It’s taken us 2 solid weeks, but we can now proudly announce the shortlists for the 4Talent Awards 2008 - 5 in each of the 20 categories.

We’ve quite simply been blown away by the quality across the board, and it’s been a real struggle getting down to that fortunate 100, who will be sent off to our illustrious judging panels over the next few weeks to select our final 20.

So here they are: massive congratulations if you’re amongst them, and please, don’t be disheartened if you’re not - stay across future opportunities with 4Talent and there’s always next year! Winners will be notified by 31 October.

Short Documentary
Pinny Grylls, 29, London
David O’Hara, 25, Scunthorpe
Poppie Skold, 26, London
Maria Andrade, 26, London
Laura Martin-Robinson, 28, London

Long Documentary
Fred Burns, 24, Sussex
Katja Roberts, 29 & Magnus Dennison, Newcastle
Tom Evans, 28, Oxford
Lorne Kramer, 25, Bristol
Stuart Kershaw, 28, Liverpool

Dramatic Writing
Ali Muriel, 28, London
Cosmo Wallace, 29, Glasgow
Carla Grauls, 29, London
Tim Price, 28, London
Stella Papamichael, 30, London

Dramatic Performance
Sarah Kempton, 22, London
Elizabeth Rainbow, 28, London
Emma Rigby, 19, Liverpool
Sagar Radia, 22, Middlesex
Helen Clapp, 25, London

Directing
Tom Marshall, 22, Middlesbrough
Adam Randall, 28, London
Dominic Leclerc, 29, Bradford
Robert Glassford, 29 & Timo Langer, West Lothian
Rob Sorrenti, 28, London

Comedy Writing
Felicity Carpenter, 27, London
Chris Grady, 29, Glasgow
Rose Heiney, 24, London
Christopher Wallace, 29, & Philip Hodgson,Tyne & Wear
Daniel Flay, 24 & Alastair Craig, Huntingdon

Comedy Performance
Anna Whelan, 23 & David Tynan, Wigan / Sheffield
Greg McHugh, 28, Glasgow
Vikki Stone, 25, London
Napoleon Ryan, 30, Kent
Eddie Kadi, 25, London

Presenting
Carly Lindon-Forrester, 23, Liverpool
Laura Marks, 22, Glasgow
Amelia Gildea, 23, Wiltshire
Ben Chancellor, 30, London
James Sherwood, 25, Kent

On-Air Radio
Alex Baker, 25, Birmingham
Adam Edworthy, 22, Coventry
Alex James Atkinson, 27, Manchester
Veena Virahsammy, 21, Barking
Steve Folland, 29, Hertfordshire

Off-Air Radio
Andy Ward, 23, Sussex
Simon Buschenfeld, 30, Bristol
Philip Dyer, 29, London
Matt Horne, 26 & Colin Greaves, Gateshead
Ann Scantlebury, 23, London

Music
Toby Trueman, 26 - The Icarus, Edinburgh
Oliver Harrison, 21 - Fossil Club, Bristol
Camille Davila, 29, Cambridgeshire
Louis Standard, 19 - Pinstripe, Avon
Iain Woods, 22, Brighton

Production Music
Ella Spira, 20, London
Blair Mowat, 22, Edinburgh
Chris Hanson, 26, London
Richard Mead, 29, Maidstone
Richard Bradley, 28, Sheffield

Music Video
Ian Smith, 26, Oxford
James Cook, 22, Durham
James Knott & James Curran, 26, Derby
Steven Quinn, 27, Belfast
James Willis, 23, Humberside

Innovation
Becki Burrows, 27, London
Jack Lenox, 21, Surrey
Kay Vasey, 29 & Jonny Emmanuel, London
Mike Young, 23, Hertfordshire
Phil Mundy, 27, Huddersfield

Multi-platform
Chi-chi Ekweozor, 29, Manchester
Dan Hon, 29, London
Steve Ellis, 26, Birmingham
Mike Cunsolo, 28, Sheffield
Claire-Frances Lennon, 25, Glasgow

Animation
Ian Wharton, 23 & Edward Shires, Preston
Mark Nute, 29, Gateshead
Jessica Cope, 24, North Yorkshire
Karen Penman, 28 & Liam Brazier, Essex
Cassiano Prado, 30, London

Journalism
Rob Sharp, 28, London
Hassan Ghani, 23, Slough
Natalie Whelan, 22, London
Lauren Carter, 23, Hertfordshire
Lee Coan, 29, Hertfordshire

Photography
Lucinda Chua, 23, Nottingham
Ellie Harvey, 22, London
Hal Sear, 24, Watford
Eleanor Hardwick, 15, Reading
Loubie-Lou photography, 30, Leicester

Multi-talented
Rob Madin, 22, Chesterfield
Oliver Lansley, 27, Surrey
James Roberts, 23, London
Allyn Lawson, 22, Warwickshire
Jamie Stone, 23, Edinburgh

Wildcard
Chris O’Shea, 27, London
Johanna Basford, 25, Dundee
David Procter, 25, London
Amy Winters, 24 & Kseniya Zagorodnyuk, London
Tanya Richam-Odoi, 27, Leeds

This post is the last in a series. Read the first installment.

