Mike Jones Digital Basin
cinematic media rinse cycle

Video Journalism, Education and Integrated Production

Its always a nice feeling when you discover that the bee in your bonet often driving you
to passionate outbursts is also a bee that infests the bonets of others causing them
similar outbursts...

This is the relieved sensation I have upon reading deeper into the work of foremost Video
Journalist exponent David Dunkley Gyima. His blog, the Outernet, along with his
comprehensive site Viewmagazine.tv delivers an impassioned and
informed persepctive NOT on what media production and journalism Was or perhaps Is but
everything it Can Be - Flexible, Empowering, Dynamic, Lean, Mean, Hungry, Engaged,
Efficient, Bold and Independent. [likewise Cliff Etzel of www.bluprojekt.com offers a wonderfully informed
and bold view on VJ culture]

David's writings cover the gamut of relevant topics for independent media production and
investigative journalism but what catches my attention most prevalently is his focus on
the importance of Training and Education; moreover of re-thinking many of the paradigms of
how such training has been traditionally delivered and engaged.

His own video presentations on interview technique point towards a very informed but
flexible approach to working as an independent media producer.



More significantly his writings about the role and crucial function of production and
journalistic training is eloquently and passionately detailed in this piece:

"Training matters because without it we become anemic, we atrophy, we become bored at what
we're presented with and if not industrious we fall behind our competitors whom today are
world wide."

David's own 'Video Journalists Manifesto' outlines the core concepts behind the impetus
for a new, fresh, independent approach which really is as much about how we educate and
train media producers as the values new generation journalist should hold dear.

In particular i find myself grappling loudly the notion that the media producer is Not
just Editor and Camera operator but that their toolset and creative options are much wider
than that - motion graphics, design, interactivity, on-line construction.

But I also see a flaw here with an element of David's manifesto. In making a significant
point about the role technology plays in empowering the independence and flexibility of the
VJ he specially singles out Point 17 as "My (meaning YOU as a VJ) software includes: Final Cut Studio,
Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, In design, After Effects and Flash".

Now aside from the fact that Photoshop is apparently so important it gets mentioned twice
:P, I have two deep concerns about this point in the manifesto which I cannot help but
see as undermining of both the ideas David expounds in regard to technological
empowerment as well as the crucial importance of training that is future focused.

On a simple level I'm bothered by 'brands'. I'm bothered by the specificity of  particular
'brand names' in such a manifesto. Unless you're a paid employee of that company,
representing that company, why exalt a product of a company who's purpose is nothing
beyond the financial satisfaction of its shareholders. Surely we are Media Makers and NOT
blindly sycophantic Final Cut Pro/Photoshop/Dreamwaver 'Users'..?

More deeply, the implication by this is that One singular piece of software is 'Correct'
and all others are 'Wrong'. This, by proxy, makes the argument that there is only one
techno-conceptual way for the VJ to work - that extolled by a specific software tools
internal philosophy.

I'm intensely bothered by that.

Moreover, in regard to education I'm troubled further. As i have written (indeed ranted)
about in previous posts; the single most damaging, destructive and detrimental deed
creative software companies have exerted on the media production community is the
supplanting of Real Education with Software-Specific Brand Allegiance.

As i wrote in my own manifesto - Holistic Thinking - Integrated making:

Software Agnosticism and the Philosophy of the Tools

One of the great tragedies of media making education over the past decade has been the
supplanting of real knowledge, skills and core competencies with software specific, brand
allied pseudo-skills. An editor, skilled and knowledgeable in the craft, technology and
artistry of editing as a process, should be more than capable of sitting down in front of
any editing system, any editing tool, and be able to produce functional quality work. A
carpenter is not rendered useless by changing to a different type of circular saw..!

Sadly however we are in an era where instead of demanding this universality as a bench
mark from creative artisans we accept the corporate-driven brand allegiance of software
specific skills. Software and technology Users rather than real technical creators.

