Post-University Life

Since I had some free time I went over to the Old Theatre of the London school of economics and what we found out from that conversation is that people don’t trust television. According to one of the chairs this was at a ratio of 4:3. This is an interesting situation since the question of trust is one that as academics we all worry about. Any student, whether a primary school child, an undergrad or a grad knows one thing. Get as many sources as you can and from the information you find work out what the reality of the situation is. If you’re starting a research project then find out who’s written about it and compile this information. This is important whether it’s from books, magazine articles or documentaries. That’s the purpose of academic writing; to become an expert in a specific field. Now I want to ask why it is that people don’t trust television. There have been a spate of fake phone ins, some miss-information and more but what does this really mean. Does this mean that program makers are untrustworthy? In reality most of these problems had two things in common. The first of these is that they’re phone in’s for the most part. In other words their aim is to generate some form of income and to promote audience participation. The second is ratings. With the Queengate, as some call it, the problem was a little error in editing which meant that they woul have to apologise for the editing. At the same time it’s attracted a lot of media interest therefore the promoters may have acheived their aim. Part of the discussion also focused around the idea of training. If everyone is allowed to apply for media jobs yet none of them need to display their credentials vis-a-vis the ability to research and document their programmes properly  then there is a disparity between the standards that are expected between broadcaster and audience.  This aspect of the conversation was interesting because there are so many runner jobs where the aim is to prepare coffee, tea, get tapes and more yet how many of these running jobs promote the academic riguour you’d expect from university students within the realm of programme making? As someone who is currently looking for opportunities to work within certain production companies I liked the comment that people should be taking into internships and properly trained to be good researchers and accurate content creators. It seems logical that for those who want to create quality factual programming they should be trained more about accuracy. Maybe there are certain fields of study that take this far more seriously than others. It was interesting to listen to Roger Graef at this event. I had heard and read about him for so many years that when I saw he was one of the guests it was a great moment to see in person one of these personalities of documentary history. He was asked about noddygate among other things. When asked his opinions on noddies he did say that they’re part of the conventions but that when  noddy is used to fake one person being in location when they are not that is misleading to the audience. One speaker later on commented, quite rightly that the noddy is lazy programme making since there are a number of other ways of transitioning from one topic to another. MTV have their own style, they take two video cameras, one is a random shot of the room and the other is framed on the interviewee that way there are constant cut aways. That’s a luxury (although mediocre in itself) for the aquiring and use of cut aways. In thinking about this topic I’m wondering what people mean when they say that television can’t be trusted. Do they mean that it’s a more devious medium than other mediums? If so then why is this. Should television, like the printed press show it’s bias. We know Fox News’s bias but with a body such as the BBC we expect it to be neutral, a great feat in itself. Impartiality is hard to come by and there are documentaries that are so well researched it’s amazing. In some cases I have watched documentaries that may easily have had more than thirty to fourty interviews with well known and respected views on the topics they are discussing and as such provide a great insight into the topic. If you’re watching Panorama do you trust what you see after they have worked on each programme for extended periods of time. Do you trust programs like Hard Talk or Meet the Press. There are a lot of programmes that have high production value but most people do not have the time or inclination to watch the well researched sources of programmes because they are “long and boring” yet they complain because something is over simplified and innacurate. The audience needs to think about how it consumes the media before it complains about issues of fairness and accuracy. If you can’t sit through heavily fact driven documentaries because you prefer a one minute summary every hour then the complaint is void. In the same way you don’t read the Sun for an informed view of the world so you should not tune into a sensationalist tabloid news source. My final point takes a look at accuracy on television in contrast to that of bloggers and user generated content. As more and more people may produce and distribute content so some of them will have high production values, making sure to get many points of view across and get an accurate and complete image of what is taking place whilst others will take whatever view is most comfortable and speak about that. There is a great deal of accountability on the web and one of the great things about research on the web is the hyperlink. With every statement you make you may take the time to source that comment and so the audience will understand what bias is relevant to that quote. In so doing there is a great, and practical, method by which to assess how accurate the content you are viewing is. Over the next few months and years we shall see many more arguments of accuracy and as the audience becomes more media literate so the debate may finally slow down  and a new media landscape will be the norm once again.

