most telling statement from a youth;" You get caught and you think they'll bang you up, but they just give you a caution and then you go out and rob again, and again"

Who says crime legislation isn't working. Look a nation of hegels

Reportage and Crime posting on Viewmagazine

The rugby was great but I don't want to speak about that

My heartfelt thanks to Tim and his wonderful friends for making us (Barry, one of my oldest friends and I) have a wonderful day at Twickenham, where he treated us to a fab lunch and then a ringside seat at the rugby match, and then drinks afterwards. Thank you.

I guess we'll have enough time, the next coming weeks to talk rugby, so this is not so much about the game, but a glaring observation, well two.

Large swathes of seats remained unoccupied. Why? If the RFU/ men in suits are truly serious about sport and its interest for the young, I can't see why free tickets weren't given out to youngsters (all now on summer hols).

Ok someone's going to raise the spectre of how much they would have lost doing that. Think for a minute! Ah you get the logic. The seats were empty. And it was a friendly.

Hail the thinking of disciples from the open Source Movement. Give version 1 away and if we're wowed, we will come back for version 2 and yes, pay.

There might have been scores of youngsters who would have loved to come, even if some of them had never seen a match in their lives. I was sat behind one 7/8 year old who knew more than the ref. I have got him on audio and will post for your delectation.

Secondly, what a wonderful idea these Ref Links are. Essentially they're limited radio transmissions you buy giving you the Ref's chatter during the game.

"Oy you I have had enough of you. One more of those I'm giving a penalty"

"You, leave it, leave it.. leeeeeavvve it (posted on viewmagazine.tv)

And occasionally, you'll hear: "Yes sir".

Now that's gentlemanly. Why can't they a) have ref links in football (soccer) and secondly, why can't they be equally polite, after pole-axing their opponents.

The Power of Dreams

David aged 8 with sisters

Since developing viewmagazine.tv, it's grown beyond anything I could have thought.

The blog's the same. So thank you for your company.

I write about topical, often even obscure issues that would interest my friends, peers and people around me.

I'm not as active a journalist/content person as I used to be, but things like working with Lennox Lewis on his fight with Tyson, diving with an expedition team to find WWI subs, discovering new areas of comms. on the web and what other people are doing is the sort of thing that I'd read on other blogs and I regularly do, so if any of this has caught your fancy, well, thank you.

A lot of what catches my eye is an idea about an idea, then finding its historical nuance, then looking at some form of trend extrapolation.

All this stuff we're doing has been done before, in some Victorian or should I say Darwinian guise or in a manner which wasn't clear until a critical mass of us became participants.

Then all of a sudden: the right place, right time, right everything happens. This is what Thomas Kuhn referred to as the Paradigm Shift.

You might have been the first to do video online 10 years ago, but it was way before its time and then someone else did it three years ago and presto.

Sometimes this blog is about the day's events. Isn't that what a blog is supposed to be, someone just muttered. That might have been the case, but there are now an infinite number of blogs for anything. This really is publishing made simple.

BTW I'll blog the Rugby with some footage later, plus the issue of info architecture content design.

Growing Pains
As we grow we need new shoes and clothes. Viewmagazine suffers from the same creep ( yes I get the double entendre :) ). One minute you're a size 10, next. Good Lord, you're a 14.

So it's time to make adjustments. For Viewmag, I hope will mean cleaner lines, wider pieces, more exacting video, like the recut promo on the front page, and new ways of engaging content and you.

I hope it also means at some point the idea behind Viewmag, which is: take a popular mag idea and try out hopefully good content that you'd find interested and has a bent towards the new new thing that we do, will grow much, much further beyond the concentric circle of friends.

I often recollect the skinny boy, aged 8, with the big art pad drawing pictures of planes, space ships and aliens, thinking when I grow up I'm going to buy all the chocolates in the world and fly to the moon.

My teachers report that came back said: "David is a lively child and ( blah blah blah) but has a tendency to day dream.

Not sure I'll make it to see the "man in the cheese", but dream?

That's what we have, what we do. It's what provides a bridge from the impossible world to the plausible, a streak of hope for what we might want ( Gosh David you're being a little bit too profound, loosen up) and the ability often not to take ourselves too seriously. ( Doc, I keep fallin, what does that mean?)

And the one thing we should not attempt to take from an 8 year old, or much less, is the power of dreams.

Hope you can stay around for us to dream up some new ideas.

p.s Chocolate Mmmmmm !

I did not know Svengali Tony Wilson who's just passed away

But I was present during the big time of The Hacienda. Then working at BBC Manchester, we'd climb into the disco, house, funk tardis that is The Hacienda.
More recently at a Net2.0 gathering Tony was on hand interviewing the manager of Robbie Williams. I filmed bits of it. Greatly entertaining as Tony shouted down punters telling them to **** off.
I'll post that one day. May he rest in peace

Cannabalising post from Prof Monck - Shark Attacks

Before leaving for his two weeks of the exclusive island resort somewhere near the Fijian Islands, Super blogger and author, Crunch Time, Adrian Monck posted this.

