Dubai: I remember the humble beginnings of gntv when I first joined the Gulf News video team in 2008. I brought the video production staff count to a grand total of two. In those days we shared a single Sony camcorder and wrestled over who got first seat at the one and only editing workstation.
All our footage was captured on standard definition tapes and we used to record our voice narrations in a small cupboard in the library. You can get some pretty strange looks when you lock yourself in a cupboard with a voice recorder three times a week.
We worked hard to offer a video element to online print articles, selecting story ideas that were visual and needed to be showcased through video footage. Reporters became eager to work on videos, trying their hand at on-screen storytelling, with some eventually learning to produce and package their own videos for gulfnews.com. Over two years we went from publishing ten videos a month to as many as 15 a week.
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Today we have multiple cameras and workstations, a soundproof booth to record our narrations and a dedicated team of videographers and reporters contributing video to gntv on a weekly basis. We publish all our work in high definition and thousands of online viewers enjoy our video packages on a daily basis.
I've seen gntv grow from a guy in a cupboard to a useful and enjoyable part of the gulfnews.com experience. It has been a wonderful journey and we have learned many things along the way.
Telling stories through video is an integral part of the rapidly growing online experience and gntv will continue to offer the gulfnews.com audience an entertaining visual window on life in the UAE.
