Why you love practicing video journalism but hate theory but you shouldn't

It's the perennial saying; you've even uttered it yourself when signing up for a video course: "Is it practical, because I don't need theory".

Thus you'll get told how to shoot, hold the camera, and perhaps touch the margins of theory, which masquerade as practise, with "don't cross the 180 degree line", or "you need to keep to the rule of thirds".

The result is the deliverance of uncritical statements of what you can and cannot do. Thus when you pick up a text book, you're met with the banal, sometimes odd aphorisms: "Don't shoot into light, if you want your film to have some bite".

Learning the practicalities of anything has to be foregrounded in theory, and vice versa. Often then the point is not what you don't want, but how much should be given.

The rule of third is the dynamics of compositional space, which unhinges artistry from symmetry and the boredom of centralisation.

It may have been written down as a rule in the 1700s, but had a long lineage before then.

You can trace it back to paintings by Giotto and his 1305 piece on the "Lamentation of Christ".

And Giotto is an interesting figure because he is purported to be the artists to translate flat figures in paintings into 3 dimensionals. He introduced perspective to paintings.

If you look carefully at the picture you can just about make out the dualism between a picture struggling to show perspective, but not quite achieving it entirely.

But rule of thirds has another significant attribute. It is a Western style and you can break it as much as you want, it depends on your intentions. If you search through early films, and film noir, the main character is often central. While in Chongqing last year I had fabulous time observing multiple perspective art.

These two shots below come from one of the masters of film making Yasujiro Ozu in his 1949 film "Happiness comes only through effort".

What do you see?

Film Noir would follow.

Styles and language do change, but the point is not adhering to the rule of thirds does not make this composition any less dynamic.

Invariably, it is the practitioners who produce a body of work, and unable to translate themselves; they're too busy working, give way to theorists to chart interesting finds. Andre Bazin, was one such important figure. He and his colleagues feasted on American films and contrasting then with European ones, particular silent films, could make various claims.

But another important point here is theories which build up to philosophies are not fixed either. But its important we have such debates, so we can capture new ideas, and package them for others.

Practiced-based videojournalism and work
The trouble is now, we're in a flux - an assault of technology and communicative devices - that either everyone is a theorists or we're not getting to the bottom of those important moments that need rationalisation.

The everybody is a theorist is best observed in lectures and public meetings. A point or opinion is presented as a findings. We can all criticise a film.  "I didn't like it because....." but few of us are skilled at a critique that finds issues, providing theory-based answers.

A ball falls to earth not because it wants to but because of the theories of gravity.

Answers can sometimes be explicit, and implicit and the creative arts unlike their science-based siblings depend on methods that are outside the experience of data collection. What is often called positivism.

So, whilst in maths 2+2=4, in the arts the sum of two bits can be bigger than the whole, as other factiors come into play e.g. personal experience etc.

Practised-based work supplemented by rigorous theory is important for enabling us to deconstruct something and know why it works, not that it works.

Videojournalism, often and its not exclusive, finds itself in this conundrum. Ask anyone what it is and what it's like and you'll get an answer, then ask how do you know?

Such an interrogation of a form is not to be clever, but to try and understand and build upon existing language. Because here's the bottom line. Film making which covers many forms is language-like; language evolves to help provide meaning to complex issues, and the new syntaxes and grammar we learn, if indeed they are new, help us shape new ideas, because without ideas, where would we all be.


David Dunkley Gyimah publishes viewmagazine.tv, is a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster and artist in residence at the Southbank Centre, London. He is completing a five year study which includes icognitivism and film making of the future.

How do you produce compelling video and media

The word "compelling" is probably one one the most over used terms applied to video from producers selling their skills.


But what does it mean?  


Definition aside, it's about an attachment to something that fixates you; you simply can't take your eyes of it. Though, yes, you'd hardly call your girlfriend or boyfriend compelling.


A simple exercise can yield characteristics that make media, or video compelling.


Firstly there are elements it must contain. Secondly, it's the way they're put together.


A good example of elements would be wars. Wars as content make for compelling viewing. It's so compelling that the belief is you don't need any video training to make a good film.


It's one reason why citizen journalism works in conflicts; right time,  right place for compelling event.


When the content is not necessarily engaging this is where the talent earns their crust. They must do something to the content to make it compelling without manipulating its meaning. 


A simple exercise in videojournalism
These images below don't really do justice to the exercise I conducted but here goes. 

• The stream on the left hand side down are key images for video 1
• While the images on the right hand side down  are for video 2

What do you see?

Semioticians, though you don't need to be one to get this, talk about the syntagmatic relationship between media, which basically means how one shot placed in front of the other has an effect on the next shot, itself and the film overall.


So if you look at the images all on the left hand side, which come from the first video you can begin to get a feel.


When I constructed this experiment a lot of the feedback focused on (1) as the more attractive, as opposed to (2).


I then revealed that first shoot was how as a videojournalist I work, and the second one was how I would have produce a Television News story. 

