Final Projects Part I

In class last week, I presented my project and was really, really pleased by the response to it. I worked really hard on it (it was probably the hardest project, but also the most enjoyable and interesting project, I have ever worked on), and it was really great to get good feedback and know that I was not alone in thinking that this story was an important one. It was also nice to hear that people were glad I ended up only talking to the one source. I was nervous since everyone kept suggesting others I could talk to, like Clayton's dad or doctors, but I really wanted to keep it in his eyes only, and I was glad that everyone ended up liking that approach.

I was also really impressed with everyone else's projects that were shown last Wednesday. I really liked seeing Sylvia's, since we had all seen the rough draft. Because of that, I was able to see a lot of changes in it, and was really impressed with how well it had all come together. I really liked that she kept the voices heard in the audio to only the couple, but still included the words of the psychologist on some slides. It was a great way of including vital information that pertained to the story while also keeping the romantic, nostalgic feel to the project.

I also really enjoyed Mike's project on the reunion of the band, The Press. It was really well done, and I liked his use of photos that, while he may have not actually taken them himself, really added something to the project. I think it was important to see pictures from the past, because it gave the audience some of the memories that members of the band have themselves, which in turn, helped us to better understand why the reunion was so important to them. I also like the mix of pictures and video and thought that it was really thoughtfully done.

AJ's project was also really great, and I think contained a lot of emotion. I really liked that she talked to so many people at the Pease Greeters gatherings, and I think she did a really great job of telling the story. I liked the use of music in this project and almost wish there was a bit more of it, I think it really tied the various pieces of the story together really well. She had some really great video of the soldiers walking through the door and being greeted, and I think just the emotion on their faces helped the audience to understand how important the Pease Greeters are.

Cam's project was also really great. Like Mike, he used a lot of photos that he did not actually take himself, and also like Mike, they were used really well and really increased the quality of the project. I think it reall demonstrates a good use of outside resources. I also really, really liked how he made pictures black and white but then made him and his dad color in order to help them stand out. I had been trying to do this in my project for one picture and could not figure it out, so it was nice to learn out to do it finally. I thought that using testimonial-type interviews with him and his dad also really made his project so much better than the first time we saw it in class. These video clips really helped to demonstrate the kind of relationship the two have, and also helped to show how training for and running this race together changed and developed that relationship.


I am really looking forward to seeing the rest of the projects this coming Wednesday and am sure they will all be really great!

MAJOR FRUSTRATION

I pretty much hate my project right now. Ok, well that's not really fair. I like my project. I like my idea, and my interviews, and my photos, and the overall about 20 hours I have put into it thus far. I don't like audacity, however. I do not know what the issue is. But somehow, without me touching my file at all since I presented my rough draft to the class, more of it has gone silent. I don't know what that means or if there is any way to get it back, but unless the people at the Parker Media Lab can help me tomorrow, I am going to have to change my project. I will still have enough audio to make a fine project, but I won't really be able to tell the same story, which is extremely frustrating after all the work I have put into this.

More Progress

After hearing all the feedback in class on Wednesday, which was all very helpful and really appreciated, I decided to change the audio portion of my project some, mainly changing it so that I focus less on the basics of his illness and more on how the illness affects his life and how marijuana helps with that.

However, the main thing I think I need to improve upon is the pictures in my project. It was very difficult to vary the pictures since Clayton is so limited in the amount of movement he can do, but I think I can do better.

I am going to his house for one last (hopefully) interview tomorrow afternoon and I plan on working really hard to get more interesting pictures by varying the angles of the photos even more and maybe moving him around his room a little bit, and taking pictures along my journey up the narrow stairs that lead to his room.

More Progress

This Friday I went to interview Clayton again, and it went really well. I got a lot of pictures, and I tried to get as many different angles, facial expressions, etc. as possible. Still, it's hard to vary the type of pictures I can get since he is confined to his room and a wheelchair. I think considering the circumstances though, I did a good job.

Last night I really started putting everything together. I started piecing together the audio (which is so hard because I have over two hours of amazing stuff that has to be edited down to five minutes!) It's very hard to choose what to cut and waht to include, but I am working on it. All of my pictures are edited, and so tonight once I am done with the audio stuff, I will put it all together into a Soundslides type of project.

I did take some video, but I really don't like it, and I have decided i definitely want to do black and white photos, so video would look weird with it.

Progress So Far

Unfortunately I have a terrible memory and so completely forgot to be writing a journal of sorts in my blog describing my progress on the project thus far, but I will begin today. So far, I have had one two-hour interview with Clayton, the medical marijuana patient I am profiling... and I have another interview with him tomorrow. I have already gotten some really amazing audio (in fact, I already wish I could do twenty five-minute projects on him- I don't know how I am going to choose what to edit out!),and some good pictures as well. At this point, I plan on getting a lot more really good pictures and some video tomorrow and then will hopefully be able to put it all together Monday night for my rough draft.

I have already edited the pictures I took so far, and have done some audio editing, so I don't think it will be too hard to put it all together, mainly just picking and choosing what to include. I am also kind of conflicted about whether or not I want to use video, but I am leaning towards black and white pictures, which I feel would not work well with video included. Still, I am not sure if I definitely want to do black and white... I just think black and white photography really lends itself to stories with powerful emotion, which Clayton's story definitely has.

