MM #2: Let's Look At Some Vids And Blog Posts!

Here are some examples of your work. The comments are not being made to pick on anyone, and no grades are being shared beyond me and the person whose work it is. 

But I am sharing comments to help us all get a sense of what we did well, and what we can do better, and how to do that.

So please take a look at EACH piece of work via the hyperlinks below, and see what ideas you can get by reviewing EVERYONE'S work to make your next multimedia assignment go as well as possible.

Off we go:

Dakota H: housing options video and blog posts one and two: Good B-roll over the A-roll so we show while we tell. The blog posts are nicely written, but are entirely missing hyperlinks. We always need hyperlinks to value-added background info related to our posts.

 

Shannon M.: anti-Semitism video and blog posts one and two: Even when we think we're holding the camera super-steady, there is still a bit of wiggle. Use a tripod whenever possible. 

Rachel Y.: recycling video and blog posts one and two: Good variety of B-roll over A-roll.

Katie K: agriculture at MSU video and blog posts one and two: A-roll subject should be framed using the Rule of Thirds. Better B-roll would show activity: people working on plants, people walking and observing plants, etc. Look for activity. The blog posts complement each other without copying the angle: one is an ag student's view; the other is a non-ag student's view.

Audrey P.: "Rape Trail: video and blog posts one and two: Good A-roll with the video, but the B-roll needed to go over the A-roll, not after it. Plus, the two blog posts essentially copy each other: both are about female students being uncomfortable walking there. Having posts that complement but not copy each other would have meant having one post about what students think and the other post about what cops and school officials have to say about it, for example. Or one post about students who feel unsafe there and the other about students who feel safe, regardless of reputation.

Ian K.: students who work video and blog posts one and two: Instead of being stuck on our first B-roll shot here for an extended period, it may have been better to shoot the same machine from different angles and distances, and mix up those differing B-roll perspectives from that same B-roll subject. While the blog posts each involve student views; the posts complement but don't copy each other because the students offer differing views: one student says working is good; the other says it adds stress.

Jabari S.: fitness video and blog posts one and two. Nice B-roll showing the power of different angles of the same thing. Watch our audio. The blog posts were lacking the minimum number of hyperlinks and adherence to AP Style. What do you think would have made good hyperlinks here?

Catherine B.: personal brand video and blog posts one and two. We are better off shooting different angles and distances of B-roll rather than panning. Nice use of still photos for B-roll. Watch your sound and use a tripod to minimize camera shake. The blog posts complement but don't copy each other; while they are both about students, each student offers a different approach to what they are doing. You compare different students doing different things; not different students doing the same thing.

Shannon L.: The "freshman 15" video and blog posts one and two: Good narration and B-roll. The first blog post sets up the second; the first one defines the "freshman 15" and lays out the issue; the second gets student reaction on what they see in their daily lives regarding that.

Jack K.: Getting around campus video and blog posts one and two. With bus shots, shooting the bus from different angles and distances could have helped break up that one static shot from the same angle and distance.

Remington S.: libraries video and blog posts one and two: Make sure your captions show up well and don't blend into the background, like the second one here. The blog posts complement each other, as the two compare what MSU's library is like versus a traditional library. Each post takes one of those angles.

Jared C.: polluted river video and blog posts one and two: Good use of still pics as B-roll. Good hyperlinks on the first blog post, but the second required two different hyperlinks; it just had one, and that one was from the first post.

JRN 200: Your Homework For Wednesday 11/8

More multimedia work! Here we go:

*** For your second multimedia assignment, we will use video and blog formats like those in our first assignments, but instead of having sorta irrelevant topics, you will take all of or an aspect of one of your first two out-of-class stories, and do a video/online preview/online recap for it.

That would include:

... a 1-2 minute video, uploaded to YouTube, with B-roll and at least two source interviews on-tape;

... a 100-200-word look at one side of the issue, posted to blogger.com and done in a journalistic style, taking a look at one aspect of the issue, with at least two relevant working hyperlinks embedded in the text;

... and a 100-200-word look at the other side of the issue posted to blogger.com and done in a journalistic style, taking a look at an aspect of the issue that's complementary (and not copying) the aspect from the first post, with at least two relevant working hyperlinks embedded in the text;

For this exercise, you may re-interview sources from your previous stories or interview new sources. You may also use what you gathered and your notes from your original stories in putting together your new media news products.

Also, when I say you can do the entire comprehensive story or just an aspect of it, this is what I mean: let's say you did a story on the pros and cons of living off-campus vs. on-campus. The video may just look at one aspect, such as opinions on the issue. 

