We have just published a new booklet and presentation about our work for a variety of international NGOs.
The book showcases 3 different profile stories and information about our production, training and post production services.
Feel free to download a copy and share!
We’re very, VERY proud to announce that Poul just landed 1st prize in POYi in the prestigious Multimedia Documentary Category for his beautiful story from Ethiopia, “Serving The Whole Person”.
Funded entirely out of own pocket, Poul went to Ethiopia almost to the date a year ago, to seek out Erik Erichsen, a danish doctor who left the comforts of danish society behind in order to help some of the world’s most deprived people in a small countryside hospital 500 kilometers west of Addis Abeba. Haunting images, expressedly low key approach and the ability to portray nobility in the face of almost unsurmountable obstacles are the main features of Poul’s story. First published in the september issue of Inquire Magazine, “Serving The Whole Person” also proved that it worked as a strong feature on the tablet platform.
It’s little more than a month ago that Poul’s co-operation with Inquire Magazine also won him a “Highly Commended” award in the Photographer/videographer of the Year category at the 2012 Digital Magazine Awards.
We are (once again) nominated for our work at the Danish Picture of The Year and it is a good feeling. It always is. And it is neither because of the prestige or the prize money (that may follow).
It is a good feeling because it reminds us that what we do is right. It reminds us that the journalism we do, can have an impact. And it tells us that it is still worth to pursue a story in some far off corner of the world even if there is no contract, paying client or publisher.
The urge to tell a good story must come from inside. It cannot be forced.
Working freelance can be a very lonely occupation. But it is the best feeling in the world to see the work that you have invested so much time, energy and money in become a brief center of attention – or in other words – rewarded.
Photojournalism is very much alive. But is it really well? We have more options to show and publish our work today than we have ever had. Yet at the same time it has become increasingly difficult to stand out, to make a living, to have a career …
Our business is not healthy. In fact it is destructive. And the medias are very much to blame for this.
Why you may ask? Well, here are a few reasons…
It is a lose-lose situation and the reason why so many great photographers and writers are struggling and/or turning to corporate and PR.
See you at the award show – may the best told story win!
It’s time to say good-bye. To a rotten bastard of a year called 2012 which gave us an appalling meltdown of US politics (continuing as I write this), Putin back in power, Pussy Riot in jail for opposing him and the equally appalling threat of Berlusconi returning to power once more. Elsewhere Israel continued the expansion of the settlements in the West Bank in between another bloody skirmish in Gaza. And ’round the corner, the Syrian tragedy just seems never-ending. Another Global Climate summit failure and hurricane Sandy hammering New York and New Jersey just to make a point.
There were more; India, China, Brazil but I’ll leave those there and just say a big ‘Thank You’ to the all the nutters that kept of us laughing on December 21st…
But this is about web documentary and there’s plenty more goodbyes to be said here as well. Because it’s time to move on.
Since 2008 when Canon brought us the 5D mrk II, we (the web documentarians out there) have proven a valid point: Quality journalism comes in all sizes and not just from Big Media. On the contrary the big guys on a broad front have continued to disappoint us. Despite the obvious trends for online marketing versus it’s print equal, Big Media’s continued failure to deliver quality online content is an ever increasing source of surprises.
For those of us who actually did have ambitions for the online platform, 2012 did not provide the breakthrough for the format we had hoped for. You could ask ‘Why’ and the money guys will give you the ‘clicks are king’ speech which in the end leaves an equation like this:
Sex + Celebrity = Great Journalism
- and if that’s the case, I’m outta here!
The obvious question is of course if the format is wrong since it hasn’t succeeded. To that I can only say, I haven’t seen anything else that rivals it. Yet. But 2008 is ages ago and by now the tech side is up to speed. We got the equipment, we’ve learned the tools. Quality is no longer issue. But now it’s time to move on. And do better.
During the ten workshops we at BFC taught in 2012 we have seen a lot of ‘Single Character’ portrait stories. It’s a format that lends itself to a condensed setting like a workshop and it gives ample opportunity to train all the technical aspects of producing a web documentary. But it’s a quick fix because the one thing that we didn’t see (with very few exemptions) was the ‘Current Affair’ story. And the thing that really drives the news business is – well – news. The real test for this format will therefore be the next big disaster, a Haiti scale earthquake and a 24 hour news cycle to produce within. I’m quite confident that it can be done, I’m just not so sure about whether Big Media are willing to do what it takes. It’s a completely new way of thinking and producing the news that is necessary. Because the old model doesn’t really fit anymore.
Happy New Year everybody!
Henrik, Poul & Uwe
Photo: Henrik Kastenskov
We’ve seen them a lot of times by now: the “still” video portrait, the shallow depth of field close up of eyes blinking and the time lapse of clouds howling across the sky. The plagues of the web documentary and the stain on the aspiring web documentarists’ CV.