Reporting for ITV's for London Tonight

Interesting, but it's nothing really revelatory.


What becomes interesting is when you consider that any content can be made compelling, dependent on a number of principals.


But the experiment doesn't entirely help you, because as any masters student will tell you, knowing what you like and dislike hardly makes it any more easier producing exemplary work.


That's because those principles run into a daunting array. An alternative method is studying the experts and their films which is what my contribution to Adam Westbrook's project: Inside the Story was all about.


I'd advise you buy the book as it contains rich tips from some of the world's leading story tellers e.g. Brian Storm, Koci, and Claudio Von Planta.


But a more fruitful principle emerges from my findings which runs into a 60,000 word thesis which I will be publishing either later this year or early next year. 


But in the meantime perversely my advice is that the answers you seek to produce exemplary work may not exist in the genre you want to make your own.


But it's not that simple because you need to have an appreciation of the medium you're working in and how you can add meaning. It's not that you can simply throw different methods at different genres and hope they stick.


Take German Designer Konstantin Grcic, what he says about avant garde it's equally pertinent in film. Don't be afraid to take risks and polarise people. 


Learn by trial and error and be comfortable that you will make mistakes. Oddly enough in my lecturing experience, students tend to resist this.


Primarily and this is a view from Arnheim as well is that a) we don't like to fail and b) Art which expands our notion of creativity is not respected in the way say Maths is.


The more pressing results materialising suggest, as many scholars have done, that existing methods aren't working as efficiently as they should and and we're poorer for it.


But change is happening....Perhaps not as fast as we'd think it should.


++


Read: is how we're teaching media flawed

Is how we teach future TV/Videojournalism flawed - look to the future of libraries!

Photo Courtesy of Ken Mallor, Soundman working for ITN in the 1960s/70s

."..It has been proved beyond question even before the war that it tired the viewer, if over a long period, he has to keep reorienting himself as the producer cuts back and forwards from camera to camera."

The quote comes from 1948 as the BBC set about devising a new programme idea called: "News"

Many, many years on and if the author of this memo were to drop in on his once new creation, he would not find fault.

In my research some of the most respected figures in the industry though can see the seams of News' structure coming apart.

Yet in the absence of a clear solution, which history shows is never a clean break and must often must come from within those structures, the law of entropy prevails.

When a young photojournalist stumbled across TV crews creating a story by what he called 'staging', it's news because someone not native to the form is seeing this for the first time.

It doesn't make it right, but at one point in our history, doctors attempted to cure illnesses by letting blood. You could in your infinite wisdom then have spoken out then but you'd be seen as sententious.


Reworking new ideas

Author reviewing his notes on his study wall

I'm exhausted; but I'm finding the reserves to sum up a couple of years research.

TV News will remains untouched; I have worked in it long enough and possess a healthy appreciation for what it does within its coded system.

My research looks beyond news and some interesting things are emerging. But first the process of discovery...

A PhD is an interesting, sometimes painful pursuit.

It's not interested in commercial knowledge and how one might prove a previous commercial system wrong; neither does it reward personal gain. A PhD looks for what they call an original contribution to knowledge.

And this is not a sweeping, broad canvas statement; a thesis is about burrowing deep, not across, and uses rhetoric and citations to build its case.

I have interviewed more than a hundred experts, read more than a thousand book/ text and watched countless films; sometimes its like looking for a needle in a haystack. One page in a 500 leaf text reveals a crucial link, ad then you're off again.

I've come to the realisation emphatically, rather than whimsically, that if the research holds, then the way we story tell needs overhauling.  Now you could argue, well that's obvious.

But how do you know?

You'll say because .... and I'll ask how do you know. And that process continues to the point where you arrive at the source.

This was Kant, the great philosopher's contribution. Knowledge must be defined apriori - meaning without experience alone, through empirical research.

So in proving a point we arrive at the giants of industry, those who developed ideas, before the structures existed.

Why for instance in the 1960s was a law introduced by an independent body stating news should be free of involvement of its shareholders. For ITN's boss at the time at least it would get the executives of his back telling him what he could and could not do.

Fast forwarding to the present and does this framework still hold?

And it's not just that. But if we believe we need to do more, a digital renaissance to address present issues, just as an aging institution in Seattle has become the model for new learning, then we need new ways of learning.

The libraries  in Seattle and Netheralnds, Dok, include meeting places games zones and  digital learning zones called the media lab, mimicking Apple. Attendance had risen to 80 percent. Innovation has sparked a new appreciation.

It may be that we may the approach developed by the Khan Academy is the approach, where independents requiring change use the Net to test their theories. If that's the case I have got some site building to do.

Sexy Research, a multimedia approach

David's study turned into a research lab

Just how do you make research sexy?

In Homeland (2011), the US TV series CIA character Carrie Mathison marvels at her colleague's handy work piecing together the trail of their nemesis.  It is some feat connecting the dots.

The reality, though, is far from the same adrenalin rush. However, the exhilaration of a find is enough for you sprint stark-nakedly down the streets.

