Session 3: TRIBUTE TO THE WINNER OF THE RORY PECK/SONY INTERNATIONAL IMPACT AWARD
Mark Damazer: The winner of the award is James Brabazon's piece, it was largely unfashionable and it had in the past been overlooked both the piece and the conflict on which he was reporting. So what I would like to do now is just to show you two minutes of that report and the winner of this year's winner of this year's Rory Peck/Sony International Impact Award and the winner of the Freelancers Choice Award the piece of film which the freelance community themselves felt was the best and the most important thing that had been produced by a freelancer this year.
(runs videotape)
Mark Damazer: I am now joined by this year's winner James Bramazon in the London, James can you hear me?
 James Brabazon: I can hear you absolutely perfectly.
Mark Damazer: Great I wonder if I can ask you why did you go? Did you go because you loved the story? Or did you go because you knew that no one else had gone?
James Brabazon: Well I can't really claim because I love the story because when I first went to Liberia the story wasn't being told. There was no one there, there was no film coming out and a lot of people were unsure what was happening at all. I went because of the lure of an untold story and I went because sources of mine, contact of mine on the ground were telling me things that were being denied by the international community and by other journalists and is seemed to me that it was a very good idea to get into the midst, onto the ground and see what I could unravel about what seemed, to me a least, an interesting and serious situation.
Mark Damazer: When you read your CV which I won't read out now in front of 400 people. It's clear that you like going to dangerous and difficult places. To what extent I you driven by temperament to do that? And to what extent are your choices based on the fact that you know that there are some stories where the big organisations for all their resources and infrastructure just won't go there?
James Brabazon: I think one's temperament is obviously instrumental in what one does and I think that everyone has a talent. My talent is not for writing sports reviews or writing for the business pages of newspapers, my talent is to do what I do. And I think that everyone should do what they are good at I don't draw any distinction between it been a better job to do what I do then other people it's just something I feel comfortable with. My motivation to go into conflict areas is largely derived from the fact that people who live in conflict areas have very valuable and interesting stories to tell and they are stories which often don't get told because of the insecurity of the situation in which they live in. And I think it's up to the journalistic community to try to tell their stories because they are very constructive and very important and interesting for us to listen to and to take heed of.
Mark Damazer: James why don't you tell this audience what happened to this material when you bought it back last year?
James Brabazon: When I brought the material back I approached several different broadcasters some of whom I'd been in contact with from the field who knew step-by-step what was happening as I went along by satellite phone. And others who I'd presented the material to when I arrived. And there was very little interest in the material, indeed it was only really once the South African Broadcasting Corporation put the material out as a half-hour documentary slot that some interest began to pick up. But I must say that as soon as it came to the attention of, say, the editors at Newsnight at the BBC, they ran with it immediately and they were very keen to put the material out because I think they could see obviously what they had in front of them. My main complaint and criticism is that trying to secure any kind of interest never mind any funding before doing a trip like that was just completely impossible.
Mark Damazer: That's very interesting, thanks very much. I wonder if I can be joined on the podium now by Tim Lambon whose work we've already seen, he was working with Lindsey Hilsum. He shoots edits advises on security matters and as we've already seen does humanitarian work in his spare time. He doesn't wear the shirt in Baghdad! Tim what we heard there from James there was about the difficulty in getting stuff commissioned and people keeping to the faith and we've also got here Naji Bula who also won last year's Sony International Impact Award for that stunning piece of work that people might have seen along the ridge around Masar y Shareef which was a very conspicuous winner last year as well. And I know that it's not been the easiest of years for him. Just give me your view on what it's like trying to get stuffed done and commissioned and get going on all of this.
 Tim Lambon: I'm in a situation now where I'm actually on a contract type of basis with a large broadcasting organisation in Britain but prior to that I spent nearly 15 years doing what Naji Bula, James and what people like Rory Peck were doing previous to that. In fact I first met Rory in Afghanistan back in the mid-Eighties when that was a war that was completely off the books as far as the major networks were concerned. They could not invest the three months that it took to going with the mujahedin in Afghanistan and film them attacking the Russians and come back out with the footage. There were other places: there was Mozambique, there was going into Nicaragua with the contras all these sorts of things. And at that stage it was very difficult and I believe it is still almost impossible to interest news organisations in a story of something which is happening but is not the main focus of the news agenda at the time. So this year we've had Iraq and I've been fortunate enough to be sponsored by the media organisation I now work with to be in Iraq for the whole period. But Liberia was going on, Sri Lanka is starting to boil up again there are all sorts of other places that freelancers will invest time and often their own money go and report from. And it is very difficult to come back from one of those stories particularly if you don't get major bang-bang to sell that footage.
Mark Damazer:Thanks I think there's central and overarching message is that organisations which have money and people and resources know the extent to which they have to rely on freelancers to paint as full a picture as we can. And the technology means that the reliance has got greater and not less because there are more possibilities to go to more places. And we've all got a responsibility to look after the freelance community because without them it's not our organisations glory which will be diminished it's the understanding of the audience. So having heard these anecdotes about how difficult it can be when they next pick up the phone, give them a break and at least have a conversation because recent experience indicates, am I right, that that doesn't always happen?
Tim Lambon: It doesn't always happen but one of the good things about the freelance community at the moment is the Rory Peck Award or the Rory Peck Trust rather and right now I'd like to hand over to Tina Carr who runs it just to give us a quick run-down of what they do.
Tina Carr: A lot of you here already know about the Rory Peck Trust and a lot of you don't already know about the Rory Peck Trust. For those of you who don't know, apart from supporting freelancers who want safety training by giving them bursaries because the training is quite expensive. One of the most important things we do is to try and make contact, and believe me this isn't easy, with the families of freelancers who have been killed or injured and can't work. And the reason I wanted to grab the mike was to say that we have an all-out onslaught on reaching people in those parts of the world who don't know that we exist and you don't know that we can help them. A little of our money can go an awfully long way to a family who have got no other breadwinner, very often elderly parents, very often young wives with very young children. Also a little of our money can go a long way for somebody who is injured and simply can't work as a cameraman any more. So that is my unashamed plug for the Rory Peck Trust.
Mark Damazer: It's been an exhilarating year, it's been a challenging year it's been a difficult year. It's also being grisly and tragic, a very large number of people in our industry have died this year around the world not just in Iraq, freelancers and media workers from established organisations alike, it's been truly dreadful. I think we should stand in tribute and look at all those names of all those people who have died this year to which I would like to add one, James Forlong from Sky who in his own way is a victim of the war this year. So would you like to stand and pay tribute to those who died this year, thank you.
Transcript by Tony Callaghan
Photo Credits: Piotr Azia, EBU; Balint Eder, Brill Productions; and Mark Milstein, North Foto
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