The first online story might look at the experiences of on-campus residents; with the second looking at off-campus viewpoints. Or maybe one post looks at the pros of being on-campus, with the next looking at the cons. Or the first talks to the people who run off- and on-campus housing, and the second talks to the students who live on- and off-campus.

None of the mediums necessarily have to look at the issue as broadly as you did in a traditional text story (though you may do so if you so choose).

*** Your deadline for the second multimedia assignment will be 9 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 16 via email to omars@msu.edu. Please put ALL your links to your work into a single email, with the subject line of MM2. 

*** Also, on Friday, Nov. 10 we will NOT have class! Please use the time to work on your upcoming multimedia work. Class will resume Wednsdat, Nov. 15.

If you need any assistance, contact me ASAP. And good luck, everybody!

MM #2: Some Examples From The Past

Below are links to the second video assignment from some JRN 200 classes in the past few years. Now, in looking at these don't focus too much on technical quality. Like you, they were taking their first real journalism class, and like you they were using basic equipment of varying quality.

Instead, look at the principles they're trying to establish: thorough interviews of a broad variety of sources -- everyone from direct participants to neutral experts. Good B-roll that shows what is being talked about. Frequent use of captions and attribution.

Let's take a peek, shall we? 

Here we go:

* Smoking ban video

Simple yet strong B-roll here. It's a story about a smoking ban; we show people smoking in different environments. That's all it has to be.

* Road work video

The video style here is what we call a "stand-up," which is literally that: a reporter stands in front of the camera and narrates the report. But notice the extensive use of B-roll throughout, especially within interview segments where we start with the talking head, then while the head continues to talk we switch the visual to B-roll that shows what the person is talking about, and then we return and finish with the talking head shot. Good story structure here. It's the video equivalent of pairing telling facts and quotes in print.

* Multitasking students video and blog posts:

GREAT variety of B-roll, both in terms of different scenes (working, skating, studying), mediums (video and still pics) and types of shots (wide/medium/tight). THIS is what we should be aiming for, as video is a visual medium.

Video #1: Let's See What You Did

Okay, so here's the video recap. I ask that you please look at EACH video and read my comments for EACH video (not just your own!), so we can learn like we've learned from each other throughout this semester.

Overall, I thought we did pretty well on this assignment, especially considering it was a first-time video in this class. Lots of good B-roll, good story flows, etc. Certainly some things that can be tweaked, but that's to be expected. 

Let's look for what worked and what didn't and what we could borrow for the next time and what we need to avoid doing again.

The biggest problem, really, was that several of us didn't do the assignment. Let me remind everyone again: there is no quicker way to get a bad final grade in this class than to blow off assignments, so if you're missing stuff here and there and you're shocked by your final semester grade, don't say I didn't warn you.

BTW, unless you received an email from me noting a specific grade, your grade for this exercise was a 4.0, with it equaling a practice story in final grade weight. (Future assignments will be evaluated and graded much more specifically based on execution and will be of higher grade weight, though).

Here we go:

Katie K.: We could have used more B-roll specific to what was being talked about: shots of people at work, in class, etc. Plus, watch our sound; the first interview subject is hard to follow.

Dakota H.: Here, the B-roll is fairly specific to what is being talked about.

Catherine B.: Good mix of B-roll. For news stories, we want to get as much "natural" B-roll as possible -- B-roll of a real and not staged activity.

Rachel Y.: Good framing of shots, good sound and good B-roll but not enough B-roll; we're stuck too long on the A-roll shot of the second interview subject and show too little of what she is talking about. (Yes, I know it would be more work to go to her church and such to get more B-roll, but this is a visual medium. We can't do everything we need to do in one meeting or just by phone; we need to go to the places where the things that are being talked about are happening.)

Ian K.: Good mix of B-roll and natural sound with the second interview subject; the first one would have used more B-roll, and a greater variety of B-roll.

Jared C.: Let's tighten up our A-roll shots a bit by getting a bit closer. Look to go from the armpit to about two inches above their head.

Shannon L.: This one used still photos as B-roll, which is a great way to be able to show things you weren't able to shoot by asking the interview subject for pictures to use. We can add a bit of animation to still pic B-roll by slowly panning in or out of the image, too.

Jabari S.: We had a technical issue with adding captions here, but the shots are nicely framed and decent B-roll. Again, better B-roll means we have to go to where the activity is happening -- to the subject's IM volleyball game, for example -- and get B-roll of him playing volleyball.

Nick F.: Good mix of B-roll with wide/medium/tight shots in strong use here. Very good sound.

Jack K.: We need to use B-roll while A-roll sound is still rolling, not just before or after. We also needed a greater variety of B-roll, shot from different angles (show us what they're watching, for example) and wide/medium/tight.