Words: Pete Ashton
Illustration: Raymond Weekes

Okay, I’ve rambled and covered a hell of a lot of ground. To be honest it’s hard to give a proper masterclass or How To for blogging because the beauty of the form is there are no rules. I know what works for me but it’s unlikely to work for you and some of the best blogs I’ve seen have been approaching the medium in ways I hadn’t ever considered before. You should use blogging (and other similar web services like Flickr and Last.FM) in the same way you use other forms of communication like the telephone or your local pub - in ways that work for you and the community you’re part of.

And while this might be scary be assured that underlying it all is the magic that makes the internet work, the reason that you can find stuff on Google, how an American became a fan of you band on MySpace or how you got that commission because someone blogged a photo of your work with a link to your site.

Blogging might be as easy as writing an email but its the structured metadata that takes your message and makes available to the right people across the world. And the beauty of it all is you don’t have to think about it, unless you want to (and it’s not that hard really - hell, I can’t write programming code and I get it). You just need to go to wordpress.com (4talentmagazine.com is built with Wordpress), blogger.com, typepad.com or some other blogging service and get posting and linking. The internet looks after the rest.

< Week 7: plugging into the system

< Read the series from the start

This post forms part of a series. Read the first installment.

Words: Pete Ashton
Illustration: Raymond Weekes

Now let’s say that you’re actually really boring. There’s a market for what you do but to be honest the mechanisms of how you do it aren’t really of interest to anyone. Or let’s say you just don’t want to communicate all this fluffy personal nonsense. Blogging as I’ve described it here just doesn’t interest you in the slightest. Allowing for the fact that you probably haven’t read this far (which, if you’ll forgive me, demonstrates a limitation of the magazine form - online this “post” would stand alone and those for whom it might be relevant would find it through Google regardless of what came before or after it on the blog itself) the blogging form still has value to you.

You’ve probably heard the term Web 2.0. If you’ve investigated it a bit you might think it has to do with something called User Generated Content and heralds a revolution whereby professionals are overthrown in favour of the amateur masses, or somesuch nonsense. While this is a side-effect of the blogging revolution it’s not what’s really important about it. What’s really interesting is that the internet is starting to be populated by data that is structured and interchangeable according to established standards.

To illustrate what this means think of a library full of books. Every book is different with unique content but there are aspects of the books that fit into categories. The title, author, publisher, Dewy Decimal categories, dimensions, ISBN, and so on. This information can be indexed by the library to not only identify what shelf the book is held on but how it relates to other books in the collection, very handy for books that cover a number of different subjects.

Most blogging services, along with services like Flickr and YouTube, structure the information you put into them in a similar way. So a blog post has at the very least a title, date, category, and the content itself. And because this is based on accepted standards all this information is interchangeable. Which means anyone can take your content and stick it into a giant database automatically. And then people can ask this database questions and find relevant and accurate information which may well include your content.

You might hear people talking about arcane and mysterious arts like Search Engine Optimisation but this is pretty much all there is to it. Put your stuff online in a manner in which Google can understand it and you’ll appear in the relevant search results. If you have photos on Flickr that are accurately tagged in relation to their subject then they’ll appear in the searches for those subjects.

You don’t have to run a “blog” in the accepted sense of the word in order to get into this game. It’s just that blogs automatically structure themselves in this way and since they’re very easy to use it makes sense to take advantage of this. This YouTube video called Web 2.0 Machine explains this rather well. And when you’re doing this, have a think about how that little search query works for a piece of video. It’s all about the metadata, a piece of jargon which simply means “data about data”. Give you stuff metadata and people will find it. If you don’t have properly structured metadata your website will just sit there with nobody finding it, no matter how lovely it looks.

< Week 6: first impressions

Next in the series: in conclusion >

This post forms part of a series. Read the first installment.