There are two key events I have been to since the beginning of summer. These are PodcampUK and the Twitter Meetup. Both of these events have been followed up by a continuing collaboration between participants. The first event was the London twitter meetup. I went there knowing just two participants, Sizemore and Jess. Over the night I would end up with interviews with quite a few members of the London twitter community but nothing much would be done with this footage as a result of not having known that I would be doing these interviews. It meant collaborating with Jess and getting an edit ready in the hope that GETV would use it. They didn’t so that was slightly dissapointing. I met another individual. Nik Butler of Loudmouthman.com. Following on from a good conversation on the twitter meetup night we decided that we would collaborate on other projects. One of these is ongoing, Twittervox. Twittervox is a weekly roundup of the week’s twitter news in review. It’s had over 2600 views over that time with up to four live participants at once around the world ranging from the US to different parts of Europe. That project has been featured by Operator 11 on a number of occasions which I would like to believe is testament to it’s good content. Twittervox is also of note because it introduced me to Phil Campbell and his work. Since this was a few weeks before Podcamp UK it meant that I would know at least two members of the conference. At Podcamp UK I got to meet quite a few of those who are part of the British podcasting landscape, from teachers to academics, broadcast professionals and hobbyists. This broad range of people would lead on to more projects. There were some interesting conversations and presentations which brought me some new ways of seeing certain aspects of the podcasting stream of content creation. It would make me think of podcasting as the equivalent of Amateur sports in relation to it’s “threat to broadcasting.” Within a week I was sitting at the Frontline Club listening to Andrew Keen but that was written abo I’m glad I met Documentally whilst at Podcamp because of possible future collaborations we may work on in the near future. As of yet nothing is set in stone but already I’ve met him a few times to work on three or four projects which you can find on his website and on a number of video sharing websites already. From what I’ve described above what I’ve found is that the conversations from events are leading onto some interesting projects and that it’s been a good transition from the student life into the professional one. It’s been a great opportunity to meet some interesting people and through blogs, twitter and meetings in the real world the conversation is as healthy as ever. I feel I’ve gained from these events and their aftermath and look forward to participating to many more in the weeks and months to come.

According to recent articles myspace is losing user share in relation Facebook but this is not necessarily a bad thing. When you think of facebook you know that it’s a glorified phonebook therefore everyone “needs” to use it to remain in the loop. In contrast Myspace is a specialised music sharing site for artists and creators of music to come together and collaborate as members of the same art form. As a result of many users leaving myspace for other social networking websites so Myspace will have far less noise, in other words extra chatter that does not contribute to the appreciation of music. I for one have found myself using Myspace slightly more due to certain bands using the website. There are a hardcore group of people that are part of many social networks at once and they are able to cope with the demands. Most people spend twenty minutes in front of facebook getting up to date with their friends before disappearing.  “MySpace’s lead in terms of “attention” is almost embarrassing: it scores 10.79% against Facebook’s 1.67%.” source. People look at more content on Myspace than Facebook and user involvement is what counts to advertisers. Myspace is good for the sharing of music you create without people having to install extra api whilst Facebook is personalised by adding api and hoping that your friends install the same. Both will co-exist happily for another few months whilst waiting for the next site of interest.

I recently dropped by the Frontline club to listen to what Andrew Keen had to say and his talk was really interesting. There are a few ideas that I found were interesting and I’m still planning on getting something written up about the event. Last night I met up with Documentally to record an interview before going to Cynthia Mckinney’s talk about confronting the empire. She talked for twenty minutes or so before giving the floor for a Q&A session at which man questions were asked. She got a standing ovation at the end of her presentation. I will find a few interesting elements and post them to this website and others shortly. Jeff Blankfort was also present at the event highlighting certain moments in his career.

