2013 is the second year that the AIB (Association for International Broadcasting) has marked the growing importance and quality of short video documentaries and reports in its annual awards, which celebrate the best of global factual broadcasting. We are looking for the most compelling use of the short format to bring stories to life and to impart knowledge.
We are agnostic as to the producer of the documentary and the platform on which it was shown. The choices are becoming ever wider; not only are traditional television broadcasters making more and more short documentaries, often as part of their transmedia coverage of key issues, but other traditional and non-traditional journalists are producing short videos to add to their online reporting.
More and more newspapers are including videos on their websites. This is a global trend with examples from around the world including Argentina’s Clarin, The Australian, Egypt’s Al-Ahram, Germany’s Die Zeit, The Times of India, Nigeria’s Vanguard and the US Washington Post. Print journalists are allying the power and availability of the latest video technologies with their traditional journalistic skills to enhance reporting for their “readers”.
Meanwhile online video portals are now providing far wider choice of content than just user-generated clips of amusing moments or karaoke-type singing. YouTube is commissioning original content for subjects such as the arts and sport; Vimeo attracts short documentaries from production companies like the UK’s CTVC; and Dailymotion shows news videos from Reuters and the Press Association new agencies among others.
Broadcasters are also using videos from “citizen reporters” to cover current affairs more extensively, providing more detailed and first-hand background information as well as allowing them to capture breaking stories quickly. A good example of this is France24’s “Observateurs”, broadcasts of stories sent in by ordinary people and checked by the France24 team before emission.
With such a rich variety of sources for short documentaries, each bringing their own skills as well as new techniques to the format, we are looking forward to the entries in this category with great excitement.
For full information about the AIBs “short documentary or report” award and how to enter, please go to our “entry information” page to download or view the entry brochure.
