News from New York and Cali

Hello world. So in our plight for gainful employment or just employment, of some kind, THE INTERNS have gone to journalism graduate school. We will keep you posted on goings on from the US. One of us is in New York and the other in Palo Alto, where we are interning. AGAIN. x

An Education: Owen Davey speaks to us about The Story Times on-line series

The Dave channel describes The Story Times producer Owen Davey, 23, as a 'video-auteur'. Owen graduated from UCA Farnham with a First Class Honors in Digital Screen Arts. Now working on-line for UKTV's Dave, he explains how to become a 'video-auteur' and what the hell that means.


1. How did you start your own series for Dave?
There was a full-page ad for Dave's 'Best Part-Time Job In The World' in a free newspaper I found on a train. I tore it out and put it in my left-back pocket; my 'to do' pocket. Some weeks later I found it and applied, since I was already filling my days with applications for jobs that were not advertised as the best in the world, or even as the best in the JobCentre that afternoon.
The online application form was demanding but vague. I had to send a video. I sent a small exert from a farcically, miserably narrated documentary I have been making, only to turn up at the interview to be told that everybody else had applied with enthusiastic "I'm the presenter for you" pieces to camera. The job wasn't mine, but a week later I was back with "some ideas" that Dave had asked for. One idea, my desperate first, was The Story Times pilot, which became The Story Times. To cut a long story short, I fell into an opportunity I'd always wanted, without reference to the five years I spent qualifying for the industry from which it arose. As for auteuriness, I'm cheap, so relatively risk free.

2. The Story Times is narrated by a supremely creepy voice. How do you do it and how can we replicate this for js?
Mostly by bending the pitch down with some free, user-friendly software. I got confused today by bending the pitch down, having already bent it. I am forgetting the sound of my own inadequately youthful voice.

3. You've recently faced legal restrictions in your work, which you protested against by making a statement video, using a dead fish a symbol for the death of your artistic freedoms... What's all this libelous bizzle all about,eh?
Corporate television, so I'm told, has to adhere to certain legal compliance. Dave's lawyers are secret marxist revolutionaries, but they still have to keep me out of trouble (admittedly because I'm new, rather than a badass). Fortunately I planned ahead with a back-up singing-fish episode.

4. We thought the fish was clever. where did you buy it?
The local farmer's market. Of course not! Sainbury's.

5. Did you eat it after?
I didn't. It's the only whole fish they sell, but it's buy-one-get-one-satircal-one-free. That sounds like a rubbish joke but they really do only come in packs of two.

6.How do you chose the villains of The Story Times?
I watch the news on and off in the 24hrs between one episode's airing and another's script-deadline and rather too hastily decide who's most easily bullied. But that's okay, because they're the popular kids, I'm the nobody, and the show's awfully self-deprecating.

7. This one is challenging. You made an episode about PM Cam. Name 3 good things about Cameron.
You think, just because I dedicated an episode to him being kicked in the face by a horse, that I don't like David?
Actually, the Big Society's not necessarily an inherently bad concept, just a familiarly untrustworthy one in the hands of The Conservatives. That counts as ONE. TWO: he is compromised in coalition. THREE: I'm sure he means well.

8. Can you give us a clue as to what episode six will be about?
It's the last in the pilot series, so I was going to cut loose and earn my modern-satirist's 'Pedo Badge', so to speak, what with Sarah's Law knocking about and all, but I've already eaten the remaining fish, so let's see what the dogs drag in. Cryptic.

9. Can you give us tips on how to sound as patronizing as you on The Story Times?
Trying to sound like Will Self or Werner Herzog or any other accomplished and distinctive narrator usually works. Aim for smart, and you'll get there.

10.Can you give us a real life situation when this patronizing tone would be useful in the workplace?
No. It should remain in The Story Times, as if it were stolen from me and trapped there by Ursula.

11. Why is it important we learn the lessons of story times?
It isn't. Just watch it. Leave it on muted repeat whilst you wash-up. Even if you're indifferent to it, send it to all your friends. Use your old hotmail account, if you're too embarrassed. Think of it as a good deed. A sponsorship initiative. You know, the Big Society! Pulling together! Supporting each other! It's ad-sponsored, so just watch it.

12. Favourite Youtube vid of all time?
Insane Robot Dance. I get sentimental.


Take a look at the latest Story Times episode here.

PIMP MY iPHONE: Our Top Ten Applications

Everyone knows that when you get an iPhone it becomes NUMBER 1. Suddenly you can't live without the Wiki application and you enter some kind of Tfl paralysis without the Apple tube map. Soo let's play Pimp my iPhone.

