This essential, one-day workshop will equip journalists, filmmakers, producers and editors with the digital tools and knowledge needed to protect themselves, their stories and their sources in a hostile digital environment. No prior experience is necessary.

More and more people are now using their smartphones to shoot and create stories whether they are for a short film, multimedia/journalism or corporate content.

This workshop is a hands-on experience which you take you through how to record video and audio, edit your footage and export the content online or social media. During the course you will also get a chance to use a variety of microphones, grips and tripods.

The workshop will cover the following:

• Learn how to record audio and use a microphone to get the best sound
• Shoot video interviews and learn how to frame the subject correctly using well established cinematography techniques
• Shoot voxpops, point-of-view shots, action shots
• Use your smartphone to film establishing shots and cutaway shots
• Learn how to use natural lighting as a key light to model and illuminate the subject
• Use good interview technique and learn how to edit for the sound
• Take photographs and learn how to use picture composition and rule of thirds
• Learn how to edit your clips on the smartphone and create a video news story
• Launch video news stories online and blogs using social media sites.

Before the course, we will contact participants to find out what type of smartphone they’ll bring to the course and to provide a list of apps to download before the workshop. The majority of these are free, but the list may include a couple of paid-for apps. These should not come to more that £20 in total.

About the trainer:
The course tutor, Bill Shepherd teaches mobile and video journalism using smartphones and mirrorless cameras at billshepherdmedia.com. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists, the Guild of Television Camera Professionals and he is also a production editor at The Guardian and The Observer.

Image: via Shutterstock / drpnncpptak

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2tbjpANfW8

‘It has always seemed to me that what I write is about humanity in extremis, pushed to the unendurable, and that it is important to tell people what really happens in wars.’ Marie Colvin, 2001

Biographer Lindsey Hilsum will be joined by Henry Porter to discuss the life and work of Marie Colvin, one of the world’s most experienced foreign correspondents of our time.

Marie Colvin was glamorous, hard-drinking, braver than the boys, with a troubled and rackety personal life. With fierce compassion and honesty, she reported from the most dangerous places in the world, fractured by conflict and genocide, going in further and staying longer than anyone else.

In Sri Lanka in 2001, Marie was hit by a grenade and lost the sight in her left eye – resulting in her trademark eye patch – and in 2012 she was killed in Syria. Like her hero, the legendary reporter Martha Gellhorn, she sought to bear witness to the horrifying truths of war, to write ‘the first draft of history’ and crucially to shine a light on the suffering of ordinary people.

Written by fellow foreign correspondent Lindsey Hilsum, this is the story of the most daring war reporter of her generation. Drawing on unpublished diaries and notebooks, and interviews with Marie’s friends, family and colleagues, In Extremis is the story of our turbulent age, and the life of a woman who defied convention.

Lindsey Hilsum  is Channel 4 News International Editor, and has covered many of the conflicts of recent years including in Syria, Ukraine and the Arab Spring – sometimes alongside Marie Colvin. She was in Baghdad for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and in Belgrade for the 1999 NATO bombing. In 1994, she was the only English-speaking correspondent in Rwanda when the genocide began. She has won awards from the Royal Television Society and BAFTA amongst others. Her last book, Sandstorm; Libya in the Time of Revolution, was described by the Observer as “an account with historical depth to match dramatic reportage.”

Henry Porter is a novelist and former commentator for the Observer. He is a winner of the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award –  for Brandenburg, his novel about  the Fall of the Berlin wall,  which he covered in 1989. His latest book, Firefly, is the story of young boy on the migrant route in 2015 and is the first part of a trilogy set in the turbulent world of US and European politics. He was a friend of Marie’s and sat opposite her when they worked at the Sunday Times in the eighties. This was at a time when she was regularly picking up the phone to   Yasser Arafat and Muammar Gaddafi.

In the same week as the murder of Viktoria, Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi vanished after visiting his country’s consulate in Istanbul and has since been confirmed dead.

