Ich bin in Berlin!

Yes, I am in Berlin for the week. The Internet is not available in our apartment, but we are visiting net cafes and such to stay connected. I'm here with four others who are doing their final projects here this week, acting as a trasnlator and mother, making dinners and finding what trains and busses to take. I also order the food and ask how much it costs to use the internet or where the closest ATM is. I knew six years of German would pay off someday.

We drove yesterday and mostly relaxed once we got here. The seven hour trip wasn't bad at all. We made sandwhiches and cookies and only needed a few bathroom breaks. We found a pizza place across the street from the apartment where a pizza big enough for two is five Euros. The conversion is 1 Euro to 1.2 Dollars, so most things are very reasonably priced. Berlin is much much cheaper than Denmark! It's not any warmer though. It's forecasted to rain until Thurday, but then it will be sunny and warm for the last few days.

The apartment we are renting is beautiful. We are in an area called Wedding, and we found this apartment through a Dane who owns it. He rents it out to tourists all year. There are five of us splitting the 4400 Dkr rental for the week. (That comes to about 120 US a person.) All together, with gas, the trip was only 200 a person. We all have beds and the bathroom is huge. The kitchen is completely furnished with anything we might need for cooking. Traveling like this is so much cheaper because we were able to cook breakfast and plan to cook other meals ourselves.

The stories coming out of berlin this week will cover Neo-Nazis, Prasites, Holocaust Memorials and Turkish refugees. I will only be filming and writing for fun, but I aim to possibly put together a small sidebar to my documentary aboutstreet art here in Berin, because the culture is huge here. During my feedback on the documentary at school, one advisor gave me the names of several galleries and streets to go look for art and artists. I think this will e the perfect end to my time here.

But today looks like Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and possibly the Zoo. Tomorrow I may be headed to a concentration camp with some of the other students. The longest standing piece of the Berlin Wall is near the street art museum, so perhaps that will be for Thursday. Pictures are soon to follow.

A big 'Tillykke' is in order!

Tillykke is the Danish phrase for congratulations. A big hand and pat on the back is due to my old friend and fellow journalistic schollar Will Lounsbury for his acceptance to the photo program at the Danish School of Media and Journalism! Will is one of eight students who have the opportunity to study here in the Fall of 2010. Though I wish he could have been here at the same time as I am, I certainly am excited for him to enjoy this school and all it has to offer. I am a bit jealous that he will be here for nicer weather than I will, but at least I'm not missing football season.

So a big congratulations to you Will, I know you'll learn a lot here. You deserve it and the best of luck!

It might not be warm, but it certainly looks nice

The city is beginning to look so much friendlier. The sun is breaking through the clouds more days than not, and despite highs of 9 and 10 C (50 F) the sun makes everything look better. The trees are finally in bloom and it looks like there is life in Aarhus. Street parties and long days mark the beginning of a warmer season, though the forecast doesn't agree. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever see 20 C. (70 F) The Danes laugh at me for complaining so much about the cold, but at the same time I know they wish it were warmer too. I've got a "camping" trip planned with the Linneman Johannson family at the end of May and I know they are all hoping for highs above 20. I put camping in quotations because they are renting a cabin with electricity and running water, so it's really more of a weekend away than anything else. I'm hoping it will be warm enough to spend the days outside. But regardless of how the forecast turns for the next few weeks, my family has reminded me that I only have 4 and a half weeks left of my stay. They have been counting the days, though my mother has always advised against that practice. I suppose sometimes it's forgivable.

It's warm enough for ice cream. I love this little shop on Mejlgade in Aarhus.

But not to forget that I still have a lot to get done in the following weeks. The documentary is in full force, and I have had some amazing filming opportunities. On Thursday an artist named Nicoli took me around the city and showed me hundreds of examples of street art, graffiti, paste up and tagging. He told me about the history of the different factions of the street art community and what the laws dictate as far as each type goes. He pointed me in the direction of the best people to talk to, and even some artists who now produce gallery shows. Hopefully this insight will be enough to produce a good story. Despite how unorthodox it is, I can tell the filming and editing experience I'll gain is invaluable. Doing a story in an environment that makes me uncomfortable is only training me for the million more times this will happen in my career.

