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.

This week

So for this week for our multimedia blogs, we had to find a process to turn into an audio slide show. I had a little trouble at the beginning trying to decide what in fact I wanted to do for this week. I kept thinking that maybe I could do a day where I cooked food and the whole process that happened during it, or I could a trip to Holloway Commons, where I could show a person hungry before they start, them collecting food, them starting to eat their food, and then finally their empty tray and them replacing it when it was done. However, I then decided that I thought the best process for me to do would be the television stand that we are making for my apartment. We are building something to put our 50" television on top of (basically an entertainment center) and something that we can keep all of our various game platforms and the Comcast box under.
A couple of things made this shooting interesting. First of all, our kitten was all over the place. The expression "curiosity killed the cat" was made for our kitten Geraldine. If anything of any sort is happening and she is not involved, she will come up and immediately see what is going on. She was walking right next to the circular saw when Casey was trying to cut wood, nearly licking the drill, and rolling around in the saw dust as we made the box. It was actually quite funny
I encountered a few problems when doing this. First off, it is very hard to take pictures of something like this. In order to see what my roommates where doing in many of the shots, I felt like I had to be really close to both of them to even get any sort of decent shot. It is very hard to get a shot of my roommate Casey and be able at the same time to see that he is screwing into the wood. The small parts made the shots quite difficult.
I also had a problem when we ran out of screws to continue making the entertainment center. We got the inner box entirely set up, however, we were limited to strictly that. It is hard to keep two pieces of wood together when you run out of screws.
Another problem I encountered was again computer problems. Picasa seems to be very black and white on my computer. Some days I don't have a problem at all uploading pictures onto the website for display on my blog, and other days no matter what I try, I can't seems to get it to work. However, although a few hours late, I finally was able to get the pictures up and in time for use in class tomorrow.
Also, I just wanted to extend a thank you to Don Himsel for coming to our class and talking about various aspects of multimedia. I really liked some of the tips he gave for coming up with better multimedia projects, such as how audio should always be your foundation with video and to always wear headphones when recording that audio. I really thought he gave a great presentation. So thanks a lot Don.

Added my stills to the Slideshow

Shooting video is always something that I love to do. I spent the last two years of high school and the first year of college with the video camera constantly strapped to my hand. So the thought of us having to go out and shoot a video was certainly something that peaked my interest. However, no matter how much I enjoyed it, the hardest part was the actually shooting the short viral video.
The first problem that I encountered in my “trip around Durham” was an self-depressing realization the digital video camera I have had since high school is no longer in any sense of a working order. Everything filmed is left with a streak of exaggerated colors and lines that certainly don’t belong in my digital world. So I was left with filming entirely on a camera that only takes up to 30 seconds of video in a painfully deflating quality.
The next problem I encountered was how to tell a story about the town of Durham. A topic the size of Durham needed to be better represented that a few select interviews. However, I lacked the necessary tools to truly depict a decent film of Durham that people would actually want to watch. So due to this little camera and no tripod, my focus quickly became a more mocumentary approach at illuminating the town at it’s (not so) finest. This approach gave me the opportunity to add much more humor to the short film, which (I hope) allows the viewers to focus less on the horrendous video quality. To compensate, I did much of the shooting from the window of a driving car, giving the audience the feeling of “being along for the ride,” and allowing the person to get a better feel of getting the full tour from a sarcastic college student.
The last (and biggest) problem that I encountered was having to use Windows Movie Maker to edit my film. I grew up on Adobe Premiere, so having to use to Movie Maker severely limited my creative ability. My computer has trouble running Firefox, so a huge movie editing program like Premiere was doomed. So many of the effects I would usually use were lost to do an initial running on a downgraded program. However, I did the best with what I could, and I guess I am happy with what I got.
Lastly, I wanted to address Fred Field’s visit to the classroom on last Wednesday’s class. I really enjoyed him taking the time out to come in and talk to us about his work in photography. His pictures were incredible, and his sense of humor certainly kept me entertained. I think the thing that I learned most from Fred was when he talked about being shy when he first started. I often get anxiety doing a lot of the work from journalism, but some of the stuff he said made me realize that it is never half as bad as it seems. He actually kind of inspired me. Thanks Fred.

Walking Around With A Camera

The process of walking around with a camera was certainly something interesting, but not entirely new to me. When I was in high school, I used to be the one walking around with the video camera filming everyone else. The more time that you spend behind the camera and getting over the fear that people really do not want you aiming at them, the process gets pretty easy. I actually enjoy being the one behind the action, especially on a video camera
There were a couple things that I thought worked well when I was taking the pictures. When I first started out to take the pictures, I really liked the amount of sunlight that was left. It was when the sun was just about to go down, but there was still enough light on things to where the flash did not reach. It gave many of the pictures a cool effect with the darker light in the background of the pictures. The shots in the "woods" looked a lot better than they did in a brighter light.
However my late start which first produced positive results quickly brought upon my eminent demise. The great light before sunset quickly turned into no light at all. This lack of prominent sunlight lead to many good looking shots not having quite the amount of beauty as the picture looked in the viewfinder. This was due to the fact that the flash only carries a certain distance, leaving the areas it did not reach too dark for viewing.