Words: Pete Ashton
Illustration: Raymond Weekes

Now, reading all this you might be saying, “This is all well and good but, frankly, I can’t write,” and that’s a fair comment. After all, you’ve chosen the medium of film or clay or needlepoint rather than wordsmithing for a reason. How do you join this global conversation if you sort of write like a 10-year-old? Here’s a few ideas for a few sorts of creatives:

Cartoonist: Diary comics are a no brainer really. Don’t worry if your life is boring, just think of it as a daily drawing exercise.
Pottery: Video the creation of your pots, especially if you use a wheel.
Animator: As you’re working on a piece post up stills and trial clips.
Photographer: Go play on Flickr for a while and feed your work (and others’) into your blog.
Textiles: Photos of works in progress. Model clothes yourself.

You can probably adapt those ideas to all manner of things and no doubt think of many better ones.

But the big thing here is not to worry about creating something worthy of a Pulitzer on your blog. Use it to record what you’re up to. If you’re selling at a market take photos. If you’re giving a talk, record it and make the audio / video available. If you’ve been thinking about issues related to your craft, jot down some notes and ideas. Treat it as a scrapbook for your journey as a whatever-you-are.

And here’s the thing. No matter how mundane it might seem to you it’ll be fascinating to those who can’t do what you do, especially if they’re interested in the stuff you do, and they’re the sort of people you want to be interested in you.

< Week 4: getting personal

Next in the series: first impressions >

Words: Catherine Bray
Illustration: The Boy Fitz Hammond

What your course won’t teach you: the dos and don’ts of interviewing the good, the bad, and the reluctant.

Scene: hotel room, interior.

The elegantly attired star reclines wearily on a sofa, awaiting yet another dull interrogation on their latest project, sternly instructed by the PRESS OFFICER to ignore any enquiry tainted with even the most elusive tang of controversy. Our hero, the journalist, waits outside the suite, running over in their mind a carefully prepared list of clever questions designed to truly engage their icon with their perceptive insights.

Cut to: montage. The star and our hero are now best friends (perhaps lovers?). We see them wandering, laughing uproariously down a palm-lined boulevarde. Glugging champagne in a bar, entranced by one another’s conversation. Dashing to a car through a coruscating galaxy of paparazzi flash bulbs. Wandering under a full moon, the star offering our hero a lit cigarette. This is true love. Fade to black on a kiss.

Back to reality. Becoming best mates with your interviewee is not the reason the interview was set-up. Usually you’re there primarily to help your readers get some insight into your subject’s work, and maybe try to find out a little bit about what makes your subject tick as a person. Whether you’re a print, online or broadcast journalist, whether you specialize in entertainment, politics, lifestyle, or any other discipline, at some point you’re probably going to experience the thrill of a great interview, the horror of a bad one and everything in between. For the would-be journalist, therefore, one of the most worthwhile skills of the trade to master is interviewing technique.

Perhaps one illusion best dropped soonest is that you are there to make friends, even if you are interviewing a personal idol. Another delusion is the contrary idea that it’s a good idea to piss off your interviewee - anger makes great copy, right? Well, it can do, and depending on the kind of publication you work for, may hook readers, but bear-baiting is a different kind of talent to journalism.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be frank. However, what might be considered frank when speaking to a friend can easily seem rude to a famous stranger. A journalist who wishes to remain anonymous recounted to me with wistful regret the time he opened an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow with some honest criticism of the star’s pet project, Sylvia: “Never, ever open with any kind of derogatory comment about the star’s past work, unless they bring it up themselves, and if a PR or minder is present expect the interview to be terminated immediately. And, worst case scenario, for a complaint to be made about your interviewing technique.”

It’s the kind of gaffe that we all like to think we would never make, but for the aspiring journalist there are plenty of other pitfalls - as well as opportunities - which tend to be learned after the fact, as they aren’t necessarily taught on journalism courses. Of course, you can learn some of them chewing the fat with some seasoned pros, which is exactly what I set out to do here.

1. Don’t: Embarrass yourself and everyone else present with crazed requests.

“The worst thing I’ve ever seen done was at a series of roundtable interviews for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. One journalist, at the end of each interview, insisted on being photographed with the star as a sort of proof they actually met them. But this particular photo apparently had to involve the star holding up, or wearing, a jumper patterned with the journo’s national flag. Nasty.” James Mottram, film critic and author, The Sundance Kids

It sounds obvious, but if you’re interviewing a celebrity or other high-profile figure there’s a world of difference between politely asking someone to sign their autobiography, and going above and beyond. Some interviewees will be quite obliging; I remember a roundtable interview where The Lord of the Ring’s Andy Serkis posed happily for pictures and even recorded an answerphone message for one journalist in his Gollum voice, but it’s certainly not in their job description to play ball with this kind of thing.