Many more journalists have lost their lives in 2018, among them 10 Afghan reporters in April.

Targeting reporters is becoming more deliberate, the investigations slow and perpetrators are rarely brought to justice. What is more is that killings are increasingly  taking place with impunity.

Journalists are often the last bastion in the face of corruption and the erosion of democracy. But as political powers are depicting the media as the ‘enemy of the people’ is enough being done to protect press freedoms and the people speaking out for the truth?

Chair

Vaughan Smith is co-founder of the Frontline Freelance Register and Founder of the Frontline Club Charitable Trust.

Speakers

Rebecca Vincent is the UK Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders, known internationally as Reporters sans frontières (RSF), which works to promote and defend press freedom around the world. She is a human rights activist, writer, and former US diplomat. She has worked with a wide range of human rights and freedom of expression NGOs, and has published widely on human rights issues. Rebecca has campaigned consistently for justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia, and on the broader issue of safety of journalists.

Peter Greste is an Australian Latvian journalist who was sentenced to seven years in jail for collaborating with the banned Muslim brotherhood in June 2014. He was freed after spending 400 days in an Egyptian prison. His two Al Jazeera colleagues, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, were sentenced to seven and 10 years respectively. Greste was set free by order of Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi under a new law allowing foreign prisoners to be deported. Fahmy and Mohamed were also later freed. Greste’s arrest, trial and judgment is the most recent chapter in the foreign correspondent’s career spanning more than 25 years. He has worked as a freelancer for Reuters TV, CNN, WTN and the BBC.

Safa Al Ahmad is journalist and filmmaker who has directed documentaries for PBS and the BBC focusing on uprisings in the Middle East.  Her  film “Yemen Under Siege” won two Emmy Awards in 2017.  She is the winner of the 2015 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Journalism, the El Mundo award for journalism for her body of work in 2015, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression  (CJFE) in 2015 and the Association of International Broadcasting (AIB) Best International Investigation for her film ‘Saudi’s Secret Uprising’ in 2014. Her writing on the Arab uprisings was published in an anthology ‘Writing Revolutions’ published by Penguin and won an English Pen award.

Laurent Richard is an award-winning investigative journalist, filmmaker, 2017 Knight-Wallace fellow and the founder of Forbidden Stories. He is co-founder of the highly reputed inquiry magazine Cash Investigation broadcast on French public television. He oversaw for Premières Lignes Television and France 2 the “LuxLeaks” investigation on tax evasion in Luxembourg and has investigated multiple corporate sectors such as “big tobacco”, pharmaceutical companies and various financial institutions. He is is the co-author of the book Reporting Is Not a Crime. Stand Together Against Censorship, (Informer n’est pas un délit, ensemble contre les nouvelles  censures), a collective work of 15 journalists denouncing pressures against the press published in 2016. Laurent has very recently won the Prix Europa, European Journalist of the Year prize.

Over the summer, Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Greenpeace UK conducted a survey of major UK grocery retailers, their use of single-use plastic packaging and their targets to reduce it. 14 responded including all 10 of the largest supermarkets, and 4 leading convenience store operators.

The results, to be released in November, are expected to reveal the volume of single-use plastic packaging each retailer puts onto the market every year, their targets to reduce plastic packaging and their approach to tackling plastic pollution across their supply chains.

The detailed survey, which is believed to be the largest-ever survey of UK grocery retailers and plastic will provide a benchmark for current commitments and actions on curbing plastic pollution. As well as collecting data about volumes of plastic and reduction targets, the survey intends to look at how retailers are planning to meet their targets and to reveal some of the challenges faced by retailers and solutions that are being developed. The results will also highlight where further innovation is needed.

Chair

Ben Webster

Ben Webster is environment editor at The Times, covering the most important environmental stories in the UK and around the world.

Speakers

Catherine Conway, Unpackaged Innovation Ltd.

