Benguetlily's Multimedia Blog

1.

What format will you shoot the project in (media and colour)? Im thinking to do this in a combination of Black and White and color.

I will shoot this with my 5DMark2 and 24-105mm lens but also plan to buy a Samyang lens 35mm 1.4 which Im told is good for video on the Mark 2.  I want to use the BW for the two Shamans—one is a female one and the other is male. They will represent TRADITION and CULTURE. The ritual will either be color or again, BW, I haven’t decided yet. But I also want to shoot color for the landscape which will be contemporary.

By interviewing these two shamans of the Ibaloys, I want to see if this statement is true for the Ibaloy today: “ customs play an important role in developing and maintaining the identity of the group. Along with identity, customs bring about the cohesion of a group.

2. Insert examples that include your work experiments as well as copies of other
work. This should indicate your intended aesthetic for the project. You may save
folders of images, videos, audio with this form in which case you should list the
folders here.

1. Framing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxv8TlFBrFQ&feature=share

Love the framing of this woman. But I suppose its too close. But want to do a somewhat similar framing but not this close.

 2. Sample Work experiment: This is how I first did a  sample shot of the female shaman/mambunong. It is very bad but you can see how I also have the translator with me. Of course I wont do it this way where its almost all dark but I like the idea of  shadows. Video attached.

3. Which bodies of work have influenced your choice? http://www.brianhirschy.com/hutongs-revisited-jonah-kessel/

This is just one –and I like it for the PORTRAITS and audio. But I intend to keep looking for more videos that I will be able to “emulate” or those that will continue to inspire me.

2. http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/healthy-difference. In this Video, I like the fact that the woman Vel Scott is doing her voice over and also shows pictures of her family (black and white pictures).  I will also do a VO since it is a personal project for me.

4. How do you intend to work (please outline a working methodology)?

 1. I plan to work with a translator of the Ibaloy language who was also my high school classmate. She is also Ibaloy like me but she speaks the language fluently and can draw out the character with dexterity, more skill. I just need to meet with her  to finalize the questions before every interview is shot on cam.

2. I will go up to Baguio, where both shamans live and stay there for at least  a week for each interview. I also need to be able to shoot the rituals when they are done by each shaman. I have still pictures of past rituals.

3. I plan to use past black and white pictures of the ancestors, Ibaloy portraits of my family, my clan.

4. I have recorded music of the rituals in the past which I can use in this piece.

5. This multimedia piece will be a part of a bigger work which I shall put in a BOOK using Ibook. Photographs of past work when I first started documenting my Ibaloy heritage will fill each page. It will also have colored pictures of my province, my city, to establish a sense of place.

6. I intend to use the following software for the multimedia piece: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe premiere, and of course, use Ibook. I still have to purchase that software and intall in my mac. For the layout in the book, I am comfortable using Adobe Indesign. I will study how to use Ibook.

For me, a smartphone is a good tool for when you want discretion, a one-man kind of operation, a quick uploading, or a reporting device for immediate news distribution. But I still think the more professional cameras, video and other gear for clear, crisp  audio is the way to go for stories that are not rushed and not for immediate distribution. Or perhaps, the mobile phone-produced stories can have their particular target market. It ios also done that monile phone productions are streamed into the bigger broadcast quality devices. Come to think of it, I think I am saying that the mobile phone can someday do the job of the more sophisticated machines. And maybe it will really go that route.

People are interested in also doing their own reporting and if they have a mobile phone that can do the job, then why not. I dont think mobile phones should just be for distribution of news. It is a device that is light, unobtrusive, can have a pretty good camera lens, and acceptable audio. Pretty soon, this will be perfected and storytellers wont need expensive Nikons or Canon for high-quality images or the Edirols for good audio.

In the Philippines, the mobile phone is a way to contact a relative in the barrio who may have only a transistor radio but can actually send SMS to friends and relatives in the Middle East. It is also a way to recieve cash (as used by the World Food Program-Philippines ) during times of disaster and where the affected families need to buy their meals of rice and viand. WFP partnered with shops that could turn into cash the SMS  code that WFP sent to the evacuees of flooded areas. This was an emergency strategy that they did and it became successful.

Yes, the mobile phone is a great tool especially for people in a dveloping nation. Perhaps, it too is an accessible tool for other cultures as well.

How do I see social networking, social media and converged media work together?

I think a very good relationship is possible and may in fact be the way to go. Social media can feed the converged media so that content comes from the ones who consume the news, the ones who become members of the social networking sites.