This has been my torment for the last few years, now needing to be tied up and put before the board.

But before then, the arduous, mind-numbing trawl through wads and wads of data. It's a process that respects no short cuts. Akin to detective work, you stake out, cock your head to one side, read through, and then stand back, hoping the 'truth' will jump out at you.

Often, ever so often clarity grabs you, the wall morphs like a Potterish map, rearranging the data to provide a theme, but it can be fleeting. If you think to hard without taking notes you're lose it.

The wall dubbed RE-SEARCH is where a Q and A of 15 interviewees, international award winning film makers, drapes. Red markings scorch the text where themes emerge.

But those themes only become apparent once I have confidently embraced the question I need answered. It sounds simple enough, but there are 24 questions with answers - each worthy. But  I know I must discard almost all of them to get to the riches, to get to the treasure, the real treasure I want.

To the right of the main block is my tick list. There is where the 100 or so original interviews I have conducted remind me of my progress, or otherwise. They range from the greatest film makers of our time,  Robert Drew, and David Maylse - stars of the 1950s - to a  stream of BBC high ranking executives.

Easy? Not really because rhetoric requires a suitable logic must be placed before you, supported by a  litany of experts, sometimes seemingly doing the equivalent of a gymnast's double layout flyaway, except with words.

Documentary expert Bill Nichols makes the point that:

"If nothing else, The Blair Witch Project should remind us that our own idea of whether a film is or is not a documentary is highly susceptible to suggestion."

While today Nutopia produces big themes factual stories eliding the lines between docs and cinema.

Wallis and Pramaggiore in Film a critical introduction speak about the role of cinematography in films, and its contribution to the emotional state of the viewer.

A doc can embrace cinematography to the point it is cinema. That much Drew infers too.

The lines between these forms are not just becoming diffused, but re-engineered into new forms with words such as "remediation" and "transcoding".

Why does this all matter? Not least because I need to complete the journey I started, but that principally, it is knowledge. It helps you see though the fog of confusion and that is sexy.

Beyond News and Videojournalism

Innovation fuels ideas; that much is in agreement.

And innovation is determined by technological advances. We require it and in so doing run to the next show with its clear label of techno-fetishism, where everything we surmise about video and videojournalism is about equipment.

Watch online as bag after bag is opened to reveal its camera-porn contents. Its proclamation is "You too could be a great video maker".

Sometimes our ideas must marry with the latest camera technology to realise our dreams; James Cameron waited ten years to make Avatar, the equipment had not been invented.

And then there are others when technology leads us to play, like a kaleidoscope, and through serendipity, we make a find, dramatic or otherwise.

American film makers dumped Edisson's Zoescope for the Lumiere's Cinematographe more than a 100 years ago to make movies. Serendipity is how Laforet might explain his ground-breaking film which launched a generation to DSLR filming.

In 1994 Sony could not have predicted its 3 chip consumer camera would be gobbled up by professionals; the price rose overnight, just as Canon never saw the rush for its DSLRs coming. There will be new ones soon; technology is cyclical.

Yet innovation is not wedded to technology; it is about ideas. And ideas are about the philosophies of thought, their complexity and simplicity.  Ultimately whether you're using a super 8mm or Hollywood-set Arriflex, it is about how you translate a concept to something that has meaning - for you and the audience.

For Heidegger a part of that thought lay in Dassein; where for instance we need not have experienced flight to the moon to be able to conjure up lunar imaginations. Yet also the complexity of thought relies on the nutrition of experiences.

These experiences can be experiential; you went through them directly, hence the bragging rights on your CV about travel or years of doing, or otherwise epistemological - you learnt by reading, and looking and are a grade A student.

So knowledge, broad knowledge, is desired and knowledge is not fixed. What was known yesterday, is not the same now.

This was one of the enquires within hermeneutics, which is increasingly why I argue against the notion of the expert's knowledge, and as former students will testify to a "wisdom of intelligible crowds" approach.

The solutions sought for this generation must be a fundamental overhaul of corporate News, the biggest of impostor of our times as a naturalised construct.

Because corporate News as I call it still holds sway to our thinking, a thinking instituted in the 1960s, and that is in spite of the Internet.

We require new voices to explain the ramifications thematic events e.g. European elections, against the backdrop of the destitute, the Rosettas (1999) the Dardenne's award winning Cannes film about a young girl looking for a job; or Le Fils (2002).  And we need to reflect unsighted themes that interrogates societies such as Asgar Farhadi's movie Seperation (2011).

The test for beyond news is tilting audience's expectations to matters that concern contemporary audiences in a braver syntax that challenges the present construct called News.

Because at the moment few seem to care.

When the Net will beat TV at its own game

The most riveting piece of television since Maradona poked a football into an English goal is unfolding on British Television.

Two potential mayoral candidates: one from the Conservatives and the other Labour are slugging it out for who will be the victor, and as I write this a decision could be announced.

