Personal Evaluation

I went into this course with the desire to learn about blogging and web design, as well as to improve my knowledge of video and social networking. After producing a documentary - a style of video production that I was previously unfamiliar with - and developing a website for the final project, I would say that I accomplished my goals. I would have liked to have done more with HTML and the website design in general, but it was a good first attempt.

I also learned how to produce blogs and became very comfortable with the conversational style that they are written in. I learned more about how to use twitter not just for personal use, but as a way to drive traffic to your blog or website and increase media awareness.

In the coming months, I would like to continue to use my twitter account. Admittedly, I've gone through phases this semester, but still I hope I manage to steadily post something about once a week. Also, I would like to continue blogging (though not under this blog, of course). Because I am going abroad next semester, I would like to create a blog about my experience both for my future reference and as a way for my friends and family to keep up with what I amd doing.

Overall, I think I did well in this course. I put in a lot of effort, learned a lot, and plan on continuing using what I have learned in the future.

Course Materials

The materials used for the J198 Multimedia Reporting course were relatively unhelpful in learning the skills. The handouts that we received in class taught us everything that we needed to know, and practicing them through lab assignments reinforced these skills. The books that we had to buy at the beginning of the year were only opened a few times and just reiterated information given in class.

I would therefore recommend that there be no texts for this course, but put the required texts from this semester on hold at the library or in the journalism library in Coppee. This way, students can seek additional help if they need it, but not all students are required to purchase and store these textbooks that received very little attention all semester.

Course Evaluation

This semester in J198 we covered a lot of ground. We learned the skills necessary to produce multimedia content, as well as the best ways to promote it through social networking and SEO.

What I liked best about this course was how loosely structured it was. We had a lot of free time to work on labs, could add extra time when projects took us a long time, could bump up other projects when we finished them quickly, etc. With this kind of work, it is essential to have this flexibility.

The most frustrating part of this course was the teamwork. It would be nice if, especially at the beginning, we had more individual projects. This would help everyone develop the essential skills, as opposed to some people taking the back seat and not learning the skills necessary for later in the course. It would also help with the final group project, as each member would have all the skills and tasks could be delegated in a more fair, random manner.

Overall, this course was amazing. It gave us skills essential for the growing journalism industry in a way that gave us freedom and flexibility. I would highly recommend it to future students

Hunger and Homelessness Documentary

Here is our documentary on Hunger and Homelessness in the Lehigh Valley. We filmed and interviewed at the New Bethany Ministries in Bethlehem, Pa.

Homelessness Podcast

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A special thanks to youconvertit.com for helping us convert our audio file!

Slideshow on Lehigh Valley Hunger and Homelessness

A Slideshow of Pictures from the New Bethany Ministries

New Bethany Ministries

Video on the New Bethany Ministries

Hunger and Homelessness in the Lehigh Valley

Megan's Law Registered Offenders in Bethlehem, PA

Using the same technology I used for the Dunkin Donuts map, the class collaborated on a map of all the Megan's Law Registered Offenders' home addresses in Bethlehem, PA. We were able to find a couple of addresses on our own and contribute them to the main Megan's Law map that our professor created on google maps.

Here is the map:

View Megan's Law: Registered offenders in Bethlehem, PA in a larger map

Colleges and Universities in the Lehigh Valley

In order to learn how to create google maps that represent data for a story, we created a map in our J198 lab. I chose to do one representing the 11 colleges and universities of the Lehigh Valley: Lehigh University, Lafayette College, Muhlenberg College, Moravian College, DeSales University, Cedar Crest College, Kutztown University, East Stroudsburg University, Lehigh Carbon County Community College, Northampton County Community College and Penn State Lehigh Valley.


View Colleges and Universities in the Lehigh Valley in a larger map

TV-Video Critique

Before spring break (which seems like eons ago...like the last time I posted on here), my J198 group and I made a TV-style video about the snow storm. It seemed ironic watching this video again with a sunburn fresh from the glorious weekend weather, but nevertheless, we critiqued it. The strengths/weaknesses we noticed were pretty much what we noticed when we submitted the assignment, but it was a good first attempt. Next time we make a video, we will get closer to the interviewee in order to get better audio & video quality, use environmental shots for the lead-in and lead-outs, and be more conversational with the reading of the voiceover. We will continue to do what we did well in this video, which was producing a story with a strong narrative guided by short interview clips.