I’ve done them myself and I promise NOT to go there again. So for the first time I’ve imposed a visual ‘No Go’ zone on my students. I used to tell them “this is a new kind journalism, it’s short format storytelling, there are no rules and anything goes and so on. Well, that was last week…
I just saw another lame cliché yesterday in an otherwise brilliant web doc and I simply got sick of it. ‘Guess it was the straw that finally broke the camels back. It’s time to move on. Now.
So here it is: my list of overdone HDSLR video clichés in a web doc:
1) The Moving Still Portrait
This one is a classic. Somebody stares into the camera in a comatose way for 15 seconds, you think it’s a still and Whoops! he/she blinks. Thanks; it worked nice in the beginning, but not anymore. If you want to add surprise to your story, try NOT to do this one!
2) The Time Lapse
By now we’ve seen anything from slugs to clouds and stars race across the screen. Usually it doesn’t propel the story forward though. If there’s no logic reason in the story for doing so, changing speed will not grant your story success, mate.
3) The Shallow Depth-of-Field trick
Another classic as old as 5D mrkII and the 85 mm f/1.2 lens. It was one of the things that lured us into doing HDSLR video in the first place. That sense of the cinematic big scope production. All for a meager 5.000+ US$. It looked amazing – and absolutely everybody is doing it by now! You don’t get ahead in this business by stepping in the footsteps of others. Find your own visual style and trust it to be good enough for your story.
4) The 50 $ dolly shot
Known as the ‘analog Kenn Burns’ or the ‘everything’s moving shot’ the low cost dolly rig was one of things that really lended an air of big budget to low cost video. It’s with dolly shots as it is with everything else in your movie: Just because you can, you don’t have to!
5) The “Meaningful Branches on a Tree Blowing In The Wind”-shot
If subjects tell their stories to camera, you sometimes need the B-roll shot in order to visually cover an incident you otherwise didn’t have access to. In comes branches, leaves, waves, time lapses (see above), out of focus shots and out-of-context photography 
B-roll can be down right necessary, but pleeeeze – be original. Let’s see something that actually has something to do with the story.
6) The Bullet-Time slo-mo Twixtor effect.
It is with this one as with number 4). Just because you can, you don’t have to. Real world moves in real time, but sometimes it just looks too cool not to do that suuuuper slow shot. Sometimes you want to focus on that fraction of a second, that decisive moment and then let it explode. But how many decisive moments can there be in any one story? If there’s five of them, I guess the other ones weren’t that decisive then…
Apart from venting some steam like a grumpy old man, I’d like this blog post to be a homage to great storytelling. Because that is the one thing that people will talk about once they’ve seen your story. What a great story they just saw. But even the best of photographers can not compare their skills to your imagination. Because in the end, The Great Tale lies somewhere between your vision and their experience. All you can do, is hope to trigger some of that imagination.
So let the clichés die, they served their purpose. Use your imagination and move on.
All hail to The Great Tale!
Workshopping’ and the added pressure of tight deadlines and big ambitions
No matter how much I bitch about it sometimes, I do love teaching workshops. And this year it’s the second time I’m teaching a web documentary workshop for the brand new students at Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus (the Norwegian School of Photojournalism). As last year they’ve relocated for Trondheim as the final documentaries will be screened during the Trondheim Dokumentarfestival adding slight pressure on already big photojournalistic ambitions.
Three days in, this is the first real day of gathering content. And by tomorrow afternoon they have to start their edit as they otherwise won’t make it to the deadline on Thursday. Add to that the fact that we’re not really in urban Trondheim – we’re in Rindal, a small Twin Peakish town of 2.073 souls in the rural country side. A challenge for sure.
Come Thursday we’re premiering Casualties of War, Taxidermists, Double Murder, Indigenous Conflict and Firefighting.
I can’t wait 
THE SOUND OF SILENCE
The greatest thing that ever happened to photography is Sound. Period.
One of the big revelations of my life is realising that sound is the defining element once you start telling any story. Whether that be radio, TV or photography. Think about it for a second: what single element do you remember from “Star Wars” for instance? (hint: it has to do with Darth Vader…). What emotion did Wes Craven want to evoke when he decided to name his somewhat mediocre teen slasher “Scream”?
As a predatory animal humans rely to a very large degree on our primary sensory input which it the visual-. When we navigate, when we assess a situation, when we intuitively evaluate a complete stranger standing in front of us.
Deprive us of sight and the audible sensoring takes over. With no visual reference to substanciate the information we hear, we’re forced to imagine what any given situation/person might look like for us to bring tangible order to chaos. And that element – imagination – is the one single quality that separates us from the animals. And it’s the very core of all great storys ever told.