Catherine set up Unpackaged in 2006 as the world’s first modern zero waste shop. Not only has Unpackaged pioneered a new, desirable, sustainable category in modern retailing; but Catherine’s passion for developing systems to enabling refilling and reuse, within various food sectors has enabled many other businesses to create real and lasting change.

Sarah Balch

Sarah is Senior Ocean Campaigner at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and leads the joint campaign calling on UK supermarkets to reduce their plastic footprint, as well as working on EU and UK policy. Sarah has 10 years’ experience in the environmental sector, with recent areas of work including campaigning for the UK microbead ban, the EU circular economy package and plastic strategy, and UK marine and waste policy.

Elena Polisano

Elena is an oceans campaigner at Greenpeace and leads the campaign calling on UK supermarkets to reduce their plastic footprint. She has been at the forefront of Greenpeace’s creative interventions aimed at some of the world’s biggest companies, and recently led the organisation’s campaign that helped secure the government’s commitment to a deposit return scheme for drinks containers in England. Prior to Greenpeace, Elena was an advertising creative.

In 2016 a sociological survey on the war revealed a number of problems: Ukrainian legislation didn’t allow women to be assigned to combat positions, so they were enlisted as cooks, seamstresses, cleaners, accountants etc. while taking part in military combat operations as snipers, grenade launcher operators, reconnaissance soldiers, artillerists etc. This was done on semi-legal grounds. Thus, the majority of women who were at Donbas war were not enlisted officially and subsequently had no access to social or military benefits, military awards, social status, or career opportunities in the Armed Forces. The contribution of women to the defence of the country was and still is invisible to society. A powerful advocacy campaign for gender equality in the Armed Forces of Ukraine was initiated and thus the film was born.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsGnbaLQ82Y&t=3s

Run Time: 1 hr 29 mins

Chair

Lucy Ash is an awarding-winning broadcast journalist with more than 20 years’ experience as a BBC correspondent, presenter and senior producer. Her most recent work includes Ukraine’s Frontline Bakery, a radio documentary and film about a new bakery in the town of Marinka, in Eastern Ukraine which is bringing some comfort and sustenance to local people amidst the trauma of war. (Radio 4 , World Service and BBC World TV) and The Red and the White, a three part radio series on the Allied Intervention in North Russia at the end of WW1 and a half hour film (BBC World Service and BBC Russian)

Speakers

Maria Berlinska (producer) is a founder of the Ukrainian Centre for Aerial Reconnaissance in Kyiv and has been volunteering for the Ukrainian Army since the start of the conflict (both by flying drones at the frontline and training others to operate drones in Kyiv). In addition, Maria set up an Institute for Gender Programmes and initiated a sociological study about women who serve in the ongoing war (you can find their report here: http://www.uwf.org.ua/en/project_activities/invisible_batallion).

Olesya Khromeychuk teaches Modern European History at King’s College London and researches the participation and representation of women in military formations during the Second World War and in the ongoing conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine. She is the author of ‘Undetermined’ Ukrainians. Post-War Narratives of the Waffen SS ‘Galicia’ Division (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013)

The Permanent Five and their power to veto any resolution reached has meant a democratic deficit in decision-making, the organisation’s lack of success in its Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, and the apparent lack of action in Yemen despite labelling it ‘the largest humanitarian crisis in the world’ are just three examples of the UN appearing to fail to ‘create and maintain international order’.

Our panel will discuss the future of the United Nations – in its totality – including its work on peace and security, human rights, and socio-economic development, as envisioned by the UN Charter, and explore the question: Is the UN still fit for purpose in the changed context of the world today where forces of populist nationalism seem ascendant?

Chair

Contributing Editor to the Financial Times, John Lloyd, has won multiple awards for his work in journalism, including; Specialist Writer of the Year in the British Press Awards and Journalist of the Year in the Granada What the Papers Say Awards. In the early 1970s, he worked for Time Out as Belfast Correspondent during the infamous period of the Troubles, and then went on to work for The Times and the New Statesman. In 2006 John co-founded Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford and currently directs the Axess Programme on Journalism and Democracy. He is also an editorial member of Prospect; the advisory board of the Moscow School of Political Studies.

