Emma-Jean B.: young marriage video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #collegeengagements
With this stroy being on an issue and not something happening, we couldn't blog with a preview/recap or tweet play-by-play. Instead, we cleaved the blog segments in a sensible manner -- one side of the issue (students getting married), and another perspective of the same issue (the view of neutral experts).
Likewise, the tweet stream laid out the story much like we would a print story: we have a lede tweet; we have main point tweets followed by supporting point tweets; and so on.
With the video, note the use of voice-over narration for the lede and to bridge a transitional section, and the use of photos as B-roll with the first interview.
*****
Jason R.: football attendance video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #jrn200
Again, the blog is cleaved not by time element: the first post examines what is happening and what students have to say; the next is more about why it's happening, and what neutral experts have to say.
We do have a fatal in the recap, though: Eli Broad College of Business has the latter word misspelled as Bussiness. We still need to fact-check formal names, folks.
Plus, the hash tag of #jrn200 is way too vague. It doesn't narrow tweets down to just those that are related; it pulls in a whole bunch of unrelated tweets, making the stream a jumbled mess. Perhaps something like #jrn200studentsection would have worked better.
With the video, the second interview segment was really, really long, even with B-roll. One way to break it up: start with the second interview segment; halfway through, then go to the first interview segment; and then go back to the rest of the second segment. It's more conversational in going back-and-forth between people (which is how we talk to each other in real life), and it helps shorten being locked on one voice.
*****
Kelsey F.: social media video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #hashtagperks
One blog post is about the benefits of social media interaction; the other is the counterpoint -- the benefits of face-to-face communication. In the video, the background noise is distracting; be sure to find a place where you won't have natural sounds competing with your source audio.
*****
Meg D.: students and CATA video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #catamsu
Once again, the posts are split between student comments/concern and official comments/reaction. Think of each post as a subsection of a print story, and give each element its own post.
In the tweet stream, we need to identify the lede that is most relevant. Is it background info on CATA's history? No; that's background information. I see the fourth tweet as the better lede tweet: MSU students are complaining about CATA. Like with a print story, pick out the one sentence that sums up what the story will be about and lede (tweet) with that.
The video is a good example of varied B-roll with a limited subject. iimply by finding different shooting angles, times of day, etc. we can make B-roll a bit more dymanic.
*****
Laurel Y.: social media use video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #socialmedia200
In the video, first we are missing a lede caption that tells us what the story is going to be about. Then, in the interview segments we have people answering questions, but we don't know what the questions are. Like with earlier videos, we could create caption slides asking the question that we post just ahead of the source's answer.
Plus, instead of having the first source answer all her questions, then the second answer the same questions, a better way to sequence this story would have been to start with question one, get the answer from the first source, then the second source. Then go to question two, and again pair sources one and two, and so on.
*****
Chelsea S.: student work video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #stressmajor
In the follow-up blog, the lede was a bit weak. The news isn't that students have something to say; it's what, exactly, they said. Let's remember our lede values from writing for print and carry them over here.
In the video, we see the use of a lede caption, question slides and the back-and-forth interview style I described in the previous review. The only problem of note is that we're missing a full identification -- by first and last name -- of one interview subject. If she didn't want to give you her last name, explain why to the audience, or find someone who will. It's not like only two students work on the whole campus.
And I would be remiss to note that yes, Chelsea and Laurel really did file their work one after the other. Here's the proof:
*****
Travis D.: bikes on campus video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #takethebikelane
The problem with the first blog post is that we say most students ride bikes around campus, but we don't quantify that, either in text or through hyperlink. (We do have such a qualification in the tweet stream).
Like with print stories, we need to prove what we are saying. While we can say (in the generic sense) many students do (through observation), we can't say most, which is a literal majority of at least 25,000 students.
Or, we can be most accurate: in tweets, we based that stat on a survey of 20 students. So we should say it like that: the majority of 20 random students surveyed said they prefer riding bikes to class over other transportation options. You aren't potentially misrepresenting it as a literal majority of students; now it is in context.
The blog is smartly split between the pros of riding bikes in the first post, and the cons of bike-riding in the latter.
In the video, we used staged B-roll of the second interview subject walking through an apartment. First, for news video we never use staged B-roll; it has to be real live life scenes like the ones we've seen. Second, the B-roll doesn't match; the story isn't about walking; it's about walking around campus. So, the B-roll needs to be that, like the bike B-roll was.
*****
Anna S.: paying for school video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #pay4school
Good tweet stream, but the hashtag may have been too general. When we click on it, we get thrown in all these tweets that have nothing to do with the story topic, or even the topic in general. It's probably worth testing a hashtag before using it to see if it adds to the conversation, or distracts from it.
*****
Asha D.: college relationships video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #relationshipsvsmsu
What makes the video work so, so well is the range of interviews. We are WAY over the minimum of two, and it adds so much more. It makes it so multifaceted and conversational. Whether we are writing or shooting, great technique is no substitute for interview content.
*****
Sergio M.-B.: food waste video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #foodwaste101
Not nearly enough B-roll, especially for a subject so easy to shoot: go to a caf, shoot people eating, throwing out their food, putting away their plates, etc. Also, B-roll should help split an interview segments in thirds, with the B-roll in the middle. In the first interview segment we don't get to the B-roll until near the end, after being stuck on a talking head for way too long.
*****
Romero H.: freshman problems video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #freshmanproblems
Again, the hashtag is too vague, pulling in too much unrelated stuff and muddying the tweet stream.
*****
Emily N.: cell phone use video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #cfone14
*****
Alana E.: student stress video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets
I liked the use of still images and pictures, but were they royalty-free? Like with music, if they were not then you broke a federal law. If we can't ensure a song, image or video is royalty-free, then we need to get the permission of the creator before we can legally use it. Simply giving credit to the source is not enough.
*****
Maddie S.: student housing video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #jrn200housing
We missed some B-roll opportunities here; when the first interview subject was talking about roommate conflicts, we could have had some B-roll of her interacting with her roommate. When the second interview subject was talking about how nice it is to eat off-campus, we were showing the opposite in B-roll: a dorm caf. The B-roll should be specific to what is being talked about, and that takes time we need to figure into our pace,just like in print we have to allow for a lot of interview time.
*****
Mary A.: long-distance relationships video and blog post and follow-up post and tweets #ldrsforyoungadults
*****
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