The Mobile Storytelling Podcast

Tipps and tricks on how to tell your story with your smartphone - for journalists, podcasters, experts and everyone who´s got something to tell.

The smartphone is the ultimate storytelling tool - for journalists, filmmakers, podcasters and all the other inhabitants of the smartphone universe. In this podcast the journalists Björn Staschen and Wytse Vellinga share alle the tipps and tools based on their 2018 handbook "Mobile Storytelling". They talk to well-known journalists who know the technology well and reflect current developments.

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Find the hosts on Twitter: @WytseVellinga or @bjoernsta

Intro and Outro music (c) Arnav Srivastav - River Lounge (Get it on www.909music.com) via Soundcloud.com

Spanish journalist Leonor Suarez used her mobile phone to cover the Spanish Civil War. Not the real event off course, but a reenactment of the 1930’s war for a documentary. How did she experience being a director, cameraman and journalist at the same time? And what were the challenges in working on the phone?

Clubhouse is the new ‘hip and happening’ social platform. Everybody wants to be on it and some are even willing to pay for an invite. But is this social audio platform useful for journalism? And what about recording a complete podcast on it? We tried it for this very special (and experimental) first episode of season two of the Mobile Storytelling Podcast. With guest appearances by Louisa Houben (ZDF), Marc Settle (BBC) and many others.

Marc Settle is training his colleagues for "that" moment in their career. "My goal is to make people aware of the capabilities of the phone when they need it," for exaple breaking news, when the satellite truck is still miles away. The one scene that can change a journalistic career - Marc Settle is training journalists at the BBC to use their smartphone for mobile reporting. They will always be moments when the camera crew will have the better shot - "but we need more people to be able to use their phone for reporting." Marc gives us a great inside into one of the biggest broadcasters in the world and its workflows around the smartphone. He also talks about his role as a trainer - and of course he gives some hints on apps that he really likes.

"The smartphone makes me feel safe." Martin Heller has been reporting on protests and demonstrations for nearly 20 years. A lot of his current reports are filmed and edited on smartphones. "Somedays it helps not be seen as a reporter with a big microphone and a cameracrew, especially when journalists are shouted at or even attacked." He started using his smartphone for reporting in 2013 with an iPhone 4. Currently he leads a video team at WELT media outlet in Berlin. For him it´s "a decision in every second" what to do next: edit or send a tweet or go live. He tells us about his light equipment, his approach to reporting even in dangerous or challenging situations and emphasizes the importance of video journalists especially at protests: "Sometimes it´s one image, one scene that tells the whole story of a protest."

He doesn´t do the dance, but still - Marcel Anderwert is quite succesful on TikTok. What an achievement as a news reporter! Marcel works for the Swiss Broadcaster SRF. Initially, he reported for national news like everyone else - he went out with a camera crew. But he always had a passion for smartphones. At his comapy, they called him "the iPhone doctor" because he repaired his colleagues´ phones early on (and even charged them for it!). Then he started telling his stories with his smartphone, and noone noticed. Convinced by his filming skills, SRF then commissioned him to produce solely for social media channels. Since then Marcel is experimenting with formats, platforms and technology, but always focussing on the story. In this episode he tells us how he shoots a story that finds its audience on classical TV as well as TikTok.

“Storytelling was always a part of my live." But first, Sallyanne Massimini studied fine arts - she worked in arts galleries and loved painting(s). Only in her senior year in college she discovered visual effects and video and ventured into film making. Then her career took of: She worked on commercials, documentaries and fiction. But still she tells us: "Every frame is a painting." Framing and composition are important to her - she tranfers her artistic knowledge to film making. That brings a lot of planning with it before a shoot, but; "Sometimes, you´re so completey focussed on a moment, and you wait for magic to happen." Sal got her hands on a prototype of REDs legendary Hydrogen One phone and started shooting also, but not only on her phone.

Eleanor Mannion´s story shows how Mobile Journalism can change a career path. She stumbled into journalism "by accident", as she recalls: Normally working as prodction staff behind the cameras at Ireland´s publix service broadcaster RTE, she took part in a Mobile Journalism Training. And loved it! Since then she has embarked on an impressive journalism career even filming a documentary with her smartphone. She currently works in a unit that is producing journalistic content for a younger audience, being consumed mostly on mobile phones. She talks to us about the challenges and chances that lie in mobile journalism.

“Technology changes, storytelling never will." Mike Castellucci even shows this on a t-shirt he wears from time to time. "Me taking everything to the extreme, I started shooting not only 2 minute stories with my phone, but half our shows for network television." Mike is the mastermind behind "Phoning it in", a television programme that is completely shot on mobile phones. It all started with his boss asking him to go on an interview without a camera crew but his phone - and ended with an Emmy award (and several others). In our podcast, Mike tells us how he shoots his network shows, how an iphone ended up under a big bulls feet, how important it is to honour people and their stories. Mike also teaches journalism at Michigan State University and produced a special Corona programme together with his students that won him another award.