The Sun got itself well and truly stung. Us TV types look forward to a full independent inquiry into how the paper was fooled and how it carried the hoax forward to its readers.


In a shameless deed of cross canabilisation, I posted this on his blog and just in case you're not one of his regular readers, posted my response here.


OK, so we won’t be holding our breath.

. . . but was it fooled? No one's talking. Well at least that's what being reported.

Can't remember where I read/heard, but what appears to emerge is the local newspaper which first showed the pictures had a circulation bonanza. So, The Sun?

Coast authorities are reported saying rather than deterring visitors and surfers, it's done the converse.

So could this not be an up to date version of The Sun's 1986 headline "Freddie Starr ate my Hamster" ?

It is after all the "Silly Season", though that's hardly true looking at other news events.

In the end you could argue:
* No one was injured from the piece's publication. No that's not a reason to publish unsubstantiated claims.

* Some (?) made a tidy sum from the event; the original photographer claims not to have profited.

*Our penchant for the occasional whaky story retains our chutzpah for eccentricity and the Monty Pythonesque: "It's a dead Parrot !"
!
* Tourism to the UK will be boosted as a result: Hey those zaney Brits are at it again.

* David Letterman will probably have done a sketch by now, thus aiding the Sun's brand quotient.

Letterman: 10 things associated with Brits that are just er, mad funny.
1. They put custard on apple pie and eat jelly, yuk! (bum, bum)
2. They soak vinegar on their chips. (Ba-de-bum)
3. They call the sidewalk, the pavement. (ping)
4. Soccer is football £@&*% (hahahaha)

Drum roll

5. They speak with a funny accent (Boo)
6. Body wind jokes are funny ( no sfx here please)
7. He has a blond flop, speaks with rotund vowels and wants to be Mayor of England.
What?
Oh he want's to be Mayor of Hackney.
Where then? C'mon researchers do yer work!
8. Beckam turns down movie role to play soccer (swoon. whaaaat. He's maaad)
9. They named this bell here Ben. No, it's not an ex-boxer.
10. More Sharks, this time in the middle of London. (Hahahahaha..that's funneee)
(whispers to Letterman) Er, yes they're actually at this place that used to be city hall.
Oh!

* Itt's invigorated further talk/column inches of "what is journalism?"
*And finally The Sun has a good stab at achieving google-rank supremacy with the word, "shark". One last push.

I reckon there are a couple of execs at Canary Wharf with a G&T in one hand and a mobile in the other to Kelvin MacKenzie having a wee giggle.

In front of them is Peter Snow's (BBC Newsnight) retired war pit and they're shuffling pieces around looking for the next big story. No sorry, that's some other newspaper exec (Black).

There are lies, damn lies and statistics. But then factually with this story we might never know.
NB: A footnote for someone's autobio.

BTW, did you hear about the network news broadcast which flagged up a pic of a very famous rapper with a reference to the dark side of pharmacy? Surely shum mistake.

p.s. Apologies for any typos in advanced Prof Monck :) Have a good hols Adrian

direction of the director

Busy day tomorrow, Twickenham to watch England vs France - Ruggers ie Rugby. A truly good friend of mine has comp tickets for the match. It's going to be a truly heroic one. England are in good form but France their old nemesis won't give an inch.

Barry, my buddy and I have just shared a good laugh; the last time we went to a match. It was South Africa against Brazil when we lived in Johannesburg.

We got there late so the only way to get to our seats was to run across the pitch, with some 40,000 people seated waiting for the national anthem.

"Man, please what ever you do don't trip", I said.

Ruggers is one of those Brit affairs. My US friends always tutut when I bring it up. "Hey man, there's Rugby and real football", they add.

Yep even David Beckam has learnt to call the lesser known sport, soccer @!&*

But Football? My most memorable recollection, somewhere in the 80s. Marcus Allen, playing for the LA Rangers. I'm a dirt poor student watching the game, when the electricity cuts.

It ran on 50 pence piece slots; you know a bit like finding a dime. Point is I didn't have one, so I sat watching this blank screen, screaming quitely.

Superbowl receiver-play touch downs. It still hurts today ( David gedda life!)

After Ruggers we're off to add to the Bourne's coffers. It's already grossed the GDP of Russia. But here's where I go to school again.

Film school, journalism practice class, they all help, but nothing beats watching a film and trying to get into the head of the director, such that you anticipate shots and angles.

Greengrass, the director, has one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants styles, so I don't expect a mind meld. But it can be fun or annoying.