Example of commissioned street art 

Speaking of uncomfortable, I was lucky enough to be invited along with some paste-up artists as they went out one night to mount their work. I know paste-up is illegal, but it's about as punishable as littering. A fine, a slap on the wrist and a "please go home," is the worst you can expect from getting caught. But even so, heading out in the middle of the night with people who are breaking the law can be scary. Having this experience though is the best training there is for a journalist. Knowing how to take precautions and when to leave are skills best taught through experience. Nothing at all happened when we went out on Thursday night, and the artists were very kind in speaking English for me the entire time. That's the thing about Denmark, everyone is really nice when it counts.

This week I'll be trying to get appointments with city council members, gallery artists, companies who clean graffiti and a few more interviews with the street artists. In the end, I aim to tell a story of a subculture that is greatly misunderstood and largely passed off as low life degenerates. It's laughable that I met these 20 somethings in an apartment, as they were drinking coffee and agreeing that they wanted to be done not long after midnight because they had class in the morning. Most paste-up artists are actually university students with jobs and life ambitions. I'm not aiming to defend them; they are breaking the law and vandalizing, but I still find their story interesting and worthy of being told.

Anyway, that's about all for now. Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Documentary: It's on

So I'm coming nearer to the end of my time in Denmark, and the final project is all that's left to do. I've decided to center my project around a street art school called Frontløberne. It's an art school where students are free to try all different kinds of projects. My overall story will be on street art and grafitti. I want to look at this subculture and the artistic aspect of it. Moreoever, I want to see what these art students have to learn and if they get a degree, what does one do with a degree in street art?

This weekend Frontløberne had a street art party and painted a lot of walls around the school. I got to watch and talk to people and even got some footage. It was a nice enough day out, but it just won't warm up, so everyone is still wearing coats and scarves. I'll be making a documentary that is hopefully between 15 and 20 minutes long. I'm working alone and for most of the time I will be using a small handheld camera. I anticipate there being some difficulties along the way; trying to work with people who are vandalizing isn't exactly the best for video. But I'm sure we'll work something out.

As the project moves along, I'll be getting coaching from my teachers and feedback from friends. I'll need a lot of support and focus, because making such a long piece could prove to be challenging. Luckily, we have more than five weeks to finish the project. For now, more research and more filming.

Here goes nothing...

Stories finished this week

Here are the two stories I had to work on this week. First is a portrait of a Greenpeace recruitment worker and the second is a one-minute preview to the documentary topic I've chosen for the final project. I'm not as proud of the Greenpeace story as I have been of other projects, but you can't win them all. The only critique of the preview is that there are a lot of shakey shots, but the point was to be artful and tell a story without words. Unfortunately, Blogger is not letting me post videos right now, so until I figure out why, here are the links on Vimeo.

Greenpeace

Art

Second assignment: finished...finally.

It's finished, thank goodness. Gerly and I ran into about a billion problems with this piece. People canceling on us, needing to change topics, general uncooperation by the people we were filming. All in all, I'm happy with what we produced; we found a creative way to tell news, and a more artistic approach to something I have done a million times before at KOMU and in classes at MU. Enjoy!



And I would be lying if I said you couldn't find it here on Vimeo.

It's so cold here, they're running out of salt for the roads

Seriously, they haven't seen this much snow in 14 years. Copenhagen is saying they'll run out of salt this week if it snows as much as is forecasted. At least it was sunny today.

Tonight I'm supposed to go have some real chili at a restaurant with some Danes. I can only imagine what this will taste like, but a bowl of it and a beer are on special for about $8.50, so hey, that's as cheap as it gets around these parts. Food is so expensive out at restaurants. Columbia, you've spoiled me with dollar burger madness and penny pitchers.