Which is exactly the point of how a piece of technology, TV, with content which was on its knees can get a reprieve and then go on to show it's not going away.

Sixty off years ago, TV boffins cracked it; putting clear blue water between them and a medium they were taking on, cinema. Boy did they slug it out then.

What television could do which no cinema couldn't was what academics call Liveness. In English, yep, they could go live.

The utopian web in taking on TV was going to offer something extra; it did in "linking" which cinema or TV couldn't offer.

And whilst we've warmed to that; Liveness still kicks the behind, and in spite of the web streaming live, it's yet to be recognised as the medium for live and at a scale where you can watch visuals on a 5o inch screen.

Trend Technology suggests this will change. The shot at the top of this post comes from the Shanghai Expo where a fully sized room is the Net itself and one can interact with holograms and watch TV and Cinema in your net-virtual room.

It will happen, but we'll have to wait a bit more.

Young people don't get audiences say BBC: I made this video, but who's it for?

Nice video but who's it for?

And that's when you shake your head with incredulity. Who's it for? What a stupid question.

It has has everything: shallow depth-of-field, interesting characters, a good script and a Terrence Malikesque score, and you're asking who it's for.

Is this a media snob thing?  Because if you produce your video with its depth-of-field, good script and Terrence Malikesque script , so long as you like it, who the bakedbeans cares.

The BBC Academy does of course, and it's why in a summit with UK universities it was keen to get across the following points.

1. Graduates wanting to join the corporation just don't understand what the audience wants
2. Graduates today just aren't curious enough to push themselves to make interesting programmes.
3. They need to be more innovative.

It's a likely salvo sent across the lecture rooms of many media courses, because try as you may unless you're planning a mass lobotomy you're never quite understand audiences . But do they have a point?

The BBC has a sizable audience research lab, but I can't remember ever having a debate with an editor over a commission in what the audience wants. I know that conversation happens, but I do remember well the mantra in Channel 4 News. What will the audience be talking about down the pub!

This non-audience talk could be for two reasons. That firstly I brilliantly already knew the audience's needs - which is hardly likely. Or secondly, the editors were so in tune with the audience they're sort of a public barometer- very likely.

Metube



Trouble is the selfish gene of modern programme makers is common place.

When Wired's Chris Anderson revealed empirical anecdotes for a phenomenon called the Long Tail, it legitimised our need to be self-satisfying.

Because, it suggested whatever you do, however bad it is, you'll always find an audience.  And never mind if the audience is three in the UK, you'll find another two in Bojomburu and before you know it you'er the people's choice.

But the ideas behind audiencing - thinking about serving others - though can get pain stakingly scientific is as prized an issue for today's budding film makers as Social Networking is.

There are some basic things audiencing tells you. Firstly that your use of language, its tone and construct target particular groups. Here's where it gets interesting.

Television sorts out audiences according to class demographics, which it equates to set viewing times so A= upper class; b1= upper middle class; b2 lower middle class and c1, c2 working class and so on, and these groups watch television at set times.

But that's not so PC for you, because you're web based where time and demographics are all but immaterial (the BBC's iplayer jumped by a million user it said yesterday), and your concept of categorisation is by a number of methods e.g. geekydom, youth, trendyness, disposal income.

But there's something else audiencing can help you with. Take this passage from Annette Hill's Reality TV.

"In the UK, the rise of reality TV was connected with the success of American tabloid TV and the demise of documentary television.... The BBC's interest in popular factual programming was a response to political pressure from the Conservative government in the 1980s and early 1990s".

What you're getting here is a sense of how programme styles change, which means once you lock into the study of audiences you get a good idea of what the audience want, which now means you can go about crafting your programme in the knowledge that you're in the zeitgeist.

So you can be as selfish as you want and still net an audience whilst exercising your social conscious too.

Super Content Providers, Penguin Books, Edelman - Public News

An evening with Penguin Books giving tips to a select group how to get published.

Of course it was rather private until as one of those invited I showed up with my camera and was given permission to film as pleased.

I showed this video to another publisher last week in a three hour presentation, about what constitutes what could be called public news.

Let's consider it a sort of meta public relations news, which like blogs position itself as being more transparent,  more like traditional news - though supposedly there are some things that you might not publish.

Then there's a wider question?  What value is there in studying news in a bid to enter to the TV News programming environment, when you could produce something far more pertinent for a non-video news making company - indeed you might even be on the cusp of inventing the next news system?

A couple of weeks ago I visited Edelman's plush offices in Victoria - one of the biggest PR companies in the world - to interview their chief content officer Richard Sambrook.

There it was; in glass panel coves and bespoke designed hubs, the chatter of several producers and public news personnel working to produce information for their clients.

There's public relations - a pre-90s ideology of cover your bits and pretend no ones looking as you pitch your sell. It's still practiced in crude form. Then there's public news whose schema is transparency. And the more transparent the news, the more believable it is.

Breaking away from the news cycle
Whilst a number of progressive companies have started to produce their own content, there's still a sense that the themes developed in the 60s by traditional news e.g. CEO's annual address etc still appear dominant.

