4 November 2009
And the Award
goes to ...
by Teo Beleaga and Marc Johnson
„„ Senior documentary production lec-
turer Ken Fero, has been awarded the
Peace Award at the London Week of
Peace last month for a co-production
on gang violence
‘Postcode wars’, the documentary he
produced with Souleyman Garcia, was
actually shot by 13-14 year old kids,
some excluded from school, but part of
a training programme on film produc-
tion.
“We were teaching them how to use
a camera like a weapon really, to get
their point of view across” said Fero.
Over the entire year the programme
has lasted these kids worked on
capturing their real life or the real
life surrounding them. Ken Fero said:
“There was a bit of drama reconstruc-
tion in the film which they wanted to
do themselves; because some of these
kids are on the fringes of being in
gangs so they actually know what they
are talking about.”
Leaving school this year, these kids
went from being excluded to graduat-
ing with 10 or 11 GCSE and the possi-
bility of coming to Coventry in a couple
of years. Fero says: “We’ve opened their
eyes to a world which they have never
had access before. Everyone wants to
be in the media, but this has shown
them the real film, and some of them
hopefully will take it forward.”
Asked how does a documentary on
gang violence relate to peace, Ken Fero
argued: “Peace is more than just the
absence of violence. Peace is about
how people want to live their lives and
the film is about them wanting peace
on the streets so, that’s why we got the
award.”
„„ Jonathan Worth, Senior Lecturer in
Photography, has just been invited to
become a Fellow of the Royal Society
of Art, after his involvement in getting
his students’ work into the market led
to what the blogger of visual photog-
raphy studio described as “one great
idea”.
So how do you get your photos out
there and paid for when you’re still
fully covered in the shadows of the
unknown? Jonathan believes to have
found the answer to this and is current-
ly testing the concept. “As we know,
traditional gatekeepers for media
practitioners are being, or have been
rendered obsolete. This experiment
begins to leverage the things that the
internet and social media do really well,
in order to facilitate an adapted old
media business model”, says Jonathan.
Rather than struggling to protect
your work, he suggests giving it away
for free, especially on the internet. But
then how do you make money out of
it? You charge for authenticity.
The experiment he is conducting
at the moment regards selling some
pictures he took of Cory Doctorow,
alongside with a few manuscript pages
of Doctorow’s latest novel – all signed
and numbered by both of them. Follow
his results and further experiments on
jonathanworth.com.
„„ Senior lecturer in media produc-
tion and novelist Mez Packer, has been
short listed for two separate literary
awards: The People’s Book Prize and
the Coventry Inspiration Book Awards.


Mez Packer’s ‘highly original’ 2-tone
countercultural thriller Among Thieves
is up for public vote in both a national
and local competition.
The People’s Book Prize aims to
discover talented authors and bring
them to wider attention. Unusually for
literary prizes, the winner is chosen
each month by ordinary readers in a
public vote and the book with the most
votes will go forward as a finalist for
the People’s Book Prize Awards in July
2010. Mez Packer’s book is short listed
for October, and voting will close on
November 30. You can vote for Among
Thieves by visiting http://www.peo-
plesbookprize.com/book.php?id=152.



Among Thieves is also up for the
2010 Coventry Inspiration Book
Awards, which is run by Coventry
City Council in conjunction with local
libraries. Local readers have nominated
their favourite books, and Among
Thieves has been shortlisted in the
Murder & Mayhem category. You can
vote at http://myvotes.coventry.gov.
uk/56/index.cfm?p=vote&cid=557&
zz=2009101515643.
Mez’s thrilling debut novel is set in
1980s Coventry. Among Thieves is an
exhilarating tale of music, drug-smug-
gling and racism, partly inspired by
Mez’s own student experiences.
 Conference comes back to life

Pictures courtesy of John Lister

„„ People who missed the ground-breaking international
conference on health policy and the media back in June
can now relive the best moments - with the publication of a
6-DVD set covering all of the presentations.
Over 60 people from 15 countries - took part in the event,
held in Ellen Terry Building, and supported by Coventry
School of Art & Design and by Health and Life Sciences.
It was the first-ever conference to link discussion of health
policy with the way in which policies and issues are present-
ed in the news media.
The 3-day conference was filmed by Media Production
students Isaac McGinley and Sid Albanis, and the hours of
footage were then edited by senior technician Bex Pittam.
Health Journalism lecturer John Lister who organised the
conference and has designed the colour-coded packs for
the DVDs said:
“The event was a great success. It has put Coventry at the
centre of an important new discussion on the changes tak-
ing place in health services around the world, and the need
to ensure the public is properly informed.
“The DVDs demonstrate the media skills in our depart-
ment – and we hope they help build up our MA in Health
Journalism, which is the only course of its kind in Europe.”

The 6-DVDs of the Conference Part of the audience at the conference

Wall of BBC
sound opens
up
The Performing Arts department and the Coventry
Peace Festival will host an audio-visual performance to
honour 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The concert “S5 – in the driver’s cab of history” is to
be mixed with a screening of a film shot from a suburb
train travelling East to West Berlin, shortly after the fall.
Adrian Palka, coordinator of the event and performer
within the ensemble said: “The slow meditative qual-
ity and strong atmospheres of the film provides both
inspiration and backdrop to the music from an experi-
mental ensemble of musicians drawn from Germany
and the UK, playing a range of electronic and acoustic
instruments.”
The performance will take place on Monday, Novem-
ber the 7th at 7.30pm in Room ET233. It is free of charge
and open to all. Limited CD’s and DVD’s will be available.
Co
^
ming
to Cov
Next Tuesday a few media students will have the op-
portunity to visit the BBC’s multimedia newsroom, live in
action and participate to a debate on whether and what
the future for TV news is.
Among the speakers: Nick Pollard (Former Head of
Sky News in the Chair), Mary Hockaday (Head Multi-
media Newsroom, The BBC), Jonathan Munro (Executive
Producer ITN), Jonathan Levy (Editor General Election
Sky News ), Stephen Cole (Presenter Al Jazeera English).
Tickets are £5 for students. For more information con-
tact John Mair by Thursday, 5th November 2009.

The student and staff newsletter of the Media and

Communications department of Coventry School
of Art and Design
Edited by Teo Beleaga
Submissions invited to teo.beleaga@gmail.com
With many thanks to John Lister, Ken Fero, Jonathan
Worth, Mez Packer, John Mair and Marc Johnson.