Rhodes TV beats SABC by a wide margin Tue, 10/14/2008 - 21:57 — SimCard
A confession: I approach most television with extreme scepticism. I imagine that whatever shot, angle, score I am being fed with, the producers are simply buttering me up for those offensive adverts.
But if stuff should be on TV to sell Nedbank's ads, then it's the kind of journalism we saw this evening at Roxbury Cinema in Peppergrove Mall. The Television specialisation at Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies put on a most spectacular show. So good that I think eTV should buy it and use it in place of some of their lame programming (I mean WWE and Smack-Down, and ECW--all wrestling shows--in one week; in a country with the world's highest incidence of HIV/Aids?)
I will cut eTV some slack actually, because SA is a free country and they're a private station.
But SABC? They could use some of this stuff (to which I will get in a mo) in place of some of the crap they feed us on. There I've said it! Crap! Because quite frankly, to watch most SABC programming is to, er, let me just stop there. These guys drop some equipment the TV students...
Rhodes is the consensus top Journalism & Media school in South Africa (and possibly Africa); and you are telling me that their footage , which routinely scoops awards across the board, (including ironically, some SABC kudos!) cannot be shown on any of the state-broadcaster's five channels? When the footage is being offered for free? And these guys actually want me to pony up for that TV licence? Oh Puhleese!
Enough ranting. This is supposed to be a celebration. A coming out party. An exhibition of work from some very talented, creative and very hard-working young women and men.
These TV students produced shows that should be seen on free-to-air television in South Africa, and not be part of a film noir evening at a local cinema, although all concerned (students, teachers Paul Hills Alette Schoon and Paddy Donnelly, had no choice but to take the event to a cinema.
The pieces ranged from emotional, through funny and inspiring to unsettling and tear-jerking. The piece about a baby rhino that was slashed by poachers in Zimbabwe and which some conservationists spent a feverish 24 hours trying to save before it died sent a young woman next to me sobbing uncontrollably.
There was a 27-year old woman prostitute who prefers white men ("they take me home, pay like R200, give me a shower and drive me back to my spot") to Xhosa men ("they have me in the bushes, take my money after having me and sometimes beat me".) The woman wishes she was dead--every day.
There was a wonderful collaboration showcasing four sets families across two generations of South Africans living in Grahamstown. The parents write a letter Nelson Mandela (no introductions needed), through which they go through the paces of their lives. Race is a very serious issue for these parents; but their children (all of them around 6 or 7 and all learners at Oatlands Primary School), don't even know what racism is! "It's when people race against each other in cars..." one of the young ones ventured!
There was a piece about the Rastafarian community in Knysna, and their incredible spirit, self-sufficiency and dignity. I have to confess that I was a little bit disturbed to see children as young as five smoking pot--religion or no religion! Opinions are like noses; everyone has one. My nose is very clear: pot is not good for you at any age. But it MUST BE ILLEGAL to try it unless you're 18 or older.
There was a piece that explored "dislocation"--three whites are traced to their homes in Grahamstown East, and black woman is followed to her home in suburbia. In my opinion, this piece had perhaps the most nuanced takes on race, class and gender.
There was a piece on celibacy (my friend Luke playing the devil's advocate in the opening shot). There are some real-life celibates outside the monastery on the way to PE!
There was a piece on schizophrenia; on religion and alternative spirituality like Satanism; on illegal and extremely dangerous abortion methods ("take this pill and the baby will come out like a liver--blood. Use it at nine months, eight months, six months").
So fresh were some of the pieces that that many people didn't quite know how to react. "You've lived your whole life in Grahamstown," a man told his companions, "and you see these things and it's like you've never lived here!" He spoke for many of course. But that number fortunately excludes JMS students, who have to navigate Grahamstown's incredible contradictions.
It' s the city of the National Arts Festival, the Schools Science Festival; the city of Rhodes University; the city of arguably the largest collection per capita of top private schools in South Africa. It's a city where "you can walk" to work. But that's the Grahamstown for certain people--10.000odd.
The other Grahamstown endures extreme poverty, violence, illiteracy, the bucket system, tiny RDP houses, and attendant off-shoots. That's the Grahamstown of the great majority of people who live in this town. I will go out on a limb here and say that none of Grahamstown's "poor and downtrodden" was in Roxbury to see some of their collective tales being told.