We begin our second assignment tomorrow. I don't know what the topic is or who my partner will be, but the suspense is killing me. It'll be nice to get back to work again. Also, plans to see Shutter Island tomorrow night. No spoilers please!

Speaking of movies, the school is paying for us to go see The Cove at a special engagement in a tiny indy-theater in the city. I'm excited to see a documentary making such an impact. Go Journalism! We'll be watching it with the Europe in the World class on March 3rd. A brief review is sure to follow.

For now, vi ses!

First Assignment: Completed

Hana and I turned in our first assignment today. I'll upload it tomorrow from the school's server, but today it was running really slowly because of all the students frantically editing before the noon deadline. It turned out just alright, not great. The subject was fine and his interview was good, but the lighting in the bar was worse than expected and the sound was a slight problem as well. Hana, for it being her first time filming and not just being the journalist, did a great job trying to think of creative shots and interesting editing styles. I felt bad that as an experienced photog and editor I took over sometimes, but she insisted she had something to learn from me. I hope that's true. I hope I was a better teacher than a bully.

For all you Broadcast J students at MU, this will amuse you. I thought of Greeley the whole time I was editing. We had shakey shots and more than one jump cut. Writing to video was difficult because the subject's girlfriend wouldn't be on camera, and she plays a rather important role. Customers in the bar yelled at us to get the camera out of the pub. "Ya make me look like a bloody alcoholic will ya?"

Greeley would have just looked at me, and said "So?" There's no excuse. I should have found a way to make the story better. I could have, thinking back. There were plenty of opportunities I missed. I can't blame it on not knowing the area, not knowing the language, having an inexperienced partner. I can only look at myself and the mistakes I made. I can only move forward and make fewer mistakes next time.

People here joke that the life of an international student is hard work, all the parties and bars. It's true, we do have so many opportunities to go crazy, and everyone is quick to point to the fact that we only have so long in this new city. It's easy to make friends and go out every night with them, because we get pass/fail grades. As long as we're not failing, we're fine. But it's so much more than that. If I miss the opportunities to make great TV, especially while I only have one responsibility, no work, no other classes, then I may as well have gone to any school. But I am going to resolve to remember that I am here to do great work, and try to make my other projects professional quality.

Denmark v America: Media

Yesterday we got a lecture on Danish Media. We looked at trends in print, TV and radio. The obvious decline of newspapers was of concern to the Danes too, but our lecturer pointed out that niche papers are actually doing better than others. He advocated for segmented media, ie, papers only focused on the economy, or religious issues. One such paper is Borsen, which has seen an increase in readership steadily over the past 7 years. Interesting side note, economic news in Denmark is always printed on pink paper.

But many of the similarities between Danish and American Media end there. In Denmark, there are a few major papers who are actually politically active. One such paper, Politiken, actually organized fund raisers to give money to families the Danish government is forcing to leave the country. The current administration is aiming to decrease the number of refugees in Denmark, so families from places like Iran are being asked to leave the country. Politiken launched a campaign against the government, raising money to give to those families so they could continue to live in Denmark. These kinds of involvement in public policy are argued to be "involving readers," but others say Politiken is becoming its own political party.

In TV, as previously mentioned in my post about DR, the state public service stations are actually the most popular stations in Denmark. Though Denmark has made the digital switch, and many channels are offered, those sponsored by DR or TV2 are the most popular stations overwhelmingly. Also, because commercial news is more expensive to produce than syndicated programming, there is very little competition in Denmark.

The Danish constitution provides the following statement in protecting media: "Any person shall be at liberty to publish his ideas in print, in writing and in speech, subject to his being held in responsible court of law." Similar to the first amendment, although there were some problems when TV and radio became popular news forums because the statement says "in print" and although "in speech" is included, there was still debate. Resolved, Danish TV is a lot more liberal than American TV. Both gossip tabloids and television programming are free to show naked people. Ads for prostitutes are also in some tabloids. Stories about pornography and prostitution are acceptable in normal news casts.