OhMyNews of South Korea has several good guidelines which suits the combined power of SN,SM,and CM.Its their items 3,4 and 5,6 on the 10 preconditions for UGC which I enumerate below:

3. Create content that aims to meet the needs of audiences, rather
than the wishes of the reporters.
4. Make the most effective use of the media platform being used to
deliver content.
5. Produce stories that will be shared with others.
6. Aim for critical mass in audiences and reach key decision-makers.

I am particularly enamored with number 5 because it encourages the sharing of information/stories to others. In the Philippines where people have taken to Facebook, like how you say—ducks take to water (?), Facebook has been a way to raise issues and even to make a comment on the ongoing impeachment trial of our Supreme Court Justice. And speaking of converged, there is print, TV, and online news that run alongside each other as the event unfolds each minute. Talk show hosts read back to the TV viewers the facebook comments that have been gathered during the trial. There are twitter comments and reactions from politicians and their political parties as well as regular citizens.

Clearly, as far as the local scenario here in the Philippines is concerned—particularly in Manila where much of the power in the country resides ( which non-Manila folks decry), social networking, social media, and converged media are working to make a more complete picture of events. The picture in the rest of the Philippines is less clear to me but major media organizations that I am aware of in the big cities of the country are already recognizing the benefits, the power, the advantage of all these working hand in hand. Broadband installation is still a big investment for a developing country like the Philippines. But the smart ones are now experimenting and seeing where this experiment  will get them.

I work mainly as a documentary photographer and up until this course, it was a slow awakening for me. But as a humanitarian photographer as well as someone interested in Culture and the Environment and in development issues in my country, I see the beauty that is possible with all these information that I am now taking in in my multimedia classes. Yes, much can be done and it is up to me to see if I can also rise to the occasion.

Due to my work, I travel to areas where the issues of women’s health, education, HIV AIDS, food security, and culture are a constant. I know that a mobile device would be great. An Iphone could shoot images and send to Twitpic instantly ( if broadband is available) or to attach to a tweet is no longer such a strange idea to me. I had previously thought in isolation. But I have found that to be the wrong attitude to take. People want to read and view new stories and it is in the way one tells the story that catches people’s attention. Of course it is important to choose the stories to tell. In what manner they are told is important. For example, at the moment, I am fascinated by good audio recording. I think that if one records clear and crisp and worthwhile stories, it can be a good way to promote causes, issues. For that, I got myself a Zoom H1 digital recorder.

In June last year, just before I started with the MMJ course, I sold my nikon camera gear and shifted to Canon simply because I was awed by the video capacity of the mark 2. In time, I have been using it steadily and I dream to shoot my beginning collection of Igorot tales with this camera. Igorots are highlanders and in it is my heritage as well.

I have my tripod, my SD  and CF memory cards, a good raincoat, and my laptop to get me through this first year of doing multimedia. I intend to get an Iphone 4s this year for my mobile device.

The most appropriate is what one has. It can be a simple smartphone. It can be the most expensive dslr. But if one does the story well, and with his/her heart, then it is halfway done.

I have become an active participant in an online protest movement in my hometown where a big mall chain wants to cut down some 182 trees to put up a 5-story parking lot. With this involvement even while based about 250kms away from my hometown,i’ve become more convinced that the people I am currently interacting with online are simply exercising their right to be heard , and the right to speak against this monstrous deed. Imagine replacing real trees for more non-green structures. But I really have gotten ahead of myself here.

I call this blog post the exciting times of Citizen Journalism because after I’ve read the 25- page article of Flew on Citizen Journalism, I am totally convinced there is a “public sphere” in which people’s issues can be splashed into the open and people who share similar interests and passions can find each other. And it only began from one simple Facebook status update.This was the case with the protest movement which I joined. It is called the Save 182 Trees.

But I am excited by the idea that participation and the ‘decline for deference” is showing itself in this real-life situation I see before me. The city mayor was shocked there were 5,000 people on the streets protesting the tree-cutting. He had been lulled into thinking that the people in my hometown would be their usual meek “follow me” sheep.

“…more active participationby citizens in the policy process is believed to lead to both better public policy and greater public trust in its implementation (OECD 2003; Coleman 2006), it can be argued that citizen journalism formats that are widely accessible,independent of powerful vested interests, and can have wider public influence will have a positive impact on reinvigorating the democratic public sphere.”

Clearly, the internet has become a force that politicians and other leaders have come to fear for what it will divulge or what the “freed citizens” will do or are capable of doing. So with these instance which I have experienced firsthand ( and we dont even know how it will end), I am pretty convinced that citizen journalism is just beginning to take hold in many societies. Even in societies where they are “democratic”, they too need to engage the citizens that have much to say about their hometown, city, country. I am more interested in how people will work together to find ways to bring back communities to be better places to live in,  and where more humane practices abound.