For R20, I sat through three hours of some moving stuff. This is what teachers always wish for: that their students do things that make a difference. These TV documentaries should make a difference.
Of course if I was the organiser, I'd lose the social hour, the raffle and the intervals and just get on with it (let them buy their own drinks and popcorn the way they do when they come in for James Bond--which is incidentally being released on my birthday)!
But what do I know? I am extremely anti-social and painfully shy and I know most people are not like this.
I only wish SABC would jettison one hour of programming every week to showcase this brilliant journalism. And not only from Rhodes, but also from Stellenbosch, Wits, UKZN, and anywhere else in South Africa where students are producing good journalism.
Last night I attended the fourth year TV Journ student’s final documentaries and WOW!!! I can’t believe that in three years time I’m going to be producing work that it that amazing, be it in TV or any one of the other forms of media! I am totally in awe at the high standard of their documentaries and the emotions that they elicited in me. There were times when my legs and arms were covered in goose bumps and I could feel the hair standing up on my neck. I also frequently found myself with a lump in my throat and by the second last piece I couldn’t control my emotions any more and was in tears! A five minute long documentary about Rhino poaching in Zimbabwe was what did it. The footage of a one month old Rhino named Nyasha covered in gashes, lying next to a fire with her new care taker, having just lost her mother to the brutality of poachers was too much for me to handle. The text on the big screen then informed us that the baby Rhino died the next morning. These documentaries not only reminded me of the suffering caused by the cruelty of humans, but it also brought human suffering very close to home. I was surprised at the amount of insight the journ students were able to get into the lives of various Grahamstown people. It hits hard when you realize that down the road from where you live are prostitutes who can’t bear to face life anymore, married couples coping with HIV, atrocious backstreet abortion scams and people breaking the conventional and traditionally accepted boundaries of who lives in which area. I found most of the documentaries extremely evocative and I only hope that one day I am not only able to produce such amazing material, but to be able to use that material to make a difference in the lives of others. I hope that as a journalist, I can turn journalistic conventions on its head by not only being a witness and reporter, but to use my talents and skills in a compassionate manner to better our world. Posted by Gabi
Rhodes TV beats SABC by a wide margin
Tue, 10/14/2008 - 21:57 — SimCard
A confession: I approach most television with extreme scepticism. I imagine that whatever shot, angle, score I am being fed with, the producers are simply buttering me up for those offensive adverts.
But if stuff should be on TV to sell Nedbank's ads, then it's the kind of journalism we saw this evening at Roxbury Cinema in Peppergrove Mall. The Television specialisation at Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies put on a most spectacular show. So good that I think eTV should buy it and use it in place of some of their lame programming (I mean WWE and Smack-Down, and ECW--all wrestling shows--in one week; in a country with the world's highest incidence of HIV/Aids?)
I will cut eTV some slack actually, because SA is a free country and they're a private station.
But SABC? They could use some of this stuff (to which I will get in a mo) in place of some of the crap they feed us on. There I've said it! Crap! Because quite frankly, to watch most SABC programming is to, er, let me just stop there. These guys drop some equipment the TV students...
Rhodes is the consensus top Journalism & Media school in South Africa (and possibly Africa); and you are telling me that their footage , which routinely scoops awards across the board, (including ironically, some SABC kudos!) cannot be shown on any of the state-broadcaster's five channels? When the footage is being offered for free? And these guys actually want me to pony up for that TV licence? Oh Puhleese!
Enough ranting. This is supposed to be a celebration. A coming out party. An exhibition of work from some very talented, creative and very hard-working young women and men.
These TV students produced shows that should be seen on free-to-air television in South Africa, and not be part of a film noir evening at a local cinema, although all concerned (students, teachers Paul Hills Alette Schoon and Paddy Donnelly, had no choice but to take the event to a cinema.
The pieces ranged from emotional, through funny and inspiring to unsettling and tear-jerking. The piece about a baby rhino that was slashed by poachers in Zimbabwe and which some conservationists spent a feverish 24 hours trying to save before it died sent a young woman next to me sobbing uncontrollably.
There was a 27-year old woman prostitute who prefers white men ("they take me home, pay like R200, give me a shower and drive me back to my spot") to Xhosa men ("they have me in the bushes, take my money after having me and sometimes beat me".) The woman wishes she was dead--every day.
