London riots - Tuition fees

A news piece for the Winchester News Online bulletin 17/11-2010.



See also the longer version (ten minute documentary) featured on the right hand top side of this portfolio.

London Riots Documentary

Documentary about the London riots that erupted as a result of the government's decision to increase the tuition fee cap in 2010. Filmed, scripted and edited by myself and three university colleagues.

WINOL bulletin 27/10/10

WINOL's sports and news bulletin 27/10/10.

My contribution: script writing (ENPS) and directing

WINOL bulletin 20/10/10

WINOL's news and sports bulletin 20/10/10.

WINOL bulletin 13/10/10

WINOL's news and sports bulletin 13/10/10.

Football, football, oh all this football...

Five weeks of football - a dream for me! But now, only two matches left...

Waking up this morning I just realised I've only got two more sleeps here in Doha before going back to England again. Can't believe that two nights and two games are all that remain of this major adventure. When going out here on June 9th I never imagined time to just fly by as it has done. I guess part of this is due to the long, long shifts we've covered, the chaos and stress that's surrounded us all along and also thanks to all the new people I've met here and learnt a lot from.

As a kid I used to watch football with my dad on TV, speak to my uncle about our local football team, ÖSK, and watch the live games with my friend at the ground. I used to dream about going to watch all these big games around in Europe, and the rest of the world once grown up – but never imagined working behind the scenes of big tournaments, such as the World Cup, meeting all the big names that you only see and hear of on TV.

85 million viewers!

My biggest dream has always been to cover major sports events, but when starting university I could never imagine doing this before not even graduating. But, here I am – covering the World Cup from South Africa, in Qatar for Al Jazeera with 85 million people watching our live coverage from around the Middle East and the northern parts of Africa. Unbelievable.

But with the final approaching we are hoping to be viewed by 100 million people... I can’t even begin to understand how massive an audience that is – seeing I’m from Sweden where the population is only nine million. But it is impressive, how a sport such as football can unite people from all around the world to watch and enjoy with one another.

To be honest, so far we haven’t really seen a cracking World Cup game, but hopefully we will see the best of games on Sunday. That would make my experience here complete.

Breakfast a la World Cup!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, we produce breakfast shows, preview (forum) shows and the actual main show with the games. The mornings include presenter Scott Minto and Hayley McQueen who every morning greet the new day of football along with one guest. Over the time guests have come and gone, but still remaining here in Doha with us are Terry Venables, Graeme Souness, Trevor Francis and Glenn Hoddle. Prior todays date we've been joined by Ray Wilkins, Mark Hateley, Iain Dowie, Peter Reid, Gus Poyet, Graham Poll and many more... As I've never worked with 'famous people' before, this has been such an incredible experience. I never thought when I started university and decided to go into journalism that this opportunity would come along after this little time. One of my biggest dreams is of course to cover the World Cup, and now I'm doing it, and I can't quite get my head around it. Next step on the dream ladder, Olympics 2012.

But back to the Breakfast shows, which are very enjoyable, mainly thanks to Scott and Hayley who have been great together. Every second morning either V or I have been in the studio working with the cameras, the setup and making sure that everything is working out alright and that guest/s and presenters are all on time, that the set has been cleaned and that the breakfast is nicely presented on the table and so on... Our set role, which is camera man (woman), has included so much more than just being behind the camera. This has been great for both of us as we have not only learnt about cameras, as we kind of first thought we would, but also about other things that you would have to know as a floor manager. Bonus!

The mornings not inside the studio we have tried to sneak into the gallery - which is miles more disorganised than any other gallery we have seen, or that people working with us have ever seen - just to get a good look on how the director, vision mixer, producer and everyone else work during a live show. For me, who eventually wants to end up directing preferably live shows, this has been a great opportunity. And being amongst people who have spent years and years in the profession, I have managed to snatch some good contacts and with some luck it seems as if I have some good opportunities lined up once back in England.

In the studio there's a total of six cameras, including the jib, but at the Breakfast show four of these are fixed and only the camera pointing at the guest is moving, which means only me or V, and the jib operator. In the preview and match shows all but two cameras (mine and V's) are fixed which leaves us two doing the camera work. And, as I mentioned earlier, this seems to have been a bit controversial as the staff working over here at Al Jazeera are not used to female camera operators, and it's quite hard to know how to handle this from times to times, because you don't want to get on the wrong foot with the locals, as they (read a few of them) know English and are your only life line to the rest of the people working in the studio, with make up, lighting and so on.