Mostly, journalism is facing the same issues across the world. The change to web-based citizen produced journalism is climbing rapidly everywhere. Out lecturer advocated for an approach of embracing the citizen produced content, and having the educated journalists begin to produce a more segmented, investigative, or analytical type of media, and let the uneducated produce the who, what, when, where, why stories. Either way, journalism is changing across the world.

Day One

Today was the first day at the school of journalism. All the international programs are together for the first few days of the week, getting an introduction to Danish life and culture. The majority of that today was a lesson in basic Danish....a three-hour long lesson in basic Danish. After which, everyone was so tired and angry at the teacher that some of us never want to speak Danish again. It's quite a confusing language. The teacher began the lesson by telling us that Danish is really two languages, the written and the spoken. For example: the phrase "Hvad hedder du?" (which means "What is your name?") is pronounced like "Va hetha do?" When the letter G is between two vowels, you don't prounce it. When you come across "nd" the D is silent, and "de" is pronounced like the american "the." It was a tiring three hours.

The school itself is completely concrete. It's beautiful in a way though, because it has a lot of interesting features.

There are a lot of sky lights and plants. Also, on the stairs there are ramps for people to take their bikes through the building. The walls are lined with photo projects and publications. The main area is mostly open, with branches of rooms spreading to either side. There's a big library and a cafeteria. There's also a bar in the basement, called the Friday Bar. It's open every Friday at 2:15 and there's a giant sign in the cafeteria reminding everyone of it.

My teacher, Jørgen, pronounced "Yorn" (well, almost) introduced our small group of 12 to our classroom today by lighting candles and telling us about what a cozy group we'll become. Anyone from MU knows what a stark difference this is from Greeley's B2 class.

I'm really excited to go back tomorrow for our lessons on Danish politics and current events. Being at school makes me feel like I have some purpose again. Despite the fact that I am there all day long, it's so thrilling to be part of something.

Study Abroad: a brief introduction to a long process.

After a good two years of preparing with advisers and planning classes, I'm finally on my way to studying abroad. When I was a freshmen, the first place I thought of going was Germany, because I'd been there just a few months prior, and was eager to visit again. Sadly, the Journalism School here at MU doesn't support any programs there. Next, I thought, France! But I don't speak french, and frankly, I had no desire to become near fluent in a year and a half. Then Brussels! That program was in English. Perfect. So Brussels it was for a long time, because it was a political reporting program, one which would hopefully mimic my career as a political reporter here in the states.

After I was accepted to my Broadcast sequence, I chatted with Emily, the study abroad adviser. She showed me a program in Aarhus, Denmark. It was not an internship program, but rather a semester at the Danish School of Media Journalism. Not only was it a very exclusive TV program, it was one of the cheapest programs we offered, second to only Hong Kong. Nothing against Asia, but I was pretty set on spending some time in Europe, and Hong Kong was an advertising program. I've since looked into the city of Aarhus, and it looks like it's going to be really great. It's akin to Columbia in that it's a comfortable distance from Copenhagen, but is still a city with a lot to do and a good place for a school.

So I applied. It was a long application, but the Friday morning when I finally turned it in, all 50-something pages of it, it was a sigh of relief.

A few weeks later, I met with the Danish Exchange students here at MU, and now I'm in the process of applying for a student Visa, and getting plane tickets and all that goes into leaving the country. Classes start February 1, and end June 5, but I've been told most people take a little while to have a vacation after with their classmates. I haven't contacted anyone I'll be in the program with, but there's only 14 others, and I don't even know where they live now. I'll be excited to finally meet them. All

things considered, even though I have about 70 days until I see Denmark, I have a lot to do still.

(Photo: Me with my completed application: Courtesy of Laura Xiao.)