Whilst listening to a conversation between several podcasters in their debriefing they were asking the question of how to involve a different demographic in the process of podcasting. This is an interesting question. As one participant pointed out the demographic seems to be for white males over 30 years of age to create content whilst younger people seem not to be active. If that last statement is true then I am an anomaly to the rule since I have over four years even to reach that age. What is the strength of podcasting and how does it differ from mainstream media?  What is the difference between the mainstream media and podcasting What makes a documentary a documentary rather than a podcast? Are podcasts and amateur pieces of work because the person creating that content has less experience? If so does the habit of podcasting turn them into professionals and do they as a result lose their identity. Is podcasting about content on demand and fed automatically to the player? In that case how long do we wait before the mainstream media do the same thing? It’s an interesting topic and I’d like to see what people have to say about this. I know that some people at the Podcamp complained about people talking about podcasts in podcasts but there are some important questions to be answered. I don’t see myself as a podcaster because I’ve spent so many years in Uni studying this that I believe I deserve another label. I’m a television producer, or at least I aim to be one. There’s something that has really changed from my childhood to now. When I was no more than ten years old I decided that I wanted to do video and that I wanted to edit but I had no access to any hardware that would allow me to do anything. There were two reasons for this. The first of these was cost. At the time two beta sp decks would cost 30,000 CHF a piece. Now for 3200 CHF you get yourself a portable edit suite. Add a small camera and you’re doing ENG. What growing up when I did meant is that I had to content myself with books on the subject. I bought books about editing, about basic camera work, basic betacam work, theory books by Eisenstein and still more books. What this meant is that although I had never been able to edit the material I had shot I had the chance to think about shooting and editing style. It was nothing more than an intellectual pursuit. As a result of the time I spent daydreaming about having the facilities to produce television programs it meant that finally when I had the equipment I was in a much better place than young content producers are today. Most people pick up a camera and film something without thinking of sequences of shots, story telling and more. Instead they do anything and put it together. As a result there are some products that are hard to watch. What about duration. In broadcast when you’re a beginner you’re given one or two minutes for the video you want to create. As you prove your skill at short items you progress to longer, more informational and more interesting pieces. Of course those are documentaries in the Griersonian sense of the word rather than podasts. You see documentaries are the creative treatment of actuality. They are built as a means by which to document what happens in real life rather than something setup. These are actualities, Actualié in french. Find the means by which to make them about current affairs and you have a documentary. Dziga Vertov with “The Man With the Movie Camera” played with this idea. So did Flaherty before him with Nanook of the North. John Pilger, Nick Broomfield and documentaries after them have also experimented with different styles. All of them were broadcast. Now we’ve come to another era in factual production. This is the personal era of video production. If you think of early literacy you may have seen the same fears as there are now. If everyone can writ then what prevents them from writing their own books and no longer buying material by those who do it for a living? Time, for a start. Producing high quality content takes a lot of time and thought. What is the difference between a podcaster making a documentary about the steam railway and Fred Dibnah? Contacts, budget and organisation. Fred Dibnah is in front of the camera telling you so much about what he knows but how much information did the researcher  go through before providing the right amount of information. How long did the script writer take. How many shots in a professional production are handheld and whom do they have access to. Did they spend three days to get the shots they needed. Of course they did. As a documentary maker you’ve got the pitch, the proposal and getting it agreed, the budget and getting that agreed, the shooting schedule and then editing. You also need to understand the demographic you’re providing content for. Podcasters do it as a hobby and they’re surprised when people watch their programs. It fills them with joy and pride. I saw many people and the passion they had for their productions as podcasters. They’re filled with ambition and this is what makes their programs interesting. They give us their point of view and it’s great. I think teamwork may be what’s lacking from podcasting. Lot’s of people want to create content yet when you meet them you see that many of them do so alone. If that is the case then the reason to have Podcamps is to encourage people to create networks and teams. As the teams grow and as a variety of people with specialist knoweldge join together so their product increases in visibility. What makes Leo Laporte such a great podcaster? The people he involves in his work. He recently stated that he has at least two podcasts a day to record and that he gets other people to do various things he needs help with. He’s got one or two guests to speak about law, a few more to speak about Macs and yet more for This Week in Tech. As a result he’s got a “Twit Army” to help with content creation. With more Podcamps and greater participation  there is a greater chance of teams being formed and creating nice networks of podcasters to produce compeling content. Europe as a whole needs to provide much more content so that we get a European take on all these topics. Better still, involve a variety of people. Get women involved. Mention the name Allie (sp?) and see how many of those at Podcamp remember her. Why aren’t more girls involved so that we may remember and interact with a team of them. I’ll see what others have to say about this