The context for this is wrapped up in a wonderful moment in 1948 when the BBC decided those pesky cinema reels which showed in theatres and informed the public - well, there time was up. So the BBC decided to make its own news.


Except they had very little idea, so BBC Executives from the newly formed TV News department in 1952 paid the Cinema Newsreel guys a visit asking advice on producing this thing called news.

By the accounts of Richard Dawkin's Selfish gene, the BBC forced into competition produced something which gradually caught audiences' attention.

Of course it helped if you could watch this new news at your leisure at home

Today that evolution is slowly shaping up with the intimacy of the web, though there seems little appetite to construct a news of meaning or public news on an impressive scale - yet! There are obvious reasons, mostly every iteration of new news is a mimicking of old news values.

Just like Ridley Scott is thought to have conceived Blade Runners cityscape look by inverting LA's night skyline on its head, well.. there's a news approach.

In a couple of weeks time in the UK and Cairo I am working with some talented group on public news production.

It's a philosophy built around changing habits of news discourse and audiences in the same way just over 50 years ago, a fundamental tilt occurred.

The corollary to all this is a logic lies in being tooled up with social network with a fresh approach to video production. Penguin II videos on its way soon.

How users and recruiting editors approach your web site

How we approach and seek to understand websites has much in common with deciphering many artifacts or art forms. We approach with a level of expectation, and thus we have readily preconceived ideas.

theimpressionist.co.uk

For instance, if you expect to see a website, such as these student websites from our Masters program and you see an advertisement, you immediately switch off and leave the page. Your expectations have not been fulfilled.

So for most users it's the form and what scholars like David Bordwell refer to as "style" - an intrinsic quality - which interchanges with form that attracts you.

Form is dependent on style as much a style defines form. Nike's tick is its form, and also its acquired style. The iPad is a great example of form and style merging.

A Western film's style defines its form; it's genre. The BBC's relatively new website is a new style that defines the form of websites cohering to the iPad screen.

And style can also be shaped by the content. Take a fashion website, it's defined by its photos; the photos (the content) make up the style.

Similarly, with reference to form, if your website doesn't cover the whole screen then invariably people make a judgement.

In the 1990s, websites were 800 pixels wide, because 15-inch screens were the norm, so small design websites are often associated with the 1990s, unless an inherent design concept is provided. Here style is defining the form.

This is all fine, but what does it mean?

Why Form Matters

Offbeatlondon.co.uk and WhereisLondon.co.uk - which do you prefer and why?

It means when the user comes to your website, in the short amount of time, they've made up their mind. Our user was an editor, someone you could send your link to open your site and conclude on the strength of what they see how competent, brilliant or mediocre you are. 


The form matters deeply; the shape, the size, the way you have arranged the elements, your content and how it's styled. The more harmonious the site, the more aesthetic an impact is has on the user. The form should also exude functionality. 


Good design is about solutions to a problem, such as how do I sell myself. Harmony also comes from your colour scheme, your use of negative or white space, how uncluttered the site is. 


The colour "white" is often associated with minimalism, elegance, and informational sites. The colour "black" is a reference to chic, boldness, and focusing the viewer's attention, which is why fashion magazines often used black backgrounds.


So in that first impression, that important behaviour for the next step is being considered – albeit subconsciously – that is whether the user will engage by clicking further on the site. 


They have NO notion who you are, your strengths, and in spite of your e-mail to them, or the "Hey, check out my website" at a party (a phrase to be avoided at all costs, unless you're applying to work for the Disney Chanel), they approach your website cold. 


Your site must inform the user who you are, what they see, its relevance perhaps, the experience they are likely to get on the site. Remember you're not quite the brand yet! 


To that end, if you haven't stated on your front page who you are or what your website is about, then you are denying the editor crucial information. 


So far I have talked about cognitive behaviour; any user does not need to be skilled in semiotics to read your site, but we can evoke semiotics to ascertain some of the thoughts the user is entertaining. 


What is apparent is one thing, what isn't is that a user constructs, which on occasion I have referred to in lectures as "connotation", using your data to build up secondary and tertiary meanings. 


They do this where you are ambiguous and from the manner in which you have used elements. That's why it's important, as we have discussed in lectures to search out exemplars, how gifted individuals have designed. 

Why Annotation Matters 

theskintflint.co.uk

Everything, all assets, need annotation. If you have pictures on your site and there is no indication what the picture is, what its context is, what it means, then you might as well be showing the editor your family album. 


In fact, I know many senior editors who will reject the picture or video if there is no information attached. Firstly, it's not journalism, which is about information; secondly the presumption is someone else could have taken this. 


And the minute they are met with these inadequacies, their expectations dip. Mostly anyone today can take a picture, but not many people know how to annotate and edit, which you should as a journalist, and we've mentioned this. 


If they have clicked a link, and it is text-based, then all our research tells us people engage more with the site when it's made out according to the rules of Jacob Nielsen. 


