Monday, October 11
- Discuss Web Layout
- Add Blog Stats widget to websites
Review: Video Project #1: Sequencing – Shoot someone involved in a sequential activity, such as making a sandwich, cooking a meal, getting a haircut, etc. Prove that you understand the idea of five-shot sequences. Gather good sound and natural sound as well. Edit this using Adobe Premiere and post it on class website with a headline and abstract … then truncate. This should run between 1:00 and 1:30. (IMPORTANT: Be sure to shoot people, not just things. (30 pts)
Tweak for grading by 5 p.m. Thursday.
Click on What We’ve Learned. It takes you to a Google Doc where you’ll write down the ten most important things you’ve learned so far this semester.
DISCUSS FINAL PROJECT
SEQUENCING PRACTICE
Assignments:
Excellent Coverage – Investigate the resources under ‘Cool Coverage’ in the sidebar of this website. Pick your three favorite stories. Be prepared to show them to your fellow students and discuss what makes them excellent. Include your comments, plus links to the stories in the Comments section below. (10 pts)
Story pitch – Prepare a story pitch for Video Project #2 – a video package. This is a news story you can play on your blog or get published in The Journal. The story should run between 1:00 and 1:30, and must include multiple sources, natural sound, and your voice. Tag it out. Use … “For the Webster Journal, I’m __________ … or use the name of your website. Shoot this using your phone or camera with microphone. Use a tripod and edit using Premiere. (50 pts)
RADIOLAB
Gonads: Dutee
I love how this story is told. It starts with a character, and sets the world while bouncing around between Dutee and the host’s voice to tell it.
There is also the translator’s voice mixed with Dutee’s voice, and the constant switch is very engaging
I love how the story starts with a hook of things to come, but starts the story at the beginning.
The pace of the story is very fast, no audio clip lasts more than 10 seconds
The music also helps keep up the pace and make the story seem to move very quickly
The natural sound is also on point for this story, there is so much sport sound and really helps imagine the scenes.
There are moments that the audio and music cut out to emphasis a quote or a sound and its awesome
JOVRNALISM
Homeless realities
Tabia: Art is my Salvation
I love the idea of a series or collection of stories revolving around one topic
Just like we will be doing in this class
Each story features a VR video package to accompany it, which is a crazy cool concept
It adds an element of immersion. You get to see what the people the story is about see, not just what the journalist wants you to see
It makes the story feel more real, more personal, more interactive, and more engaging
The rest is all done very well too in terms of traditional video journalism. There are plenty of sound bites and great shots. They use great quotes like her “professional name” being queen mama Tabia.
Nat sound is used to great effect too
Things that could be improved:
The drums were a bit distracting, I found myself searching for their source.
Text on screen might have been better with a voice over instead, but also may have been confusing.
THIS AMERICAN LIFE
Getting Out
This story follows a phone call from the husband of a Canadian Minister in California and a man in a canal outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The man must sludge through a canal to get the attention of a Canadian soldier. He is able to and the man on the other end of the phone gets them through.
A day and a half later, while the interview is going on, he gets a text saying they made it on the plane.
What I love most about this story and This American Life as a whole is their specific storytelling, they take a major event and they find the smallest little piece of it to do a story on, and build into a grand idea from there
In this example, it is a story about the retreat from Afghanistan and the chaos it is trying to get out of the country, told from the point of view of a single family
It makes for a story with characters and plot, like a short story would be, and makes it so much more engaging to listen to.
The Land of 10,000 Stories
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/land-of-10000-stories/best-of-land-of-10000-stories-cow-lady-has-the-last-laugh/89-66d3c90a-34e1-4105-81ea-773d9fc809cd
I really enjoyed this story. It was about a lady named Ruth who holds the World Record for most amount of cow items. I think what makes this story excellent is the history behind it all. She couldn’t go into the field she wanted because she was a woman so she made her own field. I also love the laughing cows and how they captured pure joy in Ruth’s face multiple times in this story. There was also really good sequences and the story never lost my attention which is good too.