Often it means I'll watch a film again; on DVD to enjoy its scond time around. That said very few films have me returning again and again to look at the superb cinematography and direction.

The more recent ones include: Black Hawk Down, Man o Fire, A river Runs Through it (great Fly fishing shots) and Bourne Supremacy. Tomorrow I'll most likely add Ultimatum to my list.

DC and during an interview with former CIA boss James Woolsey I ask him about Spy Films: "What does he think?"

Woolsey: "Oh they're nothing near what we do".

Guess the audience cares very little about that.

The beauty of video

The beauty of video isn't just its aesthetic but its true power and simplicity; the progressive capturing of reality. We could take an array of software to produce the likes of 8 Days , but you'd agree that sometimes the simplest is the most powerful.

Take a camera, choose a backdrop and ask a simple question.

In this case it was if you could chage one thing, what would that be?

The students then, that answered this were untainted; their views crystal, their honesty obvious, their heads and hearts ruled.

Who knows, but as they climb the totem pole of journalism, will their views change? So for me as much as them, this is a tad anthropological - a freeze frame of history. No, really their history, when they might ask themselves in years to come, was I right.

In1992 I did the same with a 13 year old uncertain of South Africa's future. She lived in a small town near Pretoria. Here's veronique back then in Through the Eyes of a Child

The piece is equally dear to me: I'd barely been in South Africa when one of the top independents asked me to produce direct this with three day's notice and a turn arounf of two days. .

Fast Forward today. This observation of ones views is more acute in politicans, who start their careers with an alacrity to change the world. Few survive the course with scruples.

As journalists we all go through a pupae phase - almost akin to Stephen Covey's dictum (Seven ways of Success): dependecy, independency, and interdependecy.

And along the way, do we really change. Will this generation born into the web mass-niche media alter its views to accommodate the traditional generation?

Itumelang - one of South Africa's dynamic twenty somethings said something that was neat explaining change in South Africa. "We've had a political change, but not a social one". Ditto Journalism?

What will become more important? So far, the environment, social interaction, the "us" culture as opposed to the didactic era of Thatcherism and dare we say Thatcherism. 2.0 (Blairism)

Of the Masters students in this video, many are doing well. Sub editors, and editors-in-chiefs of lively journalistic organs.They hail from four corners of the world. It was a thorough joy teaching them,as it was the out going group this year. I tip my cloth cap.

Their curiosity welded the old and new, the future and the now, and a freshness that we as cynical journalists admire - for once we were honest truth seekers. Yes, many of us still are, but the knocks of the profession, the relentless culture which often eschews what matters for what is tantalising is burdensome.

When a daily paper can run misleading headlines of Sharks off Britain's coast knowing it's not true, but bask in the circulation of a three fold increase in sale, you're inclined to ask the question again. What is it we do?

On the full version of What If Doug, a successful ( I hope he won't mind) designer cum journo in California wants to change cooking books. They're too bland and don't bring out the essence of this great art, he comments.

This isn't frivolity, but a microcosm for all things that take up space doing nothing in particular. So go on. What would you change? And if you happen to record it, will it stand the test of time in years to come.

Urgh!

My Phone's gone with 10 years of contacts and all sorts.
Bummer!

Time's threesome

Copy of Time subscription dropped through post. OMG you mean you pay to read it???

Three snippets inside: delicious, fab, studied.

How the Bourne Boys keep it real
The bit where Greengrass hooks up with Matt Damon after the studio had set up a meeting:
"At London's Heathrow Airport, with £15 in his pocket, Greengrass realized, "I'd better get some money, 'cause I'm taking out one of the world's great movie stars." His cash card was overdrawn. "So I spent the whole meeting with him thinking, Please don't order the steak."

Outward Bound - a profile of David Milliband, British Foreign Secretary
""He's the Foreign Secretary? He's so young!" exclaimed social activist Atta ul Haq"
Adding he can't be more than 30. Milliband 42, suggest short of dying his hair what is one to do?

And Woman Man, Death God
Woody Allen discusses Ingmar Bergman who died recently.
Said Bergman to Woody recounting story: "He ( Bergman) would show up on set and not know where to put the camera".

Incidently I'm so glad Time saw fit not to prefix Ingmar with "director". Reminds me once flicking through the UK's TV presenter handbook. Huh! there's my picture, I shrugged to a friend. Then we got to Sir David Frost.

It was a blank page, no bio, simply, Sir David Frost, with his agencies telephone number below.

I mean if you don't know who Frost or Bergman is, well!

Black Role Models

Report on Radio 4 Today, and splashed across the front page of The Guardian something that's been around for a while, but I guess the power of the press release, timing and political pressure [ a year long government study] means oxygen of publicity: Black boys need role models beyond pop stars and bling rappers.