Aesthetically, the text easier to read, easy to digestive, and is the contents is strong will make that impression. 


You cannot afford to follow Jacob Nielsen. rules, in articles, and ditch them elsewhere. If the user gets through the experience of your first link, and that first link is often the link on your navigation bar, then they may click elsewhere. 


It's important then that you have a consistent navigation bar and that you're aware of your information architecture hierarchy. 


It's the link next to "Home" that may often get the first click, unless you've designed the site otherwise. After one or two clicks of your content, the editor may well then navigate to your "about me". 


Your "about me", is a professional bio, which can show some personality, but must be restrained from being flippant. The "about me" is the clincher if they like what they see. 


An action picture, or profile picture showing detail of you work in all its reflective mode has a far greater impact than the one of you at that party. 


Again, here style, form, content work in the same way as first impressions. Have you made it obvious how to contact you? Is it a link, or a complex e-mail they need to copy and paste? 


The easier it is, the more likely someone will follow through. 


Two additional pieces of info here from two incredible experts. Brian Storm of Mediastorm says the "About me" is the place he goes very quickly on his click through journey of  website, while Ilicco Elias says the most important link is your journalism piece that's been google and indexed.


To that I add, either route, context matters. If you're linking from a report, the piece as much as what it represents and how you went about it provides much needed information. Your piece may never be read, but if you can tell the editor how long it took you, why it matters, the style you conceived - as added info, you'll win brownie points.


Show off your skills 

LondonDiversity.co.uk

Editors today may see many websites. On average building a complex personal site may not take you more than a week, also it's common knowledge that many website owners choose a template. 


So, is there any indication that you created and built this site, or what your competency skills are in CSS/HTML, design or that you designed the site and others following industry-standard. If your work doesn't say these things, an editor won't assume that you undertook all this work. 


Design is about cognitive functionality. Your website must refrain from any assumption that you will have, and which assumes others looking at your content will necessarily understand. 


Non-online journalists can afford to think this way because they're not burgeoning designers. Online journalists can't. Information architecture is about leading people on an experience, sure that you'll get your message across as unequivocally as possible. 


What you don't say will often not be understood. If you manage to send off your user to your blog, note that if the last time you updated your blog was a month ago and then it doesn't bode well for you. 


Also, if they're going to read one post from you, would you not prefer it was one of your strongest pieces. Therefore, provide this as the link from your website and not the generic link to your blog. 


Now, back to style again. Style works on a number of levels, and one of those is about how contemporary your site is. 


No website can afford not to engage in a social network proscenium giving the user the ability to add content via comments, or played with the site. 


This can be done in a number of ways, what it refers to do something called the wow factor. It's that sensibility when you see something you simply say "wow". 


It's what all creatives/scientists aspire to. If you can give the user a bit more, they'll remember you.

These are some of the behavioural patterns that users/editors use to navigate and make meaning out of your website and consequently you. And, that's the approach we adopted to deconstructing your site.


David Dunkley Gyimah is a Senior Lecturer in online and film, videojournalism, and a PhD Researcher using cognitive and literary critique, semiotics, Heidegger's phenomenology and Mass Communication to explicate meaning within websites and film. You can see his work here or contact him here on viewmagazine.tv/training/index.html

The art of knowing - Problem solving in Post new media

Problem solving in new post new media is more about experimental problem solving that at any time.

I once posed a delectable exercise for a student of mine.

I gave her this Rubik cube and asked her to solve it. She did in around a minute and a half. Not bad!

I then gave her a second cube below and told her this was in its correct state,  but how did I get there?

Presumably the way she did it, she replied but she looked confused. I don't understand the question, she replied.

I reiterated. I bought this one below in a shop, but don't want to undo it for fear I may not be able to put it together, but how did the manufacture, the machine get it into this state of correctness. I mean it had to be a machine as you couldn't employ someone to fix them all like you did? Can you?

I don't know, she replied

The lesson highlighted a number of things. The first is learning by doing. Her attempt to align the cube yielded a methodology. If she were to do it again, she'd have had to rethink the procedure, but an underlying methodology exist in keep trying and not giving up, because it's solvable.

The second attempt seems baffling because she has no knowledge of how the company did it, and she's probably smirking inside at my feeble excuse that I don't want to do it because I'm not sure I can put it together again.

I often come across students in the second example, who either want the results as they should be or a list. Their position is to not unconstruct the form for fear they can't put it together, not realising even when you make it obvious that that's my role as educator.

Has it got something to do with the way we're taught as undergrads?

In other words I won't give you the answer, you must find it as the first example showed, but I firmly believe in the philosophy of providing the 'safe' environment to explore.  By searching, getting it wrong, experimenting to get it right, we build up methodologies.

Maths students executing differentiation using first principles know these as showing the logical steps at how you reached a given solution.

The use of direct knowledge e.g dates, exact times, what makes a good film, are desirable, even for some areas necessary, but in the field of the creative arts, nothing is sacred, even the so called rules we've come to worship e.g. as rule of thirds.