This Friday, we will be going to a local homeless shelter in Bethlehem to start a TV-style news video that will go toward our final semester project. I'll check back then to relay the experience.

TV-Style Snow Video

For our next Multimedia Reporting challenge, we were assigned to create a tv-style news video on a topic around campus. The difference between this type of segment and other projects we have done so far is the introduction of a voiceover. Basically, instead of letting quotes from interviews drive the story, the reporter drives the story and uses the quotes to add character.

When my group first attempted this project, we were confused by this fact. We didn't really do anything different with the video that we handed in on Monday...which is why we were back in Coppee today recording more footage. Luckily, it didn't take too long for us to get into the swing of things. Once we started, the voiceover kind of wrote itself and the corresponding footage fit in nicely.

The only thing that we found particularly difficult (besides, of course, The Program That Shall Not Be Named) was making the soundbyte quotes make sense out of context. Most of the people that we interviewed gave short answers and often responded with a simple "yes" or "no". Even when someone did give a full answer, it was hard to cut it down and still have it make sense without hearing the question or their thought process getting to the answer.

Still, it was much more interesting to watch back this segment than other, longer interviews because this one got more to the point. Even though planning is essential and can be more difficult than the internet-style videos we were previously producing, the tv-style segments make for much more interesting results.

Here is our video:

Video Quality Lab - Finally!

After even more frustration with technology today, I finally finished the assignment on video quality.

Before each interview, I included a title page describing the location and audio/light quality. Enjoy!

"I'm not a street person, I'm just down on my luck."

The other day when I was in Bethlehem I had a very interesting experience. I was going to the public library when a woman stopped me outside and asked if I knew where the Moravian Church was. I said I didn't, but she gave me an address that I knew how to direct her too. Upon hearing that it was about 7 or 8 blocks away, she looked distraught, glanced at my car, and asked me for a ride to the church.
It was then that I realized that this woman was homeless and needed to get to the shelter that the church had provided. Although I was extremely wary, she seemed like a nice person. She explained that she had her identity stolen and, with these hard economic times, was unable to recover. She told me that she used to be a nurse in Kutztown, retired to Florida, then had to come back up once her money ran out. Even after her explanation, I still must have looked skeptical because she said, "I'm not a street person, I'm just down on my luck." For some crazy reason, I decided that it would be okay to drive her there - and it was - but it opened my eyes to something.
Today, homeless people are not necessarily "street people" or the "hobos" that we picture begging for change in cities. They are normal people who are down on their luck and are just looking for a warm place to stay. Not only that, but these homeless people have different reasons for their life on the street than the stereotype that we usually think of. They did not lose their job because of alcoholism or drug addictions; they come from respectable jobs that were cut when the economy crashed.
The reason that I am relaying this story on this blog is because I think it would make a great topic for the final project. We could interview local shelters, food banks, soup kitches, etc. as well as some of the people whose lives are being affected by the economy in Bethlehem. I think that this would be interesting because it takes a general topic - such as the economy or homelessness - and brings it on a local level.
I'll have to see what my group thinks....

Ayo, I'm tired of using technology.

It's sad that I've come to quoting 50 cent lyrics for a blog title, but at this point I am that desperate. As I stated in my previous blog, my group and I are working on a video quality project intended for us to assess the quality of video and audio at various points around campus. Instead, this has turned into a project for me to assess my patience and ability to deal with technology gone wrong.

I got the footage from my groupmate, Alyssa, this afternoon. I proceeded to upload the files, convert them and import them into MovieMaker. Unfortunately, something went wrong (of course). The files for whatever reason weren't being recognized. "Okay," I thought, "I'll just try it on my computer at home." Silly me was actually thankful for a chance to use Mac's editing software over MovieMaker (view my opinions on this wonderful program here).

Of course, after converting the files again on my Mac and trying to put them into Final Cut they still were making error messages pop up, so I tried the next best thing: iMovie. However, the same problem persisted and iMovie could not recognize the files - both original and converted.

At this point, I was frustrated. After basically crying to my roommate for about half an hour about how much I hate technology, I went to the gym to work of my anger and try again when I got back. Sadly, not much had changed.