There was a wonderful collaboration showcasing four sets families across two generations of South Africans living in Grahamstown. The parents write a letter Nelson Mandela (no introductions needed), through which they go through the paces of their lives. Race is a very serious issue for these parents; but their children (all of them around 6 or 7 and all learners at Oatlands Primary School), don't even know what racism is!
"It's when people race against each other in cars..." one of the young ones ventured!
There was a piece about the Rastafarian community in Knysna, and their incredible spirit, self-sufficiency and dignity. I have to confess that I was a little bit disturbed to see children as young as five smoking pot--religion or no religion! Opinions are like noses; everyone has one. My nose is very clear: pot is not good for you at any age. But it MUST BE ILLEGAL to try it unless you're 18 or older.
There was a piece that explored "dislocation"--three whites are traced to their homes in Grahamstown East, and black woman is followed to her home in suburbia. In my opinion, this piece had perhaps the most nuanced takes on race, class and gender.
There was a piece on celibacy (my friend Luke playing the devil's advocate in the opening shot). There are some real-life celibates outside the monastery on the way to PE!
There was a piece on schizophrenia; on religion and alternative spirituality like Satanism; on illegal and extremely dangerous abortion methods ("take this pill and the baby will come out like a liver--blood. Use it at nine months, eight months, six months").
So fresh were some of the pieces that that many people didn't quite know how to react.
"You've lived your whole life in Grahamstown," a man told his companions, "and you see these things and it's like you've never lived here!"
He spoke for many of course. But that number fortunately excludes JMS students, who have to navigate Grahamstown's incredible contradictions.
It' s the city of the National Arts Festival, the Schools Science Festival; the city of Rhodes University; the city of arguably the largest collection per capita of top private schools in South Africa. It's a city where "you can walk" to work. But that's the Grahamstown for certain people--10.000odd.
The other Grahamstown endures extreme poverty, violence, illiteracy, the bucket system, tiny RDP houses, and attendant off-shoots. That's the Grahamstown of the great majority of people who live in this town. I will go out on a limb here and say that none of Grahamstown's "poor and downtrodden" was in Roxbury to see some of their collective tales being told.
For R20, I sat through three hours of some moving stuff. This is what teachers always wish for: that their students do things that make a difference. These TV documentaries should make a difference.
Of course if I was the organiser, I'd lose the social hour, the raffle and the intervals and just get on with it (let them buy their own drinks and popcorn the way they do when they come in for James Bond--which is incidentally being released on my birthday)!
But what do I know? I am extremely anti-social and painfully shy and I know most people are not like this.
I only wish SABC would jettison one hour of programming every week to showcase this brilliant journalism. And not only from Rhodes, but also from Stellenbosch, Wits, UKZN, and anywhere else in South Africa where students are producing good journalism.
That will not happen of course.
Which is such a pity.
Last night I attended the fourth year TV Journ student’s final documentaries and WOW!!! I can’t believe that in three years time I’m going to be producing work that it that amazing, be it in TV or any one of the other forms of media! I am totally in awe at the high standard of their documentaries and the emotions that they elicited in me. There were times when my legs and arms were covered in goose bumps and I could feel the hair standing up on my neck. I also frequently found myself with a lump in my throat and by the second last piece I couldn’t control my emotions any more and was in tears! A five minute long documentary about Rhino poaching in Zimbabwe was what did it. The footage of a one month old Rhino named Nyasha covered in gashes, lying next to a fire with her new care taker, having just lost her mother to the brutality of poachers was too much for me to handle. The text on the big screen then informed us that the baby Rhino died the next morning. These documentaries not only reminded me of the suffering caused by the cruelty of humans, but it also brought human suffering very close to home. I was surprised at the amount of insight the journ students were able to get into the lives of various Grahamstown people. It hits hard when you realize that down the road from where you live are prostitutes who can’t bear to face life anymore, married couples coping with HIV, atrocious backstreet abortion scams and people breaking the conventional and traditionally accepted boundaries of who lives in which area. I found most of the documentaries extremely evocative and I only hope that one day I am not only able to produce such amazing material, but to be able to use that material to make a difference in the lives of others. I hope that as a journalist, I can turn journalistic conventions on its head by not only being a witness and reporter, but to use my talents and skills in a compassionate manner to better our world.
Posted by Gabi
thanks for sharing your work with us, time fly past as the audience was absorbed with the stories told on the screen.
What an absolutely awesome event! You should have it over 3 days! So cool it's now online.