For the third and optional fourth out-of-class stories, if you haven't heard from me then you have been approved with your topic. Having said that, many of the proposals were too narrow in sourcing; for your stories you will need all sides of complexity represented: people whose actions are driving the subject and people affected by it; people with direct roles in the subject and neutral experts; quotes and telling data.
I will be grading you much harder than in the past OOC stories; whatever got you a good grade last time will not suffice here. The whole point of all the work we did this semester was to be at the top of our game now, and that's what I will expect.
Plus, for the third out-of-classer we are going to have all mediums converge; that is, in addition to the usual 700-word, three human source minimum story you will also have to do two blog posts with at least two hyperlinks each; a tweet stream of at least 12 tweets with a unifying hash tag; and a 1-2 minute video on your topic or an aspect of the topic, with at least two human sources on tape and adequate B-roll.
Then, I need you to send me an attachment of the written story and links to all the multimedia elements to omars@msu.edu. Your deadline will be no later than 8 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 25, which is the Monday before Thanksgiving, giving you almost two weeks to do this.
I will try to have graded written stories back to you by the end of the day Wednesday, Nov. 26. Optional rewrites will then be due by 8 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 4, which is the last day of teh semester.
The optional fourth out-of-class story will also be due no later than 8 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 4. For that story, you only need to do the 700-word report, but if you would like to do multimedia elements you may.
You also may do a fourth multimedia assignment (without the written story component) if you wish, and that would replace your lowest multimedia grades.
Also, we have homework I'd like you to complete before the next class: please read RFTM Ch. 6 and 7 (p. 129-186) before Tuesday, Nov. 18.
Any questions? Please see me.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
MM #2: What You Did
In order of reception. If you didn't get an email back from me, then you scored 4.0s on all assignment segments. Here we go:
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
*****
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
*****
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
OOC #2: In General
In
general, good (but not great) work on the second out-of-classer. Good
writing and good structure, but still way too narrow a range of sources, and
a lack of neutral experts.
We're not just trying to get one side or the other side, everyday people affected by things and the people in charge of those things; neutral experts or statistics backing up claims; and allegations and responses to those allegations; we are trying to get all of it.
Plus, one fatal: We spelled Capital Area Transportation Authority as Capital Area Transport Authority. That's a fatal, and all we had to do was double-check our spelling against that of CATA's Website.
Plus, we spelled the Centers for Disease Control as the Center for Disease Control. Not only would we know that from the CDC's Website, we'd also know if we looked it up in the AP Stylebook.
Also, we identified the movie shot here recently as Batman vs. Superman, when in fact it's Batman v Superman. Again, I found that on the movie's official Website.
I know that's not much, but that's all you need to fatal.
Please, folks. Double-check every noun (person, place or thing), every number (statistics, street address, etc), every date and every word in every quote.
We're not just trying to get one side or the other side, everyday people affected by things and the people in charge of those things; neutral experts or statistics backing up claims; and allegations and responses to those allegations; we are trying to get all of it.
Plus, one fatal: We spelled Capital Area Transportation Authority as Capital Area Transport Authority. That's a fatal, and all we had to do was double-check our spelling against that of CATA's Website.
Plus, we spelled the Centers for Disease Control as the Center for Disease Control. Not only would we know that from the CDC's Website, we'd also know if we looked it up in the AP Stylebook.
Also, we identified the movie shot here recently as Batman vs. Superman, when in fact it's Batman v Superman. Again, I found that on the movie's official Website.
I know that's not much, but that's all you need to fatal.
Please, folks. Double-check every noun (person, place or thing), every number (statistics, street address, etc), every date and every word in every quote.
OOC #2: A Good Example
JRN 200
11/4/14
Slug: Social Media Benefits
In a era of #YOLO and #tbt, members
of the Michigan State University community say virtual communication has
positive uses beyond trending hashtags and meaningless texting.
MSU students, professors and
researches MISSPELLING: RESEARCHERS,
STED RESEARCHES said social media sites and other online communities aid
education and information HYPHEN HERE
sharing.
According to Christine Greenhow, an assistant professor in
the College of Education at MSU, online communities can be beneficial to
student learning.
“Now, with low barriers to online
participation and widespread adoption of mobile internet-connected devices
students can seek and solicit help from their online social networks as well as
readily share ideas and information,” said Greenhow via email.
