Dunia Tozy
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It's been a good month - story wise

4/16/2013

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I have to keep reminding myself each and everyday how lucky I am to meet the people I meet each day. Working as a reporter has awesome perks, and I love interacting with people who are passionate about what they do each and everyday. I love the fact that I get to do stories about positive things and share people's experiences and I'd love to share some of those with you :)

Last month I had the pleasure of chatting with a lovely lady who was selected to be the 365 Days of Dinning in Richmond food blogger for a whole year, awesome job in itself if you ask me. She was pretty fun to hang out with and we got to go to two different places in Steveston to do the shoot. Thanks so much to all the people from Tourism Richmond who made this shoot so wonderful.
In the next story I feature an awesome company that has taken social media, marketing and movies mixed them all up and came up with a new and innovative way to get a film funded and to get the public involved in the film making process . The company is called Cinecoup and they are still in the process of picking the top movie which will get 1 million dollars in funding and support from Cineplex.
Finally I was so delighted to interview a good friend of mine who is definitely going places with her youtube channel. Maija Preddy's MKP Celebrity Talk youtube channel has about 116,000 views in total. She started the channel herself and she gets to travel with her mom (who is her camera person as well) to different places interviewing various celebrities. She does it on her own time and it's all thanks to the mentra of 'It doesn't hurt to ask'.
These are only 3 stories but I'll share some more in the next few days so stay tuned! ;)

Dunia
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Back in business

1/18/2013

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I know I know, I've been out for, well, a year and a half, and lots has happened since then.. The biggest and most profound change is that now I am a mom and I have a beautiful little baby :) Yes, it's amazing, wonderful, rewarding, hard, sleep-lacking.. how many more adjectives I can think of can't really capture the essence of it all but all in all I am really happy :) 

Another big change that happened during that time is that I moved back to Vancouver and now I'm Vj'ing with Shaw TV's 'Go! Vancouver' , something I've been wanting to do for a long time and I'm happy I get to do so, so yes, I am back in business.

I'm going to try to write often and commit to doing that. I'll feature some of the stuff I'm working on, VJ'ing tips, interesting journalism/video related articles and sometimes some random stuff.

I'll start by talking about one of the shoots I did this week. Seeing how I'm baby crazy these days, I had a great time shooting a story with Langley baby photographer Jillian Kirby. Babies are some of the hardest subjects to photograph because they're so unpredictable, but they can also give some of your best work at the same time. Jillian has been working with babies for the past 5-6 years and she sure knows how to bring out the best in them. 

In terms of VJ'ing, shooting this kind of story can be both hard and easy at the same time. For visuals, you've got lots to work with. Different props, different babies, lost of possible angles. In terms of writing for a feature like that it's a bit more challenging than writing a news story. In features you have to capture the essence of the person you're profiling and dig deeper to find out more about why they do what they do and why do they love what they're doing. I have to say that it's no easy task for me and I still have lots to learn and I guess it comes more with practice :)

The story will air on January 25th on Shaw TV channel 4 and here is a little preview for you.
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Writing about what I'm passionate about... Video Journalism

6/7/2011

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I never thought ten years ago that I would wake up one day to find myself, well, a Video Journalist (or a VJ for short)... Shooting, editing, reporting and writing for a living? Really? Of course, only a science student would say that about writing, and yes that was me. A science student all my life. Living in Iraq I went into the science stream in high school, then to medical school for a couple of years before getting to Canada with my parents and in Vancouver I studied Biology at UBC, believe it or not!

Like so many of those tortured pre-med souls (well, the word 'tortured' might be a bit of an exaggeration, but hmm, ask any pre-med student and they'd tell you, medical school admission process in BC is basically a nightmare even if you're an A+ student!) I was strung through series of application processes year after year, until I said to myself (and excuse my lingo) SCREW IT, I'll try something else - well, at least for now, lol - and that's where journalism came in.

I always did love writing when I was little (in Arabic my mother tongue of course) but I never thought of it as a career especially as an ESL student. But I thought to myself, why not, let's give it a shot, and I was happy to get into the BCIT Broadcast journalism program.

I got into  it thinking I will be a reporter, but in school we had the chance to work with a video camera and I got hooked. Attending a seminar by the amazing CBC Video Journalist Alan Waterman I was fascinated by what he does. A one man show.. all by himself, shooting, writing, reporting and editing.. Wow, how cool is that and that's when I realized I want to do this. I want to learn how to do all this, and be awesome at it!

I was lucky to get a job as a VJ with Shaw TV in Duncan, British Columbia. Duncan is a city of about 6000 people halfway between Nanaimo and Victoria. My job, however, was not limited to Duncan, but the whole surrounding area that's called 'The Cowichan Valley' where about 80,000 people live. With a lot of practice I honed my shooting, writing and editing skills. And that's how I got here, two and a half years later, now working at Shaw TV in Nanaimo and doing what I love to do most: Shooting, writing, reporting and editing, i.e. Video Journalism. After attending the 2011 Social Media Camp in Victoria this past weekend I got inspired to start my own blog about Video Journalism. That's what I'll be writing about  in this blog (most of the time) so I hope you enjoy it and find it useful if you're looking to do video production or maybe even becoming a VJ yourself :)

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    Video Journalist / Reporter 4 Shaw TV in Vancouver, Canada. I enjoy food, humor, movies, travels, languages and culture. I also Love Canadian football & soccer

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