IRMI News

A Mobility Workshop in Odesa. 4 Days with MOJO

A mobility workshop in Odesa for representatives of newsrooms that we support as part of “Improving Media Resilience in Ukraine” project is training with experts, intense work on stories, mastering new technology, professional interaction with colleagues. Also – sessions in a bomb shelter and great blues from our trainer.

Already on day one each of the participants received a set of professional equipment and accessories to be taken back to their newsrooms – smartphones, microphones, tripods, adapters, LED lighting, and professional backpacks. During four workshop days journalists learn to work with the new equipment – shoot and edit videos on smartphones, use a tripod, adjust lighting, and do captioning. During the forced stay in the bomb shelter, they learned how to adapt to filming with no natural light: how to adjust the light, microphone and tripod. The spotlight is on Robb Montgomery, the trainer, who accompanied the training with a wonderful guitar blues.

Protagonists, locations and topics are united by one theme – these are Mojo reports on the integration of immigrants in Odessa. Stories on social cohesion, humanity, the ability to find yourself and support those around you. All that was learned during the first two days of the mobile journalism training, the journalists applied in practice, working on real cases for their stories. Also, just like a week earlier in Ivano-Frankivsk, they were inspired by the protagonists they talked about. Their ability to preserve their creative spirit and skill, to enjoy life despite the war, relocation, integration in a new community, new conditions… These shots will become full-fledged stories that journalists will publish in their publications. The biggest challenge per our participants is to fit all the collected material into two minutes. Kudos to the trainers who support and show the direction towards improvement – how make it shorter, how to keep the most important thing despite the temptation to keep as much as possible. The result stunned many: the videos turned out to be a really stylistically diverse and impressive.

At the mini-film festival the trainers and participants chose the best stories by majority vote. An impromptu mini-concert from Robb and sweets for the three best videos – that’s how we ended the training. “Mojo is the future of our journalism.” “Non-trivial”. “This will give us a new audience.” “That’s a chance to provide the reader with quality content.” – the participants feedback goes.

The training was part of ‘Improving Media Resilience in Ukraine’ project implemented by IRMI together with з Fondation Hirondelle and financed by Swiss Solidarity.

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