4802 - Moving into the final project

Moving into the final project, I am confident I am going to be able deliver better quality stories if I take on and use the feedback given to me this semester.

The major issue with my images were cropping, Karen and Reuben said during the lecture that they wanted me to get much tighter in my detail and profile shots so I need to concentrate on that.

Another issue I had during my video pieces were remembering Lynda's "visual cha-cha-cha" - much like still photography, I didn't have enough tight shots relating to the narrative for b-roll so during our shooting for the final project I'm going to try and get as many details shots as possible to allow for the visual cha-cha-cha.

With regards to audio the most glaring critique was my use of quotes and narration - my soundbytes were far to long. While I was making it I was under the impression that I had to let the subject tell the story, when in reality with concise narration the reporter can sum up a subjects feelings and let them have their say through strong soundbytes. By doing it this way I can create a far more powerful piece.

I think for me, while I am confident with the technical aspects of video, audio and photo what I need to work on are the actual construction of the stories into succinct and powerful pieces which is done through the linking of narration, powerful soundbytes and relevant images.

4802 - Flash journalism

Since McAdam's book on Flash Journalism, technology, particularly web-based technology has continued to develop at a rapid rate. While everything McAdams talks about, for example infographics and web packages are still relevant and useful for an audience. There are other aspects of technology that have emerged and would be useful for the presentation of journalism. I would like to focus on web packages because while they are a great resource for audiences, I think a lot could be done to make improve them and make them more diverse.

Twitter is a website which is allows short, timely news to be delivered straight to your phone or computer - this was first globally seen during the Hudson river plane crash, when that story actually broke over twitter and I think it is a vital component that will be really heavily used in news journalism in the future - so far organizations like CNN have breaking news twitter pages which allow users to stay up-to-date with breaking news wherever they are. I think this could be an interesting new component to web packages and would be especially affective for ongoing stories, organizations could create twitter pages especially for particular stories so users can access particular stories wherever they are.

I also think the use of blogs should be used more. Blogging is a great way to gauge opinions and social feeling over current events, while blogging can provide extremist points of view that may not necessarily represent a majority of people - I think it is important for as many points of view to be communicated, so another aspect of the web package could be external links so readers can either read a little deeper into the story or can gather multiple perspectives of what is happening.

And, lastly the emergence of mobile journalism. With devices like the iPhone becoming more common, it's becoming easier to capture video, photos and audio all in a much higher quality than what we have seen. Mobile journalism is not necessarily new, a lot of the footage from 9/11 was taken by "citizen journalists" of sorts, but I don't think it is being used to the extent it could be. While citizen journalism can in no way replace professional journalists, they can contribute to stories, by doing this we get a "real world" perspective of sorts and it also allows the audience to perhaps become more emotionally involved with a story or event.

4802 - Journalistic video on the web

"Mysterious tree poisoner strikes again"

http://www.3news.co.nz/The-mysterious-tree-poisoner-strikes-again/tabid/1216/articleID/182312/Default.aspx

For the most part, I think this news story is pretty solid, I like how they introduce interviewees (in a visual sense) before the sound bite and I like the use of archival footage to highlight what has been happening in the story so far. The one thing that did bother be a bit was the reporter sound bite during the story - we didn't really have any need to see her as previous images had already established a context and setting.

I think if this story had been made for print, it would have been a lot shorter. When you think about it, this story is basically a follow-up from an incident that happened 2 years ago, I felt the video story dragged a little bit (probably because the b-roll clips were pretty long) so if they were going to turn this into a print story a lot of it would have to be tightened up - quotes shortened a bit and everything made a little bit more succinct.

Also, because it is a video story - and it relies largely on images to tell some of the story, the print version would have to be much less ambiguous so readers know exactly what is going on.

4802 - Video: My thoughts so far

So, I have just submitted my first video piece for 4802, which was an interesting experience. While I have a scattering of experience filming and editing video (I have never been so thankful for the year long Media Production class I did last year at AUT as much as I was last weekend!) I have never filmed a journalistic piece, i've never interviewed someone for video or filmed b-roll for a news piece so it was a new experience for me in many ways.

On the whole, I was suprised at how much I enjoyed filming the women while they practiced as I didn't think I would enjoy it. Two of our readings directed my thoughts as I was shooting, the CNN article and the video techniques from Berkley. A lot of the tips were just common-sense things you don't normally think about and inadvertently do - for example, the Berkley article suggested we make sure our interview subjects don't have poles or anything awkward sticking out of their head, Lucy, the girl I interviewed had exactly that when she stood in front of the camera and I had to move her - if I hadn't read that article I wouldn't have recognised that at all. Related to that was the fact that you're not supposed to talk during shooting b-roll, coming in to this assignment I naively assumed that it wouldn't matter if I talked while I shot b-roll - though I was proved wrong.

