Entering a New World

So after reading the two articles Sandy mentioned, I found myself both surprised and troubled. The article about the Christian Science Monitor was not terribly shocking to me, despite its connotations. In todays world, you'd have to be foolish not to think that print is quickly becoming replaced with internet articles. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that hundreds of small papers either vanish or go digital within the next year or so. It's sad, but it seems to make sense.
The article talked about the money that newspapers make off advertising and individual paper sales, and it's clear that that money just doesn't exist on the internet. Yes, there are still advertisements, but they only generate a fraction of the money that hard copy newspapers do. This is a problem for hardcore newspaper writers.
The article that did surprise me was the one about Q.U. To me, college has always stood for freedom and independance. People come to college not only to get an education, but to "find themselves". The recent incident at Q.U. seems to me like an example of the total opposite philosophy. It seems very troublesome that an instution such as a college would be so restricting to the first amendment. If colleges are tightening their reins, who's next? Where will minds be free to think and explore and create?
In summary, I am worried about the future of journalism. I've been studying journalism since high school, and it would be a damn shame to find out that there are only half as many jobs available for me when I graduate than there were before I entered college. I do like all this multimedia stuff, but when a journalist thinks "job", they think newsroom, not a laptop at home. Not that there's anything wrong with working from a laptop at home, I'm sure it's much easier and less stressful, but that's not exactly the enviornment journalists, this journalist anyway, want.

Tom, Audio, Technology...

So Tom's visit was pretty fun. He opened with like, a 40 minute intro, but once he was beyond that, he was actually quite helpful. This has been the first guest, I think, that has actually showed us how to use a specific program. He showed us how to load files into Windows Movie Maker, edit them, and put them together to create an audio slideshow. Since this is the format we'll be using for our projects, I found this demonstration particularly useful.
Tom's resume speaks for itself, so I found him to be a good person to talk to, and to listen to. He had one very useful piece of advice for us, something I hadn't heard before, but something that seems to make a lot of sense. He said "Almost anyone will help you once." What a good quote. He said this while he was explaining the strategy he used to make himself successful. He would get one person's name and/or number, then use that person to get another name/number, and continued until he had a huge list. Pretty good idea, and simple too. He also stressed the importance of not missing meetings, as he did one important time in his career.
But as far as the technical stuff, I really think I'm getting the hang of it all. After Tom's brief lesson on Movie Maker, I found myself just taking off and getting right to work. These are the kinds of presentations I've been hoping for in this class. I think by now I've learned how to use all the equipment and software that I'll need for my project, which is very helpful at this stage.

On Technology...

So lately I, too, have been thinking about all this technology and multimedia stuff, so it's funny that the assigment pertains to this. I've been noticing that in this class, we haven't really focused on finding and writing stories, but instead we've spent a lot of time learning about the new outlets of journalism and how to use them. This is a new experience for me, because in my last journalism class (intro newswriting), all we did was work on stories on a weekly basis. I've found myself actually liking what we're doing a lot better.
The more I think about it, the more I feel that electronics truly are the way of the future. My kids, for example, may never even read a newspaper. No one knows yet, but I personally believe that the internet and television will very shortly be the only sources people use for news, if they don't already. If this is the case, then it's lucky I'm in a class right now that is designed to prepare me for that world. I'm not even afraid of it, I'm actually a little excited about it. I've really taken a liking to all things multimedia, and I can totally see why they teach this in colleges now. All the technical stuff, like learning how to use different types of software and hardware, can be a pain, but it's a learning process, like anything else. I think it could only be helpful for us to learn the things that we're learning now.
SO, about my project. I'm on the brink of panic, actually. My original plan of doing a story about the new law in Portsmouth which bans a person from all bars if they get banned from one, seems to be going nowhere. At the time I heard it, it seemed great, it was a hot breaking story. But then I had to remember what class I was in. There really weren't many outlets that would make for a good multimedia story. Then I started thinking about the assignment again, and I came to realize that I may not have had the right idea the whole time. In fact, I still really don't know exactly what these projects are supposed to be, or what they are supposed to do. I thought we were supposed to find some kind of long-running story, something to work on all semester. But then I thought, isn't the most important part of jouranlism timliness? Maybe somebody could shed some light on this for me?

Short Little Narrative

So for this assignment, I decided I'd head down to the Irving gas station and compile a little segment about filling up. It's something that everybody (well, every driver) does on a regular basis, it pertains to current events (gas prices, "going green", hybrids...), and it's a good source for ambient sound. Cars starting their engines, doors opening and closing, horns, truck motors idling, motorcycles exploding to a start, and just passing conversations are all nice little pieces of sound to describe something as simple as filling up your gas tank. The photos are here.
As for Don's visit, I thought it was pretty good. He showed us that photos and sound, but not video, can be extremely powerful in telling a story. The slideshow he showed us in class about the water birth was indeed quite powerful. Don said that if the same story were told on video, it would not have been as effective, which I can understand. He also taught us the importance of audio to any story. People tend to be turned off or turned on by audio, so it's important to always make sure that you have good audio. Five minutes of crap is still crap, right? Furthermore, Don stressed the importance of always having headphones on when recording sound, and when possible, have an external microphone as well. Although we do not have our own microphones, we can use techniques Don taught us in class to enhance our recording experiences without them.

A Sad Confession...

Alright, so I had a much harder time with this than I had anticipated. I was going to do a little story about off-campus living. I found a friend at the library that lives off-campus this year so I filmed him for about 45 seconds. I asked him his name, what year he was, all that business, and we talked about living off-campus. My friend then invited me back to his house to do the story, but before we got there, he said that he really had too much work to get done, and went back to the library. I did get the video at the library, however, the entire thing came out sideways, as I held the camera vertically, forgetting that Sandy said never to do that when shooting video with these cameras. So that clip is junk. The next 2 clips I had, although properly oriented, make little sense without that introductory clip. Finally, on top of it all, every clip I have, regardless of whether or not it's good, comes out terribly on the computer. The video pauses for 5 or 6 seconds at a time while the audio keeps on rolling. It's just a catastrophe, really.

Although I did like the guest speaker last week, he seemed a bit unprepared. He even said something like "Luck favors the prepared", little ironic, no? But I guess what I'm trying to say is, it would be great if any of the guest speakers would talk a little bit about the technical aspects of what we're doing. For instance, if Fred Field had taken one of the cameras from class and showed us how to shoot a decent video, then upload it and edit it, it would have been perfect. The instructional video in class about still photography was indeed helpful, I would like to see one just like it only about video, or maybe just someone to show me the ropes. Check out the new slideshow though, it will at least give you an idea of off-campus life.