Circa 1993, on my last leg in SA, the same feeling prevailed. I even did the occasional mentoring talk, But South Africa is a vast country with role models a plenty, and while they are not free of social problems, the strata, the visible presence of middle class professionals will have done much to suggest alternative lifestyles for wavering youth.

In the UK you could argue that as a visible minority, the challenge is convincing a young un, that black doctors, lawyers, academics do exist. I know it sounds a naive thing to say. Working for BBC Reportage, I reported on this. The group I found were around 13 years old with guns (they wouldn't show their faces on cameras prefering to hide behind scarfs, so the editor had me drop them for something else). That was 15 years ago.

What's happening now is a generation of neglect boiling over the pot.

Recently, a group of black youngsters gathered around an editor friend of mine, amazed at what he did and that he could make a living. He drives a new model jag; their immediate thought was he was in the music business.

Where we are now is a deep seated problem and one that politically has been ignored to the point of a festering social disease. And yes it does cut both ways: parents and authorities, many believe to blame.

Politically you could choose, as has been done, to ignore it. And by that I mean not give it the full weight of attention it deserves. "Its a constricted problem. Doesn't affect the surburbs". Successive governments have done so.

The starkest most brutal comment I heard comes from a film: "Let them shoot one another". But the realisation is quickening that it's societal. Do nothing and Blade Runner's murky outlook will look like Sesame Street: no go areas and locked off areas of society.

We're not near to South Africa's model where violence has led to whole streets being walled off with security guards. What was fascinatig for me during my reporting days was how localised violence was. A side issue: Soweto was almost cheek by jowl to the Joberg and the affluence of say, Sandton but Sandton remained unblighted by the rage.

This is not exclusively a problem to do with young black boys. It exists around social, as well as class and ethnic lines - all connected in a complex but easy-to-judge matrix.

At the point that someone shoots someone else because they want that badge as a gangster; they want to do time to show how "hard" they are, you know you have a problem, and that's not a colour issue.

It's life, respect, and what the hell has gone wrong. More importantly, what's the solution?

Car progs

About to post the full 20 mins of the film on Ferrari 599 GTB soonish.

If anything I hope it demonstrates what you can achieve with video journalism outside the confines of news productions.

I'm no where near doing a first here. Scores of programme makers have used dvcams to make progs.

But I hope what comes through is the mobility and turn around. On the day I filmed it was raining sheets, so that added to the drama. The film took a couple of hours to produce and then i developed this dummy site.
If I were to pursue the car idea, I think the K.app is, it's not a programme on cars per se, but one on the culture and lifestyle that surrounds the car, so nuances such as people talking to the presenter, Kevin Haggarthy, get a look in - where it's relevant of course.

I cut it on my powerbook and then took the final cut into Afrer Effects to add some tints. BBC Top gear can use up to 24 production crew for its show : Editor downwards. Cost? A couple of thousand pounds. A VJ prog maker? Er you do the maths.

Not quote top geat, but one gear - fast and furious. You judge. Up by the weekend. You know sometimes companies give freebies when they like what you've done. D'you reckon Ferrari might give me their 170,000 pound GTB 599?

You gota try

News legacy news and virtual reality.

Many many years back at the inception of TV News, the presenters wore DJs and bow ties. They they became less formal and around the mid 90s - one of TV News' mini revolutions (except there was no revolt) - surveys amongst viewers indicated they preferred their reporters to be, how shall we say, a little less stuffy.

Some networks dropped the tie, and adopted the open collar. The suit and tie still stayed on in the studio. We viewers like guests dropping int our living rooms to be smartly turned out.

I watched the news today. No, rather differently. Some time back I was asked to be one of the reviewers for one of the networks examining its news.

So I put myslf in that position.. and my immediate thoughts watching one of the channels was how clean eveything looked.

I think there are parrallels here with war or cop movies, perhaps film making, period.

The early films were highly polished, with clean lines, and awesome cinematography. You could get hit by a grenade or give chase to that bank rober but still that brill cream slick of hair remained intact.

Then audiences rebelled. They just stopped watching. Homicide Life on the Street, and NYPD showed a more grittier, verite, sense of what happens when someone fires off a 22. or cops have a bad beat.

Could adiences do the same with news? That broadcast from the floods, Heathrow Airport's twenty-people-deep, angst-ridden departure hall, that morning raid with the police, all messy affairs, but newsmakers are taught to look their smartest.

So could audiences turn off?

My take, no not in their droves. It's a question of legacy. We watch the dominant news sources because they come with the sstandard bouquet of channels, and so long as they present a universal unified on-screen language, we probbaly have little to make any comparative judgement.

Homicide, 24, Millennium,The Shield, Lost showed an alternative face of drama in a sea of convention until then we'd thought was the norm.