Nick S.: Having the person say who they are and posting an ID caption is redundant; cut the former. Also, we need to follow the rule of thirds when framing our shots. We need to show B-roll while A-roll audio is rolling, and not just before and after. Running A-roll and then B-roll instead of having B-roll video and A-roll should run simultaneously wastes time. We want to show and tell, simultaneously.

Remington S.: Good sound, framing and B-roll here; the problem is that we miss the assignment minimums of 1 minute in length and 2 on-camera sources.

Blog/Tweets #1: Let's Look At Some Posts And Tweets!

The simplest way I had to explain this assignment was in terms of something many of us are already familiar with: sports coverage. In the same way we do a game preview, live game tweets and then a game recap, we were to do an event preview, live tweets following the event as it happened and then a recap of the event for this assignment.

Some took the sports analogy and did literally that, and I think that's a good place for us to start. Here is one person's preview post, and then their tweet stream and finally their recap. See how the preview sets things up for the tweet stream, and then the recap nicely gets to end result and ultimate outcome? This is how we want multimedia products to complement and not copy each other.

Now, let's look at some examples using this format with non-sports topics including ...

* A birthday party preview and tweets and recap.

* Returning bottles preview and tweets and recap.

* Cooking dinner preview and tweets and recap.

Blog/Tweets #1: What It Might Look Like

For our opening assignment in using social media and writing about breaking news, what I will ask you to do is to pick out anything you observe as part of your daily routine for which to write an online breaking news preview story, an online breaking news follow-up story, and a live tweet stream as the event is unfolding.

When I say I want you to do anything in your daily routine, I do mean anything. Cover your watching  your favorite TV show. Or your roommate making breakfast. Or a game on TV you're watching. Really, anything.

(I want these to be observations, not something you're participating in. For example, you can cover your roommate making breakfast, but not a first-person account of you making breakfast yourself. Just like with a news story, don't use first-person references.) 

The reason for that is that I simply want you to get used to the technical process, without having to do any real and time-consuming reporting. We will incorporate reporting in latter versions of this assignment.


The parameters  of the assignment include:

-- Each breaking news entry being about the SAME topic, being covered as a preview and then a recap of what happened
-- Each breaking news story staying over the 100-word minimum 
-- The breaking news stories being written in a journalistic style, as opposed to a first-person blog-like style
-- Each breaking news item containing two working hyperlinks, inserted onto text
-- A minimum of 12 tweets on the same subject as the breaking news topic 
-- Each tweet having a consistent unique hash tag, to allow the tweets to be chained together


Now, to give you an idea of what the final product might look like, let's look at breaking news/tweet combos from the first such assignment (cut-and-pasted here; though for this assignment I want you to do it on Twitter and blogspot.com and then send me the links) from a past JRN 200 class, and let's talk about what worked and what can be done better.

And we're off: 

26. Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    Girls begin to leave the kitchen and head to their 12:40 classes. Ryan will be serving lunch until 1:00pm. #bestcampuscook

    
    
27.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    The bus boys are beginning to clean the dishes of the girls who have already finished their meals. #bestcampuscook
28.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    More girls just arrived as Ryan puts out another round of chicken gyros. #bestcampuscook

     Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5
29. Liz Redmond: "This is my favorite meal that Ryan makes!" #bestcampuscook
30.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    Chef Ryan made glutton-free chicken nuggets for a couple girls who can't eat the meal today. #bestcampuscook

     Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5
31. The volume in the kitchen is louder than ever due to all the conversations by the girls. What is everyone talking about? #bestcampuscook
32. 
    

    Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    The girls just discovered the Italian wedding soup. 4 bowls were just poured. #bestcampuscook

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33.    

    Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    The smell of freshly cut tomatoes and onions are filling the kitchen. #bestcampuscook

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34.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    Chef Ryan, a U of M fan, lost a bet to the girls & he has to wear a green and white tutu all week. # 

    
    

    
    

    
    

    bestcampuscook pic.twitter.com/Kq4xdmAwvc

    
    
35.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    Chef Ryan just put out a fruit bar. Pineapple, cantaloupe, mangos, and oranges all freshly cut for the Theta girls. #bestcampuscook
36.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    
      
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Chicken gyros, homemade by Chef Ryan, look the best I've ever seen them. #bestcampuscook pic.twitter.com/AJP1dgD5nz

    
    

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
37.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    20 girls out of the 54 who live-in are attending lunch today. #bestcampuscook

    
    
38.   Andrea Urban ‏@JRN200_AndreaU Nov 5

    It's almost lunch time at Kappa Alpha Theta with Chef Ryan! Chicken gyros are on the menu today. #bestcampuscook