Any institution that teaches software specific functions above, or worse, in place of core
processes is fundamentally dis-empowering their students and directly damaging the broader
creative industry, making it slavishly adherent to corporate marketing directions rather
than the needs and skill demands of production.

Furthermore, any cinematic education that provides only one type, one brand, one form of
tool or system of production in exclusivity rather than providing options and diversity of
tools to students - so that they might find the right tool that suits them and their
internal methodology of working - is detrimentally hobbling those students. These students
are rendered under-skilled servants of a software company rather than comprehensively
skilled artists and craftspersons with abilities beyond the tools.

Each and every software tool for creative cinematic production carries with it an
internally logical philosophy a conceptual mode of perceiving the creative production
process instilled on inception into the tool by those who made it and the direct
imperatives of the corporation for which it was made. Thus a creative media maker in
choosing a particular tool for production is by default 'buying into' a tacit, if not
proactive, acceptance of that tool's philosophical approach. Their work with that tool is
subsequently governed, influenced and shaped by that philosophy.

If however the student through their cinematic education is restrictively indoctrinated
into a particular tool (and its respective philosophy), without wider consideration of a
personal creative and philosophical approach, then their work will be dictatorially shaped
by the tool itself rather than by their own creative imperatives. The tool will dictate
what can and cant be done and how it will be done rather than the creator seeking out
these pathways to suit themselves and the needs of the project.

Whilst standard technical formats provide functional benchmarks and uniformity, the idea
that there are Industry Standard creative tools is fundamentally abhorrent. There is NO
SUCH THING AS AN 'INDUSTRY STANDARD' creative tool. The very concept is anti-creative. It
is a prescribing that there is only one way to work and that other techno-creative
approaches are of lesser value or unacceptable. It implies that a work is only acceptable
if made with a particular type of technology  and this is absurdly destructive and the
very concept must be done away. We must ensure cinematic producers are not conforming
creative vision to needs of the tool but seeking the tool to extol the creative needs of
the production.

The only true measure of intelligence and knowledge is the ability to learn, acquire and
apply new skills and knowledge. Thus an 'editor' whose comprehension of editing process,
technique and technology has been built solely through the confined prism of one
particular tool's presented philosophical paradigm is fundamentally weak; dis-empowered
and at the mercy the ever changing whims of software developers rather than a servant of
the creative process where by the tools are means to an ends.


Whilst i find David's work and ideas extraordinary inspiring and forward thinking I'm
bothered immensely by this seemingly small stumble in "The video journalist's Manifesto".
To my mind the moment a conceptual manifesto, one that is designed to enlighten and direct
thinking forward and remain relevant for whatever the future may bring, steps into 'brand-
loyalty' and the raising up of any corporate 'Product' it fundamentally undermines its
conceptual value and ability to be holistic relevant. Ironically the previous Point 16. in
the manifesto is almost exactly the opposite.

16. The tools of my trade: a powerful laptop, editing software, rugged rucksack,
collapsible tripod, High Definition DV Cam, water, pen, firewire cable, external 200 g
hard drive.

(Although the mention of a specific size to the external hard Drive seems somewhat
ludicrous. 1 year from now 200gb will be paltry. 2 years from now we'll be talking
terabytes not gigabytes.)

If I can be forgiven the arrogance of suggesting a re-write to David's manifesto points 16
and 17 :

"The tools of my trade are the tools of Acquisition, Assembly and Delivery.
Hand-held camera and laptop make me Efficient.
Rucksack and collapsible tripod make me mobile.
Software for manipulation, design and digital construction make me self suffient and flexible.
It's all in the story. My job is to craft it visually.
The Net, the most powerful broadcast media-in-waiting, is my natural home."

Now we have a statement that drives at the heart of what the technololgy empowers in enabling the culture of the VJ;
Not a dictation of brand-loyalty that immediately restricts, dates and distracts from what the video journalist IS and DOES.

Posted at 12:00AM Dec 22, 2007 by Mike Jones in media education  |  Comments[3]