But the next TV revolution is not far off. How soon till we get to 10mbs?

why?

Small cameras = cheap TV, Yes? No?

I think I have spotted a misconception amongst broadcast news and newspaper professionals regarding the use of small cameras and their standards.

So first let me share with you this . . .

This is the digibeta dvw 900 - a beast of a camera which I've shot with - as a video journalist- extensively. (I'm about to post the film I made for Channel 4 News on viewmag)

The quality is great- viewed on the oscilloscope.

The lens would cost more than your car, unless that is you've got a ferrari 599 gtb =170, 000 uk pounds.
No seriously, it is dear, not that much though.

The lens arrangement allows you swap lenses and attach various filters across its matte box to get dramatic shots and also incredibly field of depth which Hollywood relies on to get you into cinemas.

In a crew or shoot you can look very very important.

But, you'll be hard pressed to run with it, unless you're one of those alpha camera person types. And it doesn't do small spaces. And, and forget it if you were thinking off walking into that presidental rallyin Zimbabwe incommunicado believing no one will spot you.

Here I am filming a long feature for Channel 4 News, spot the camera just by my side.



Now, these smaller cams that you've probably seen me with on Viewmagazine.tv are just peachy!

The pros will tell you they're not broadcast standard, and strictly speaking they're right put through that oscilloscope gizmo thingy. But unless you're Schwarzenegger's Terminator with that laser eye, you won't noice any difference, if shot well.

Where sometimes it is discernible on TV you'll spot that milky look. I won't go technical as I probably won't know what I'm talking about and someone may well eee in telling me "I'm rubbish". But anyway, if you're going to one of those electrical shops to buy a camera costing around 500 UKP, and it still says 3ccd, then in the camera's pants for getting rich colours.

Sony's A1 - the baby - cost around 1600 UKP, then there's he Z1 more money or the canon and then the daddy of small cameras is the Panasonic which shoots 720 p.

Won't go technical again, but it's the same near camera used in "24" - Jack Bauer, and various other high end productions.

With a small camera, here's the ff:

1. You're not important.
2. You're more flexible - you can run.
3. There are multiple positions of ease to carry the cam, other than on your shoulder, which we, you wouldn't do anyway.
4. You can't change the lens, but can attach a matte box with filters.
5. Cost is nothing compared to the big uns.
6. You can work difficult spots and go UNOTICED sometimes.

"Hey leave me alone, I'm just a freakin tourist"
"Is this not a picture of you sir on you blog, showing the work you do?"
"Hey man, that's my twin".

So you see the quality issue boils down to the person behind the camera. Stephen Sondenberg and many other top flight directors have used them for indies etc. And my good mate Claudio Von Planta has abandoned all his cameras to use the A1 for documentaries for CNN International, Sky and Al Jazeera.

It's the Video journalist/camera person, not neccessarily that dinky cameras equaly cheap TV

Yangtze River dolphin extinct ! @%&*

That's bad news, because in many ways it's a microcosm and great big sign saying: "Something's wrong people".

Does anyone remember the programme made by BBC Radio 4, also broadcast on the BBC WS many years ago in which two intrepid reporters went down the Yangtze trying to spot this rare species?

It was a wonderful piece of theatre radio; the water sound effects, the reporters themeselves, and one thing they did which will live with me forever. In fact, I tried it on my underwater dive in Gallipoli.

In an attempt to record the dolphins they put a condom over a microphone with a long lead lowered into the river.

If my memory serves me well you did hear the clicks of the dolphins; they would have attached the mic to a special unit.

I did the same with some divers coming out of the Dardanelles at 15 metres decoing - the point where divers wait to flush out/equalise air in their blood.

It worked.

If only such ingenuity in tracking down these creatures could be used to save them as well

Dogtown of broadcasting

The dogtown of broadcasting, videojournalism, rendered by many professionals in its early years as cheap vulcanised TV may finally be experiencing its purple patch.

A number of national newspapers and regional bodies are feeling the fabric and trying it on.

In the UK, the Financial Times and Telegraph newspaper are just two of the nationals off the start-block, regional press have had a two years head start, while BBC.co.uk/ technology is in trials as part of a wider brief.

Until now, it's been the BBC’s Nations and Regions flying the VJ flag.

**Across Europe**
In Europe, Circom, the body for EU Regional TV has firmly set VJism into its broadcast training structure.

This year it awarded the first ever VJ gong at its annual gathering cum awards in Bilbao.

Meanwhile, Concentra has expanded its rules for VJ entrants, though you still need to have your report broadcast on television news.

In its first run in the UK introduced by Associated Newspapers with consultant Michael Rosenblum, VJs style guide could have set it apart from television.

Stuart Purvis, then Chief Executive of ITN would later accurately describe the stations obitiuary as "way before its time."

