Changement
novembre 11, 2011 by gholubowicz · 1 Comment
Repenser une pratique, regrouper les competences, les centres d’interet, ce n’est jamais simple. Il faut faire en sorte de marier differentes variables pour produire un ensemble coherent et eviter la cacophonie. C’est comme reorganiser l’ensemble du cablage d’un ordinateur. Ca prends du temps et de l’energie, mais au bout du compte, ca vaut la peine de s’y pencher. Ces derniers mois, j’ai du faire converger un certain nombre de choses dans ma vie pro. J’ai du additioner des activitees assez differentes et repenser completement la facon dont je les pratiquais.
Mon amour pour la photo est encore fort, et mon dernier passage a New York m’a rappelle qu’au fond je serai toujours photojournaliste. Je suis alle a New York pour business, pour rencontrer des partenaires potentiels qui seraient interesses par mon project de documentaire transmedia. J’y suis alle egalement pour voir et revoir les professionels de la communaute transmedia avec laquelle je suis en contact depuis maintenant pres de deux ans, avoir quelques retours qualitatifs, quelques analyses de ce projet. J’ai fini par couvrir le mouvement #occupywallstreet qui en etait encore a ses debuts, avec mon ami et partenaire Jean Nicholas Guillo. Je dois avouer que me retrouver a NY, c’etait un peu comme etre dans un magasin de jouets. Le news est vraiment quelque chose de captivant, d’exitant, et une fois qu’on en a le virus, il est impossible de s’en defaire.
Les autres activitees dans lesquelles j’ai decide de m’investir sont la narration transmedia et le documentaire interactif (i-docs). C’etait un veritable challenge il y a deux ans de se pencher sur ces nouvelles formes narratives et racrocher les wagons. En plongeant dans toutes les publications trouvables sur le net traitant du sujet – des livres aux blogs en passant par les heures et les heures de video – j’ai decouvert un nouvel univers aux possibilitees illimitees, ou mon experience de journaliste va, je pense, trouver une place de choix.
It was also a revelation to me. I always felt like a patchwork. As a child and later, as a teenager, I was creating games, inventing stuffs, designing shoes or making short films. As a student, I was more interested in art than in law, working in a local radio time to time, writing novels and taking photos. I’ve never been interested in one field or in one medium and was really tempted to pursue all this different careers at the same time. I was told it was humanly impossible of course.
Il apparait donc que la narration transmedia et le documentaire interactif repondent parfaitement a mon probleme de choix que j’evoquais ici. Du coup j’ai du reorganiser pas mal de choses.
Bulb deviens le blog convergent de mes deux activitees que sont la Photographie (photojournalisme et photo corporate) et les nouvelles formes de narration (transmedia et documentaires interactifs) . Ces deux poles se retrouvent respectivement sur ces deux plateformes (www.gholubowicz.com & www.o2creation.org) mais partagent la meme identitee.
J’ai egalement lance un nouveau site – qui doit etre encore largement complete – qui sera la presence online de « Chewbahat, storytelling lab » une structure que nous avons cree Jean Nicholas et moi. J’en parlerai plus amplement dans un autre post, mais cette aventure tourne grosso modo autour de valeurs funs, de l’envie de creer et de raconter des histoires.
Comme vous pouvez le voir, le changement prends du temps et beuacoup d’energie. Cette reflexion a pris certainement plus de temps que je n’aurai pense, plus d’energie pour accepter de changer tant de choses, mais je pense etre pret maintenant a aller de nouveau plein pot en avant.
Cheers
Stephen Mayes par le MA International Multimedia Journalism.
juillet 29, 2011 by gholubowicz · Leave a Comment
A nouveau, Stephen Mayes nous livre sa vision du marché de la photographie et plus particulièrement celle du photojournalisme. Une très intéressante interview (en anglais) ou il tente d’expliquer ou va le photojournalisme et l’agence VII, qu’il dirige.
Cette interview contient un certain nombre d’informations supplémentaires comparée a celle que j’ai conduite il y a près d’un an dans »Sortir du Cadre« . Le message global reste le même pourtant, il faut que nous changions notre façon de fonctionner, que nous nous détachions de cette industrie vieillissante des medias – qui comme vous pouvez le voir ici - s’écroule progressivement.
Cette heure d’interview est produite par le MA in International Multimedia Journalism. Un cours dirige par Dr DJ Clark, base à Beijing, en collaboration avec le Beijing Foreign Studies University et l’University of Bolton en Angleterre. Leur site : www.immj-ma.org.
Introduction to Editorial transmedia, why we need to move forward?
mars 8, 2011 by gholubowicz · Leave a Comment
Photojournalism is about Storytelling.