I would like to participate more and see where citizen journalism is going to bring us. Exciting times, indeed.

Looking for a successful example of  media convergence led me to check out this article:http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=100281. And it was a beautiful insight into what can be done if people sat down and had the same “mindset”. But of course, that’s not as easy as it sounds. It took them 10 months before they finally saw the fruits of their labor.

“The goal is to do better stories. Making sharper priorities and using different media platforms to tell that part of the story at which that medium is best. And by sitting closely together in a newsroom without walls with colleagues with the same beats and interests, we can share ideas, sources, research and thereby produce more and improve the total quality of our work.” 

What struck me also was the way people in this news organization did not think about laying off some of their staff like what other organziations were doing in Denmark at that time. Instead, for the 250 employees, they were asked to “just do it”, like Nike’s tagline. Ten months later, they reaped what they planted. This just means that if people changed the way they looked at the future and claimed the future as their own, it would be doable, not impossible.

Yesterday, I was talking to a non-government organization program manager and asked them about their thoughts on social media. I also asked about the general mindset of the leadership in their organization. Do they feel comfortable using Facebook, for example? I dont see this as too different from any news organization that needs to change the way they look at multi-platform tools,etc. I am convinced that an NGO, or any organization wanting to move forward with the times, can look into their attitudes, about the way they work, and what else they can learn, in order to best deliver to their “clients”.

This is about the last reading assignment on PAYING FOR JOURNALISM. There have been additional comments after the class lecture on Jan 11,2012 over skype.

Reading this chapter has made me pick up and think about these items. :

1. Free Online content is always a winner. But there is also the issue of “production as expensive but distribution is free.” But what about the LA TImes proving in 2009 that its online advertising can pay for the entire editorial payroll for both print and online” ? Were they just lucky that year? I’d be curious to know how they are doing today in terms of online revenue. Couldnt this be possible also elsewhere? Maybe in the Philippines this has been possible with the bigger newspapers. But I doubt that too.  I need to ask Jun Pasaylo of the Philstar. He is the online editor of that newspaper. Its competitor, the Philippine Daily Inquirer has kept its print edition alive. As a news consumer, I do read news online but when I am not online (like inside the plane) I grab a newspaper for my news info.

“The LA Times may have found a combination that worked well”, says Prof Quinn. Well, it could be what other media organizations are doing now. They are all experimenting.But it seems not one organization has yet found a way to be on top of the situation. We will just have to see how things go.

2. Old business models or ways of doing business by the giant media outfits are finally shaken up and that is REALLY GOOD. This is a reaction to the chapter’s statement that companies have had “years of high profitability and limited competition which has brought complacency”. I am glad of this change (probably because I have always been outside of big establishment). It makes the lowly blogger who is passionate about Asian Travel, for example, be the stopover for most travelers who want their info up to date and fresh and not necessarily done by the New York Times Travel section. If the question is quality—SOME bloggers have just as good writing as any on the NYT . But then, maybe online readers do not want too much quality but a fresh new way of looking at a certain “issue”. Add to that the info that maybe a “passionate local traveler” has over a writer who has a bit of “jadedness”. Just a thought. I could be so wrong,of course.

3. If news organization care about their audiences and not just to get humongous advertising income, it could thrive in this new era where lots of INNOVATIONS are still needed. Companies only have to sit down and think things through, if they plan to survive this “google generation’s” needs, as the chapter describes. And it seems there are people hired to be “think-tanks” (the innovators). I’m happy to note a new media outfit in the Philippines called Rappler (www.rappler.com) which is now using lots of multimedia and live streaming as part of their news and storytelling techniques. A former teacher at our MMJ class, Josh Villanueva is part of that group along with other big name Filipino journalists. Just today, at a live streaming session rappler had in one university here, Maria Ressa, Rappler’s CEO said “ social media allows us to have our own VOICE heard.

4. “Landlines have been killed because of SKYPE”. This is so true. In 2009, I was paying for 700pesos ( about 12 USD) for a landline that I hardly used mainly bec I talked to my friends via skype and google mail, or Facebook.

5. “Journalism exists in many forms”. I thought about this and yes. Now, with multimedia—because of several options that can be made and distributed by anyone  with smartphones,laptops,etc there are news info that can be gathered online and would serve as sources. Storify is one good example. It gathers posts from FB and integrates some text and photos online—however, it has to be curated, which is VERY important.

