It's not easy this video-making lark.
I had great intentions of making my video about the Adventure Challenge and submitting it to JCNN, James Cook uni's news network, but I don't think my effort is good enough. I didn't realise that I'd missed so many shot sequences until I came to edit it all together.
I think it also suffers from its missing music track. I made one in GarageBand, but it didn't make it through the Vimeo upload process. Maybe it's out there in cyberspace somewhere, waiting to attach itself to someones iTunes download.
If you get a version of something that sounds vaguely like dance music but was obviously made by someone clueless in the ways of dance music (or any music, now I come to think of it, I only believe it's dance music because it said so on the button I clicked in GarageBand) don't complain to Apple. Just smack it on it's little digital bum and send it to home to me.
I should have planned the shoot better. I should have interviewed more people (I did start but then got busy moving the camera everywhere to really mix up my shots and make the video extra confusing). I should have written a voice-over and put narration on it. I should have...well, you get the picture, there's lots of things I should have done.
Will I make the same mistakes again? Yep, I sure will, and new ones too. I'd love to be able to say that I'll never make "that" mistake again but I'm old enough to know that isn't the way it works in Chris world.
Some people find it impossible to admit they've made a mistake in the first place, and I think they miss out on one of the best life lessons of all.
When I did my engineering apprenticeship with George from the Ukraine many years ago, he taught me many things. I think his most valuable lesson though was teaching me how to get myself out of the poo when I'd dropped myself in it.
George always had a trick up his sleeve. Whether it was something that he'd saved from an earlier job or something he'd salvaged from around the factory (he used to make me sift through the cleaner's floor sweepings for odd nuts and bolts and then save them in old tobacco tins for when they were needed) he could always come up with something that would fix the problem. He was MacGyver before MacGyver.
It would be nice to be good at everything straight away but life doesn't work like that. We have to keep plugging away at things to get better. Unless it's skiing. My decision to quit that after two lessons was appreciated by everyone at Thredbo, especially the people in the ski class I knocked over.
Tuesday 17 September 2013
Monday 16 September 2013
On a Mission Multi-Sport Adventure Challenge
The 'On a Mission Multi-Sport Adventure Challenge' held at Mission Beach yesterday.
On a Mission Adventure Challenge from Chris Holmes on Vimeo.
On a Mission Adventure Challenge from Chris Holmes on Vimeo.
Wednesday 28 August 2013
News Writing for Beginners
In my journalism class this semester we've begun to delve deeper into the art of news writing. Journalists figure out the most important bits of a story, then just string a whole bunch of words together in the right order to tell a story. Right? Sounds easy.
If you follow the rules of establishing the five W's and the H - that's the who, what, when, where, why and how - you're certainly closer to writing your story but there's plenty of other things that can trip you up, as I keep finding out.
In our initial journalism exercises we were given all the facts to write a story, they just weren't always in the right order. Figuring out the news values that make a story interesting, as well as the five W's and the H, isn't too hard if you're given a simple car crash to report on, for instance.
Try wading through a 15-page transcript of one of Barack Obama's speeches to find the story. I had a few goes at it and I still couldn't find one. My lecturer, Amy, assures me there's one in there somewhere.
If we assume that you've found the story (honestly, is it too much to ask that he gives a little sign when he gets to the important part of his speech next time?), then comes the tricky part of writing the lead (or the lede, or the intro; it's the same thing, it just depends on where you're from). This usually follows the inverted pyramid style of news writing where the most important parts of the story are placed right at the beginning, just in case the editor needs to prune your story to make room for something more important, such as a beer ad. Hmm, beer. Readers also skim stories, so you need to get all the juicy bits up front to grab their attention.
We get to put all this into practice soon and go out gathering facts for our own stories. That'll be fun, 50 journalism students wandering around Townsville looking for people to interview.
I wonder if we could all report on the same incident? 50 accounts of the same nobody-injured, nose-to-tail car crash in a suburban back street could be quite entertaining, I seem to remember that bystanders are less than reliable in their accounts sometimes.
"In Townsville today a cat/dog/child ran out in front of a blue/green/red car that was driving at, under or over the speed limit, causing the car/van/ute behind to crash/smash/bash into the back of the yellow/brown/orange car in front."
Perfect, the facts must be in there, somewhere.
If you follow the rules of establishing the five W's and the H - that's the who, what, when, where, why and how - you're certainly closer to writing your story but there's plenty of other things that can trip you up, as I keep finding out.
In our initial journalism exercises we were given all the facts to write a story, they just weren't always in the right order. Figuring out the news values that make a story interesting, as well as the five W's and the H, isn't too hard if you're given a simple car crash to report on, for instance.
