YouTube Version

Here it is on YouTube as well. Watch it in high quality, it looks better.

Discontent in Durham

Here is the final edited version of my project. I tried to make a few of the text slides a little bit longer, as someone told me they were a little short last time. Also, I fixed a few typos throughout the video. I also changed the video at the end to one that was a little more stable and fixed the ending credits so it would look better.
A couple things about the projects. I know I talked a little about this in my last post, but I was very impressed overall with the projects all together. Each one had a clear point and purpose, and many of them provide the audience with a reason to care about the person or people in the video. I generally felt bad for the people who couldn't scallop anymore, or who needed help from the food pantry, or for the people who lived to play music at the stone church. Each story may have had their own angles, but each gave us a reason to care. I am amazed at the progress made by each student in the class, and I love how the project was a culmination of the year.

Finally, I just wanted to say thank you to you Sandy. Your class was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed learning about the various aspects of multimedia journalism from you and the other people who made a trip to our class this semester. So I thank you for that.

1st Round of Multimedia Presentations

After reading Sandy's blog post, I have to somewhat agree. In the classes leading up to when we had to present our final projects, there were many problems that students were coming across throughout nearly the entire class. I was half expecting many of the people to not have much of a project.
Boy when we saw the videos, was I impressed. The quality of much of the videoes was incredible, and made me realize that when I was presenting my video, it had to be fantastic to keep up with many of them. I was honestly impressed. More to come after the second day.

My Edited Interview

This is my final edited interview. I was having trouble with Youtube trying to upload it. However, I finally got it to work.

Tom Snyder

Hey sorry my post is a couple hours late. I thought it was due with the sound clip tomorrow. Anyways on to my thoughts on Mr. Snyder. I thought that he was an awesome guest to have come into the class and speak. He was fascinating, and his stories about him making Dr. Katz were awesome. One thing that I found really interesting about him was he was one of the creators of squigglevision. That form of animation is used in one of my favorite movies to watch, Waking Life. They use a very similar style to Tom, with the lines moving to give the picture the appearance that it has much more movement then it actually does. I honestly believe that sort of animation is amazing. However the biggest thing that I took from Tom coming to the class is when he talked about not having to use the best tools to make something good. He spoke extensively about how he had used Movie Maker to create stuff that he did professionally. This really drove me to realize that like he said, it doesn't matter which interface you are using to create the projects, its only about the project that you create. I was certainly inspired. And after watching Tom's presentation in class, I searched one of my favorite TV shows, SOUTH PARK, and found the episode where Dr. Katz makes a special appearance. Definitely a funny clip to check out. If you are interested, the episode is called "Summer Sucks" in season two of South Park.

10/15/2008

So I have having a dilemma with my project about the Town of Durham. I kind of realized after my interview with Sandy this week that there is no real good ending to the relationship between the town of Durham and the University. So I have been thinking about possibly switching my topic this week, but I haven't been able to find anything good.
However, in the interest of still trying to complete the assignment for this week, I went to the Sarah Palin speech at Dover High school today and did some interviews and recorded some things with numerous people there. I also took a few shots with my cell phone, the only camera I currently have that is working. I put the best one on my blog already, directly below this post. I met a bunch of interesting people there. One lady, her husband was a Geology teacher at the university for more than 30 years and died on September 11th. He was on the second plane that crashed into the Twin Towers. She was certainly inspirational and interesting to talk to. I also spoke to another lady who was holding a Veteran's Mama for Obama sign outside of the speech (the lady in the picture below). This was the first time she had ever done anything like this, as she felt it was her civic duty to make sure McCain and Palin did not end up in the White House. I also spoke with a t-shirt vendor from St. Louis, MO., a man who felt 9/11 was an inside job, and plenty of other protesters along the way. Each had their own views on why they were there and why they felt it was important. I even voice recorded the entire Sarah Palin speech, which lasted about half an hour. I am hoping that these interviews on the presidential elections could possibly provide a new sort of story or angle for me to follow.
Lastly I wanted to discuss the technological aspects of being a journalist. I have always worked in the direction that almost any of these programs you can figure out for yourself. It actually kind of makes me enjoy the profession more. The more frequently that you work with each program, the better the multimedia projects I feel I could produce. I just think that the class has struggled with a lot of this technology because it is the first time we are using it. It is good to get our feet wet in it, but to be truly proficient, we need more experience.