There are many podcamps but Podcampuk was my podcamp. This was an event which was similar to just one previous experience. It was an event where everyone you talked to had at least one website and others may have had several. They also used twitter and prepared radio programs. What is great about the podcast UK crowd is that they’re a creative entrepreneurial group. Rather than take a 9 to 5 job some work as freelancers. They have a variety of skills from drivers to information technology people, university and schoolteachers and more. They range in age from mid twenties and upwards. It’s a nice sample of people. When I arrived on Friday night I heard John Buckley talk about his podcast Dissident Vox and it was interesting to see him describe the cost of creating podcasts. He was talking about time. For certain topics he would spend more than seventy hours researching the topic in order to gain an in depth understanding of his topic. Another podcaster mentioned how the personal nature of podcasts, reaching their audience through earphones, meant that he should be careful about how to present his research. In reality certain podcasters are highly informed people who want to present their ideas and worry as much as academics about what they present. Podcasting I simpler than some thought initially. One great example of this is the presentation by Jason Jarrett who talked about how he had complicated his own life when learning about podcasting. Equipment requirements for podcasting are not as great as some had expected. He talked about how he had purchased one piece of technology and then another to attempt to resolve an issue he was having, sound in just one ear. It’s only after a few weeks that he was informed that the problem was mono sound. He was a great presenter getting many laughs from his audience. Another presenter that was of interest is the one by Trevor Dann from the Radio Acadamy talking about broadcasting. What I got from his presentation is the contrast between professional sports and broadcasting. In both mediums people who are at the top of the scale can make really good money whilst those at the bottom do so mainly for the pleasure. One point which I thought was of particular interest was that of amateur cricket players not taking money away from the professionals. In other words both could cohabit quite easily. I really appreciated that sentence. For months or even years I have been worrying about the new media and what effect it will have on me whilst I look for work. If more and more people want to get content for free and appreciate mediocrity would this mean that there is less space for professional content to be in demand. According to that speech I understood that whilst people’s consumer habits are changing the need and appreciation of well-produced work will still be great enough to make a living. In effect both complement each other. As more and more people pick up a microphone and camera to create their content so the same passion from amateur footballers watching the best of the best is transposed from the amateur viewer to the professional player. Podcasting has a great diversity of talent and some participants of podcamp UK looked at this from an education point of view. Joe Dale from the Isle of Wight was telling us about how he was using podcasting within the classroom. He is in charge of students ranging from 7 years and up and encourages them to create audiovisual content which will help them learn French. They have to produce, write and script their own shows. As a result of this they are involved in improving their written work as well as their aural skill. This is a great, and for young students, far more fun way of learning. It also creates an opportunity to link with people living in different parts of the world. If you’re in England and you’re learning one language then via the World Wide Web it is easy to reach a global audience who may give feedback as to how you could improve. What made Podcamp UK so interesting is the European flavour of the event. One person travelled from Rome to be there whilst UK podcasters came from everywhere in England. As a result of this we saw what the British podcast environment has to offer rather than be limited by what’s going on in San Francisco. I’m glad I got to meet so many interesting individuals with so many interesting projects and I hope to remain in contact with them and see how their ideas progress. It was a great look at the podcasting sub-culture and how it’s progressed in parallel with mainstream media.

Today has been an informative day where there have been many conferences to participate in. The morning saw the introduction of the event whilst later on a great discussion took place about social networking and I’ve got the footage to give you an idea of the direction the conference was taking. On a side note we were introduced to vlogsnapz, an application designed to make video blogging simpler. So far I’ve seen that you can upload to a number of popular video sharing website and the interface is simple. When you record the application gives you accept, refuse and set tasks to offer a few extra options. Here’s a quick link to a video shot last night and edited by 7am today.

From friendships and the people we meet so our knowledge of authors increases. It is through English literature classes that I learned to appreciate Milan Kundera. I read all his books over a period of years. Following a conversation with an Albanian friend I heard of Ismail Kadare. He originally wrote in Albanian and French, living in Paris for many years.

