BBC Scotland’s Colin Wight describes the challenges faced by video journalists and offers advice to those who want to master the art of self-shooting… 

The role of the video journalist is one that has grown in prominence in recent years. As newsgathering technology improves and newsrooms have become more streamlined, the broadcast journalist’s ability to self-shoot and self-edit has grown in importance.

Colin Wight, a senior broadcast journalist at BBC Scotland’s Reporting Scotland, recalls how it would take four people to put a news package together when he started out as a reporter.

He would travel with a cameraman and a sound man to record his report before bringing it back to an editor to clip together. Today he can do everything alone.

After having spent a decade working as a video journalist and several years before that as a reporter for both print and radio, he has lots of advice for would-be VJs.

He’s even created his own acronym, which he runs through every time he switches his camera on before a shoot: ‘WAFER’ (White Balance, Audio, Focus, Exposure, Record).

In a lengthy interview for the website iamdofilmmaker.co.uk, Colin discusses many tricks of the trade – including the ‘grammar of  shooting’ and the importance of the five-shot sequence.

He also explains how the multi-platform nature of journalism today increases the demands placed on broadcast journos, who often have to provide material for radio and online versions of their reports as well.

To listen to the interview in full, click HERE.

Colin’s interview was recorded by Sam Thom for the website iamdofilmmaker.co.uk. Sam is an Aberdeen-based video producer who spent nine years working for the BBC before setting up his own video production company.