Armie from Cebu Sunstar wails that “Journalism should be a public service, for a public good instead of business.” Yeah. That role is changing though, I think because these media outfits need are rethinking how they will “profit” now, right? In the meantime, they dont pay enough to their photographers and their reporters. So photographers and journalists need to reinvent how they present and “sell” work. Now. Or die.

6. Advertising revenue has been going down in the recent decade. But advertising revenue hasnt gone online bec otherwise it would show. In the class discussion tonight ( Jan 11,2012) it came out that in Sunstar Cebu, they do not have those numbers yet enough for the paper to buy new equipment for their reporters.This could be an interesting discussion on income streams, hybrid combinations being done in news organizations in the Philippines, etc. Even Google’s Ad Sense isnt making an impact on this Cebu paper.

7. Revenue: “Only pornography and Unique info has made money online”, says Prof Quinn. Ok, so porn is self-explanatory. Unique info is when people care so much about certain INFO, they will PAY to get it. Like what? Financial info, info on how to start a lingerie business,etc.

8. “The World is AWASH with INFORMATION and the internet is a great driver of this phenomena”. Again, this is a paraphrased quote from Dr. Quinn. And I couldnt agree more. How do we filter info? What do we have time for? Family, Friends, Work, Entertainment. And these, one still has to sift through carefully.

Finally, I should ask myself too if I will pay for online news? Some. Not all. Mostly not all.

What will I pay for? Info on entrepreneurship maybe. I dont know what else I will pay for online. BOOKS, yes.

This is all for now.

Who are the audiences in a country like the Philippines where there is such a huge disparity between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots? For sure, many Filipinos own a mobile phone, even the most basic kind. It has helped in creating “SMS romances”, used also during word wars between people who cant or wont bother to meet face to face to lash out at each other except through SMS, and has been good for business transactions as well. Landlines have become rare. Even the lowly constrcution worker out in the street owns a mobile phone to call or text his wife and ask her what’s for dinner. On the higher end, call center employees, those who work in the business districts and higher income people have expensive smartphones to communicate daily. They also use it to listen to music, watch youtube, and to scroll on facebook. Now there is a third group that is also a Philippine phenomenon—the OFW or the Overseas Filipino Workers. There are about 9 million to 11 million OFWs around the world today. They live and work abroad but send their earnings to their families in the Philippines. They use social media also to relieve their longing for their country. They too are a large audience that uses the internet widely to communicate with their families and friends back home.

The common thing among all the audiences in the Philippines is the wide use of a mobile phone to communicate. And these audiences consume their news too 24/7. During the flodding and landslides after Typhoon Sendong in Cagayan de Oro, I would see variosu posts of Filipinos overseas asking for information and people responding. Help was poured into the many evacuation centers by families and friends of the flood victims. Many others saw the news via Facebook and decided to also donate their old clothes, food, and some cash for the victims. The Filipino sense of “tulungan” or helping each other in times of disaster is a common facebook thread right after many situations of disaster.

The Filipino audience is quite technologically savvy. He/she is always out to check what is a cheaper way to communicate but that which also benefits them. Although TV is still a huge information giver in the Philippines, there are also growing trends for a huge dependence and reliance on social media’s news updates. This is especially for those who have access to computers mostly at work and at home.

There are still print materials like newspapers in the Philippines especially in cities and towns and even in Manila where many bus drivers, conductors and ordinary people grab one on their way to work. But there is less dependence on print as online inforamtion becomes faster and more accessible to many Filipinos.

Reading through this article of Dr Quinn after going through the MMJ191 course and after experiencing the instances when convergence could be possible in my own work, has made me think about the ways we could do our storytelling, what gadgets are avialable,in what venue or group would it be possible ( ex. a humanitarian agency like the UN vs an NGO advocating for reforms in agriculture) because it would surely be dictated by the way the organization thinks and accepts the new ways of convergence. I dont work in a traditional newsroom. I work as a photographer for various agencies/groups that have causes and this is where I feel the need for a new way of storytelling. I think it is also an upgrading of skills as one learns to do video and insert good audio and make slideshows or podcasts or do blogs.

I am struck by one statement in the article that says convergence is not about technology but about a MINDSET. having gone through some interviews this past few days with various institutions using social media, I have also come across the mindsets of a few institutions. There is some wariness but at the same time an eagerness to embrace these new ways of presenting one’s self to the world—facebook, twitter,blogs,etc. Our survey project will expound on our findings in a future blog post.

My take on convergence is that it is how to be more engaged with your audience/s. That road is not well-paved yet. It is up to many factors but being smart is a major reason why someone who uses convergence well will be successful. It will be an embracing of what’s new and possible. KCP.