Reflection

Oh wow, this quarter is already over? It seems like just yesterday I was making funny faces into Paola's camera. I've learned so much this quarter, not only about a different facet of journalism but also about the importance of tripods,

Last quarter I took Media Writing and Copy Editing, and I thought those classes were crazy and difficult, but I thought I understood at least the basics of journalism because of them. I knew about nut graphs and leads and word limits, and that was great. After a few tries I started to get that, and then I came into multimedia journalism, and I felt like I was back to square one.

This class didn't use writing, it used pretty much anything else imaginable to tell a story. Before this quarter, I had thought that videos and photos in journalism were just helping hands. They didn't stand alone. Boy was I wrong.

I'm a writer, that's what I'm good at, never did I think that I could portray so much with pictures, although the saying "A picture's worth a thousand words" had to come from somewhere, I suppose. For me, this class was extremely difficult because I just don't have the eye for photos, or videos. That's why all my pictures were fundamentally the same. I really had to work to make things visually appealing, something I usually use my words for.

I now know that this realm of journalism exists and is so fascinating. It's a true talent to tell a story with little to no written words. I feel as if my photos and videos improved as the class went on, I'm no master photographer, but I wouldn't say I'm just a newbie with a camera.

All in all this was a wonderful experience, and even if I don't go on to be a multimedia journalist I think I learned skills that will be useful later on.

Final Project interview-I think I may have a problem

I interviewed Norma Pappas, the owner of the Olympic Theatre in Arlington. A very small snippet of that will be posted down below (The full interview is 10 minutes long, so this is a sneak peak)

But listening through the interview I couldn't help but wince...This interview took place in the theatre...the very small theatre...during a movie. There are movie background noises throughout the whole thing and I don't think any mastery of Audacity or other programs will remedy that...I hope it's fine, because I don't think she'd be very inclined to have me interview her again...she didn't seem too inclined the first time :/

Final Project Idea 2.0 (Updated with video)

I apologize for my less-than-fully developed ideas last week, I had very few ideas, but I have been wracking my brain thinking of something else, and I found something.
There's a movie theater in Arlington, the Olympic Theater and it's small, old and completely wonderful. If you haven't been there, I strongly urge you go. Tickets are only $7.00, that's cheaper than a Regal matinee price. The theater also uses real film to show the movies, instead of digital, but this is a becoming a problem. You see, major movie companies want to phase out 35 mm film and go totally digital. That's fine for corporate multiplexes, but for a small privately-owned theater it's a big problem. Because of this, the theater is in jeopardy of being shut down, and for the citizens of Arlington, it's tragic news.
So, my plan is to take pictures of the theater in all its retro glory, and interview the owner. Talk to her about the history of the theater and ask her if there's any hope left. When I go to talk with her I also thought it'd be cool to talk to Arlingtonians and get their input about the theater, maybe their fondest memories? I know that this is only a 2 minute movie, so there can't be too much, but it's always good to have too much footage instead of not enough.
I've already emailed the owner asking if she can do an interview, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Below is the vlog form of this blog...it's a bit...terrible, cause I am awkward on camera, but it shows my storyboard. Enjoy!

Here is the photo version of my storyboard so you can view it more in-depthly

Final Project Idealies

For my final project, I really don't know what to do.
But here ar two sort-of ideas...

1. How the students without a carpool pass feel about the parking situation at EvCC, specifically those who have to park across the street and down the hill. I plan to possibly interview the campus security to see how many tickets they give out, and interview both those students with carpool passes and those without. I'd also like to show video from walking up that terrible hill.

2. How bad different fast food restaruants are and how popular they are. I could take pictues of the different menus and burgers from each restaurant and compare and contrast

Spirit War-alicious

My homework blog post will come in...later
But for now I'm going to promote the best book series ever. The Legends of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron
Her new book, the long-awaited Spirit War comes out in June...so go read the other three.
And if you're in my class (Like...pretty much the only people reading this...) you need only ask and I would happily lend them to you. So...yeah go read about the greatest thief in the world!

Storyboards

Note: There are no made up words today, cause I have a fever, and am not feeling creative -_-

As was mentioned in class, storyboards are like the roadmaps for films. But what exactly does that mean?
Storyboards are kind of like the scripts for movement, instead of lines. They help frame the shot before it's shot. They tell the person behind the camera what to do. Like, "in this scene where the cowboy is staring at the unicorn, begin with a close up on the cowboy's mustache, then pan out and zoom in on the unicorns nostrils." Or...something like that.

Even though I was sort of making fun of storyboards up there, they're massively important. Just like any script in a production, whether it be journalistic, or your backyard zombie horror film, you need to know what you're doing and where you're going before you do it.

Storyboards also help you show others your rough ideas to get feedback. You show someone your storyboard and they can easily tell you what needs to be tweaked, or what needs to be gotten rid of altogether.

In a multimedia story, the storyboard can help organize all the bits and pieces. Like "Oh we'll put that still photo there." and "That clip of audio would fit perfectly right there." It helps to make sure that everything runs a bit more smoothly.


(I got my information from reading these two sites: http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/starttofinish/storyboarding/ and http://accad.osu.edu/womenandtech/Storyboard%20Resource/ )

Multimediality

First of all I'd like to open this blog with a bit of anger at the New York Times website. I don't approve or appreciate the fact that you have to pay to use the site. I was halfway through watching one of their editorial videos when it stopped me, and told me I had reached my limit for the month. Super not-cool NYtimes.  /endrant

But I will get over it, I suppose. This week we are talking about multimedia editorials and news stories. It may help to first talk about the differences between the two. An editorial is an opinion-based piece, whereas news stories strive to keep opinion out.

Now, how does multimedia enhance these two stories? Or does it enhance it? In my opinion a multimedia story is much more interesting. Take this video about "One Day without Shoes" for example. This video is super short-only 20 seconds long, but it gives life to the news story about this event. Plus, it's one thing seeing a picture of barefoot people (Strangely enough, mostly women...hmm) but it's another to watch them walking down the stairs barefoot, I can relate to them better. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a well-written news piece, but I'm a video junkie (Well...my most visited site is Youtube) so I think there's definitely merits to the quick video story.

The Huffington Post takes the story about "One Day without Shoes" and  multimediaficates even further. They have a short video (36 seconds), they have pictures, plus they add in some words. So there are plenty of ways to enjoy the same story. If you don't want to read, watch the video. If you don't like videos, look at the pretty interesting pictures. Or, if you really care...do all three!

Now, I struggled to find a multimedia editorial...well I found one on the NYtimes website but as I mentioned earlier I'm a little ragey at them right now, so I had to look elsewhere. I don't know why it was so hard for me to find one that really spoke to me. I guess it's because it's hard to tell exactly when someone is editorializing, unless the story is specifically under the category of "editorial" and on most sites, those weren't very multimedia-rich. But then I saw the Herald's political cartoons, and I realized that I was looking for the wrong thing. I was looking for an opinionated news story with pictures or a video. But that's not necessary.

Political Cartoons are wonderful. It's a whole story in a single drawing, and it clearly conveys the artist's feeling about the particular subject. It doesn't get easier than that. Plus, some of them are absolutely hilarious :)

Made up words: Multimediality, ragey, mulitmediaficates