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G20 Finance Ministers Mar 09 - Photo by Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
I’ve been here at BBC World Service News, on the 3rd floor of Bush House, for about four years now.
During this time, high profile meetings involving heads of state and finance ministers – like the G20 summit - come around every year. Learn more about what the G20 heads of state will be talking about this week, here.
Most of the time these meetings are covered in a very straightforward and dare I say it, sometimes dull fashion. Analytical interviews with experts and ministers, although an important part of our coverage, can sometimes be an arduous listen. They are after all a collection of grey suits in a room (see photo).
So I was very pleased to hear that there will be an injection of colour this time round.
Blogger, Cheryl Contee just emailed me. Cheryl worked with Your Story as part of our Obama Inauguration coverage. She blogs at jackandjillpolitics.com – she’s an African-American woman, tech-savvy, smart and engaging.
She told me about G20voice.org. Oxfam are inviting 50 influential bloggers, to the G20 summit happening here in London this week and Cheryl is one of the bloggers they picked.
The G20voice.org website reads …
The UK Government recognises the growing importance of bloggers debating the issues around the G20 Summit and have allocated space and passes within the Summit venue.
The list of bloggers, will include 15 from the developing world, some focused on poverty, others on climate change. All are pretty high profile and eclectic people. You can see the selected bloggers and their latest posts here.
I think there’s potential to do something exciting here in how citizen journalism can add to our coverage of this G20 summit. I’ll keep you updated on this blog with what we plan to do.
I’ve been getting really into twitter.
The media are said to be going a bit too mad over twitter. It is true. Watch this clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - it’s so totally hilarious.
After watching this, I added tweetcongress to my twitter following list and a couple of senators.
The reason why I like it is because once you start seeing people are following you and you start following the people that you are interested in, it gets addictive! It only got scary once when I got a message to say 10 Downing Street were following me! And I got a bit excited when I found MC Hammer!
From a journalistic point of view I’m finding it really useful. I’m getting information – news articles and other links – and seeing online conversations going on, that I would not be tapped into otherwise. The twitter search box allows you to type in anything you’re interested in looking for – for example I was looking for info on Obama’s inauguration when I was researching our trip to Washington. See what Your Story did for the inauguration here.
Also for breaking news. When the Mumbai attacks happened, this email came round my department from a BBC colleague -
Every few seconds the people of Mumbai are writing their views on Twitter – a doctor pleading for blood, a Muslim who believes the killers were martyrs, an inhabitant of Nariman House, a frightened Indian Muslim — it is all here. They all have emails and they all want to speak to the outside world. You can’t afford not to use it.
I have to agree.
The head of Global News, Richard Sambrook uses twitter a lot and he got a message from Peter Horrocks – who is about to join BBC World Service management – he released the names of two people who had got jobs via twitter by mistake. So there is room for error!
I went on a BBC course last week called “Capturing Conversations”. It was about looking for things being said online about a subject you are interested in. They told me about icerocket – which is a different search tool, twist that maps trends and hot words on twitter, and twitterful – you download it and it makes your twitter updates cascade down on your screen. Looks nice.
So, are you converted yet?
This is a more detailed guide for shooting web video. Here’s Part 1. If you are a citizen journalist and want to send something into the BBC World Service citizen journalism project – it could be used by the BBC on air or online. Please send me your video using the webform on the Your Story homepage – alternatively you can upload your video onto vimeo and make bbcyourstory your contact.
if you have trouble doing this, then let me know by posting your comment on this blog – thanks and I hope this is useful.
Before you start shooting – know what your story is and plan what you are going to do. It’s helpful to write this down and have in your mind what you are aiming to do. Also think safety. You must always make sure it is safe to film before you even think about pressing record.
Get your shots – there is a five shot rule – Shoot the person, the thing, then the person and the thing and then some extra shots. Film these shots in sequence. This allows you to piece it together at the end.
Keep the camera steady and film each shot without moving for about two – five minutes.
NO zoom shots – they look amateur.
How to operate your DV camera – if you are inexperienced then choose a camera where you can mainly operate on auto settings. I usually use a Sony Z1. A short “show and tell” video on how to operate it is coming up on Your Story so keep checking back on this blog – we’re planning on doing it in March 2009.
Sound quality is so important – so make sure there is not too much noise. That there is no sound distortion – this happens when microphone levels are too high and the voice too loud. If levels are too low – this is also unusable. Always listen to the location and try to reduce unwanted background noise. Traffic, machine hum, music and door-slams can all spoil your soundtrack. Avoid echoey acoustics.
Background movement – as I said on the previous post – make sure there is not too much background movement – this is like trees moving or a busy road with many cars passing. This creates problems when the encoding process happens.
Using auto focus – “auto” is great at focusing, but terrible at knowing what to focus on. So you may have to use the manual focus. For an interview, zoom in only as far as you need to get your subject large in frame.
A well framed shot is a pleasure to look at and helps tell your story. Poor framing can distract the audience away from what’s important. The most useful ‘rule’ to remember is: “If it looks good, it is good – if it looks bad, it is bad!” An interviewer should be close to the camera lens, so the subject gazes just off-camera.
Set white balance – Our eyes perceive ambient light as white. But to a camera, daylight looks blue, most artificial light looks yellow, and fluorescent looks green. So you have to adjust white balance on the camera -
- Point the camera at white paper lit with the same light as the subject.