Channel One resorted to a quasiversion of VJism and TV News by dint of the beta cameras it used while courting market respectability.

**Now**
At the last annual VJ awards held in Berlin, there were signs of VJisms maturity, noticeable by the emergence of several observational doc styles, particularly for long formats.

For more go here

Thanks and some: Videojournalism and Crime scenes

Many thanks to those who've emailed me about the Videojournalism story and video. Ta loads.

Friend rang me today; I use to shoot crime scenes for her which she showed in court to get her clients off. Learnt a particular way of shooting that meant I didn't break, that is no edits, and gave the jury a full view of what and where.

Anyhow's she's defending a case at the mo. This is er, something. A man called another man: you ****ard, prefixed by the colour of his skin. He is now being prosecuted and rightly so you might add for racial slurring.

The person who's alleged to have made the comment was black, the accused, white. Now, please I really don't want to get into the semantics, but for pure face value, it made me cock my head to one side. Why you'd say such a thing is one thing, why you'd have the presence of mind to prefix it with the aforementioned is another.

The rest is being dealt with in London court with severe penalties awaiting. Well you can't have it both ways? Can You?

On that very slippery slope of language and effects here's something I wrote some time back for the Humanist when Russel Simmons - the man who got rap music to where it is today - visited our uni and took questions from the audience. I really should post it. He said back then that he would rigorously defend an artsists right to say what they needed to say. The truth!

Reecently, though I heard he was leading a campaign to help clean up rap's image and its obdurate language.
"Cutting words, those blunt things that do harm and for what no other instrument can achieve".

The Tao of videojournalism

Posted here with embedded video from the Online News Association gathering

The tao of videojournalism and some

Almost completed the full article. Pretty expansive looking at Vjism from many different angles with a whole raft of films from the Online News Association gathering to Scott Rensberger and RTE's Michael Lally.

About to experiment with some really wierd stuff that enables me to control assets e.g. sound, video by hand movement. Really this is Minority Report on your desk top. Actually it's video news art.

In a future posting on view you'll see it at play.

Heard back today from the personal assistant of one of the hottest film directors around asking if I could come back in October after his much deserved break. If the interview comes off. I'll be asking you what you want me to ask.

OMG He's Mad

Listening back to tapes from my radio days - Film maker Ernest Dickenson's currently playing on Viewmag - I come across the interview with Fela Kuti.

Oh my word! Now if you never met the Nigerian and global superstar fella, whooah! It's an experience. It goes like this. I have minutes before I go on air and there's a commotion at the front of the station, Marylebone Road.

From a small throng of people emerges a thin rakey man with a Greta Gabbo fluff scarf and the biggest, I mean biggest er, cigarette I have ever seen.

Ok it wasn't really a cigarette. I hope no minors are reading this. Suffice to say when he got to the studio and we began to talk he wanted to light up.

Now they say there are three reasons to lose a job at the BBC.

1. No TV licence
2. Swearing on air
3. Coupling with a colleague.

Seemed I was going to add another. Allowing your guest to light up.

Fela was briiliant, funny, down to earth, and MAD. In times like this you need people like him around.

My 7 year old has also cracked imaginary numbers and this: 0x0=0 and 0x10=0. He's a genius. Woops Radio 4 just fell of the air. Marking MA papers today online projects. Some really good work. Well done people.

stop it!

8 O'clock and I'm teaching my 6 year old nephew imaginary numbers. The square root of minus four is? He seems to get it, which is a darn right more than I ever achieved in my 20s.

Retro

Watched a great report on the BBC about soul music in the UK and how it took from the US and redefined its own ID. If you're from that time and you happened to have danced on Soul Train, The Wag, Legends or the Cat in the Hat, howdee. Great times those were.

Prompted me to have a look at my shelf and archive and there were a couple of ROTs ( recording of transmission) from when I presented a news entertainment show on the London BBC station, then called BBC GLR.

Some great pieces to reminisce Juice -a film by Ernest Dickenson ( Spike Lee's cinematographer) which is playing on viewmagazine.tv now; a small clip - can't find the main body of a 40 minute interview - with Louis Farakhan from the Nation of Islam, and some live music.

Back then the world was a different place. It was difficult to get into broadcasting; even more difficul to host a show. I have one Gloria Abramoff to be thankful for giving me the room to experiment and learn stuff that would be unimaginable today.

It would be a shame to let those interviews go to waste so I'll start to digitise and play them out. It includes Walter Mosley talking literature, and a radio documentary I made for BBC Radio 4 during my last months of an 18 month stint in South Africa.

Dog Town and Z boys

Vjism circa 2007.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In years to come it won't matter any more man. You know they'll be like looking back on the 2000 and what and saying like ***t what where you cats doing. Crazy! Crazy!

