Roving (TV?) reporter
I wasn’t ready for my close-up. I was ambushed by an eager Frenchman – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I went to watch some Amazonian tribesmen bless tree stumps from Ghana in Trafalger Square last week. We had to do a story about it for a class so the place was packed with wannbe journalists from City. Morade is not in the class but he had decided to come along and put together a TV piece for it.
Fiona who was also with us had been commissioned to write an account of the event for the Latin American Bureau website. With this angle in mind Mo got a lot of footage and I was recruited to be the interviewer. So I came up with the questions and interviewed a few people.
We were packing up and I was looking forward to joining some of the others in the pub when Mo decided he wanted a conclusion. I hastily composed some words and just as hastily forgot them practically every time Mo tried to film me saying them…
With a conclusion taped we needed an intro – walking and talking at the same time! As you can see from the video – these apparently are skills I can’t combine :$
The next day we had the fun of putting it together – I feel bad for Mo’s poor date – he kept putting her off as we found more we wanted to do. Journalism brings out the inner workaholic.
The will supposedly be published on the website but I haven’t found it up there yet.
I’ve always resisted suggestions that I should venture into the murky world of broadcast journalism – until recently. It was fun – I really enjoy the editing process – you have to be very precise.
It is also incredibly restrictive – you have to always be aware of your technology. With TV especially there are so many aspects where you are limited in what you can do. You must have the pictures to illustrate what you are saying and the timing has to be on the button. Fast track to frustration when things don’t work out – and ultimate satisfaction when they do.
I made a video with anther Frenchman while we were embedded with the marines (execution footage – it’s pretty cool and also very wrong on many levels). I would choose this week to spend a lot of time with the French guys… though it was kind of nice to hear someone muttering ‘putain’ beside me every 2 minutes.
Despite the ethical dilemmas, I’m really proud of it (& very happy that it doesn’t feature my dopey-eyed face – do I really look that sleepy all the time people?). I haven’t managed to upload it here or to youtube unfortunately – I’ll ask someone with more of a clue and keep you posted…