In a study published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, four
sections of the same class used Twitter for class purposes and three sections
did not. The Twitter using sections reported higher engagement levels
and had a higher average GPA, beating the non-Tweeting group by about .5 0.5, PER AP STYLE points on a 0-4.0
scale.
MSU senior Mitchell Alpiner said he
likes using Twitter for class activities because he hates “watching a talking
head reading off a PowerPoint slide that's posted online. Reading and
interacting and making snarky comments keeps me engaged in the material, and
helps me feel like I have a voice in the class.”
Beyond class use, students said
they utilized social media to gather information about friends, celebrities and
various businesses.
“I just like to check to see what’s
going on with people that I know” along with “musicians, and actors that I like
and companies that I would like to find stuff out about,” said MSU freshman
Nicholas Russo.
Russo said he checks Twitter every
couple of hours throughout the day and discovers new information posted about
events and business promotions.
According to Brandon Van Der Heide,
an assistant professor and researcher of communication at MSU, the presence of
businesses on social media and online customer reviews has increased customer
knowledge and awareness.
Research from the Harvard Business
Review Analytics Services said 50 percent of businesses that use social media
claim their target customers have an “increased awareness of our organization,
products or services” due to social media accounts.
Van Der Heide said the availability
of information on social media “is certainly different from the way we used to
find out about a good restaurant. It used to be the case that you would either
hear about it from a friend primarily, or advertisements or a mass media
source.”
According to Van Der Heide, online
communication is not replacing in-person interactions but is just a different
way to give and receive information.
Van der Heide said, “Often people
will tend to assume face to face communication is this gold standard where in
really true interpersonal messages can be transmitted,” but online
communication is an effective way to quickly share information.
MSU freshman Grace Hough said she prefers
to meet up with people in-person but she relies on texting for a convenient way
to arrange meeting times and places.
“It’s fun to meet up with people
places instead of just texting them because you can do things like meet in a
cafeteria and have coffee with someone, and it’s just fun to interact and be
around people,” said Hough.
Alpiner said he also prefers to
meet up with people in-person because “being in-person lets me react quicker
and hear the inflection, as well as see the body language of the people I'm
interacting with.”
Alpiner said though in-person
communication has benefits, he also enjoys online communication because “being
online gives me a few more seconds and minutes to think about what I'm going to
say next.”
According to Van Der Heide, people
use social media and other online communities to carefully craft messages and
express their best qualities, but this is not a new concept.
“We’ve always had the hand written
letter so we have always had the opportunity to carefully present ourselves,
but I think the ubiquity and the ease of access to computer mediated
communication has led to a more regular use of that kind of thing,” said Van
Der Heide.
Van Der Heide said the availability
of social media also helps people communicate with friends and family who are
far away.
According to a Common Sense Media
research study, 88 percent of teens with social media accounts said it helped
them keep in touch with friends they cannot see regularly.
Hough said she uses social media
and texting to communicate with her sisters who are in high school because she
cannot see them in-person very often.
“It’s a nice way to keep in touch,”
said Hough.
Word Count: 764
Christine Greenhow
Assistant Professor
Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special
Education
Ed.D., Harvard University
http://www.cgreenhow.org/
513F Erickson
517-432-0425
Brandon Van Der Heide
Assistant Professor of Communication
Mitchell Alpiner
MSU Senior
alpiner.mitchell@gmail.com
Nicholas Russo
MSU Sophomore
810-860-8385
Grace Hough
Freshman
616-298-5899
houghgra@msu.edu
Harvard Business
Review Analytics Services http://www.sas.com/resources/whitepaper/wp_23348.pdf
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning http://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/administration/president/sparc/meetings/docs/StudentEngagementArticle.pdf
Common Sense Media
Research
ASSIGNMENT GRADE: (redacted)
INSTRUCTOR COMMENTS:
VERY NICE WORK, BUT WHAT KEEPS IT FROM BEING PERFECT ISTHAT WE DON’T TALK TO
ANY TEACHERS (NOT RESEARCHERS/NEUTRAL EXPERT TYPES) WHO USE AND DON’T USE
SOCIAL MEDIA IN CLASS TO GET THEIR TAKE ON IT. THINK OF AND REPORT ALL SIDES OF
A STORY.
Vid #1: Let's Look At Some Vidoes!