The question is why rule of thirds works, not that it blithely does.  All knowledge is susceptible to change, which is the job of practitioners and higher learning challenging forms.  Some things work because of reworked schemas that have become conventions.

For instance, when shooting, we're told, don't shoot into light as you get a silhouette, yet that very shot could win you photographer of the year with its abundance in chiaroscuro.

Ideas supposedly fixed, require more interrogation now than we credit them. After all having we gone past media and even new media?

DSLR 5D film - All things being equal how do add quality?

Critical tonal listening

Why when you whisper on the phone from a meeting will the person on the other end often whisper back? 


It all matters, more so now giving that all things are equalising. 

When the pictures no longer differentiate the quality of the practitioner because the camera  e.g. DSLR creates the illusion of professionalism, some other variables gets called into question.

I say creates the illusion, but on the other hand there are the professionals - but how from looking at the story do you delineate the two?

I wager this will all come to a head quite soon, because at some point you can't practicably or philosophically better the picture, unless you go hyper-reality e.g 3D which was cinema's smack down to television after they went HD.

David Dunkley Gyimah editing at BBC Radio by splicing up tape (editing) on a reel to reel 

So you revert to the talent. And a key index, often overlooked is sound. Not actuality in the sense of capturing sound using a good microphone but an audioscopic sensation in the narrative.

What your subject says is important, but how they say it is doubly so. This is a sensory operation or equally so a Theatre/film director's prerogative. If you've worked in radio, you'll also recognise this.

I can illustrate this to some degree with this video below from three versions of Richard III. Listen to them and ask which one you would prefer and then imagine you'd ask your interviewee and they'd replied with the first one. Would that have done you?

If you didn't like their response how do you get your interviewee to respond like Slinger, and finally McKellen?



As a videojournalist and Artist in Residence at the Southbank I have developed techniques from my many years as BBC Radio reporter and presenter to get the most out of my interviewees.

My producer at BBC Radio 4 in the early to mid 1990s, Joy Hatwood winner of many Sony Awards, was instrumental in bringing about an understanding of critically tonal narrative.

There were times on listen-back when she'd shake her head; you haven't got it. What she meant was they've said it, but there's nothing there. Equally if you do voice over for a living, your own narrative tones and inflexions are key to portraying meaning.

Septics could dismiss it as manipulative, but far from it, it falls in the ambit of film Scholar Bordwell's Making Meaning.

A large percentage of the times your interviewee will mirror you, so your approach to the story is critical. Good psychologists/ detective use this to get their subjects to feel what they're thinking by shaping?

That's not to say if you're in a happy mood critical interviewing will turn you into a quivering wreck, but that in principle by setting the stage and understanding the story and empathising with your interviewee they'll speak to you as they would in Soliloquy form and not as interviewer.

I leave you with this, John Hegley reciting Tarantella.



1. We had to find the right venue. John wanted to include the library, but we agreed to do it all there.

2. The library was in fact closed, so he started using his normal talking voice, but then I asked if he could go softer.

3. At some point off camera he asks if he's too soft. I reply no, knowing the setting, the tone is exactly what we need for making meaning of the text.

If you're in London during the summer I'll expand on this on one of my Master Classes. For more see viewmagazine.tv 

DSLR Cinema videojournalism - a personal view from research study

Presenting at the University of Reading last Tuesday gave me the opportunity to précis a four year PhD study in videojournalism across a filmic expanse culminating in DSLR videojournalism.

It was followed up yesterday with a great meeting at the Southbank Centre where I'm looking to get creative with one of the most exciting movements in modern times - Simon Bolivar Orchestra

In itself there's much to talk about, but my thesis slants towards a lived experience (phenomenology), which enriches the research data. I have been a dedicated videojournalist since 1994 - one of the first official ones in the UK, but have worked in the media, starting with the BBC in 1987.

Below I give a visual history of my work and some of my thoughts -some of which I shared last week.

Undoubtedly DSLR opens an interesting chapter for videojournalism and film making. It is both seductive and functional. Here I'm in Tahir Square shooting an elliptical piece on Egypt's uprising. The trailer's showing on viewmagazine.tv at present

The shoot suited the style of camera and look, which is ultimately the point. Art philosopher Gombrich's well known dictum of "schema plus variation" posits we are always set to improve upon what we do, yet the choices we make are as stylistic as they are functional.

The DSLR was the appropriate choice; just as an artist might choose different paints, easels and strokes to express themselves.

Below's film was with Heavyweight boxer Lennox Lewis in the period he was gearing up for his unifying fight with Mike Tyson in 2002. I was one of only two film makers allowed into his camp for two weeks and in this case the only film maker allowed into the ring.

The DSLR lens' clarity might have been welcome, but I could still achieve a shallow depth-of-field with a BVW camera. I did however double up with a VX1000 which drew quite a lot of mirth during the press conference.

I shared this shoot giving one of my talks at Apple Store. What has been a requisite in all story formulation has been news training which provides the ability to think fast and often shoot a piece with no fat. 