I then went back down to Coppee (where I am now) and tried one last time to get the files to work, this time taking the files converted on my Mac down to Coppee with me on a flash drive instead of taking them straight from the camera. Still, the files could not be imported into MovieMaker.

So now that I am done ranting - does ANYONE have any suggestions or ideas that I can do to finally get these videos to work? Was it something to do with the way we filmed it? Was it something I did when I first began to upload the footage? HELP!

Experiment with Video Quality

Producing high-quality video with a handheld camera like the Kodak zi8 can be difficult, but certainly not impossible. In class, we learned certain techniques that provide better light and sound quality for our videos. To test these techniques out, we went into the field and filmed interviews in various places across campus.

First, we went to the steps outside of Drown Hall. The light was nice here (it was an overcast day) and the sound quality was pretty good because the stone of the building seemed to absorb the sounds of the road on the other side.

Second, we went to Upper UC. Since it was after the lunch-time shuffle, the audio quality was not terrible, but certainly not great. The lighting looked good, but it will be hard to tell until we edit the video.

Third, we went to Ulrich by the mailboxes. We interviewed a girl sitting by the windows in the back, which gave us the challenge of natural light indoors. Though we stood with our backs to the window and made the girl look toward the light, she still appeared washed out and the lighting was a little uneven and unflattering. The sound quality here was also terrible, since there were groups of people shouting all around the room.

Finally, we went to Maginnes. We filmed two interviews here, one in the Dean of Students office (a small office with no windows) and one in a brightly lit classroom. The fluorescent lighting on the DOS office was terrible, and although the sound was pretty decent, the lighting was completely off. The classroom footage, however, turned out surprisingly well. The lighting was even and the white in the room served as a great contrast against our subject. Since the room was small, but not too small, the acoustics were great and the audio seemed to be perfect. Again, we must wait until we edit the footage in order to determine the exact quality of our shots.

For the rest of the assignment, we will be going out and shooting over the weekend, then editing it and posting the final project on our blogs, so look for that in the coming days.

Planning Before Filming

When given a video assignment, it is very common to want to immediately start shooting footage. However, as I read in a Net Worked blog and discovered from past failures, it is extremely important to plan out your video before you get footage. Not only does this help you reduce time filming, it also helps you ensure that you have all of the shots you need so you don't have to go back out.

The best way I can think of to explain the importance of pre-planning is to share a personal experience I had. In high school, I was assigned to make a video capturing the men's swim team state championship meet. I made sure I had all the essential footage - key races, the presenting of the trophy, interview with the captain, etc. At the end of the night, I thought I would be able to make a pretty decent segment on the meet. I went back home to edit the footage and found that the story had a lot of gaps. I wasn't just presenting viewers with shots of key moments, I was telling the story of the event. I immediately wished that I had gotten shots of the other team for comparison, shown fan reactions, gotten footage of the team on the bench celebrating after a won race, or the coach getting angry after a loss. After all, these components work together to tell the story.

That moment is when I realized that it is important not only to plan ahead and think of what kind of footage you want to use before you shoot, but to make sure that with multimedia projects it is especially important to capture moments that make up the full story - not just the highlights.

'Snow Day Like Today!

Today, the school that stays open for Labor Day, Memorial Day, MLK Day, Good Friday and all other kinds of days has closed on account of a Snow Day. Not that I'm complaining, I just see the irony.

So I woke up at 7am to the sound of my friends cheering about classes being cancelled and ever since then have been pondering about what to do with my given free time. I ate a huge breakfast, watched Patrick Dempsey as he made me swoon in Made of Honor, then realized that my day was slowly becoming worthless.

I then spent an unhealthy amount of time on Twitter and - it finally clicked! I now see why Twitter is so appealing and have become obsessed myself. I just hope that there are enough interesting tweets to read/post after this Snowmaggedon/Snowpocalypse has passed!

The Wonderful World of Twitter

For a couple of months now, I've been a member of the social networking site called Twitter. I have an account, a follow a few people, read a few posts, etc. As of a few months ago, this was all fine.

Lately, however, I've realized that due to negligence I've become twit-illterate. What began as a few friendly updates, similar to a facebook status update, has grown into a social media giant with tagging, retweeting, URL linking, twitpic uploading, etc. I realized I not only don't know how to use Twitter, but I barely even understand the posts that are coming up on my feed.

