I am a Journalism student at Lehigh University taking a class entitled Multimedia Reporting. In this course, we are learning about how to tell a story from multiple media platforms and incorporate new technology to help prepare us for tomorrow's journalism. This is a blog that tracks the course and my progress.
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.
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.
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.
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.
