The new building…
About four months ago we started a project with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty here in Prague.
We took them from radio to video.
RFE/RL has some of the most dedicated reporters in the world, working in some of the most difficult and hostile environments, from Kazahstan to the Balkans to Armenia and beyond. Places where the state controls the newspaper and the TV and the radio, and any form of reporting or journalism that goes against the state lands a journalist in jail… or dead.
This isn’t Good Morning America.
These dedicated men and women have been, for the most part, working radio -because that is the easiest medium to broadcast into countries with closed societies.Â
But the rapid growth of the web and of broadband means that more and more potential viewers can find RFE/RL on the web.
And when they do, they’re going to find more and more video. Â
Training a radio journalist to work in video, using a small camera and a laptop is among life’s easier tasks. Â They are used to working alone, used to carrying their own gear, used to editing their own material and used to hard hours in difficult places. They take to the VJ model because they can see it’s like radio, but with pictures.Â
There is no crying here about ‘my crew, my producer… we work as a team… and where’s my car?’
Like I said, a pleasure.
And what’s the quality like?
Here’s a recent piece from the last group of graduates:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=991kr83-Qs0[/youtube]Like I said. It isn’t Good Morning America. Â It’s a lot better.
5 Comments
Michael Rosenblum September 06, 2009
You can lead a horse to water but what can you do after that? I am not nearly so dogmatic as I used to be. I am a firm believer in video literacy. After that, the paying client is free to select the course that they feel works best for them. As I often tell the people who work for me, ‘if the customer wants tuna salad, give them tuna salad. Don’t spend an hour explaining how the sashimi is better’.
Michael Rosenblum September 05, 2009
These are radio folks that we have trained to shoot, cut, report and produce. How they use their skills collectively is entirely up to the, but the object of the project is to make everyone in house completely video literate in all aspects of production. That seems to be working very well.
pencilgod September 06, 2009
I agree that making everyone video literate is good. When I started in the industry I spent 2 years as a TVA, than meant 6 weeks in every department, doing every type of job, training that still stands me in good staid.
I just find it funny that in your example of people who “get” the VJ model the first thing they do is revert to traditional reporter/cameraman rolls.
pencilgod September 04, 2009
Produced and written by Mumin Shakirov
Shot and edited by Alexander Kulygin
VJ how?
Ricki Green September 24, 2009
The VJ Michael trained is Alexander Kulygin from our first class of VJ’s. Mumin produced the series with Alexander’s help and Alexander shot and editing it all.
Seven videos of approximately six minutes each. I think Alexander – a VJ in our Russian bureau – did an amazing job for someone who had never picked up a camera or edited until February of this year. Classic one-man-band-VJ – no. But a lot of the credit for this really excellent series goes to him.
All the Migrant Express videos are here: http://www.rferl.org/section/Migrant+Express/787.html
Incidentally about 80% of our VJ’s work alone, and if they work with someone it is an editor. We hardly ever use the traditional crew of producer and cameraman. We don’t have that luxury.