I really appreciated the practical tips the CNN article had, one thing I was really worried about was what to film for my b-roll. But the CNN article (along with Lynda's "visual cha cha cha"!) gave me some perspective and I just tried to get as many different wide, mid and close up angles as possible so when I edited I had lots of options and could hopefully create a visually stimulating video. I don't quite know if I got the "cha cha" bit down, but I really tried and it certainly helped once I had to decide on final shots!

4802 - Final Audio: Looking back

Well, last week I submitted my NPR-style story as the last section of our audio assignment. In hindsight, all I can really conclude is that I had no idea what the heck I was doing!

I think I have a good grasp on the technical knowledge when it comes to editing, I learn fast on computers and i'm comfortable with putting all of this on to web so that aspect of it ran as smoothly as it could have.

There were two things that I really had trouble with - the first was trying to write for the ear, I had a lot of difficulty with telling the audience the basic facts they needed as well as being as succinct as possible in a way that engages an audience that only have audio to rely on. I tried really hard, but after listening to some of the other student examples in class, I realised I hadn't quite got it.

The other thing I had an issue with was weaving my soundbites into the story. During editing I was under the impression that letting the subject's story shine through required me to speak as little as possible so that's what I did, but now I realise there were some things I could have said more fluidly which would have 1) quickened the pace of the story and 2) highlighted the subjects really good soundbites that illustrate their point of view in the best way possible.

I'm by no means happy with my final audio, but I learned a lot during this process and hopefully i'll be able to redeem myself during the final project!

4802 - Collecting Audio

Collecting audio has been a pretty interesting experience so far - my first Thursday on the field was both exciting and challenging for several reasons.

On a technical note, the weather was insane - really strong winds and random bursts of heavy rain meant I had to be really careful with what I recorded, and even though I used my body as a wind shield there were still several tracks I couldn't use because of the wind. Luckily for me, I found an unlocked equipment shed so I ended up using that to conduct my interviews - kind of strange but it was a good way to break the ice with my interviewee Maggie!

Technical issues aside, the most difficult thing for me was actually conducting the interview. I'm not the most outgoing person and situations like this can make me quite nervous and intimidated. However, for a first go at interviewing I think I did OK. Obviously a lot to work on, but it's a start.

I started recording for my NPR track last Thursday and luckily I didn't run into the same weather issues. I interviewed assistant-coach Mike McKeen, who was clearly very passionate about what he was doing which made it a lot easier to interview him - plus I feel like my experience with Maggie the week before served as a good lead up, I definitely felt more confident in not only interviewing, but in using the equipment. I also got a bunch of great natural sound, and I'm feeling like I can improve on my last effort so i'm looking forward to seeing the rest of my audio piece take shape!

4802 - Three Photos

I've just got back from rugby practice at Epples field where i've been shooting my first 4802 assignment. I'm following Mizzou's women's Rugby team this season - the girls are feisty, and a little intimidating but the for the most part they were all really friendly and are in essence a great big extended family. Today was pretty much a recruitment day, introducing all the rookies to the rules and nuances of Rugby.

I'm not gonna lie - I was a little cocky coming into this one. I feel like I have an eye for composition, and i'm not new to using a DSLR so I thought it'd be pretty easy to breeze through it.

Boy was I wrong.

What I had also forgotten to take into account was the fact I was no longer shooting static images - sports photography is a completely new ball game and I found it extremely challenging in many ways.

While I was taking photos I tried to keep the reading on sports photography in mind by following the tips on vantage point and horizon... a couple of my favorite shots were taken while I was lying on the ground shooting the players above me - it gave me a clear view of all the action and on a more practical note helped reduce camera shake and blur.

Shooting in the fading light also produced some challenges. Because some of my pictures were taken with a telephoto lens I had to keep the shutter speed high which meant when I couldn't get the aperture down low enough I had to deal with under-exposure. When this happened I upped the ISO which often made a massive difference.

The whole time I was there I just tried to take as many photos as possible - you can only learn so much from a manual and i'm not going to get any better at sports photography by sitting on my behind. Yes, it was challenging, and certainly intimidating coming into a new environment like this, but it was a great experience and I look forward to moving forward with this team.

JOURN 4802 - my thoughts on the backpack journalist

With the massive development of Internet as a source for news, backpack journalism is hard to ignore. Whether we like it or not, this is our future.

While it is easy to focus on the pros of a “jack of all trades” journalist (economically speaking), there are obvious flaws. Martha Stone argues that backpack journalism fosters mediocrity and results in poor quality images, audio and video pieces. It’s almost impossible for someone to excel at everything so what may be seen as a way to promote efficiency could end up resulting in below-par journalism.

For backpack journalism to be a positive and exciting development, news organizations need to realize that journalism doesn’t follow some one-size-fits-all rule of reporting. Different situations require different approaches, and sometimes backpack journalism will work, as highlighted by Preston Mendonhall.

In other cases, producer-driven reporting may be a more efficient use of time. Yes, you may have more reporters on a single story, you may need to invest more into it, but you will end up with a story that plays to the strengths of each contributor – one that’s more in-depth and arguably of a higher quality.