The two books I have read so far are Spiritus and Les Tambours de L’automne. Both of these books are interesting in their own right. Spiritus is interesting because it’s taking a look at the effect that being a listening spy can have on how you feel others perceive you. It’s an eye opening book into the world of spying that is not often discussed in books. Les Tambours de L’Automne is based on a key moment in Albanian history several centuries ago. It’s only near the end that you understand the title. Now I’ve started to read L’Hiver de la Grande Solitude and so far I’m enjoying it. It was completed in the mid 1970’s and within the thirst few pages I found what I love. There is a description of a photographer and film developer who is about to retire. He was developing photographs of a personality and as he did so he noticed something different. Upon closer inspection he realised that the expression he read on the photographed person’s phase was one of concern. I enjoy reading such sections because of the depth of perception that comes from books from this time period. Rather than having on a superficial level you learn about characters and their perception of the world. It is through the characters that we learn a lot about the world within which we live. Some like Sartre write more technical documents whilst skilled authors write like Camus, Kadaré and Kundera. These are the authors that bring history and a different world to life. Ismail Kadare reads better in French and finding his works can be a challenge so whenever I drop into a bookshop I look to see what they have available hoping to find one or two of his books. It’s a shame that his writings are not easier to find.

Ten years ago if you met someone and they gave you their visit card you’d put it away somewhere and eventually you might have come back to it but the information would need updating. Over the years social networking tools on the web have evolved from simple mail clients to web forums and finally to Myspace and Facebook. With Facebook we find what I think of as an enhanced phonebook. When you meet someone at a party today there’s a good chance that this individual has a facebook presence. As a result when you go home they may add you as a friend and in so doing you are brought into their lives. You can see where they’ve worked, for how long and what they were doing. you can see whom they associate with and how they tend to meet people. Facebook has become  a daily feature of contemporary life. Facebook does not limit your interactions to the people you’ve met during your time at parties, events and more. It also allows you to join groups, some are based on occupation, others on passions and yet some more on soemthing that may be relevant to only ten to twenty people. As these groups multiply so you decide to associate through these people through forums and the likes. For a time I was part of the Lecture napping appreciation society whilst others were part of the “curse of the N18” amongst other groups. Today a friend joined a group which I would never join for the simple and good reason (simple et bonne raison) that reflects the views for which I avoid the place. I’m living between London, a city of up to twelve million (depending on the demographics you chose) and a village of no more than 2000. I love the contrast between the two and as a result feel no need to visit the place that the group boasts about. The point is that as a medium becomes more commonplace and as more people feel comfortable with the technology so their personalities are reflected in a variety of ways which give a great wealth and diversity of character to the medium they are using. It is precisely because of those differences in interests that we gain as a social group. We, the international internet users, have a great wealth of opinions and views available within a few keystrokes and we should constantly aim to promote those interests that most effectively reflect our character, things that friends may take years to notice but that can be made obvious online. Facebook, in my opinion, is a personal, rather than social network where you promote the interaction between friends you’ve had for years and friends you’ve only just met. There are other networks that are great for making new online friends but Facebook should be kept for those people whom you have met face to face.

Back in 2000 I arrived in the South West of England as an 18 year old who was used to watching 24 minute documentaries on a range of subjects and I wanted to do the same thing. For the course I was doing when I was told that I had to do one minute pieces I was dissapointed because I thought I would never get through what I wanted to say in that amount of time. It took a lot of effort and thought during those two years on that course but eventually I understood the importance of briefness. I understood that you can get the same idea in twenty words as you can in 2000. As a result of this when I arrived in London to study for the BA in media and television studies I had the one sentence one point mentality and when i was told to make a ten minute documentary I saw this as more of a challenge than when I was told to make short documentaries. The reason for this, precision. There are a number of bloggers, used to the written word, who are moving over to video to deliver their message and as they do so their inefficiency with getting the point across gets in the way of the quality content they have to offer. On a number of occasions people tend to record ten to twenty minute interviews without cutting anything out. As a result the signal to noise ratio goes down. As a video producer one of your most important tasks is to find the key points that someone makes in their argument and get them across to your viewer within the shortest amount of time possible. If you think that a news item is between one minute 30 to 2 minutes these are the timings you should work for. There is far too much content on the world wide web for me to waste a quarter of an hour listening to someone who cannot be conscice in the way he expresses himself. It’s a shame because what is said may be of interest but I’m not ready to spend 15 minutes on one video clip unless it is a highly and well produced piece of documentary making with a range of interviews and analysis.