Welcome to Video1

We are sure you will learn a lot during this course. The first half of Video1 will focus on video journalism using video cameras. This second half will focus on mojo: Making videos with only an iOS device. Different people will teach video journalism for the first half of the course, and Stephen Quinn will teach mojo in all three cities. Stephen Quinn plans to use a Facebook group to communicate with students and wrote this file.

Required reading

Burum, Ivo and Quinn, Stephen. (2015). MOJO: The Mobile Journalism Handbook Focal Press (Taylor and Francis Group), Boston. Has link to 13 videos (310 pages).

Thorkildsen, Christian (2011). VJ for begynnere. Videojournalistikk på nett (IJ-forlaget).

Vestad, Jon Peder and Alme, Bjarte (2002) Mediespråk. Form og formidling i journalistikk (Samlaget) pages 135-162.

Handgaard, Brynjulf (2008). Intervjuteknikk for journalister (Gyldendal) pages 209-259.

Suggested reading

Burum, Ivo. (2013) The iBook How to MOJO: Guide to mobile journalism. Available at iTunes store at https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/how-to-mojo/id633249999?mt=11

Delicious

Stephen Quinn suggests you keep abreast of mojo developments by checking the teacher’s Delicious site every few days: http://del.icio.us/sraquinn/mojo. Also very useful is this Facebook group about mobile journalism called MojoCon.

Equipment for mojo

For the “mojo” part of this course you will only need an iPhone (though it is possible to do this course with a smartphone running the Android OS). You need to have the latest version of the iMovie app on your iOS device. As of August 2016 the app’s latest version is 2.2.3. You can check via Settings. Scroll down to the iMovie app. The icon is a white star on a purple background. If you do not have an iOS device, one option is to partner with someone who does.

If you have a smartphone with the Android operating system, you could use the KineMaster Pro Video Editor. It has multiple video editing tracks, but only for some Android phones and you need to pay for a second editing track. It also imposes a watermark which you have to pay to have removed, and it only allows you to save the file in HD2 (720p). Many smartphones have better cameras than the iPhone, but you cannot edit properly with the available apps and/or save the files in full HD for uploading and distribution without watermarks. So the quality of the camera is irrelevant.

Why the iPhone?

At least 3 million apps are available on the various app stores. But only devices running the iOS have apps that allow two tracks for video editing along with up to three audio tracks. It is not possible to make quality video with only one video track for editing; you need to be able to do cutaways. Hence the focus on the use of the iPhone.

If you want your video to stand out you must make a quality product. To do that you need to be able to shoot, edit and script in a professional way. The mojo half of this course focuses on the power of unique images, quality script and narration and sophisticated editing to create compelling content.

Assessment

You will make three news videos during the 36 hours (12 lessons) of tuition for this course. All videos will be 80-100 seconds long. You choose the language for the narration. You will set up a YouTube or Vimeo account and load your videos to that site. The examination file on the Facebook group details when the videos are due. At the end of the course you will choose your one best video and submit it for assessment to the examination site. This is worth 70 per cent (35 per cent for each). Please note that you cannot use practice assignments for your assessment.

The other 30 per cent is for a fourth video you will make in which you reflect on this course. It will be a piece to camera in which you talk about, in English, the things you learned, problems you encountered, ethical issues you faced, or anything else you believe relevant to the news element of this course (such as the difference between backpack and mojo forms of newsgathering). This is the reflective part of the assessment. Again, upload the video to your YouTube or Vimeo site and submit a link to the examination site.

A file named “Grade criteria” will be available on the Facebook site for this course to tell you what you need to do to pass this course. You are encouraged to share ideas with your colleagues on this Facebook group. Each week the files used during class will also be available on this web site.

Web sites of mojo reporters

Neal Augenstein is a reporter with PBS in the United States. He maintains a web site devoted to video reporting at http://iphonereporting.com/

Glen Mulcahy is a trainer with the Irish national public broadcaster RTÉ. His blog about mobile reporting is useful http://tvvj.wordpress.com/category/mobile-journalism-mojo/

Bios of your teachers

Stephen Quinn runs MOJO Media Insights, based in Brighton, UK. He teaches journalists how to make broadcast-quality videos with only iOS devices, and shows media companies how to recycle content to make money via iBooks. Dr Quinn was a journalist in five countries from 1975-95 for some of the world’s best-known media companies, before becoming a journalism educator. He returned to journalism full time in 2011 and makes mojo videos when he’s not teaching. Dr Quinn has written 23 print books and five digital books. In the past decade he has given almost 200 presentations on the future of journalism in 38 countries. He has taught mojo skills to journalists in 17 countries since 2010. More about him can be found at https://sraquinn.org/mojo/ He will teach the mojo half of the course in all three cities.

Runar Kristiansen will teach video journalism in Trondheim and Oslo. He has more than 30 years’ experience as a news reporter and editor. He has worked on all journalistic  platforms: Radio, TV, the web and newspapers. Runar started as a journalist trainee at the Trondheim-based paper Nidaros in 1979, and he also worked for the regional newspaper Adresseavisen. Then he had several years with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK as a radio and television reporter, both local and nationwide. He joined TV2 when the station launched in 1992, and was a reporter with Dokument 2, a programme for investigative journalism. He then moved to the TV2 bureau in Trondheim, before becoming evening desk editor at TV2’s main newsroom in Bergen. Runar started teaching journalism at Høyskolen Kristiania three years ago. His specialities are news journalism, crime journalism and video journalism.

Jo Hjelle will teach video journalism in Bergen. He has more than 30 years experience with NRK and Bergens Tidende as a sound engineer, video-journalist and journalist. He started out as a sound engineer at NRK in Oslo, but moved quickly on as technology changed and simplified the production of television and radio. He has hosted radio shows, worked as a journalist for NRK’s Dagsrevyen and local TV news. He was among the first to work as a video-journalist at NRK in 2004.  He joined Bergens Tidende when the newspaper relaunched its web-TV in 2007. He has broad experience in producing for radio, TV, the web and newspapers. In previous years he has taught at the University of Bergen and is this year running a workshop on mobile journalism.