Today in J198, however, I took one step toward becoming a true Twitterer. Prof. Littau handed out a worksheet that helped us understand the basic concepts (hash tagging, directly noting someone by using @username, etc.) as well as what Twitter should or can be used for. Essentially, it was like that first day of Spanish class where you learn how to say "Hello, my name is...." It may not have been much, but it was enough to start me in my Twittering ways. Follow me!

First Attempt at Voiceovers with MovieMaker

Mission: Take the audio from an interview and overlay b-roll on top of it.

This seems easy enough, right? It is a basic concept that we see every time we turn on the television. Yet this mission came with its special challenge, making it turn from a simple task into a nightmare: use Windows MovieMaker. Those are three words I hope I never have to hear again (yet know I will, at least for the remainder of this course).

I decided to interview the chef at my sorority house, Lisa, about cooking. She spoke about what a typical day for her entailed, what her favorite dish to prepare was and what she did to come up with new meal ideas for the girls. After the interview, I filmed her preparing our lunch and captured some reactions of the girls eating her food. Everything was going well and seemed to be pretty natural until...

I started using MovieMaker. I swear I gave it a chance, I really did. I went in with a (mostly) open mind and have fully concluded that this program was written by the devil.

Not only could I not separate the audio and video parts of the clip, but I couldn't use more than one audio track at a time. The quality of the on-board mic was a little rough (especially given that the filming was done in an industrial kitchen) so I thought I would jazz it up by playing some royalty-free elevator music in the background. Ha. As if MovieMaker would let me. I had to splice up the audio files - having the music play at some points and the audio of the interview play at others. This maybe would have been an acceptable option if - that is IF - MovieMaker let me put in audio transitions. Now, I know that it is asking a lot of a program whose video transitions includes a star wipe, but please do me the courtesy of allowing me to fade audio in and out. That's all I want out of you. I don't need you to come up with some crazy audio version of the whirlwind or keyhole video transitions, I just want to be able to have the audio drop a few decibels before it cuts out. This may be achievable by cutting up the clips and making some quieter than others - but still. Would it kill MovieMaker to add that to its repertoire?

Okay, enough venting about MovieMaker (for now).

In the end, the video did not come out too horribly. All of the audio is comprehensible and the clips flow with relative ease. I hope that as time goes on I learn how to cope with MovieMaker's obvious defects, but for now, I just have to make do and secretly wish that one day I come into class and find 15 beautiful iMacs are awaiting me. Dream on, kid.

Here is the final product:

Blogging, Voiceovers and More

Today in J198 we discussed blogging in more detail. I have to admit, it gave the sudden urge to go out and create some viral blog that people everywhere would read...but then I got back to my laptop to start typing and realized that I really don't have anything interesting to say.

However, I can talk about this week in Multimedia Reporting for me. Right now, I'm going to go through my blog and kind of vamp it up with the suggestions we talked about in class. Then, I'm going to pick my subject for our interview assignment and get to work on that. We have to interview someone about something they like to do, and get accompanying b-roll of them doing it. Seeing as how this is due on Wednesday and I have an extremely busy week ahead of me, I am probably going to be forced to do something boring like "my roommate Kate likes to do engineering homework...watch her plug equations into her calculator...ooooh very exciting!" Either way, we are going to take the sound of the interview and run it continuously on the track while splicing the video to cut between the interview footage and the b-roll. For some crazy reason, cutaway footage from interviews like this is my favorite part of video production, so I am very excited to get started!

Photojournalism

The reading for this week was on using photography to better tell a story. While I agree that pictures definitely help readers understand a story, I think there needs to be a balance. While reading this chapter (chapter 6 in Briggs' Journalism Next), I was somewhat creating a pros and cons list of using photographs in stories and/or blogs. Here is what I came up with:

PROs:
1. Pulls reader into story
2. Literally helps them see the action
3. Puts a face to the story, making it more personal
4. Takes up less space than text would in order to accurately describe the emotions (assuming that a picture is worth 1,000 words)