2. DO: See/read/listen to your interviewee’s work in advance if possible.

“Always best to have seen whatever you’re interviewing the subject on. Mr Evan Katz, Producer of Season 5 of 24, wasn’t best pleased when I began the interview with: ‘Hi Evan, I haven’t actually seen season 5 yet, and I’m trying to avoid spoilers, so can we kinda talk about it without talking about it?’ He did his subsequent best to give away every twist he possibly could, then saying ‘Oh… I’m sorry, did I say something I shouldn’t have?’ and sniggering. Fair play though, I would’ve done the same.” Tristan Burke, freelance film journalist

It’s not always possible to get your hands on the relevant goods prior to an interview, but make sure you know as much as possible about your subject before turning up. Fact-checking your research is always worthwhile: interviewees quickly get bored of having to refute a popular misconception, and while the internet has made laying your hands on a wealth of information a relatively fast process, it’s also very easy to circulate rumours. Before asking whether it’s true they starred in The Wonder Years, see if you can find a reputable source backing it up.

3. Don’t: Underestimate the language gap.

If you’re interviewing someone from a different culture or country, check your questions make sense and aren’t going to piss people off.

“I was with a gaggle of journos in the gardens of Pinewood on the set of Stardust. Director Matthew Vaughn was wheeled out, wearing don’t-fuck-with-me-sunglasses to face about twenty hacks. And, as frequently happens, it was the overseas journos that asked the worst questions. Their first bloody question to Vaughn was ‘Has Claudia Schiffer visited the set?’ which immediately put him in a bad mood. I think if your editor’s told you to ask that question, at least butter them up first. Then they asked Clare Danes how it felt to move from being a sexy girl to a sexy woman. She looked bewildered.” Steve O’ Brien, pundit, BBC4

There are always going to be cultural differences when interviewing internationally, some of which will be avoidable, some less so. In general, save those potentially controversial topics for last.

4. DO: Take the age of your interviewee into account.

“Woody Allen and I had a strange musical chairs incident at the start of the interview. He asked me where I wanted to sit, I took a chair. He said no, not that one, that’s my chair, so I moved to a neighbouring sofa. Moments later he asked me to move again, because he couldn’t hear me. Rather boringly, I’d done my research, prepped well and it went swimmingly. I’d just forgotten to factor in the fact that 70-odd-year-old men are a bit deaf. And speaking of OAPs… I interviewed veteran Hammer Horror scream queen Ingrid Pitt at her house, and the whole thing was faintly surreal. Couple of tips: don’t laugh when your hostess drops a plate of biscuits; she thought I was taking the piss. Win her round by complimenting her on her Russian tea. Do nod sagely when her mild request to write a column for your magazine suddenly turns into a proper, scary demand. Glad her husband walked in at that point to calm her down a bit.” Graham Taylor, The Sun TV Mag

5. DO: Know your subject area.

“I interviewed cartoonist Scott McCloud in 1990 or so, with no chance to do any preparation or research, soon after he had made a splash beyond comics’ little pond with a ‘graphic novel’ called Understanding Comics. It was soon obvious that he had had his fill of being asked dumb questions by people who knew nothing about comics, and he tested me out early on, in steps - mentioning Jack Kirby (the giant of US comics), then Art Spiegelman (Maus), then Osamu Tezuka (Japan’s “god of comics”). When I replied to that last one by saying that I’d written an obituary for Tezuka, and showed that I knew McCloud’s other work too, I was in, and he became friendly and forthcoming. We talked a lot about the craft of comics, as I recall, and knowing what I was talking about made all the difference, by asking productive and even demanding questions and showing I understood and followed what he said. I got a lengthy interview out of him, and he was genuinely interested and thoughtful.” Martin Skidmore, freelance journalist

Always pursue interview opportunities that fall within your specialist subject areas - you’re putting yourself streets ahead of the writer who just takes it on as a job at no extra effort. The problem may be making sure you let your interviewee get a word in edgeways.

6. DON’T: Assume anything.

“I once had an hour-long interview with Sir Ridley Scott which, without anyone telling me, was shortened to 45 minutes. Needless to say, I was a little surprised when the publicist told me to wrap things up a full quarter of an hour earlier than I was expecting. The moral of the story? Always keep your last question in mind, ready to drop in if required. It should be something that you really want an answer to, and preferably something that will prompt a long answer giving you plenty of quotage. Also, as you go into the interview, check how long it’s going to be - it might have changed at the last minute and there’s never any harm in asking.” Richard Edwards, News Editor, SFX

As Richard points out, it’s always worth checking and double-checking the details of your interview. As well as being useful from your point of view, if it’s a high-profile interviewee with a busy schedule it’s helpful to the press officer to know you’re on the ball.