Like now everyone's doing some kinda VJ for their b. (broadband) network. Yeah I got commotion, AE( After Effects) and Silicon g ( Silicon graphics) on my lap. That stuff like, hey Ji, what's that film with those robot type things.

Yeah yeah Transformers.. yeah I can do that on my lap now.

Vjism.. well no alternative. I mean wots so difficult about that. Aint rocket science. Shoot and make a film. You get apps like "making things" ties into you can do some crazy half ***t.

We did a reverse time lapse when there was a flood down south. Yep software tracked into geo sats and did a linear line map, which we could use to show what was going to happen next.

I mean that's news huh.None of this expo (exposition) stuff, more extrapolation.

I mean the VJ paradigm is a culture and an an attitude. We were trying stuff that everyone said you guys are nuts. Craig here linned up 12 cams wified into his main panasonic. Got this shot that makes that crazy film, The Matrix look tame.

Last count there were about... I dunno.. 10, 000 of us and I'm talking this region alone. Guys making good money though, but they know what to get and how it works.

What next?

We're doing predictive news now.. crazy huh! Gota shoot in a couple of hours.. some black dude wants to be the second US president... yeah so me and my team are swarming him. Ok! yeah is that enough for you. Catch you.


Postscript
Dogtown and Z boys were a group of Santa Monica skateboarders who radicalised skateboarding in the 70s resulting in the world phenomenon it is today. Just imagine if they'd been Video Journalists and it's 2014.

How successful leaders think

In June's Harvard Business Review, the mechanics of how successful leaders do what they do. I'm writing this into a piece for viewmag, because I believe it's inherent to the way journalism and some extent creativity within it works.

Written by Roger Martin the Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and author of the Opposable mind, his credentials need no scrutiny.

Mine on the other hand bear no empirical hurroomph, other than having worked within advertising with a respected thinker in Jon Staton ( ex head of Saatchi and Saatchi ) and news in different fields. News doesn't do creative, unless a small "C" and then. Video journalism is all about creative, big "C" APPROPRIATE to the story.

That is an adherence to the school of Charles Wheeler of Walter Cronkite. If it's a tragic story, don't embellish it with hackneyed phrases and music.

The four stages of decision making says Roger Martin reveal the exceptional leader

1. Determining importance: take in wide opinions
2. Assess how all these have a bearing on one another
3 " Integrative thinkers don't break down a problem into independent pieces and work on them seperately or in a certain order. They see the entire structure of the problem" - Roger Martin
4. Don't trade off on problems, resolve them all - the salients etc.

Now if we could all but think that way. Truth is perhaps some of us aren't hard wired, and there may well be a genetic disposition at play as much as the environment that groomed you. But the real crux if you're going to practice this mantra seems to lie in 1. ie knowing what is important and being a leader of cabinet by committee rather than the kitchen approach. Mind you wasn't Thatcher a fine leader?

No, no, that's not my politics,it's a genuine question.

And then in our equally pragmatic profession, we hear: research, news gather, streamline and process. What might we learn from Mr Martin, that perhaps successful reportage is about a wider body of opinion, views and dialect.

Watch how the news this summer will say almost what it said last year about crammed airports, stuffy temperatures, and the great getaway being the great standstil.

Wider opinion? Now that's where the politics of multimedia could play a significant role!

Qu. Can newspaper journalists do TV?

Qu. Can newspaper journalists do TV?
Ans. You decide!

8 Days chronicles the first UK newspaper journalists to turn videojournalists on PA's videojournalism programme. As novices they had 8 days to get into shape to report a murder case re-opened by Cleveland Police.

The site's finally completed. This link www.viewmagazine.tv/8days.html shows the feature, the making of it, the award it picked up in Berlin at the annual videojournalism awards, and things about video journalism.

Comments duely welcome including the occasional pork pie chucked my way :)

Get published in any Newspapers

"Quit putting second- or third-string copydesk people on the Web team. Because I was just at Google, and I can tell you, they don't hire second- and third-string talent."

This quote comes from a deeply interesting article from Wired attributed to Net-media intellectual Rob Curley, VP at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.

It's a longish article; more geared for the mag than the web, but pan through and there's more than a few gems.

My favourite is the aforementioned.

The web is still considered the "bastard child" by many editors. Got an intern; don't know what to do with them, how about photocopy the senior journalists research; make the tea or better still let them loose away from harm's way - give them the net.

I'm not suggesting interns are undeserving. No the contrary. Next time you're given the net to do yourf irst article, shout woopee in front of the editor. S/He won't get it, but you should.

The web class I take with nternational Masters students I stress the point, make the web your own. Everything is perishable, most media are strugglng to reinvent, but the web, the web, well we haven't even scratched the surface.