Now, here are the blog posts previewing and recapping the event:

Lunch at Theta

Tuesday, November 5

Post

When it nears time for class, the ladies of Kappa Alpha Theta give their dishes to the bus boys who help clean up while Chef Ryan begins to prepare dinner. The bus boys are men from fraternities on campus who are expected to come by the sorority house at the end of each meal. Chef Ryan has only been with Theta for two years now and they've never been happier about hiring him from Campus Cooks. The girls always leave with their stomachs full and looking forward to dinner. It is rare when the girls have something bad to say about Chef Ryan's masterpieces. Today is was chicken gyros, wonder what it will be tomorrow?

Preview

Everyday at 11:30am, Kappa Alpha Theta's Chef Ryan has a full meal made and ready for the girls to eat. Each day it's a new meal, plus he will special make certain dishes for girls with allergies. Chef Ryan is a part of Campus Cooks here at Michigan State. Each Sorority and Fraternity have a Campus Cook Chef to cook for them 5 out of the 7 days a week. During lunch you can expect to see plenty of girls throughout all grades who live in the sorority come downstairs to the kitchen for a quick lunch before class. 

****** 

Here's another example:

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2.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson finished the race with a great time, got first, and just won the game despite her interruption! �� #NikkiGameCubePro
3.    

   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson is on the edge of her seat on the futon, determined to take first place and win it all. #NikkiGameCubePro
4.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson moved on from the city ride to test her skills in the final race against her computer opponents. #NikkiGameCubePro
5.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Baker apologized and just left the room. Erickson has returned to concentrating on her goal of winning. #NikkiGameCubePro
6.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson is beyond frustrated that her chances of winning are in jeopardy now.  

   #NikkiGameCubePro pic.twitter.com/WJRRopg039

   
   
   

   
7.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson yells at her friend, Emily Baker, for her disturbance. #NikkiGameCubePro
8.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

   Erickson's friend from down the hall entered her room and has severely interrupted her game. #NikkiGameCubePro

    Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5
9. Erickson just collected a ticking time bomb and had Kirby shoot it at a hopeless victim. #NikkiGameCubePro
10.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

    The game is getting intense. Erickson is extremely focused. #NikkiGameCubePro p

      

    ic.twitter.com/Nw0aayHiPp

    
    

    

    
    

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11.    

    Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

    Erickson is off to a good start, as usual, busting open boxes and collecting dozens of badges. #NikkiGameCubePro

     Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5
12. Erickson turned on her favorite game, Kirby Air Ride, and is beginning her quest through the city as Kirby. #NikkiGameCubePro
13.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

    Erickson kicked off her shoes, grabbed her GameCube remote and a blanket, and is now retrieving to the futon. #NikkiGameCubePro
14.   Sophie Smith ‏@sophiejrn200 Nov 5

    Nikki Erickson just returned to her dorm room for the first time since early this morning. She's eager to relax. #NikkiGameCubePro

Now, the blog posts:

Blog New Media #1 - Review 

Michigan State student Nikki Erickson quickly paired up with her GameCube controller when she came home from her class-filled day on Tuesday.

Erickson was going through her normal routine of dominating her favorite game, Kirby Air Ride, in an attempt to win it all as she had done many times in the past.

Just after busting open a crate with a bunch of badges inside to collect in the game, Erickson was interrupted when her friend down the hall, Emily Baker, entered her room unannounced.

Erickson's concentration had been blown and as a result, blew up at Baker. Baker left the room promptly after.

"I really didn't know she was so in the zone," Baker said. "I wouldn't have interrupted her if I knew."

Just when Erickson thought she had lost her chances, it was time for her final race that determined her fate.

After zooming past her computerized opponents as fast as lightning, receiving 3 speed boosts on the way, Erickson took first place and won the game.

Blog New Media #1 - Preview 

A student at Michigan State University plans to come home from a long day of classes on Tuesday and play her GameCube. Nikki Erickson has always enjoyed video games and playing Kirby Air Ride in her dorm room is something that helps her to unwind at the end of the day.

Erickson is extremely competitive and excels greatly at this game she plays so frequently. However, every time she sits down to begin to play, the excitement is just as great as before.

Erickson knows the game like the back of her hand, yet she strives to perform even better and accomplish more than she did in the game she played previous.

"I love playing my GameCube because it helps me forget my school work for a little while," said Erickson. "Instead of doing college algebra I get to zoom around on a Warpstar. Who wouldn't want to do that?"

Although that's an easily answered question, the one that's not is will Erickson successfully take on several races and mini games once again and win the game?