- Zoom in so that the paper fills the frame.
- Do an auto exposure.
- Press the white balance button (the paper should look white)
When you have recorded your interview and shots, you can pull them together using a simple programme like windows movie maker. Then upload your video to one of the video sharing sites.
You may have heard me going on about trying to record a promo to explain what the Your Story project is about – well, finally, here it is!! Your thoughts – good and bad are welcome.
more about "What is Your Story? ", posted with vodpod
Not all is straightforward in the BBC. This is an example in point, I am in the process of recording a video – it’s a kind of promo which I am hoping to email to other bloggers and citizen media sites to spread the word about Your Story and what we do. It’s pretty basic – me just talking about some of the things we have worked on.
I think it will probably come under criticism from bloggers as it’s all about how the BBC is trying to get involved in citizen journalism and whether this can ever work remains a moot point.
But it has taken me five days now and it’s still not ready. I had to shoot it using a Sony Z1 which I do not know how to use properly as the lighting and framing shot was not right. I had to do it twice and then I had to try and dub it from DV tape to AVI. This took a while as there was a backlog in the room that does the dubbing.
I had to then find a PC with the right software on it – premiere pro. Then I had to find someone to help me edit it and put on the titles – not easy as everyone is busy for Xmas – my background is radio so I thought I could figure it out by myself but I couldn’t. Finally got someone to help me and now I have to wait for the branding person to go over it.
phew … what a build up. I’ll post it here when it’s ready. All comments positive (and probably more) negative will be very welcome .
So I went on this BBC training course which was all about shooting video content for the web.
It was a three and a half hour course – spent the afternoon at White City.
We started the afternoon with introductions and what we wanted to get out of it and what video we were watching on the web. I explained about the Your Story project and how I wanted to impart knowledge to budding citizen journos who were shooting stuff and sending it in to me. I also said that I was enjoying watching music videos and behind the scenes footage like hip hop star Jay Z making up song lyrics in the studio.
But I digress….
The two guys giving the course said that there were good and bad videos on the web. The worst ones did not play at all when clicked on and the best ones was stuff like this . – that is a prgramme called Signs of Life which was created with high production values especially for the web.
The cameras we used were Sony Z1′s. 
The message we were given was that the better quality the camera, the better. It’s all in the lens apparently. That we shouldn’t compromise on quality just because it was for the web. The better the quality going in, the better it would be coming out.
On shooting, we were told that it’s best not to have too much movement in the background – this is “noisy movement” like trees moving constantly ot busy roads. This is because it takes the machine longer to process as it takes all it’s time on this movement and you get less quality in the frame you want.
The most important thing, which I have to agree with is the SOUND QUALITY. Research shows that even if the picture is not good, as long as the sound is good, then that gives the viewer the impression it is clear. 
Lapel microphones are best but expensive. Best to get a not so noisy environment to record.
I have bought detachable sony microhones (see photo) to give to some citizen journo’s for this purpose – to pick up better sound. This way, I can also broadcast content across the radio as well as feature it on the Your Story website.
We tried a number of different shots, trying to make the best use of available lighting. When it comes to lighting, outside in daylight is usually best – too dark is a problem. Frame head shots where the whole face fills the screen.
The trainer then went into this technical diatribe where I’m afraid I switched off as it was all about the encoding process which most software does automatically so I didn;t think it was that important – sorry if this is what you wanted to know about!!! If you really want to know message me and i can find out.
Key points to take away with me were :
- quality is important
- not too much noisy movement
- sound quality is key
- choose your location carefully, think lighting and background
- fill the shot with the person you are focusing on
- No zoom – keep it steady, tripod if possible
- test the video after you have uploaded it
PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS AND ADVICE – ANY MORE TIPS GRATEFULLY RECEIVED.
I am more than often asked whether we pay for work done by citizen journalists. I’m always sorry to say no but I understand that this is an important area for discussion. The BBC line is that we do not pay for contributions because as a citizen journalism project this is not a professional undertaking. People submit their efforts and time voluntarily and the only thing i can offer in return is the chance that work may be featured on the BBC website and on the radio with the opportunity of getting your voices and opinions heard across the world.
I am trying to do more to offer people and groups more in return for what they do. For example, i am in the process of trying to get Your Story training workshops off the ground – where we can get BBC journalists offering personal training and sharing their expertise.
The other thing I am doing is trying to offer equipment – it’s only small scale. I have put an order in for 10 ediroll digital editing machines today.
They have their own internal microphones and are easy to use and to download the audio into the computer afterwards with a USB cable. I’m hoping they should arrive in the next few weeks.
I’ve also got 3 more expensive PDA’s – one is in Nigeria, another is in Iraq and I want to send the other one to Lesotho.
My budget is really small but hopefully as this project gets off the ground, more resources can be put into it so that we can improve what we can give back.
There are a lot of people out there who write their own blogs and record footage on their own cameras and mobile phones and they do this voluntarily. I cannot make any demands of people and if you start putting money into the equation it starts getting more complicated.
I think the essence of citizen journalism is its’ voluntary nature and the moment it starts crossing over into the professional – well then that becomes your job and you can expect a wage, but that would probably take some time.
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