Try wading through a 15-page transcript of one of Barack Obama's speeches to find the story. I had a few goes at it and I still couldn't find one. My lecturer, Amy, assures me there's one in there somewhere.
If we assume that you've found the story (honestly, is it too much to ask that he gives a little sign when he gets to the important part of his speech next time?), then comes the tricky part of writing the lead (or the lede, or the intro; it's the same thing, it just depends on where you're from). This usually follows the inverted pyramid style of news writing where the most important parts of the story are placed right at the beginning, just in case the editor needs to prune your story to make room for something more important, such as a beer ad. Hmm, beer. Readers also skim stories, so you need to get all the juicy bits up front to grab their attention.
We get to put all this into practice soon and go out gathering facts for our own stories. That'll be fun, 50 journalism students wandering around Townsville looking for people to interview.
I wonder if we could all report on the same incident? 50 accounts of the same nobody-injured, nose-to-tail car crash in a suburban back street could be quite entertaining, I seem to remember that bystanders are less than reliable in their accounts sometimes.
"In Townsville today a cat/dog/child ran out in front of a blue/green/red car that was driving at, under or over the speed limit, causing the car/van/ute behind to crash/smash/bash into the back of the yellow/brown/orange car in front."
Perfect, the facts must be in there, somewhere.
Friday 9 August 2013
His Name's Peter...He's Here To Help
I'm not really sure that I should be introducing politics on my blog, it's certainly not a subject that I'm especially knowledgeable about, even after taking Introduction to Political Science PL-1001 last semester, sorry Associate Professor, but here goes anyway..
I listened to the Kevin Rudd/Peter Beattie news conference on the radio yesterday and couldn't believe what I was hearing. Peter Beattie and his wife moved into his brother's house in the electorate of Forde that morning and if elected will buy a house and move into the area immediately. Well, that must give locals confidence in how committed Mr Beattie is to representing them: vote him in, he'll stay, if you don't, see you, bye.
I know modern elections are often more about stunts and publicity than policy, and that marginal seats are the ones that get all the media attention during an election campaign, but I do wonder what the Australian Labor Party thinks of the voters in the Forde electorate. Are they expected to be dazzled by a celebrity candidate and forget all the things that have been said in the past? Mr Beattie has previously stated that he wasn't interested in federal politics and supported Julia Gillard over Kevin Rudd as prime minister, that all now appears to be irrelevant.
In his speech, Mr Beattie bemoans the fact that Labor has seven seats in State Parliament and eight seats in Federal Parliament and says "that's simply not fair". Hang on, I thought that was the whole point of a modern representational democracy. We all vote and if your party gets less votes than the other lot, they win and you lose. Labor has seven seats in State Parliament because that's what the majority of Queensland wanted. Of course, they might be thinking differently now after some of Mr Newman's job cuts, but that's the way politics works. If we vote them in, then we have to live with the consequences until it's time to vote them out again.
OK, rant over until something else annoys me. I can't say I'm a big fan of either major party, and I live in Bob Katter's electorate so my vote doesn't do much anyway.
I listened to the Kevin Rudd/Peter Beattie news conference on the radio yesterday and couldn't believe what I was hearing. Peter Beattie and his wife moved into his brother's house in the electorate of Forde that morning and if elected will buy a house and move into the area immediately. Well, that must give locals confidence in how committed Mr Beattie is to representing them: vote him in, he'll stay, if you don't, see you, bye.
I know modern elections are often more about stunts and publicity than policy, and that marginal seats are the ones that get all the media attention during an election campaign, but I do wonder what the Australian Labor Party thinks of the voters in the Forde electorate. Are they expected to be dazzled by a celebrity candidate and forget all the things that have been said in the past? Mr Beattie has previously stated that he wasn't interested in federal politics and supported Julia Gillard over Kevin Rudd as prime minister, that all now appears to be irrelevant.
In his speech, Mr Beattie bemoans the fact that Labor has seven seats in State Parliament and eight seats in Federal Parliament and says "that's simply not fair". Hang on, I thought that was the whole point of a modern representational democracy. We all vote and if your party gets less votes than the other lot, they win and you lose. Labor has seven seats in State Parliament because that's what the majority of Queensland wanted. Of course, they might be thinking differently now after some of Mr Newman's job cuts, but that's the way politics works. If we vote them in, then we have to live with the consequences until it's time to vote them out again.
OK, rant over until something else annoys me. I can't say I'm a big fan of either major party, and I live in Bob Katter's electorate so my vote doesn't do much anyway.
Saturday 3 August 2013
Neil Davis: Great-granddaddy of backpack journalism?