CONs:
1. If the picture doesn't fit the story, it is distracting to the reader
2. If there are too many pictures in a story, readers (or at least myself, when I am reading) are more likely to look at the photos and cutlines as opposed to reading the full text
3. Pictures can be misleading. If the story has multiple parts and the photo only captures one, then it automatically puts more weight on that aspect, even if it isn't warranted
4. It allows journalists to be lazy and let a picture do the work for them

If i had to choose, though, I think I am a fan of photojournalism. As long as the photography is done well, fits the story and isn't misleading, it can add a lot to the story. Oh, and, sometimes it's nice to be lazy and let a picture do the work for you :)

Lab #2 - Editing Interviews AKA Why I Hate MovieMaker

Today in class we paired up and interviewed students around campus on today's hot topics. I chose to interview Sofia Govarubias, a sophomore involved in organizations such as the Community Service Office and Schools for Schools, on how the earthquake in Haiti is affecting her life. She said that she was involved in planning a fundraising dinner for the American Red Cross, and wants to encourage Lehigh's population to remain interested in efforts for Haiti as the semester goes on.

The interviewing aspect of the lab was not that difficult - finding willing volunteers was surprisingly easy, especially once we whipped out the camera and told them we'd be putting their interviews online - and the questions tended to flow once the interview got started.

It was the technical aspect that got me. Luckily, I have done video editing before so I understand the basics, but the MovieMaker program proved very difficult to use. I couldn't search through clips frame-by-frame in order to cut at the exact frame I wanted to, which led to some awkward cuts in the final copy. I also couldn't personalize transitions, so when I would fade two clips together, I would lose some audio/video in the process. While these problems could be overcome with wiser videography next time, I still miss the abilities of Final Cut Pro.

On a side note - I was wandering around blogger and found the blog "Bros Like This Site." While I am aware that I am not a bro, I did like that site. It is one of those sites that, while horrible and demeaning to both guys AND girls, can only be described as "it's funny because it's true."

Anyway, that was it for today. Below are the final versions of my interviews, again, please don't judge on the awkward transitions, it's MovieMaker's fault - not mine, okay?

Blogging!

Over the weekend, we were assigned to read two chapters on blogging from our books (Journalism Next by Mark Briggs and Be the Media by David Mathison). The chapters were very enlightening - mainly from the standpoint that they made me realize that I have absolutely no idea how to blog. Given the nature of this course, you can see how that might be a bit of a problem. After finishing the chapters, I followed the books' advice on how to become a successful blogger.

One of the suggestions that the books made was for me to familiarize myself with the blogging community. They suggested that I go to www.technorati.com and search the list of the top blogs to find something that I would be interested in, as well as a topic that I am not familiar with, in order to get a better grasp on what exactly I should be typing here.

At Technorati, I found a link to Boing Boing , a site which despite its obvious aim to be more carefree and relaxed, reminded me of CNN.com. There were tabs for all different sections of interest - much like a newspaper's site - top posts above the masthead and even a sidebar of recommended posts. The main difference that I noticed between Boing Boing and a professional news site such as CNN.com was the way that the stories were written. As opposed to the stiff, AP-styled-to-death stories of "old journalism," these blogs had a refreshing, welcoming style that made me realize exactly why more and more people are looking to blogs and "new journalism" as their news sources.

I also found Ben Smith's blog subtitled "A running conversation about politics." This epitomizes what blogs are all about: two-sided journalism. Gone are the days where journalists "talk at" the public, now every person has the ability to be a journalist and talk back.

I hope that as this course continues I learn to create blogs that people besides my professor will read...but as you can probably tell, Prof. Littau...I've got a long way to go.

First Lab

Today in J198 lab we worked with video for the first time. In order to get us acquainted with the cameras (we are using the Kodak zi8), we briefly interviewed our partners. After obtaining the footage, we uploaded and converted the files using Prism and edited them using Windows Movie Maker. Although the process was slow and more complicated than video uploading on on my Mac, it worked and I was able to successfully create a movie file. I then uploaded the file to my YouTube account, so now the whole world can hear Debbie talk about how her first party at Lehigh was a toga party (an homage to her favorite movie, Animal House).

The process of converting the footage from the standard .mov file to the Movie Maker .asf file was okay for today, but I am nervous for when we start working with longer, more complicated video files. I am worried that the Prism conversion of each file will take a lot longer and make this whole process a lot more time-consuming. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Here is the final product :)