Category Archives: Media

DNA CYMRU series gets underway

Blog, Producer, Television

B9_nHx6IQAAm1c1

8pm St David’s Day our new series on the history of Wales begins with an introductory programme. The series examines the potential of ancestral DNA to contribute towards the understanding of the past.

I have been very struck, while working on it, by a dual theme that emerges: Continuity  and Change. Humanity values both of these. Continuity promotes stability, the mastering of skills, the memorialising of the past so that it can feed the future. Change calls out new skills to integrate with established ones and it means encountering people and attitudes that challenge conclusions drawn from hard-won experience.

The material in the series has made me consider the relationship between the body and what we use the body to do; between ‘the givens’ of our lives – our physical inheritance – and the choices we make about our lives – our culture and our approach to life. Continue reading DNA CYMRU series gets underway →

Academics and TV Documentary-making

Teacher, Teaching, Television

Cardiff University Graduate College:

Workshop Design and Delivery: Academics and TV Documentary-making  11th February 2015
 Feedback: from last year’s workshop:

  • Ø  Useful for anyone investing in the media side of research, also interesting just to see how research can be translated into TV
  • Ø  A really valuable workshop if you like to be engaged with media
  • Ø  A great opportunity to understand how academics can engage with TV documentary production
  • Ø  It teaches/introduces the basics of academic – TV partnership
  • Ø  Worth doing if you are interested in how your research can be used in TV
  • Ø  An excellent way to prepare yourself for making a documentary incorporating academic knowledge/sources

All Things Considered: Annual Film Review

Blog, Portfolio, PortfolioRadio, Radio, Reviewer, Reviews
Brendan Gleeson stars in Calvary
Brendan Gleeson stars in Calvary

BBC Radio Wales Sunday 7th December

Unanimous praise for Calvary but disagreement over whether religion has ‘moved to the periphery of Irish life’

Fun being among the reviewers but I found myself at odds with them on this point.

Far from religion being on the side-lines, this film presents it as being so close to Irish hearts that its betrayal by clerical abuse of children results in a seething anger against clerics and the Catholic Church. Religion has failed but faith, in this film, is precious.

My favourite film, Bresson’s ‘Diary of a Country Priest’ is the model here. In both films a good priest is surrounded by embittered, suffering parishioners who taunt and confront him with the monstrosity and absurdity of suffering. There is plenty of jeopardy of the usual who-dunnit type but even more hangs on the risk that the priest will compromise his principles from sheer fellow-feeling.

A key role is that of the newly bereaved French wife whose clear-eyed acceptance of enormous loss proves a touchstone. Integrity, the coherence between what a person believes and what he or she does, is a major theme.

A great cast. Brendan Gleeson and his son, Domhnall are powerful in one of the many one-to-one encounters.

Why do we get angry at suffering as though it is something unexpected? That’s a question I feel this film put in front of me.

iPlayer Radio: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04snkt6

 

The Writers’ Guild

Commentator, Industry, Uncategorized, Writing

 


Executive Committee Member, Wales
Organiser, The Media and Devolution – what do we need to know?
18th September 2013 Chapter Arts Centre
The Pros and Cons of Devolving Control of the Media to Wales – Speaker: Aled Eirug.
A  Guild Members Only event.
Facilitator of the submission from the Guild in Wales to the Commission on Devolution in Wales (Silk) September 2013
Union Learning Adviser for The Writers’ Guild 2009 – 2014
Identifying and responding to members’ training and development needs. ULA information

Of Mourning and Memory

Media, Portfolio, PortfolioRadio, Presenter, Radio, Works

Listen Online I devised and presented this documentary on First World War Memorials in Wales

Wales Remembers / Cymru’n Cofio  

p02b7wxl
Angela Graham and Chris Parry at the Pontmorlais First World War Memorial.

BBC Radio Wales,  Sun 9 Nov 2014 10:30

With Contributions from:

  • Prof. Jay Winter, Yale University.
  • Dr. Lester Mason, University of Wales Trinity St David.
  • Prof. David Machin, Orebro University, Sweden.
  • Prof. Sir Deian Hopkin, Adviser to First Minister on Commemoration of WW1.
  • Michelle Darby, Grangetown Local History Society.
  • Chris Parry, Communities Officer, Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery.

Expertise Exchange

Industry, PortfolioTelevision, Television

Initiator and Organiser:   24th October 2013

                                                                 a joint RTS / Cardiff University School of Journalism (JOMEC) event 
                                                                                                                                                                                   
Contributors:
  • Professor Justin Lewis and Llion Iwan, Content Commissioner, Factual and Sport, S4C
    Consumerism, the hidden driver behind all TV production?
  • Professor Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Ashok Ahir, of Communications Agency, mela; former Head of Politics, BBC Cymru Wales
    Impartiality and representation of opinion on TV news
  • Dr Cindy Carter and Huw Foulkes, Broadcast Journalist, Ffeil & Newyddion 9, BBC Cymru
    What TV news provision does the younger teen audience want?
  • Dr Ross Garner and Mike Talbot, Series Editor, Wales This Week, ITV Wales
    Producing the ‘Mainstream’ in Wales
  • Professor Jenny Kitzinger and Erika Hossington, Series Producer, Casualty, BBC Cymru Wales
    How can TV drama represent family experiences of long term ‘coma’?

 

Dr Cindy Carter, Llion Iwan, Dr Ross Garner, Erika Hossington, Prof Jenny Kitzinger,
Ashok Ahir
Prof Justin Lewis, Mike Talbot, Angela Graham, Huw Foulkes
An enjoyable and thought-provoking event resulting in 3 on-going partnerships:
Prof Jenny Kitzinger and Erika Hossington: a potential new storyline involving coma next year for ‘Casualty’.
Dr Ross Garner and Mike Talbot: collaboration on producing tv in Wales for the mainstream.
Dr Cindy Carter and Huw Foulkes: collaboration on News for young teenagers.

“There are now plans to reflect adverts off the moon,” said Professor Justin Lewis as he argued that all television is ultimately driven by a  hidden consumerism. That was just one of the many insights gained as the Wales Centre paired academics with television professionals for one-to-one dialogue and debate at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies.

Karin Wahl-Jorgensen reported that the BBC is still trapped in a two major party world when it comes to political reporting, while Jenny Kitzinger told us that the portrayal of people in a coma in hospital drama is not only wrong but actually misleads the public. Other subjects discussed included news provision for the younger teen audience and an attempt to define what the ‘mainstream’ means within commercial British television.

Mike Talbot from ITV Wales said that cage fighting and cuts to council services were both current and mainstream, but that only one was really popular with audiences. So which programme offered true public service broadcasting? As the academics would say – discuss!   Tim Hartley

  Ashok Ahir during the discussion