Wright’s Law
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bSu_Snlbsw
This was a story I will never forget. It tugs at your heart strings but in a way it is also relatable. This is about a teacher named Mr. Wright who doesn’t follow the book, but follows his heart while he teaches. One of his students said that he doesn’t care about newtons third law or how things work but why they work. This brought me to a standstill. I consider myself very lucky to have had many teachers like this. Currently I have a teacher like this too. A teacher that will throw the curriculum out the window if it means that we as students will still learn something important and care for one another at the same time.
No Excuses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czXTkNyzF98
This is a story of inspiration, courage, and perseverance. Kyle Maynard doesn’t have hands or feet but he doesn’t let that stop him. He drives a car, dresses himself and even took on one of the tallest mountains in the world. Mt. Kilimanjaro. Instead of saying negative things he stayed positive and still accomplishes his goals.
The Baby In a Plastic Bag:
https://www.dagbladet.no/spesial/the-baby-in-the-plastic-bag/
This is truly one of the most interesting pieces of multimedia I have ever experienced. Instead of taking a story and writing it like a news piece, Dagbladet Magasinet opened up the story in a similar fashion to a cut scene for a video game by making a short film This made the users experience more interactive and engaging, and certainly hooked the viewer more than a regular long-form article would. We then enter a page that allows us to choose between nine chapters. As we move through the story, the layout begins to replicate more of a news article, but the sections of text are split up with wide shots of the stories setting, making it snackable.
Finally, the most nerve-wracking part of the piece was the countdown. As you scroll, a countdown increases like time is passing, weaving us through the story.
This piece of multimedia is much more engaging than any other plain written article, and shows what is possible with more creativity in journalism.
Firestorm: The story of the bushfire at Dunalley
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/may/26/firestorm-bushfire-dunalley-holmes-family
This story has chapters to it, but with each page that we scroll, a new background video appears with audio, enthralling its readers into the landscape of the story.
The abstract on this multimedia piece hooked me immediately. It is written a bit like a conversation, without the word-soup that makes a reader click away.
Within the story are sound bites of an interview with the parents. It is remarkable to see (or hear) how powerful audio is within a story. It made the piece more grounded.
Radiolab: Podcasts
In the Running
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab
This podcast episode is about a runner whose career started with a seizure. The opening was made by two podcast hosts, and they open the episode while actually running, which was humorous. At first glance, the introduction is too lighthearted in comparison to the story, but the editor(s) chose a part of the interview with the subject that was also lighthearted to open.
This episode does an impressive job weaving the interview throughout the interviewers sound bites, keeping it personable while still moving the story along.
They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/07/world/asia/rodrigo-duterte-philippines-drugs-killings.html
This title instantly grabbed me. When I clicked on the link, it was the coolest interactive type of media I have seen. The more you scroll, the background will change to set the mood of the story or show readers something important to the story. It had me consistently engaged from the title, to the interactive parts, and with how they told the story. The pictures were very impactful to the story and made the reader feel emotion.
The Baby in a Plastic Bag
https://www.dagbladet.no/spesial/the-baby-in-the-plastic-bag/
This was another title that instantly grabbed me. When you first click on the link, it shows you nine different chapters. When I clicked on chapter one, natural sound was brought in putting the reader in the scene and a cryptic quote was at the top making the reader want more. I think the creative, interactive way this journalist told the story made it a lot more interesting than just writing an article with one or two pictures. With the natural sound that is added, it almost makes the reader feel like they are there experiencing this as well. This type of journalism is more attention grabbing and interesting to see.
Lives Behind the Label
https://livesbehindthelabel.newint.org/home.html
When I first clicked on this site, I almost immediately clicked out of it. The more of a chance you give it, the more interesting you see it is. This website has rich and great storytelling on their website. I like how you click on a story by putting your cursor over an article of clothing. When you do that, you see the main subject of the story, their name and age. Once you click on that, it takes you to a video that tells the news story. The videos have good clips of the scene and good soundbites that bring the viewer into the story and keeps them engaged.
