The Experience of MojoFest Galway 2019 With Marie-Clare Byard

It’s hard to put into words the experience of attending Mojofest 2019, which was a 3-day event held in University College Galway from 6 – 8th June. MojoFest is the brainchild of Glen Mulcahy, founder of Titanium-Media (a training and consultancy firm specialising in mobile journalism and social video storytelling) and a former Head of Innovation with RTÉ.

Attending Mojofest was like being fully immersed in a community of like-minded content creators, journalists, mojo trainers, industry experts and tech heads who had travelled from all over the world to be in Galway.

On photo walk with @publiclens1 @Fotopunctuation & slow shutter expert @iphoneographyC in Galway.#shotoniphone with @NightCapApp pic.twitter.com/XH4J0BkVCe

— Rob Layton (@Rob_Layton) June 10, 2019

The format was broken up into presentations and panel discussions every day until lunchtime, then the afternoons were filled with a variety of workshops from underwater photographers to mojo portrait photographers such as Jack Hollingsworth to 360° filming with veteran British filmmaker Philip Bloom, street photography with Tim Bingham, architectural photo walking tours of Galway (With Sir Cam @CAmdiary) and more. So you had the benefit of hearing the industry experts share their knowledge and then a hands-on opportunity in the afternoon, to work with and learn from some of those same experts.

They came from around the world — from Australia, Falklands, India, USA, Middle East, Europe — from the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera etc and all united by their passion for mobile journalism. Thank you Galway, thank you @mojofestival 2019. #mojofest pic.twitter.com/6ow8lMjBY3

— Sir Cam (@camdiary) June 9, 2019

Computational photography (or computational imagery) was a new concept to me and was a hot topic at one of the panel discussions with experts such as Dan Chung, video technologist and founder of Newsshooter.com and Christopher Cohen, chief technical officer at FiLMiC. Computational photography is the use of digital computation rather than optical processes to enhance an image.

Here is a link to a live stream of the “Computational Photography” discussion:

Computational photography session getting underway at @mojofestival https://t.co/MCvKfN7B6G

— ??????? ???????? (@corinne_podger) June 6, 2019

Dan warned that by using computer processes to digitally enhances a photo beyond what the sensor picks up or what the lens sees, such as completely changing someone’s skin colour, computational photography was blurring the lines between what is real and what is fake or exaggerated. Photography as we think we know it is not pure, it has not been for a long time.

Photojournalism has had its fair share of issues around the abstract portrayal of reality but, according to Chung, agencies are more aware of these issues and are therefore seeking verification and setting stricter guidelines on what is an acceptable level of editing/enhancement.

Rhona Tarrant is an editor with Storyful a social media intelligence agency that sources and verifies user-generated content for newsrooms. Verification processes are based on a few fundamentals such as tracing the original content, confirming location and date using geolocation, and checking news reports and other angles for context.

Finding the original source is crucial to verifying content. Storyful also analyzes conversations across social platforms and specializes in dealing with online misinformation and fringe networks. Their website states their mission is, “to dig deeper into the nuance inherent in social media to establish context, verify the truth and, ultimately, to help our partners make sense of the world”.

Top Mojo gadgets recommended by the experts at Mojofest 2019

The top gadget winner for Mojofest 2019 has to be the Insta360 One X  Filmmaker Philip Bloom gave a workshop where he showcased the capabilities of this little piece of kit and did a live edit afterwards. If you buy it, make sure you also purchase the extra long (3 meters) extendable selfie stick too as it’s a game changer as the extra long extendable arm allows you to create high-level drone-like footage in places where you would never be allowed fly a drone.

As every angle is captured in 360 °, you can edit the footage down to any angle you want. Filming on the extended selfie stick allows you to create the impression of having a camera operator following you, as the software digitally removes the selfie stick. You can also get seemingly impossible angles, hyper-lapse, timelapse, time-shift, tiny planet, slow-motion, immersive VR footage, virtual tour footage (such as swipe-on-screen videos used for real estate and virtual tours) and lots more.

The industry refers to this type of 360 footage as “over-capture” video which allows your audience to watch a 360° video in a 2-D video format so you can post it on the likes of Instagram or Tik Tok and you can select which types of angle you want people to see as well as getting the impossible angles that you won’t get using a non-360 camera.

Overcapture videos for #socialvideo content production were a trending topic at @mojofestival in Ireland. Here are some examples on how to use the #insta360oneX for mobile journalism and classic video production. #mojofest pic.twitter.com/TbdFTewIPZ

— Matthias Sdun (@SdunNet) June 11, 2019

Shanil Kawol of youtube channel “How To Make A Video” love to use over-capture, check out his video using the Insta360 One X.

DJI Osmo Pocket – 3 axels, 4K, 60fps Gimble 

Philip Bloom is a big fan of the DJI Osmo Pocket as a must-have gadget in your gadget arsenal and I have to say I totally agree – It puts the power of a steady cam style moment in your pocket and fits in the palm of your hand.

I bought my DJI Osmo Pocket in January and love it mainly for one reason; it does what its name suggests, it fits on your pocket!  I bought mine to replace its predecessor, the DJI Osmo, which was slow to set-up and very big, a far cry from fitting in your pocket – an amazing illustration of how much smaller and more user-friendly technology becomes year-on-year, I’m sure we can also thank the likes of Nasa for their input into nanotechnology!

I just don’t know how I am going to wait a full 12 more months for the 2020 #Mojofest!

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