RUTV 3

The ANCYL President Julius Malema is making headlines all-over the country lately. His ‘controversial’ statements put him in the spotlight. This time around he was said to come and address Rhodes students, staff and Grahamstown community at large. People came in droves and we were there too to listen to ANCYL president delivering his talk. He never showed up and SASCO representatives cited Rhodes Management as the ones who did not allow Malema to come. This sparked an angery response from Student Services Officer Larissa Klazinga who said that SASCO was lying that Rhodes did not allow Malema to come. There was an exchange of rather harsh words between Klazinga and the ANC Loyalists due to the fact that after the talk by Bhuti Manamela there was no question and answer session as expected.

 The Gender Action Project (GAP) representatives attended the rally with clear intentions that they would challenge everything to be said in the rally. And at some stage there was a clash between ANC loyalists and those who stand for women right issues in conjuction with GAP. The activists were also not happy with the way they were treated at this rally. These activists were holding up placards with statements that have been said by ANC President Jacob Zuma and ANCYL President Julius Malema.

However, the rally continued with Bhuti Manamela Young Communist League Secretary-General addressing the crowd [podcast][\podcast]. Before Manamela could begin his talk the crowd was kept entertained by a group performing on stage. The hall was full to capacity and also outside the hall there were people in large numbers anticipating the arrival of Malema.

As reperters we could have taken any angle  for the story as there was so much happening in there. And due to time constraints we could not include all that happened in the rally. However, you can have a look at some inserts that were filmed during this ANC rally bellow…

Click bellow for the story

 Click bellow for more on GAPs President views

 Click bellow to view the performance…

 Bellow is the discontent activist…

 Pirates Pizza is a student-run business started by Geoff Waugh, Daniel Hocutt, Karim Dhanani and Chris Marshall. They were all students studying at Rhodes, and some are currently finishing their degrees here. As the boys themselves put it on their website : 

 “The enterprise was started in Dan’s bedroom in Cullen Bowles res, it quickly grew to the point where the university waved its big finger at us and demanded that we cease and desist any and all mind-blowing pizza making operations on university property, which we completely understood, as they of course we’re just jealous because they didn’t know our secret recipe… Erm and we were breaking every rule they had written about residences and businesses on campus.”

After Rhodes forbid Dan to continue making and selling pizza in their bedroom, they moved their enterprise to a small venue next to Maxwell’s restaurant in Somerset Street. To raise the capital to sub-lease this property Geoff sold his old Mercedes, Dan sold cows that their family owned and Chris “begged, borrowed and stole,” which in Pirates terms means he loaned some money. Karim joined the team as a partner, and the new Pirates was opened.

 Since they opened in 2007 Pirates has been a hit amongst Rhodes students. As their fan page on Facebook dictates they are a:

“Student run, owned and consumed boot leg pizza venue. Always hard to draw the line between the crew and the customers as they generally are the same bunch…pretty ‘ridiculously good looking people in it that know how to have a good time and make pizza, open till 3:30am on the big nights.”

 Their cheap pizza and lively atmosphere have drawn in a great deal of customers and created some avid Pirates Pizza fans. In fact, they have done so well that they are expanding to a larger premises in African street in May 2009.

This venue will not only sell pizza but operate as a fully functioning, hip and happening new party spot for Rhodes students. The owners have been notoriously secretive about developments happening in the club in order to keep it a surprise for opening day. But stripper poles on the bar and a “fun police” have been promised.

Initially Pirates only employed students, but with their expansion more employees from the greater Grahamstown community are joining the crew.

The Pirate Ducky

You may have watched the vlog on Pirates Pizza’s effort to create employment. Although this was an exciting and interesting piece of soft news, the package was harder than first thought. 

Getting the story

Pirates Pizza is a student-owned business which opened in late 2007. There have been rumours of its expansion/move for a while but the owners don’t want to confirm the rumours or speak about the new launch.

But RUTV reporter Grethe Koen knows the owners and was able to persuade them to allow RUTV to shoot the story as a human interest piece.

Narrowing down the Angle

After we got the story, the next issue was tightening up the focus behind the story. We wanted to include more on the credit crunch, unemployment and the informal sector. We even got some great shots of a vendor on the main street. But, because of the limited time of the package we weren’t able to include the information. 

Surprising content

After clearing up our idea for the story we then went on to shoot the interviews. Grethe and I were both surprised by the content and information that came from the interviews. 

One of the things that struck me is the amount of community engagement the business is planning to get involved in. As a semi-new student business, you don’t expect Pirates Pizza to be worried about developing the community. But according to the General Manager, Jonathan Inngs, Pirates Pizza is going to introduce a number of plans and programs to help feed, clothe and employ people from the township. 

Inngs says Pirates wants to create a business mandate which focuses on giving to the community because they feel as a business “that its vital that we get involved” . 

For those of you who are interested in how Pirates Pizza plans to get involved in the community listen to the audio clip, featuring General Manager Jonathan Inngs, as he talks about their future projects.  [podcast]http://rutv3.ru.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/audio-clip-for-pirates-pizza.mp3[/podcast]

We are suffering from technical difficulties

On the technical side, this story turned out to be a nightmare. Between the black walls in the Pirates building which caused serious lighting issues, to reshooting sign offs and faulty equipment nothing went as planned.

The one lesson that came from this package is that you can never have enough shots. As a cameraperson, you always have to make sure that you have a variety of shots as well as enough action shots to fill the story. And even when you think you have enough, shoot some more!

For instance, in the Pirates Pizza  story one problem was that our shots didn’t match our light content. Producer Paddy Donnelly even critisized the visuals as “unexciting and dull”.

But it wasn’t because we didn’t have interesting shots; instead we made the mistake of ‘not writing to visuals’. We should have instead included shots like this action shot which would have given the story more of a feel good effect.

The prized pizza product

Inspite of all the challenges and things we wish we had done better, we are still proud of our FIRST NEWS STORY. It was a fantastic learning experience on how to produce news and we made great contacts for news and pizza!

Our reporter, Camalita Naicker, talks to Rhodes SASCO President Xanti and COPE Representative on campus, Loyiso Phantshwa about COPE members in SASCO and the possible Death of SASCO.

Phumzile Manana investigates the consequences of accepting more students at Rhodes, than ever before.