Why did “50 Shades of Grey” sell in ship loads across the globe despite it’s apparent pulpish prose? Well, it sort of sparks the imagination… (no, I havn’t read it, but almost all female friends I know, have-).
In telling you story, Imagination is your friend. And there is no tool more efficient in doing just that in your web documentary than… Audio!
Amazing fixer Ana Lira wrote me a week ago asking some questions:
Something was telling me that we had to “hear” the narrative to choose the sounds that would fit. Depending on the sound I can be closer to a narrative or completely out of the story (it is not common, but I had experiences that I turned off the sound to concentrate on the image because I felt a kind of conflict on my perception of the story – it happened when I saw some movies too).So, when you were telling me we had to be very careful with sound, I started to ask myself:
1 – How do you see the sound in multimedia narratives?
2 – In Cabrobó, for example, I observed that you recorded general sounds and specific sounds. How did you choose what to record?
3 – Is there any sound that you decided to record after seeing your first images?
4 – You said in the last diary that you were settling yourself in the tonality of brazilian language. How did it influence in your sound recording process or in your choices?
5 – In any moment did you had the impression the narrative you were building did not fit with the brazilian sounds that you were hearing?
6 – Is that a difficult task for you?
Well, I think I answered the first question in the beginning of this post. A great soundscape is all-important in a web documentary. Get it right and your audience will focus on your (hopefully) stunning imagery. And that’s exactly where you want to be as a photojournalist, right?
As for location recording it’s always a challenge. In generel just record everything, but be mindfull of your surroundings. If you have a great shot be sure to notice how it sounds and record it. Later on, in your documentary, you can allude to that shot without showing it once you have established that audiovisual connection. In “Seca” you will hopefully experience this.
Moving to question Three, telling a story from the Sertão proved to be a rather big challenge (also) in terms of audio. Because it’s so damn quiet.
It’s desolate, it’s hot and there’s only a slight breeze with the occasional gusts of stronger winds. Other than that, nothing. Silêncio!
So recording all kinds of wind sounds (well, not all!) or sounds derived from wind became somewhat of an obsession to me while I was there. And it also put an emphasis on what to do if the soundscape failed entirely. Which led me to ask Amazing Ana all kinds of music questions. This is a slow story, so hammering out samba wasn’t an option since it wouldn’t fit the thematic. But neither did most of the rural tunes, Ana pointed me towards, so the solution ended somewhere else (it still hasn’t been entirely resolved as I write this).
Which brings me to question Four: the influence of settling with the tonality of the brazilian language.
I pasionately loathe parashute journalism. It’s shallow, often focused on sensation rather than depth and mostly it doesn’t convey any true understanding of a subject. I really want this piece to be fair and truthfull. More than that, I want it to be recogniceable if you are a brazilian watching this story. It’s very much a gut feeling (or maybe it’s just the flu) but I think I got it. In the end, I totally rely on Ana and her friends to provide the necessary feedback on that aspect. Because as a gringo I’m by default parashuting, I guess.
Question Five: no!
- and to elaborate a little bit, the silence out there puzzled me in the beginning. I imagined it different, but since this is the way it was, I had to deal with it. This is journalism, if it’s not there you don’t fake it.
Question Six: is it difficult? It’s a challenge. But much to my surprise I found an audio geek inside me once I got those headphones on for the first time seven or eight years ago so I love the challenge.
The Colour of Things
First impressions last.
Well, sometimes they do. During my first two days in the rural areas surrounding the town of Cabróbo in Brazil I had this surreal feeling of detachment. My ears hadn’t quite settled in with the tonality of the brazilian/portuguese language, I came directly from a wet, cold and dark Amsterdam, the flavours were different etc. Basically I experienced sensory overload, and my brain reacted by simplifying things, i.e. extracting colours.
The first frame I shot was of Maria Luciene da Silva, 38, sitting in shade of the front porch of her home. It was mid day, the temperature was soaring, it was dead quiet and not a soul moved around in front of the houses. Nobody did anything because there was nothing left to do. The last crops was dead weeks ago and a feeling of depression was prevalent. For the inhabitants there was simply nothing left to do. They would work their asses off if there had been anything to work with. But there wasn’t. There was only the silence of time passing.
That feeling took root inside me, and for those of you who have seen the stills, I published in the Production Diaries during the trip, that might obvious. It simply was a black and white story for me. But now it’s time to edit the story, and all cards are on the table. Here’s part of what Amazing Ana wrote me yesterday, when I asked her opinion of colour versus black and white in this story:
“I guess that it considers questions like: what is the importance of the colour for the story? Is it really necessary to bring more information about the subject or it can be an element for dispersion of the essential debate? For example, during the work in Sertão colours were literally screaming in my face. As I am mostly a black and white photographer, I decided to have an experience photographing everything in colour and keep them as similar as I was seeing them on the ground.