-Kelly Bowen
The Baby in a Plastic Bag
https://www.dagbladet.no/spesial/the-baby-in-the-plastic-bag/
This piece grabbed my attention right from the beginning. The use of sound was really precise and helped grab the reader immediately. I think the author did a great job of combining audio and visual elements; it felt like a crime documentary on Netflix rather than a news article. I also think the author’s knowledge of website software made the site more engaging too.
No Excuses – ESPN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czXTkNyzF98
I think this story did a good job of telling us about a person without just spitting out information. The story had movement and it engaged with the reader by continuously pushing the story forward. There was also the emotional aspect by having his family speak.
Snow Fall
https://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/index.html#/?part=tunnel-creek
This was a really thrilling story about an avalanche. It talked about one woman’s experience. While I enjoyed reading this, I think more visuals would have helped. There are some really amazing graphics, but then there is just tons of paragraphs without any breaks. As amazing as the few graphics are, I think having a few average shots just to make the text more stackable would have been great. Or even just some block quotes.
Carry On: https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/27851092/bucketId/19913
The in depth sort of “feels” moment that were shot is what makes this video great. Being able to see how hard he works to get into his wheelchair or up stairs is something that draws viewers like myself into a video like this. Despite having tons of material and tons of interview/people, they were able to give everyone involved enough time to speak and develop their characterization as if it were a well written film. Written for a larger market outside of sports fans because of the feel good moments and relatability the producers or directors had for the video. Able to use beautiful shots to emphasize the emotions within the interviews, able to catch a lot of emotion whether it is happy or sad
Land of 10,000 Stories: https://www.kare11.com/landof10000stories
Has a great, eye catching title with an abstract/description that follows. The following camera angles and shots made me feel like I was in the house with her and I was the one following her. The switching off between his voice and hers was obnoxious at times but I feel like it worked most of the time. Portrayed the cow addiction part well as there were many descriptive shots and phrases used to capture the uniqueness of the story. Able to get a lot of honesty and back story from the subject even if it may be touchy or sensitive for the woman. Great outro as well with her phrase at the end
Radiolab: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab
The podcast I listened to was “The Unsilencing” as the title and art grabbed my attention. When I listen to a podcast or watch informational videos, I love to hear not only the educational aspect but the relatability and human voice behind a lot of topics especially those that are either new or controversial. It asks a fresh question of the woman immune system and the way they were able to articulate made it easy to create images within my head and created a sense of confusion and interest which the podcast was aiming for.
Week 8 Response
Firestorm:
I love the division of chapters, audio, and imagery. The imagery set the scene and brought the reader in. The layout modernized what reading can be.
Dupont Winners
I personally feel as if the homepage was very busy.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvg8vd/dancehall-is-fighting-to-protect-and-copyright-its-dance-moves
– Great Visual and word choices. Such as, ” dance is a social form, enjoyable precisely because it passes from body to body, generation to generation, and across continents.”
– Showcases how provocative dancehall can be.
– Also how pop culture has taken dancehall moves like Gully Creepa, Muscle Wine and Cow Foot and failed to give respect.
New Orleans’ Residents Return to Traditional Healing as Cases of COVID-19 Continue to Grow
https://coveringreligion.org/2020/05/04/new-orleans-residents-return-to-traditional-healing/
– Love how Voodoo is mentioned as a religion.
– Covers a topic many people neglect.
– Best sentence: In addition to gloves and face masks and social distancing and COVID-19 testing, it also has plant medicines and traditional spirituality that have sustained the community for generations.
I personally found it interesting because i could relate. I dislike going to hospitals and in the last year have used herbal remedies to take care of my health. Using remedies such as Sea Moss, and Black Seed Oil. Also love how they are using social media to educate children and parents.