J.P Pappis (Sortir du Cadre itw Series)
A new set of brushes is available to us. A new range of tools that will allow us to go further and conquer narrative spaces that we could have never reached 10 years ago. The emergence of HDSLR combined with the consolidation of Internet and the development of social networks in our lives, have allowed photojournalists to switch from a linear storytelling form to a nonlinear one. From Newspapers and Magazines, photography has gone digital and now will use Multimedia and interactive documentaries to finally extend its sphere of influence to an ultimate form which is Transmedia storytelling.
Photojournalists yet, must learn a series of new codes & rules. They must understand these new forms of expression that were exclusive to the world of Publishing or the Movie industry. The use of « motion » and sound requires that we learn to develop our stories and our subjects beyond the traditional dimensions inherited from our work with the press.
Short story long, as if we were in the elementary school, we need to think wider and stop pitching our stories – which demands conciseness and synthesis – and start learning how to write an essay – which involves contextualization and analysis.
Again, we must learn to tell stories, drawn from the limits of the photographic medium, and include motion & sound, interactivity and social networking , multi-platform and transversal narrative strategies. In short, embrace the broad spectrum of technologies opened before us and put them at the service of our productions. This is at the price, by agreeing to this changing environment, that photojournalism will rise up again. It is obvious that the value of the work of hundreds of professionals around the world is not just to bear witness to what is happening in front of their camera, but to put these events into perspective, to connect with each other and add relevant content to improve the understanding of the public, to develop knowledge and maintain dialogue.
Context and Storytelling: the lead to Transmedia strategies
Photographic narration is sequential. It brings us a series of events, which are supposed to be connected, but failed to create a bond between them. We loose track of the context in which the event happens.
Transmedia storytelling, whose theoretical definition is still very recent (between 1991 and 2003 according to the sources), implies that different parts of a story are told through different kind of platforms (web, film, novels, comics, exhibitions, Augmented Reality Games etc.) in a non-redundant and complementary manner. In short, Transmedia stories are built on the same type of structure than an interactive documentary but on a multi-platform scale. The “webdoc” takes place on a website where the story is delivered through video, sound, photography and enhanced by incorporated elements of interactivity. Transmedia storytelling implies that the web platform breaks out, and that all known materials potentially becomes a part of the Transmedia story. Therefore, a Transmedia story can start by a web documentary, then be prolonged with a TV documentary, then be extended through a book and finally be completed a little more through discussions on social networks, through an application iPhone or Android or by an exhibition.
This fancy way to tell stories must not be seen as an absolute method which can be applied to all editorial work (photojournalism, documentary and such). Good stories will keep strength and relevance through purely photographic medium. On the other hand, some stories will take advantage of a web documentary narrative style. Finally, for a fraction of them, TransMedia storytelling will bring particularly effective narrative mechanicals, enabling photojournalists to considerably enrich their work.
As a matter of fact, the revolution of TransMedia Storytelling has nothing to do with technology (even it’s largely based upon use of them), but instead largely depends of the appropriation of different narrative codes, through new practices and new collaborations..
In the next couple of month on this blog, I’ll try to analyse and develop strategies to adapt transmedia storytelling techniques (which, for the most part, are coming from the entertainment business) to our editorial world with a strong focus on photojournalism. Posts will be published both in French and English to remain connected to an international audience.Stay tuned,the transmedia journey only begins!
VoW: Surviving The Drought by Duckrabbit
février 21, 2011 by gholubowicz · Leave a Comment
Here’s a new era coming on this website (hopefully). I’ve recently been working a lot on different project, and it’s time now to revive this blog and propose a richer content. A couple of years ago, I’ve created a video-group on Vimeo called « Photojournalism & Multimedia« . Strangely enough, I created it and let it live its life until recently when I discovered that 86 members had uploaded almost 240 videos.
I immediately watched the whole content, some are very good, others not so, but there’s an energy and a will to share that I can’t be insensitive of.
So I’ve decided to feature once a week my top 3 videos from Vimeo, but specially from our « Photojournalism & Multimedia » group.
Here’s the video « Surviving The Drought » by Duckrabbit. Here’s what the studio says about this production:
The 2009 drought in Kenya has had a devastating effect on pastoralists. Hundreds of thousands of cattle died and with them a way of life that had provided families a livelihood from the land. We met Lawrence in a quarry just out of of Nairobi. For many generations his family have reared cattle on the rangelands of Kitengale. Now he shift rocks in order to pay his way through University and the dream of a better life. This photofilm was made by duckrabbit during a duckrabbit photofilm workshop at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi August 2010. The audio and photos were collected in less than an hour.
Photos by David White and the Audio and production is by Benjamin Chesterton
Stay tuned for more about webdoc (which is becoming to me i-doc, I’ll explain why), transmedia storytelling, interactivity and documentaries.
Cheers
Book
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