Okay,
so here's the video recap, in order in which video was turned in. 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 very, very well on this assignment, especially considering it was a first-time video in this class. Lots of good B-roll, good story flows, ect. Certainly some things that can be tweaked, but that's to be expected. Really, this was the best one of my classes has ever done on this assignment; congrats to all!
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.
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:
Chelsea S.: Let's always be aware of audio and sound conditions. The microphones are a bit distant and the interview space has a bit of an echo, which can be problematic. The best places to do interviews are small rooms with no background noise and low ceilings. And getting a mic as close as possible to a speaker's mouth is always preferred.
Anna S.: For this exercise we're working with very basic equipment and editing programs, so we're gonna have a bit of lack of polish at times that's not our fault. With this vid, instead of the quality of video concentrate on structure, use of sound bytes and b-roll, captioning, etc.
Meg D.: If we're shooting for a horizontal screen (like that of a TV, laptop, tablet or smart phone) then we need to shoot video with our phone in a horizontal position, or else we end up with the black side bars like here.
Asha D.: Let's remember this is still a news story and must adhere to news standards, like no unattributed opinion. So the "Enroll now!" caption shouldn't be in there, like we wouldn't want it in a print news story. Same values, regardless of medium, apply.
Kelsey F.: Nice creativity unique to video in the lede. In captioning, we only need the initial caption, since viewers of video have a cue to use to identify the person after first attribution: their face. So that will suffice in place of subsequent attribution.
Jason R.: The b-roll is a bit random; we should try to pair b-roll that illustrates what is being talked bout (for example, if someone is talking about how they learned to write better, have b-roll showing them typing on a keyboard).
Emma-Jean B.: Very nice use of the Rule of Thirds in the interview shots, and a nice, broad variety of B-roll.
Emily N.: With the title slide, let's emphasize the title over the author credit. The news is what the video is about, not who created it. Emphasize the news.
Mary A.: Let's be sure to be following standard attribution rules, which means first and last names on first references. Here, we have a first name only for me. Video viewers need to know who your sources are as much as print readers. The nice thing with video is we don't need a second attribution at all, since the audience has another cue at that point: the source's face.
Also, we have to adhere to fact-checking standards like we do in print. Here, we have a misspelled name: it's Easterling, not Easter. Even with a change in mediums, we still need to check every noun (person, place or thing), every title, every statistical unit, etc. for accuracy, before and after we shoot and edit.
Plus, I'm pretty sure you broke federal law by using a professional band's song. Congrats; I'll see you in prison. We cannot use the music, words or pictures of others unless we (a.) ahve their written permission to do so (and no, it's not enough to simply credit it), or (B) we find and use royalty-free music, words or pictures that we can search for online using that specific search term: royalty-free.
Something I liked about this vid was that it showed far more than it told. And that's good; video is a visual medium; we want to emphasize what video does best, which is showing things. This vid did just that.
Alana E.: Again, using a professional song will send us to prison. We're missing captions identifying the speaker (which acts like attribution does in print), we don't have enough B-roll in the first interview segment (which is the equivalent of running just a string of quotes in print, without any contextual breaks), we have staged B-roll (which is okay for commercials and such, but not for journalism in the same way staged is okay for fiction or creative writing, but not for journalism) and that B-roll isn't relevant to what is being spoken about (akin to a quote or fact that has little relevance in print).
Travis D.: On a technical level, nice "dissolves" between B-roll segments and interview clips. Again, it's a visual medium; make the visual interesting. Plus, we're not going to prison for this one (please note closing credits).
Overall, I thought we did very, very well on this assignment, especially considering it was a first-time video in this class. Lots of good B-roll, good story flows, ect. Certainly some things that can be tweaked, but that's to be expected. Really, this was the best one of my classes has ever done on this assignment; congrats to all!
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.
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:
Chelsea S.: Let's always be aware of audio and sound conditions. The microphones are a bit distant and the interview space has a bit of an echo, which can be problematic. The best places to do interviews are small rooms with no background noise and low ceilings. And getting a mic as close as possible to a speaker's mouth is always preferred.
Anna S.: For this exercise we're working with very basic equipment and editing programs, so we're gonna have a bit of lack of polish at times that's not our fault. With this vid, instead of the quality of video concentrate on structure, use of sound bytes and b-roll, captioning, etc.