Speakers

Kul Chandra Gautman is a former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and Assistant Secretary-General for the UN. He carried out the role of Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Nepal, his home country, on International Affairs and the Peace Process 2010-2011. Kul currently serves on a vast number of both international and national boards including the Programme Committee for Oxfam GB Council, which he chairs. As a former senior official of the UN, Gautman has extensive experience in international diplomacy, development cooperation, and humanitarian assistance. In Augst this year he wrote “Global Citizen from Gulmi”. In the book, the former diplomat recounts his journey from the hills of Gulmi to the halls of the United Nations.

The Right Honourable Clare Short was the first Secretary of State for International Development1997-2003. After her resignation over the Iraq war she wrote her award-winning book; ‘An Honourable Deception?: New Labour, Iraq, and the Misuse of Power’, discussing the true effects of the centralisation of decision-making in Number 10. Ms Short gave a notable speech in 2001; ‘Making Globalisation Work for the Poor’; expressing her view that globalisation could be shaped as a new phase in the modern world to improve the lives of everyone. In June 2009, she received an Honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Ulster in response to her services to international development. The Right Honourable Lady also appeared before the Chilcot inquiry, condemning Blair for his attempt to obtain consent to invade Iraq by deceit. Ms Short is known for her outspoken nature and fierce criticism of the Blair administration, particularly of his ‘reckless’ decision to go to war with Iraq without a clear mandate from the United Nations. In 2010 she retired from parliament after serving as MP for Birmingham Ladywood for 27 years (1983-2010).

In early 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online and with a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, journalist and author Michael Scott Moore travelled to the Horn of Africa to research a book about piracy and ways to end it. In a cruel twist of fate, the 45-year old California native (with dual German and American citizenship) was kidnapped and taken captive by pirates. Moore comes to speak for the first time about his experience of spending five months aboard a hijacked tuna long-liner—the only Western writer to experience life aboard a ship hijacked by Somali pirates. Moore weaves his own experience–including physical injury, starvation, isolation and terror–with a larger examination of the world around him. He explores the economics and history of piracy (going all the way back to America’s own colonial history), the effects of post-colonialism (Italian and British); the politics of hostage negotiation and ransom (including Moore’s mother’s role in gaining his release); the legalities of industrial fishing and the role of Islam among the pirates.

Michael Scott-Moore is an accomplished author and journalist, a former Fulbright and Logan Nonfiction fellow, and a longtime resident of Berlin, where he moved in 2005. His comic novel about L.A., Too Much of Nothing, was published to acclaim in 2003, and Sweetness and Blood, his travel book about the spread of surfing to odd corners of the world, was named a book of the year by The Economist and Popmatters in 2010. Moore has written about politics and travel for The Atlantic, Slate, Der Spiegel, Pacific Standard, Businessweek, and the Financial Times. He now lives in Los Angeles.

Ben Rawlence  is a British writer who has written two books: Radio Congo: Signals Of Hope From Africa’s Deadliest War (2012) and City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp (2016). From 2006 to 2013 he was a researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Africa division. Rawlence has also written for The New York Times, The Guardian and London Review of Books.

Ed Vulliamy has spent his life travelling the world to witness historical events, to see for himself what was happening, who were the people involved and what it meant to them, but also to listen to music. In his book When Words Fail, A Life with Music, War and Peace he explores the music and musicians who succeeded when words weren’t quite up to the job. From the need of a battle-weary population in Bosnia to hear a string trio (war having altered the original quartet) to allow themselves to feel alive while the bombs still fell like an accompanying percussion section to the rebels songs of Northern Ireland; from the soundtrack of Haight and Ashby, the love for the Plastic People of the Universe in Soviet Czechoslovakia, and the everlasting and complex genius of Shostakovich to the horror of the Bataclan massacre – Ed recounts his life of listening to music, and talking to the key creators.

