If you thought of your mobile phone as a device that can only send and receive messages, take a few photos for Instagram and snapchat feeds or post on Tweeter and Facebook, then you’ve been underrating it; it can do more than that.
With technology advancing every now and then, the handheld portable gadgets are not only replacing digital cameras in taking photos, but also shooting “Television worth” videos as well as editing them.
As they continue to empower future journalists with required skills for Print and Broadcast media, FOJO Media Institute and PAXPRESS Rwanda from the 14th to 18th November, 2022 had a group of 10 students from Mount Kigali University (MKUR) and East African University Rwanda (EAUR) at Rwamagana for a TV production mentorship.
Conducted by Annelie Megner Arn a science reporter and environmental journalist working with TV4 from Sweden, students were overwhelmed to learn of how much mobile phones can do.
Using mobile phones, tripods and microphones provided by the organizers of the mentorship, students learnt that with mobile apps like iMovie, they can edit videos, synchronize sound, add subtitles and much more.
Day 1 of the training had them go out in Rwamagana trade center to shoot still videos/ overlay footages using different camera angles.
While they thought it would be an easy task as most of them had done it before at their different institutions, they were surprised to hear that they broke most of the shooting rules.
Annelie stressed on the rule of 180, avoiding jump cuts while editing and how to use close ups especially those of the hand to hide jump cuts.
“Whenever shooting a video, make sure you take these different types of shots as they help immensely while editing to hide jump cuts: wide shots, close ups, over the shoulder, cut away’s, and extreme close ups”, Annelie told the students.
On day 2, students were sent back to the trading center to come up with a captivating story in which they had to take shots showing different sequences of the subject.
To do this, they had to follow what the subject was doing, change between wide shots and close ups, not forgetting to shoot from the same side.
Framing interviews was covered on day 3 and they did this amongst themselves in groups of two.
Mucyo Kevin a student from MKUR said “all this while I’ve been shooting videos but never cared about framing and the rule of 180; as long as my images were clear, I was good to go. This training has helped me a lot as I wont be making the same mistakes again”.
Media personalities from PAXPRESS Rwanda, FOJO, TV10 among others who were also going through a managerial mentorship at the same venue like the students were also interviewed on day 4 by the students.
In this interview, students were to come up with a lead for TV news and phrase follow up questions from the lead they have come up with and come up with a one minute story which was played on day 5 before they departed to their respective universities.
Anneli who is an expert in the field having worked at TV4 in Sweden since 2008 also engaged in the assignment when he interviewed Iradukunda Jean de Deue a student from MKUR, shot and edited a story about his childhood.
Students from both universities were so enthusiastic in studying and learning whatever their mentor was teaching them to the extent that through out the mentorship, their coordinator Assoumani Ntakirutimana had to remind them of taking meal breaks.
Anna Mbugua from EAUR said her followers on Tiktok and Instagram should watch out for her new videos as they are to be top notch after all the training and mentorship she has under gone.