This isn't a given in news production. For instance at Channel One TV we the videojournalists couldn't afford the time for twenty questions, like the network journalists, so four five questions in we made a decision and would end the interview, often telling the interviewee what quote we would use.

On more exploratory shoots, what might be termed documentary, though this term is loosely used as well as there are several genres of documentary, we would go 'fishing', looking for meaning.

DSLR Cinema Breakout

Yesterday I had the good pleasure of speaking to Dr Kurt Lancaster behind one of the unique books on the market DSLR Cinema. He gave his insight into the shaping of DSLR form and we shared some parallel thoughts. He alerted me to this link Dan Chung's disco where professionals were expressing this general theme.

This methodology of cognitive shooting in my case comes from a combination of working at Channel One TV - the UK's first and only dedicated videojournalism station, where myself and 29 others often shot 3, sometimes 4 pieces a day, written and voiced. 

And, working at the likes of WTN which would become APTV. At the point that you're watching four monitors of feeds and three clients are on the phone to you requesting dope sheets (notes and shot list) and footage, if you can't turn around fast copy....

So the skill is to "kill what you can eat". If your piece is three minutes, then you shouldn't be shooting for a documentary. A test we did in Norway showed how to shoot a three minute filmed interview and then edited and load in 9 minutes. Furthermore, I carry out a test on clients that tests their confidence in what they observe and what should be on tape. 

Novice videojournalists start from shooting around 20 minutes for a three minute shoot to 12 minutes in the next.

Meeting one of the greats in Cinema Albert Maysles was one of the rare moments, but I also had my Schneider super 8mm camera with me. The look regarding this doyen of film making is exactly what I needed. Super 16mm with a bolex would have been even more preferable.

 At Channel One, news presenting was one of the skills we were opened up to, which concentrated the mind. A previous job in radio presenting on the London station GLR slotted in between Vanessa Feltz and Chris Evans, and at BBC Radio Leicester in the 1980s meant the ability to synthesis ideas and rework them became habitual.

When we talk about videojournalism we often negate its cognate fields e.g. radio, writing, presenting - but these are important assets in your arsenal that gives you choice. I have preserved some of my favourite interviews which include the late Eartha Kitt, Mario and Marvin Van Peebles, and James Brown's saxophonist Maceo Parker.

The combination of VJ shoot and Radio was highly beneficial when producing for both TV and Radio. In this piece here diving with Turkish and British Navy to find a wreck in Gallipoli, I could sell the radio to the BBC World World Service.


This is one of my favourite cameras and probably expensive, the Digibeta 900. At the time it costs, with lens, about $50,000.

I used it on a number of videojournalism stories for Channel 4 News, particularly in South Africa 1999 on a follow up story called the Successor Generation.

The three photos show off that workhorse of a camera - the VX1000. In the mid 90s this was the camera of choice, and the image below is of the first generation of Macs for editing.  I actually took a flight to the US for 300UKP return to buy it which was still cheaper than buying it in the UK.

One of the most memorable pieces was the runners-up piece for Channel 4's competition Unleash the Talent - a multimedia piece which still stands the test of time. See what yout think?

A measure of how good the VX1000 was comes from this shoot below. We're returning from a Nato War Games exercise in HRH's private plane. The cutlery is silver and the royal crest is everywhere to be seen.

During the exercise all the cameras we had were ruined because of the high salt content of the environment. The VX1000 though did not buckle.

On our way back at 40,000 feet we were tagged by this Tornado to escort us part of the way, or shoot us down, if we ignored their call sign.

At one point we were so close to each other I could clearly see the face of the copilot. He obviously saw me too as in  the footage I have of this event, he quickly closes his visor.

So we end with Soweto, 1995. I had lived and worked in South Africa as a freelance foreign correspondent working for about four outlets: BBC, ABC News, SABC and a couple of magazines - entrepreneurial journalism 1992.

I have worked with several cameras and I presently have four including the DSLR, but it really is horses for courses. My PhD thesis reveals a more fundamental issue which has to do with the interpretation of reality and how it's codified through the image.

The cinematic has the ability to innervate the image and suspend judgement, but that's a more philosophical post for later.

The upshot is how you extract meaning from the story and how you perceive an intended audience will do so without taking the eye of the prize - that takes experience. As my next post will argue when technology is levelled, and there are no advantage to be accrued from aesthetic excesses, you go back to the fundamental cognitive element, the story.

And this intangible - the story hides a number of cues that require excavation, that won't always work.

Dr Lancaster's book on DSLR Cinema places Hollywood's ability towards the motor sensory experience of film in the hands of a new generation of film makers such as Eliot Rausch - who spoke to us a couple of weeks ago - and some old hands pushing the form such as Shane Hulburt.

David Dunkley Gyimah is a senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster in online journalism, and multimedia projects. He runs a module in Television, Docs and Videojournalism and is an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre. His PhD is a phenomenology of news making.