Flash to the Future — Part II

An Interview with The Bombay Flying Club’s Poul Madsen
(The pauses are when I’m asking questions)

Click here for the Poul Madsen Interview

TRANSCRIPT:

Poul Madsen: To make a long story very short, I was an intern in India back in 2005 when I went to the Danish school of Journalism. I went to Bombay for six months with a few friends of mine who were studying journalism and we were interning at an Indian newspaper called The Indian Express and while we were down there we were doing a lot of freelance work. We did a lot of regular articles and images but also we did some film documentaries, and then once we got back home to Denmark, we decided to start up this small company and we just decided to call it The Bombay Flying Club cause that’s where we lived — in Bombay. We lived right next to it, so that’s the story of the name.

PM: Well, in the beginning what we wanted to do was do film documentaries but then back in 2005, 2006 story-telling on the internet was starting up really slowly, I guess. And especially at the school where we went, the Danish School of Journalism. It was a new thing and actually we spent six months learning to program in flash. We’d never tried it before and it was a very difficult program to learn but we just saw a lot of possibilities and trying to develop new ways of storytelling. So while we were studying at the school we were doing a big project in Northern Ireland. I did it with a fellow photographer and journalist and that’s actually the first story that we really did for the web, and it was — it took us a very long time to script and layout. It’s not very beautiful but it was a good story and I think that’s just where it started, you know. We thought it was a really cool way of working. We just wanted to try to take it a step further, I guess.

PM: Well, actually I just finished a piece last week — it’s a Danish piece and hopefully within the next month or so I will have it translated into English because I think it’s extremely important that we get all these things that we do to a international audience, exactly. Denmark is a small country and I think that there are so many things go on, especially in the US with this thing so I thought it would be cool for us if we had people from other countries look at our work as well, but anyway I finished this piece last week and tomorrow I’m going to start up on a big story with friend Henrik, who is also part of this small company. We’re going to do a story about two Danish who — they went to the war in Afghanistan and that’s a pretty big project and I think that will take at least one month to complete. So, that’s the next big thing for us.

PM: In America, you guys are really far ahead, but in Denmark it’s very small market. The newspapers here are just a lot smaller than the ones in America and I think — well, it’s a question about money, basically. I don’t think the papers here want to spend the amount of money that they need in order to do these things, because they need to get a hold of some programmers that are very good at scripting and who can work together with journalists and photographers on big projects. I think they just take the easy way, which is buy a soundslide template or something like that and just give it up the photographers to do some small stories but you rarely see a very good soundslide piece. So, I think it’s a question about money basically. Right now there’s a war going on in Denmark between the established newspapers and — well, three weeks ago the newspaper that I was working at closed down because the competition is fierce right now. The budgets are very tight and all these newspapers they just want as many ads as possible to earn some money. So, I just think they can’t afford it right now. That’s the thing.

PM: In the United States, you have Media Storm and Magnum in Motion and have a few newspapers that are really good at using these tools. We haven’t reached the level yet in Denmark yet. I think it’s going to come because a lot of things are happening now. The new professional digital camera, the new ? are capable of shooting video in HD. Everyone’s getting broadband connection. A lot of things are going on right now, so I think it’s just a matter of time, and also I think that the newspapers, especially here can see that the audience is not — the general public is not getting on their info from newspapers anymore. They’re getting news and related things on the internet. So, they just need to adapt to it. That’s a process that they have to start, you know. Just very soon, I guess. But it must be the same in the US.

PM: Yeah, I think it will. There will always be some photographers who won’t change and who don’t want to try to adapt to these new ways but I think it’s a gift, you know. What we need is also better quality on the web and that’s going to come very slowly, but when you see the quality of the new camera, the new Canon D, there’s not doubt that this camera will change everything cause suddenly photographers who are working conflict zones will be able to get footage of these crazy things that you wouldn’t normally see. So I think it’s going to change everything and I think in one or two years multimedia will be so much bigger than it is today because that’s just the way it’s going right now. Slowly, I think. I hope so. Yeah, but the question is and I think everybody’s asking: how can we make money on this? This is the big question. I guess that’s why a lot of the established papers are not using these tools because the problem is everyone is used to getting everything for free. So the question is: how can you make money off of this because it’s extremely time-consuming to work with, especially for us because we’re just really just a bunch of amateurs, you know. We’re just a couple of good friends who think that this is fun to do. It’s like we’re doing this because we really like to do it. It’s not because we’re actually earning any money off it yet. That’s going to come too, I think.

PM: For how to make money off of it? Well, I don’t know. It’s a big discussion. I’ve been speaking with companies in the US, also. Everyone’s like how can we earn money off – you could to various things and one way is to get big sponsors, maybe you can get advertisements. Like you would have on t.v., I think already sites New York Times, if you want to see a multimedia piece on their site you have to see a commercial before it starts or something. You could do DVDs. Media Storm they do DVDs but you know that’s a pretty small market I think. It’s a good question. I don’t know. I think print journalism and web journalism, we will see a stronger collaboration between the two mediums. Like last week, I actually managed to sell this new production that I did to a big organization in Denmark. They wanted me to use for two spreads in their magazine on this story and they wanted to put an ad in that story to direct people from the magazine to the web so they can see the web documentary as well. So, that’s one way to do it, I guess.

Sound File courtesy of Poul Madsen