Meg D.: If we're shooting for a horizontal screen (like that of a TV, laptop, tablet or smart phone) then we need to shoot video with our phone in a horizontal position, or else we end up with the black side bars like here.
Asha D.: Let's remember this is still a news story and must adhere to news standards, like no unattributed opinion. So the "Enroll now!" caption shouldn't be in there, like we wouldn't want it in a print news story. Same values, regardless of medium, apply.
Kelsey F.: Nice creativity unique to video in the lede. In captioning, we only need the initial caption, since viewers of video have a cue to use to identify the person after first attribution: their face. So that will suffice in place of subsequent attribution.
Jason R.: The b-roll is a bit random; we should try to pair b-roll that illustrates what is being talked bout (for example, if someone is talking about how they learned to write better, have b-roll showing them typing on a keyboard).
Emma-Jean B.: Very nice use of the Rule of Thirds in the interview shots, and a nice, broad variety of B-roll.
Emily N.: With the title slide, let's emphasize the title over the author credit. The news is what the video is about, not who created it. Emphasize the news.
Mary A.: Let's be sure to be following standard attribution rules, which means first and last names on first references. Here, we have a first name only for me. Video viewers need to know who your sources are as much as print readers. The nice thing with video is we don't need a second attribution at all, since the audience has another cue at that point: the source's face.
Also, we have to adhere to fact-checking standards like we do in print. Here, we have a misspelled name: it's Easterling, not Easter. Even with a change in mediums, we still need to check every noun (person, place or thing), every title, every statistical unit, etc. for accuracy, before and after we shoot and edit.
Plus, I'm pretty sure you broke federal law by using a professional band's song. Congrats; I'll see you in prison. We cannot use the music, words or pictures of others unless we (a.) ahve their written permission to do so (and no, it's not enough to simply credit it), or (B) we find and use royalty-free music, words or pictures that we can search for online using that specific search term: royalty-free.
Something I liked about this vid was that it showed far more than it told. And that's good; video is a visual medium; we want to emphasize what video does best, which is showing things. This vid did just that.
Alana E.: Again, using a professional song will send us to prison. We're missing captions identifying the speaker (which acts like attribution does in print), we don't have enough B-roll in the first interview segment (which is the equivalent of running just a string of quotes in print, without any contextual breaks), we have staged B-roll (which is okay for commercials and such, but not for journalism in the same way staged is okay for fiction or creative writing, but not for journalism) and that B-roll isn't relevant to what is being spoken about (akin to a quote or fact that has little relevance in print).
Travis D.: On a technical level, nice "dissolves" between B-roll segments and interview clips. Again, it's a visual medium; make the visual interesting. Plus, we're not going to prison for this one (please note closing credits).
MM #2: What You Need To Do
For your second multimedia assignment, we will use all the mediums we
used in the first assignment, 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/tweet
stream 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 preview, posted to blogger.com and done in a journalistic style, taking a look at the issue going into your reporting, with at least two relevant working hyperlinks embedded in the text;
... a 100-200-word recap, posted to blogger.com and done in a journalistic style, taking a look at what you discovered about the issue/how it ended, with at least two relevant working hyperlinks embedded in the text;
... and a tweet stream on Twitter with at least 12 tweets on the subject, and a unifying hash tag applied to each tweet.
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 and tweet stream may just look at one aspect, such as student opinions on the issue. The preview online story might look at the experiences of on-campus residents; with the recap looking at off-campus viewpoints. 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 this will be 10 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12, via email to omars@msu.edu. Please put ALL your links to your work into a single email, with the subject line of MM2.
If you need any assistance, contact me ASAP. And good luck, everybody!
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 preview, posted to blogger.com and done in a journalistic style, taking a look at the issue going into your reporting, with at least two relevant working hyperlinks embedded in the text;
... a 100-200-word recap, posted to blogger.com and done in a journalistic style, taking a look at what you discovered about the issue/how it ended, with at least two relevant working hyperlinks embedded in the text;
... and a tweet stream on Twitter with at least 12 tweets on the subject, and a unifying hash tag applied to each tweet.
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 and tweet stream may just look at one aspect, such as student opinions on the issue. The preview online story might look at the experiences of on-campus residents; with the recap looking at off-campus viewpoints. 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 this will be 10 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12, via email to omars@msu.edu. Please put ALL your links to your work into a single email, with the subject line of MM2.
If you need any assistance, contact me ASAP. And good luck, everybody!
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