yearbook 2004/05 - The European Film College

A step on the journey
By Nahed Awwad
FROM THE STUDENTS
For more than 50 years Palestine has had a media
presence, many foreign TV crews have come
to Palestine to cover the news and make films.
With them, they brought their own equipment,
technician and ideas, which meant that in many
cases they could not really reflect the reality of
our situation. There was a need for home-grown
productions so we could sound our own voice
and frame our own image.
In 1993 the Oslo Agreement came into being,
one of the issues raised was that Palestinians have
the right to own their own visual and audio media.
At that time we didn’t have any experience
in this field, so there was a need to train our
own professionals. Some people already worked
with foreign news channels and others came in
from elsewhere, so there were a few people with
a fair amount of TV experience. My brother’s
friend was one of these people who had worked
with the BBC as a sound person covering news.
It was after hearing his stories that I became interested
in TV and films and as time went on I
realized that it was not only interesting, but an
important, vocation.
Around thirty local TV stations were established
in Palestine, broadcasting on an Ultra High
Frequency (UHF) band that covered limited
areas. The stations started out with very modest
equipment, VHS cameras and VTRs, some
computers and a mixer.
After working for two years in a part-time job at
one of the local photography studios in my home
town, Beit Sahour, I was looking for a new challenge
and began work in Al Quds Educational
TV (part of Al-Quds University) in 1997. I was
amongst the first five staff to be hired for this
new television station, which was based in the
city of Ramallah. In the beginning we only had
two rooms, one for administration and the secretary
and the other was the transmission room,
which had a small studio attached. In our first
year we began with broadcasting our logo and a
teletext information page, later on we were able
to show live coverage of the Palestinian Council
and after one year of existence we started broadcasting
our own material. We were broadcasting
for ten hours a day, of which we produced 25%
of the material.
It was a modest start with high expectations
and the feeling gained from building something
from scratch and watching it grow, and growing
with it, was tremendous. After two years of
working in every role at the TV station, from
camera operator to editor to multi-camera director,
I knew that I wanted to specialize in editing,
so I did.
By 2002, there were more than 20 staff members;
we had more equipment, mini DV cameras
and one DVCam VTR and two Avid systems,
but still frequently using SVHS.
In April 2002 the Israeli army invaded most
of the Palestinian cities, including Ramallah.
This created havoc in the city and the Al-Quds
building was occupied by the Israeli army for
nineteen days. The building was used a base,
where tanks were parked and soldiers ate and
slept.
When the Israeli army left Ramallah city on
21st April 2002, we rushed to the TV station
to see what was done with our offices and
equipment. It was a terrible scene, doors were
knocked down to ground and trash was everywhere.
It was a distressing scene as we saw all
our effort crumbling before our eyes. However,
this only made us more determined to fix the
damage and go back on air as soon as possible
and so we did after four days of struggling with
fixing what was left, we were able to put our
logo back on air.
After six years of working with Al-Quds, I felt
that I needed to move on. Thus far, I had been