1.Lightsaber: Obviously your number 1 essential iPhone item. Swing your iphone around and relive all your Obi wan Kenobi fantasies.

2.Spotify: It makes iTunes obsolete.

3.TIME magazine: The news in a slide show. Who needs Krishnan Guru-Murthy anyways?

4.Evernote: This allows students to make quick notes in class or in the library. It supports not only text but also photos and lets you access your notes anywhere. This makes it into our top ten for sheer uselessness- since when have you ever been allowed to use your phone so blatanly in a class?

5. Shazam: When you try to remember the tune, lyrics and name of that song you really like but can't remember any of them use Shazam to identify it. Next time it comes on just hold your iPhone to the song. If it was that good a song you'd probably remember it anyways but just in case you don't...

6.Run Keeper: It tells you how many calories you've burnt while running. Downside-you have to run.

7.METRO: Reduce your Metro footprint by downloading the paper to your iPhone before you get on the train. Also reading it on your phone means it takes up less room when the train is already fricken crowded.

8.Mint: Budgets your life for you. It checks your cashflow and gives you alerts like "You've spent too much money on parking." Tell me something I don't know...in crazy cool colour-coded barcharts.

9.Red Laser: It's like a Tesco do-it-yourself checkout but more efficient and more fun. Tells you how much everything costs, where to get it cheaper and lots of online information about that product.

10.Tube Exits: This tells you where the exits on platforms are so you know where to stand on the train. You don't need the internet to support this so you can get all the info whilst still nestled under the token fatman's armpit.

We said ten but honestly the list goes on. If you're feeling particularly touchscreen happy we also recommend Chanel,Whats App, Vocab Daily, Bump, Guardian, Convert Units and Around Me. Oh oh oh and an iPhone is never complete without BUBBLEWRAP but we are assuming you've already got that.

Sergei Paradjanov at the BFI-'The Colour of Pomegranates' Reviewed

This month BFI Southbank are presenting the first-ever full retrospective of Paradjanov's films. 1968 experimental flick The Colour of Pomegranates tells the (completely fabricated) story of an 18th century Armenian poet known as Sayat Nova, king of song. The dream-like imagery of this unlikely biopic-we're talking churches full of sheep, monks sucking pomegranates in synchronicity, Christ-like figures on monastery roofs- is weaved together in a Paradjanov patchwork of life,love and loss. You'll be glad to know, however, that all the surreal arty weird shit that goes on is not an attempt to recreate what happened to Sayat Nova. Rather, it is an attempt to recreate the imaginative and powerful inner life of the poet as he faced the various crises of his life.

Banned by the Soviets, the film first hit international screens during a campaign to release the director from labour camp where he had been jailed by the Russian authorities. However, this wasn't the dissedent's first stint in the Soviet jailhouse. In 1848 he was arrested for homosexual acts with a KGB officer. Film historian Tony Rayns, introducing the controversial director's work at the BFI, tells us that at a New York film festival Paradjanov sat next to Alan Ginsberg while The Colour of Pomegranates was on, pointing to the screen every five minutes saying "I had that one, and that one and that one and that one." On that slightly uncomfortable note, we think you should go and see some of the people he did at the BFI throughout this season.

BOOK REVIEW: The Chapel at the Edge of the World, Kirsten McKenzie

Lamb Holm, one of the many isolated islands of the Orkney archipelago, may have a population of approximately three sheep but it was once home to five hundred Italian POWs. Captured in North Africa during the Second World War, they were sent to work on the construction of four Scottish causeways known as the Churchill Barriers. However, the prisoners soon became tired of assembling glorified chicken crossings and in their desire to create something more meaningful, built an Italian chapel from a disused wartime bunker. It is around this poetic historical framework that McKenzie weaves a narrative of hope and human perseverance with the chapel at its beating heart.

Although at times McKenzie lays on the religious symbolism a little too heavily, her debut novel comes into its own with its subtle treatment of everyday struggles. While imprisoned protagonist Emilio engages in daily battles with the Scottish climate and pompous British officials, his childhood sweetheart, Rosa, is left on the Italian Home Front fighting not only Nazi control but her feelings for Pietro, a dangerous member of the resistance movement. Kirsten McKenzie flits lightly and skilfully between Orkney and Italy, and between the strands of her story of war-torn love, which she tells with sensitivity and colour. All in all, she will have you booking your ticket to the Chapel before you have even finished the book and quite frankly, Lamb Holm could do with the occasional visitor.

It's all about Amazon- you can get The Chapel at the Edge of the World for £9. You know you want to add it to your basket and PayPal it.