There are remarkable insights that we (students/ clients/ journalists I train) share in Eureka moments. Principally you're not just writing for eyeballs. It may be the greatest article but if you'er not offay with what the admen call "customer-pathway" writing ie link-rich articles in mini inverted triangles, then you've got some going to do.

In final projects, onliners play with form and function, creativity and conformity, technical and journalism, information architecture and weighted design. It's 2007, what might we be doing in 2012?

Chances are it'll be something far beyond what we're doing at present. My guess citizen joe and josephine will have got the video news construct. I can be fairly certain a next generation will get it and more based on a huge project being undertaken in the capital. Doh I have been given Chatham House rules, but will be sure to tell more when possible.

Digital Cars

My car wouldn't start.

One minute a red oil sign illuminated the dash board, so I did what most people would do, bought the right type of oil 10 40 w and poured it in the right place.

Two hours later it refused to start. OMG I have a thousand errands to run, what will I do? Walk, or take public transport of course. It's healthier and less poluting. 6 miles there and back, I did what most people would do, I rang the RAC - a reputable breakdown service.

The mechanic, a jolly bloke, with a wiry hand shake appeared three hours later and proceeded to inspect the car. He did one a couple of those "stand back 4 metres from the car and tilt your head".

Mmmm had he a magic wand, I'd swear he could be Harry Potter aged 55.

"OK...!

And without even finishing his opening, I told him the history and how I came to my current predicament.

There is at least one thing I acknowledge, that there are few geniuses in the world. Most mortals, even the occasional doctor need a history, then by deduction and elimination they can arrive at a probable solution.

Mr RAC took out a mobile device; he measured the power of the batteries, shook his head and proferred his diagnosis.

"I think it's your sensor mate. I can't see the relation with your oil, but its def a sensor. That's a lot of money. What we can do is tow you to the nearest garage. D'you want to do that now or tomorrow?"

I knew RAC, like most services pegged to number of calls are reticent at spending too much time on one client as it brings them no more money.

"Er, odd though how it stopped after the oil", I said. I wanted to engage him again; prod a thought that might yield a eureka moment, but my car expert had run his course. He was out of ideas".

"Yeah, I would say 90 percent sensor", he concluded, gave me a paper to sign and off he went agreeing that if I needed to be towed I could ring up tomorrow. I'd just spent 80 ukp for the call out with no result. That, as you might say is life.

My neighbours are the most fab I have lived next to and duely worked to find an alternative solution; but they ascertained it would cost 300UKP from calling around buddies.

I went to sleep.

Next day I ignored for the moment the call out and struck an idea. I have a friend, he's an old class mate from thirty years back. He is, I've heard over the years, an expert mechanic. He is untrained, has no masters from Brunel - a great engineering university. What he knows has come from the graft. He has been hounded out by other mechanics aggrieved he's been taking their business, but, but he lives 25 km away.

I tried him.

I can come down tomorrow, as I have got a hospital appointment for my daughter, but I might have a small window so I'll see if I have half an hour.

He arrived by noon. We bear hugged. We've not seen each other for many years, then he set to task.

"Don't ever buy one of these cars again", he poked laughing. "See hear, it used sensors. It's all computerised which helps efficiency but is no match for the equivalent cylinder model".

He opened the engine with a couple of tools, looked at the spark plugs and noted though my oil levels were high, the oil wasn't the problem.

He turned the engine over. It chugged, coughed and then died. "Ok I'll return tomorrow with my tool box and have a look".

At 7 a.m there was a message. At 8 a.m he rang.

"Do you have spare keys?"

"Er Yes!"

"Have you been next to a micorwave?"

" I have been everywhere, not sure really"

"Could you try your other key and ring me back"

5 minutes later

brrrllhhh brrrllhh .... brrrllhh brrrllhh
" Hi is that you joe.. you're a genius, how did you know, it started almost instantly"
"Yep your key has a chip which was probably ruined by going to neat a microwave. I alway advise my clients to have a spare key otherwise that's a lot of money for a tow. but go to your dealer and they will reprogramme it for you at 30 ukp. I'll come down later anyway"

And so he did.

The morale to all of this.

1.The experts: whether they're mechanics from reputable breakdown services or even broadcast professionals, don't always know best, even when it's basic.

2. The core of innovation comes from experince and literally getting you hands dirty with the tools. Working in ivory towers is great for your pay cheque, but it doesn't neccesarily mean you have solutions to this new digital broadcast paradigm or computerised-engine car.

3. The meek will inherit the earth.

4. Those presumed to have no power, often don't want it. What they want is just to find solutions

5. And this the last from my friend joe when asked where my garrage was. Don't use a so called expert within a cluster of other experts. They are in control. Go where your business will be valued by someone willing to spend time and effort and not clock watch. This ladies and gentlemen has always been my own motto for the students, clients, or journalists I have worked with.