I noticed that If I just wanted to show the daily routine of a production and people involved on the story, the pictures could be like that. BUT if the idea was talking about peoples´lives and the situation we saw out there, maybe the better option was to use black and white or rethink the function of the colours in the story. How could they play in the same team as the story?
While I was posting my pictures and writing about the situation, I had the impression the images hid the delicate situation of the farmers. That screaming colours brought a sense of tolerance for a situation that it´s difficult to accept. I observe black and white photography as a synthesis. I believe it helps to emphasize the essential elements of the story. Maybe the colour scheme needs to be connected with this word: essential. The essential elements for the story´s development are emphasized by the colour?”
I think Ana makes a very strong point. Essential elements of the story could be emphasized by colour. But then there are elements of history: the legacy of Sebastiâo Salgado, the 1963 film “Vidas Secas” by Graciliano Ramos that Carlos Henrique pointed out in a response posted on Facebook, the overall disaster fatigue and the “sick-and-tired-of poor-people-always-shot-in-black-and-white” apprehension. On the other hand you will easily find hints at Walter Salles brilliant 2001 flick “Behind the Sun”/”Abril Despedaçado” in my edit. So that would be a call for black and white just to distance “Seca” from his work. And then there’s the fact that
a) It’s been some years since BFC has published a black and white story – Poul’s disturbingly beautiful “Bucharest Below Ground” in 2008 was the first and “Wasteland” the year after, in 2009 was the last.
b) I have difficulties of letting that first impression go…
Because first impressions last. Right?
What’s in a Name?
Here we go again
It’s been a little more than a week, since my return from Brazil and after a short breather, some R&R with my family and some work, it’s time to get back in the web documentary saddle once more.
While in production I had some good discussions with Amazing Ana Lira, my incredible fixer, translater, producer, stage hand, sound recorder, all rounder – you name it, as to the nature of web documentaries in general and this one in particular. As I wrote in a previous post, this is journalism, not fiction and to try to navigate and tell a complex story that is yet to be played out in real time is always a challenge. Some pre-conceptualized ideas works and some don’t. And still, because of budget limitations, you have to get everything right once there on the ground. There is no second chance. This is it!
So, every once in while I would discuss the progress and set backs with Ana. Sometimes writing on scrap piece of paper, at times drawing with a stick in the dirt and sometimes just rambling out a loud.
These ‘Post Diaries’ are supposed to be a bit like that: ramblings, stray thoughts and a somewhat open editorial process as the story grows from the material that was produced during 10 intense days of production in the Sertâo in the Brazilian northeast. I would highly appreciate any comments (as long as they are serious) a long the way. That will not grant you final cut or anything like that, but it will earn you a credit on the list if you come up with a great idea or if you have a particular well argumented damning of my ideas.
Take for instance the name.
William Shakespeare had Juliet say:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
(Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, 1-2)
I’m no Shakespeare but even I found my working title “Scorched Earth” a bit too… well, ‘lame’ is not a bad word for it…
But “a man needs a name” to quote another great piece of literature (all be it, a different kind), and the name is “Seca”. The portugeese word for drought. It’s short, crisp and true to the geographical origin of the story. And it’s totally deprived of the opulence of the working title, not to say that it will be indexed by brazilian search engines, which in the end hopefully will help this story reach a big audience in it’s home country. I kind of like that.
Forward Operation Base Cabrobó – aka FOB Charlie – BFC’s resident edit suite in Brazil during a normal day of operations.
So, what does politic’s, elections, climate change, powerty and faith have in common?
Well, for one they all have some part to play in the web documentary that’s going to be the outcome of this trip to the Brazilian hinterlands. It’s always like this at the end of the shooting part of a production. You end up with tons of material – 60.1 GB to be exact (plus some 16 GB which I cannot access at this time because of tech issues :-/ ), which in the end will boil down to a web doc running roughly 6-8 minutes.
Sometimes I wish for the ease of fiction, but in the end what I love about shooting web documentaries is exactly the unpredictability of it. Sure, you can plan, you can research and you can try to prepare your self for the unexpected. But in the end, I only dictate the story to some degree. The rest is a matter of reality. I often compare this situation to Michelangelo trying to free David from the slab of marble which the statue was incarcerated in. You can see the outline, maybe a few of the finer details, but in the end it’s a matter of slowly chiseling the rock away, finding that pose, that drive, which will make this story come alive and be unique.
FOB Charlie have been closed down and I’ll relocate some 11.000 kilometers back to chilly Denmark for the post production. Stay with us for the POST Production Diary to come.
Obrigado por tudo, Brasil!