For some reason I can't seem to get my photobucket account on slideshow to work. I am thinking the site might be down, so for now if it is not working, here is a link.

http://s409.photobucket.com/albums/pp176/snapperproject/

My Multimedia Project

For my multimedia report, I was considering doing it on the town/gown relationships between the University of New Hampshire and the town of Durham. According to this years Princeton Review rankings, the University of New Hampshire was ranked number six on the most strained town gown relationships. I think that this story could certainly lend itself to a multimedia approach. The “who” of the story is very expansive. I could cover everyone from the Durham Town Council, UNH Administrators, policemen and women who monitor the relationships between the town and students, alumni to see if they felt there was a problem when they were on campus, residents of the town, and business owners of the area. “What” I could to present the story in a multimedia format would be a combination of still pictures, voice recordings of people that I have interviewed, filming other interviews to mix in within the still pictures and my own voice recording to narrative the video. The “where” of this story is evidently obvious. I would have to interview people all around Durham because that is where the heart of the story takes place. Within Durham, I could find almost all of the necessary elements to create this multimedia story. The “when” of the story seems to be the one that is the most pressing. These rankings did come out this summer, which makes the story seem a little out dated, however the story is not that the University of New Hampshire ranked so high on the relationships being strained. The story is what the town and the university are doing to solve the problem. I have already spoken with a few members of the Durham Town Council, and they are in talks with the university right now to help rectify the situation. This seems to me as the much more pressing story, rather than the fact that the university was ranked. Lastly the “how” of the story will be through many of the methods that I have already talked about. This includes interviews, pictures, video, and voice. But why is this story important? So what? Why does it matter that the relationships are strained? It is important because it is something that is relatively unheard of. College students are forced fed university food, books, services and other aspects that are made almost entirely tax free, while the town provides many of the same while having to make up for the taxes that UNH does not pay. We as students should realize just that, that we are only a small part of the town of Durham. We should care about the people who make up the town. Without them, there are no bars downtown, no Wings Your Way, no Kurt’s Lunchbox, which leaves everything entirely run by the college. The downtown, granted small, are what draws many of the students to the University. Without this, we lose the essence of everything we love about Durham, the ability for the town of Durham and the University of New Hampshire to exist as one unified entity. That is why this is important.

The New Newspaper is Old News

In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't read the newspaper in years. Everything that I feel is necessary can be found online. Its not that I don't find it useful or enjoy reading the paper, it is just that the paper is at such a disadvantage to online media. The cost to print one color picture in the newspaper trumps putting an infinite amount of digital photos on the web. The paper is restricted to one or two colored pictures that epitomize the story, but digital media can display everything, even allowing just the pictures themselves to tell the whole story. The idea of pictures telling the whole story is something that could never happen in print. Also, the newspaper is restricted to covering things that happen before midnight. Anything that you are reading in the paper has already been covered by six different writers in six different angles online. By 6 am when the paper has shown up at your door, you already know more about the story they are covering than the person who wrote it for the paper. For example, when the police were finally starting to break the Clark Rockefeller case and find out about his identity, the Union Leader was still reporting stuff that I had read the previous two days. I thought news was supposed to be timely? My biggest dissent from the newspaper however, comes from the amount of content restrictions. In the paper, everything, besides the editorials and select columnists, is middle of the road, dry, censored and polite. All the reporters follow the same basic rules, and use similar tools to tell the same stories. There is no arguing, hostility, or any controversial view points. That is what I LOVE the most about the internet. People writing their own blogs, or running their own websites are free to display whatever content they please. I could write here that I hate the President and think that Paris Hilton would do a better job. I don't have to worry about getting at ends with the editors of the paper or offending corporate sponsors. I write what I want to write. This is the American ideal of freedom of speech at its roots. I can write my ideas of my views of my America, and not have to worry about YOUR politics.

First Post

There are a very select number of blogs that I can actually read. And by very select, I mean there are maybe two types of blogs that I can stand without feeling like Jerry Springer on a "Why won't anybody love me" Wednesday. Whenever I actually took the time to sit down and read someones personal feelings, it almost always appears to me as a whiny attempt for someone to make people feel bad for themselves. "Hey none of the people that actually know me in my own life want to be my friend, so you, who I have only met over a broadband connection should be." However, there are other (Thank God) types of blogs or bloggers besides those people (I like to call them wet keyboarders). Many of the larger newspapers in this nation have started to add blogs for their writers, and most of them are a far cry from xxrandomgothfreakxx's blog, who is still complaining that no girls want to go out with him and that he has dreams of setting his cat on fire. The Boston Herald now has bloggers that focus on the Sox, Pats, Celts and Bruins, that give up to date information on what is going on in vast world of Boston area sports. So instead of waiting until tomorrow to find out why the hell Dustin Pedroia is hitting cleanup, we are kept up to date letting us know that Kevin Youkilis is having back spasms. See, that kind of blogging is actually useful. We are provided with some sort of basic information and don't have to wait until tomorrows newspaper. This example shows one of the best uses for something like a blog, providing information to a person in a short period of time. But interestingly enough, in my first blog entry, I did not provide any sort of useful information. Instead I just complained and wined like the people I was complaining about myself.