The backpack journalist, a.k.a. APJ or all-platform journalist, is supposed to be a new form of reporter, a jack of all trades capable of tracking down news and recording it in various forms; someone competent in video and audio capture, photography, interviewing, story writing and editing.
Some books and websites would have you believe that this is a new phenomenon brought about by media downsizing, the rise of internet news and the introduction of new technology. TechNewsWorld has described journalist Kevin Sites as the "granddaddy of APJs" however, the more I looked at this form of journalism during my first semester at uni, the more I was reminded of the work of Australian cameraman Neil Davis.
In Vietnam he chose to cover the fighting with the South Vietnamese troops, believing that they were the ones doing the hardest fighting. This meant that he often had to walk for days at a time while out on patrols, carrying all of his camera and sound equipment and with no chance of helicopter evacuation if he was wounded. When other Western journalists left the country as North Vietnamese forces reached Saigon in 1975, Davis stayed behind and captured the iconic footage of Communist tanks driving through the gates of the Presidential Palace.
This is an excerpt from David Bradbury's 1980 documentary about Davis, "Frontline".
Davis went on to cover wars in Africa and the Middle East, however with the introduction of video he was forced to work with a sound engineer who carried the heavy audio equipment. He was killed in Thailand in 1985, along with his soundman Bill Latch, while filming a short-lived coup.
If you want to read more about his fascinating career, try Tim Bowden's excellent biography of Neil Davis called "One Crowded Hour", a reference to the lines of a poem that Davis wrote in the front of all his work diaries, lines that he saw as his own personal motto: "One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name".
Some books and websites would have you believe that this is a new phenomenon brought about by media downsizing, the rise of internet news and the introduction of new technology. TechNewsWorld has described journalist Kevin Sites as the "granddaddy of APJs" however, the more I looked at this form of journalism during my first semester at uni, the more I was reminded of the work of Australian cameraman Neil Davis.
I think Davis was a backpack journalist forty years before the term was even thought of. Born in Tasmania in 1934, he learnt his craft at the Tasmanian Government Film Unit and the ABC before moving to South East Asia in 1964 to cover the various conflicts that were flaring up in the area. He usually worked alone, not wanting the responsibility of looking after a sound engineer, preferring to record his own sound as well as shooting film. He was also adept at doing stand-up reports in front of the camera and wrote copy when required.
In Vietnam he chose to cover the fighting with the South Vietnamese troops, believing that they were the ones doing the hardest fighting. This meant that he often had to walk for days at a time while out on patrols, carrying all of his camera and sound equipment and with no chance of helicopter evacuation if he was wounded. When other Western journalists left the country as North Vietnamese forces reached Saigon in 1975, Davis stayed behind and captured the iconic footage of Communist tanks driving through the gates of the Presidential Palace.
This is an excerpt from David Bradbury's 1980 documentary about Davis, "Frontline".
Davis went on to cover wars in Africa and the Middle East, however with the introduction of video he was forced to work with a sound engineer who carried the heavy audio equipment. He was killed in Thailand in 1985, along with his soundman Bill Latch, while filming a short-lived coup.
If you want to read more about his fascinating career, try Tim Bowden's excellent biography of Neil Davis called "One Crowded Hour", a reference to the lines of a poem that Davis wrote in the front of all his work diaries, lines that he saw as his own personal motto: "One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name".
Saturday 15 June 2013
Happy Birthday Mum
Happy Birthday Mum.
You'd have been 88 today if the vagaries of the British National Health Service hadn't let your diabetes run rampant. Lots of things have happened since you've been gone, some good things, though more bad. Terrorists have taken over the world, causing mayhem and madness wherever they so choose. You'd probably remember them from your time in London during the war, though they were called GI's back then.
I've just been out taking photographs and thanking the universe that you didn't pass on your photography skills to me. They'll probably invent an app soon that automatically crops off heads and frames feet in the shot but you could do all that manually, you didn't need fancy new technology to do it.
How would I even try to explain PC's, DVD's and smart-phones to you? You had enough trouble with the VCR. To this day I have no idea how you managed to record Michael Jackson's Thriller video when it was first shown on TV. I suspect you were trying to record EastEnders or Coronation Street on a completely different channel on a different day and at a different time, but I'm glad you did it, whenever I see that video now, it reminds me of you.
You did pass on your love of reading and your interest in crosswords for which I'm grateful, but you also gave me your short-arse little legs, which I'm less thrilled about. Your other great passion was knitting. I remember all the jumpers you churned out on your knitting machine, and the fights we used to have because I refused to wear any of them. You could never understand why a teenage boy would refuse to wear a jumper that was: a) made by his Mum and b) had a pattern on it so alarming even Val Doonican would have refused to wear it...but that didn't stop you trying.