But a brilliant experience, and a very useful journey to learn how to handle obstacles that we are not used to in Britain, and definitely haven't yet come across at university - such as massive culture clashes and language barriers. That being said, my first language isn't English either but at least I understand when somebody asks me to move a camera, or to find the Al Jazeera badges for the presenters and such...

World Cup kicking off - in Qatar!

My summer was to kick off – and so was the World Cup. Both events taking place in different locations but with one purpose – football.This is definitely the most exciting, interesting and most busy summer for me yet. Usually when school, college or university approaches the summer break my plans tend to be focused on doing as little as possible for as long as possible. But this year I got an offer I really couldn’t turn down. To cover the World Cup for Al Jazeera Sport in Doha, Qatar. So on 9th of June, off I went... Me and V arrived in Doha in the afternoon (Mecca time) and found ourselves in the middle of a massive climate change. In the early morning we had left a 15ish degree ‘lukewarm’ England behind to be met by a 40 something degree boiling Middle East. Pleasant – but only thanks to all the air conditioning running on full speed. Also, I was completely thrown by the massive culture clash, and I still find it hard to deal with it sometimes. For me, coming from Sweden, been travelling a lot – but mostly in Europe – and seen a fair bit of the continent, still can’t get my head around what it can be like living in these countries, and especially what it can be like being a woman... But more about culture clashes later on...

So after arriving safely in Doha we were, together with four other people who were to work for Al Jazeera as well, transported to our hotel where we would spend the following five weeks of our lives. After a well deserved dinner we all got informed that the following day would provide us with more information about our stay as we would go to Al Jazeera to meet up with the rest of the crew and also have a look at the studios we were to work in.

As this is my first real work experience within TV, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect – but whatever I did expect it was not this. People who work with TV back in England say this is nowhere close to as professional everything is being run back in the UK. Here it’s all a bit ‘hakuna matata’, ‘take it easy’, ‘there will be time’, ‘don’t worry’, ‘there is always a day tomorrow’ kind of approach. If you want something and want it now, forget it. Nothing happens quickly. Unless you can make it happen quickly yourself. This was one of the first things to learn how to tackle without letting it affect your mood. How to get people (locals in the studio who obviously are used to their ways) to work with you and more effectively together, when they thought what they did was good enough. Another massive issue was, and still is, the language barrier. A few of the guys in the studio know some English – but the ones who don’t seem to not even be bothered about trying to explain or understand so when worst comes to worst, problems can easily appear from nowhere. Also, as the studio crew over here are basically consisting of 100% men, it’s quite hard to come in, as a woman from the Western parts of the world, trying to tell them what to do.

Throughout this World Cup, I and V worked in the studio mainly as camera men, but partly doing everything else as well that you need to do in the studio, such as making sure guests are at the right place at the right time with makeup and microphones ready to go, count downs from breaks, positioning of chairs and tables at the different sets and so on. I have learnt a lot from this, and as I didn’t see myself working with anything like this only a few months ago, my experience has made me a lot more secure and confident in what I can actually do, and what I would like to do in the future. Over the time we have covered all but two games each, every breakfast show and also so far two forum-shows which mainly has focused on the guests, their opinions and views on what has happened so far in the tournament, and what might happen in the next round/s. As a football lover I have enjoyed every second of this tournament (even though Sweden didn’t manage to qualify!) and I have come to realise that I would definitely much prefer to work with sports and other live events from a studio rather than in the middle of all the action. I hope to find myself as a director one day, and probably working as a vision mixer before hand, as I believe it is important to learn how the vision mixing works before you tell people how to do it... So far an incredible experience that isn’t quite over yet. I will update my blog and tell you more about everything, such as guests, culture, Qatar, language and of course football, as soon as I possibly can.

Until then, enjoy the summer and the football!

WINOL bulletin 19/05/10

WINOL's news and sports bulletin 19/05/10

My contribution: vision mixing

WINOL bulletin 12/05/10

WINOL's news and sports bulletin 12/05/10

Spam emails at the University of Winchester

News piece, part of Winchester News Online's news bulletin, March 2010.