7. DON’T: Rely on technology.

“When Mrs Thatcher was made Minister of Education they wanted to me to do a proper profile of her, following her around for two or three days getting a flavour of her work, but what in fact happened was I was granted an hour in her office. I went along with a tape recorder with which I wasn’t very familiar and about half way through the interview I realized that the tape recorder wasn’t working and I was far too scared to say, so I went back to the office and said I’m sorry but I don’t think it added up, I don’t think this interview should run.” Katharine Whitehorn, author and veteran journalist, The Observer

Recording technology means there are plenty of journalists today, particularly on magazines, who don’t learn shorthand, preferring to rely on the dictaphone. Old school hacks may recoil, but there’s arguably nothing wrong with this - provided the technology doesn’t let you down. Accuracy aside, if you’re touching on anything contentious it is doubly essential that you have a record of what was said and that you keep the audio file so that you can prove, should you need to, that your article is accurate. Test your equipment, bring spare batteries, and if it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity you could even consider bringing a back-up recorder.

8. DO: Maintain your composure.

When interviewing legendary columnist, author and personal icon Katharine Whitehorn for the above comment on her Thatcher interview, I found myself unusually flustered. It’s one thing interviewing a major musician whose album you don’t happen to rate, or a filmic flavour of the month you only heard about for the first time this year, or a politician you know for a fact is a lying scoundrel, but interviewing someone you’ve looked up to since beginning your career can do strange things to a person. When she’d finished her anecdote, I laughed. Only I didn’t, I snorted. A great, pig-truffling snort straight from the bacon emporium. She politely pretended it hadn’t happened, and to cover my confusion I asked her to sign my copy of her autobiography. She asked me how I spelled my name. “Exactly like yours. But with a K. I mean a C. But exactly like yours apart from that. Except it’s not an a in the middle. It’s an e. The ending is identical though.” Smooth.

This post forms part of a series. Read the first installment.

Words: Pete Ashton
Illustration: Raymond Weekes

Last week I alluded to how writing for blogs is different to writing for print, but don’t think that means it’s inferior. Professional writers who trade on the value of their words often find it incredibly hard to adapt to the medium. They’re locked into a particular style that serves their purpose, be it journalism’s Inverted Pyramid and short paragraphs or the structure of an academic essay.

What I think defines a typical blog post is how conversational it is. The tone will be closer to a letter and quite often it won’t be reporting all the facts or making a coherent argument, but raising a topic or continuing a discussion. In itself a blog post can seem lightweight and frivolous, obsessed with some minutiae and addressing a niche audience, which is possibly why professional writers can sometimes be a little dismissive. And rightly so. Blogging, as I’m defining it, is quite terrible at the sort of things academics and journalists do. But it’s also quite wonderful at things they don’t do.

Blogging is part of what’s become known as The Social Internet, which essentially boils down to people talking about stuff. Stuff is a very powerful currency online and takes all sorts of shapes. Facebook is a good model of how this works. A blogger once described Facebook as a really fancy bookshelf where you put things – books you’ve read, movies you like, photos you’ve taken, diary entries you’ve written, events you’re attending and links to cool stuff so you can show them off to visitors.

And then magic happens as Facebook takes your stuff and throws it into your network of friends. Suddenly these things are no longer dumb objects, but the foundations on which social interaction can take place. More critically this stuff generates more stuff. A photo from a party will spawn a conversation about the party, which in turn encourages others to post photos of the party. During these conversations the next party is planned, which spawns more photos and more conversations.

And that’s just a simple linear example. If you’re using Facebook have a look at how you use it. Look at how it maps the connections between people based on the things they do on there. Now apply this to the whole Internet and you’ll start to get an idea of where I’m coming from.

< Week 1: blogging vs. print

Next in the series: everything is intertwingled >

We have a date lined up with the enigmatic Holy Moly as part of our new radio series… and are looking for opinionated bloggers, tabloid journos with a thirst for gossip, or anyone with the style and attitude to get the conversation flowing with one of the media’s most elusive figures.

More info on the Head to Head page.

The 4Talent Awards 2008 are now open: across 20 categories, get your work judged by Channel 4 commissioners and the producers who supply them.

Categories are short doc, long doc, dramatic writing, dramatic performance, directing, comedy writing, comedy performance, presenting, on-air radio, off-air radio, music, music for production, music video, innovation, multi-platform, animation, journalism, photography, multi-talented and the mysterious wildcard award.

channel4.com/4talentawards