Elisa Perrigueur is an independent journalist, specialising on migration issues in Europe and the activity of smugglers. She draws what is seen in reportage, areas of no rights, anonymous who do not want to be identified. Her visual responses to what she sees such as on the border city of Calais and England are expressed through watercolours and painting. She participated in the documentary “Calais, The End Of The Jungle” for BBC 2, as an assistant director. She is represented as an illustrator by Studio Hans Lucas. See some of her work here.

This is an exploration into the power of music, art, and the men and women who have dedicated their lives to understanding how and why it matters just so very much.

Photo Credit Image 1: Elisa Perrigueur – Port of Calais, one of the main “entrance” for the UK.

Photo Credit Image 2:  Elisa Perrigueur – Moria Camp in the dark.

Photo Credit Image 3: Elisa Perrigueur – Shores of Libya. Imagination, close to Sabratha. July 2017.

In a Kenyan town bordering wildlife conservation land, two men try to hold onto their increasingly fragile status quo. A small-time ivory dealer fights to stay on top while forces mobilise to destroy his trade. When he turns to his younger cousin, a conflicted wildlife ranger who hasn’t been paid in months, they both see a possible lifeline.

The plummeting elephant population in Africa has captured the attention of the world. And as the government cracks down, the poachers face their own existential crisis. For them, conservationists are not only winning their campaign to value elephant life over its ivory, but over human life as well. Who are these hunters who will risk death, arrest and the moral outrage of the world to provide for their families?

Director Jon Kasbe followed the film’s subjects over a three-year period, gaining an extraordinary level of access and trust as he became part of their everyday lives. The result is a rare and visually arresting look through the perspectives and motives of the people at the epicentre of the conservation divide.

Run Time: 79 mins

Director and Producer: Jon Kasbe

Chair

Nick Clark is a broadcast journalist and writer specialising in environmental coverage. His latest work features an acclaimed documentary for Al Jazeera English on the remote Weddell Sea in Antarctica called ‘Antarctic Ocean Sanctuary’. In 2014 Nick completed a prestigious Fellowship at MIT and Harvard studying the impacts of climate change on terrestrial and marine eco-systems. Nick’s reported on the disappearance of the world’s tropical glaciers in the Andes and the devastation caused by illegal logging in Amazonia. He’s also focused on issues as diverse as efforts to save the Siberian Tiger in the forests of the Russian Far East, the shark fin trade from Hong Kong to the Middle East, the conflict between wolf and man in remote parts of Finland and the plight of gorillas in Uganda. Nick has travelled to the Arctic regions several times – most recently in August this year, to report for Al Jazeera English on the threat of a collapsing iceberg looming over an isolated village in northern Greenland. Nick’s won a Royal Television Society award for directing  & presenting a six part series on the River Thames. He’s also reported general news, taking in stints in Afghanistan, Libya – as Gadaffi’s regime fell – as well as many African assignments.

Speakers

Born to an Australian mother and an Indian father, Jon Kasbe spent most of his childhood traveling extensively. Growing up in this environment instilled in him a deep curiosity and desire to explore the world. He soon found documentary filmmaking to be a way to immerse himself in his travels and share discoveries with others. At age 10, he bought his first camera in order to interview children in war-torn Serbia, where his parents were volunteering. Now, at 27, his short films have screened around the world, garnering an Emmy Award, two Emmy nominations, and recognition from the Webbys, SXSW, Hot Docs, Vimeo Staff Picks, and The White House News Photographers Association. WHEN LAMBS BECOME LIONS, which he filmed, directed and produced, is his feature-length film debut.

Kaddu Sebunya is president of the African Wildlife Foundation. He began his career serving as a project manager with WaterAid and as a relief program officer with Oxfam UK. Beginning with his post as the Associate Director for the United States Peace Corps in Uganda, Sebunya’s career began to focus more on conservation. He later served as a country program coordinator with the World Conservation Union—now the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN—and as a senior policy and planning advisor for Conservation International.