Happy Birthday Mum, from your 40th birthday present. Yes, I never had any excuse for forgetting your birthday, did I? Some women get champagne and flowers, you got me instead, though looking back on my grunting teenage years, I'm sure you'd have swapped me in a heartbeat for a bottle of Guinness and a bunch of daisies.
Your loving son, Chris
XXX
You'd have been 88 today if the vagaries of the British National Health Service hadn't let your diabetes run rampant. Lots of things have happened since you've been gone, some good things, though more bad. Terrorists have taken over the world, causing mayhem and madness wherever they so choose. You'd probably remember them from your time in London during the war, though they were called GI's back then.
I've just been out taking photographs and thanking the universe that you didn't pass on your photography skills to me. They'll probably invent an app soon that automatically crops off heads and frames feet in the shot but you could do all that manually, you didn't need fancy new technology to do it.
How would I even try to explain PC's, DVD's and smart-phones to you? You had enough trouble with the VCR. To this day I have no idea how you managed to record Michael Jackson's Thriller video when it was first shown on TV. I suspect you were trying to record EastEnders or Coronation Street on a completely different channel on a different day and at a different time, but I'm glad you did it, whenever I see that video now, it reminds me of you.
You did pass on your love of reading and your interest in crosswords for which I'm grateful, but you also gave me your short-arse little legs, which I'm less thrilled about. Your other great passion was knitting. I remember all the jumpers you churned out on your knitting machine, and the fights we used to have because I refused to wear any of them. You could never understand why a teenage boy would refuse to wear a jumper that was: a) made by his Mum and b) had a pattern on it so alarming even Val Doonican would have refused to wear it...but that didn't stop you trying.
Happy Birthday Mum, from your 40th birthday present. Yes, I never had any excuse for forgetting your birthday, did I? Some women get champagne and flowers, you got me instead, though looking back on my grunting teenage years, I'm sure you'd have swapped me in a heartbeat for a bottle of Guinness and a bunch of daisies.
Your loving son, Chris
XXX
Sunday 9 June 2013
Exam Cheer(s)
Sorry. My blog posts have been absent this week, all thanks to my ongoing struggle with revision for my political science exam next week. When I read the books they make perfect sense, then I close them and zoom, whatever I thought I knew just disappears, gone. Maybe I should just leave the books open and never shut them.
Yesterday I threw myself into...watching a borrowed copy of Underbelly: Badness. Today, however, after taking the DVDs back, going to the supermarket to get cat biscuits and having a nap, I really threw myself into it. No, stop laughing, I did, in fact I've just finished a revision session where I incorporated my new secret weapon, beer. (OK, yes, you're right, it's the same secret weapon I always use so it's not much of a secret, or much of a weapon come to that)
I'm not sure I can class it as performance enhancing, but I did just write four short practice essays in less than two hours. On the day I have to write three essays in two hours, though now I think about it, they have to be legible essays that make some sort of sense. Maybe there's a correlation between previous beer drinking and the fact that I can never close a textbook ever again?
I'm certain a calming beer before the big event would be a great way to settle the nerves but I think I'd be more inclined to stay in the pub than turn up for the exam. Maybe the uni would be okay if I arrived at the exam with a six-pack? Some people bring Tic-Tacs or gum, why should I be singled out because of a few beers and/or a hip flask?
We're living in a democracy and not an authoritarian state after all. Hang on, maybe something did sink in. Let's drink to that, cheers!
Yesterday I threw myself into...watching a borrowed copy of Underbelly: Badness. Today, however, after taking the DVDs back, going to the supermarket to get cat biscuits and having a nap, I really threw myself into it. No, stop laughing, I did, in fact I've just finished a revision session where I incorporated my new secret weapon, beer. (OK, yes, you're right, it's the same secret weapon I always use so it's not much of a secret, or much of a weapon come to that)
I'm not sure I can class it as performance enhancing, but I did just write four short practice essays in less than two hours. On the day I have to write three essays in two hours, though now I think about it, they have to be legible essays that make some sort of sense. Maybe there's a correlation between previous beer drinking and the fact that I can never close a textbook ever again?
I'm certain a calming beer before the big event would be a great way to settle the nerves but I think I'd be more inclined to stay in the pub than turn up for the exam. Maybe the uni would be okay if I arrived at the exam with a six-pack? Some people bring Tic-Tacs or gum, why should I be singled out because of a few beers and/or a hip flask?
We're living in a democracy and not an authoritarian state after all. Hang on, maybe something did sink in. Let's drink to that, cheers!
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