An Experiment in Putting it All Together

Ok, so this week we were told to think a lot about our projects and start setting up contact lists and initial interviews and researching. I have an initial interview set up with Clayton, the subject of my story, for this Thursday, and my struggle now is mainly deiciding what to do in this first interview.
Initially, I was thinking I might just go and spend some time with him and get to know him a little, but then I started thinking, what if we get to talking and I miss something really awesome that he says or does because I was just "getting to know him". Therefore, I am definitely going to bring all of my equipment with me, and see what happens. I am going to think of some key questions to ask him, and some key areas that I want to cover, but really just try and let it flow and have a good conversation with him.
At this first meeting I also plan on asking him about his doctor(s). After looking at my storyboard, Sandy suggested that I try and not only talk about the political side of the medical marijuana debate and how its affecting Clayton, but also look at the medical side of things. I was thinking, although I am not sure if this will be possible, that I could try to talk to Clayton's doctor and hear his thoughts on medical marijuana and also get his professional opinion on how marijuana has helped Clayton in his everyday life. I think this would definitely be a great addition to the story, so with any luck Clayton will be able to give me his doctor's contact information.
At this first meeting, I am also hoping that I will be able to take some pictures and maybe even video (I was thinking I could try to get some video of Clayton going about his everyday routines and telling me the kinds of things he struggles with everyday). I was also thinking I would discuss some of the more "touchy" things I want to include in my video, such as pictures of him that really show just how thin he is, and video of him actually smoking marijuana. I then plan on setting up another interview with him for the week after or so in order to do more of the interviewing, and maybe get his parents involved, or some other friend or family member who can comment on how he has improved since using medical marijuana.
I had one other thought of a person I could talk to, which is Matt Simon, who is the Executive Director of the NH Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy, who I have talked on the phone with several times for previous stories I have done on the medical marijuana issue and the protests occuring in Manchester. It was through his website that I actually found Clayton, and I believe Matt has worked directly with him in support of the medical marijuana bill. If so, I would like to talk to him for part of the discussion of the political side of the medical marijuana issue.
Still, I want to insure that my focus remains on Clayton and how this affects him, and how he feels knowing that he has to do something illegal to increase his quality of life. I think this is the most important part of the story.
My fears, as of now, are basically just figuring out how to put this all together and how to decide what will be best done with video, photography, and audio, and how to combine these three things into one project. I am also concerned with simply making sure the story I want told is actually told within the five minutes of this project. There is so much information and so many aspects of this story I could focus on, and I just keep reminding myself of what Don Himsel said when talking to the class, which was to only focus on one tiny part- that a multimedia project is not really meant to tell the whole story, and with the project only being five minutes or less, it most certianly won't.
Besides these fears, I am really excited about doing this project. I have realy become invested in this whole issuue of medical marijuana through the various multimedia and print stories I have done on it so far this semester and really look forward to talking in-depth with a person who is really affected by this debate. It honestly makes me want to do more similar projects, like a bunch of profiles of various medical marijuana patients... maybe I will...just for fun.

Final Project Discussion

Yesterday in class we got into large groups to discuss our projects, and I think that this was very valuable. I loved hearing about the ideas that others had- they were all really great- and I think that our group worked really well together and was able to help everyone enhance their current idea even more.

Personally, I think the group discussion gave me more ideas for how I actually want this video to come out. My current project idea was inspired by the story I wrote for the paper and that my group did our Soundslides project on about the marijuana protestors in Manchester. This was honestly the most fun I've had reporting yet. I am not really sure why, but I really enjoyed working on such a complex and controversial issue that has so many sides to it, from the people who want total legalization, to those who are simply in favor of medical marijuana, to those who don't want any level of marijuana usage allowed. However, it was in talking with Matt Simon, the director of NH Compassion, a group that is working in favor of the medical marijuana bill, that I became really interested in learning more about medical marijuana.

I know I want to focus on a patient, Clayton Holton, who is 23 and has a rare form of muscular dystrophy. He weighs only 90 pounds and only weighs this much because he has been smoking marijuana to increase his appetite. I have already talked with him some, and plan on meeting with him probably next weekend for a preliminary meeting and interview. The group liked my idea and was able to give me some great ideas for actual shots and things to include in the story, which was very, very helpful, as this was something I was still unsure of.

I am definitely excited about this project, but also nervous. I still am not sure how confident I am in my abilities, especially when it comes to video. I will definitely have to work on planning this whole thing out a lot better than I planned out my last video. Last video I didn't plan very much, mainly because I didn't realize how much I should have planned, and then was kind of lost when it came to actually videoing and filming sequences. The only other thing that will affect my project is the outcome of the NH state legislature vote next Wednesday. I feel like the tone of my story, I guess, kind of depends on the outcome of this vote. If the veto on the medical marijuana bill is overridden, then my story could be a happy, vitorius one- Clayton has been an outspoken supporter of the legalization of medical marijuana in addition to a medical user of the drug. If the bill is not passed, the story would most likely have a sadder tone, showing how he has to break the law to have a higher quality of life, etc. This is the main thing that I am unsure about, and will have to see what happens on Wednesday.

An Experiment in Video

This week, our assignment was to tell a story through video. I went to the Smith Hall Peace Gallery and found it very difficult. There was not much action, so it was very hard for me to find sequences to film. I filmed a sequence beginning outside the building and moving into the actual gallery.
However, the hardest part was actually uploading the videos- I had so much trouble and in the end could not even get all of my clips into Windows Movie Maker. This week was very hard, and since I am a big perfectionist, I am not at all happy with my work this week. I am hoping that with guest speakers this week and next week I can improve my video work as quickly as possible.

Analysis of Photography

One of the stories that is part of the New York Times series One in 8 Million, stories about everyday people who live and work in New York City, really struck me as a particularly moving story that used photographs to convey emotion. This story was the one about Freda Degannes, a woman originally from Barbados who survived a very difficult surgery and who doctors now call a walking miracle.
This story certainly contains the elements of a good story- it has a beginning, in which Freda explains her first symptoms and her trip to the doctor when she found out that her stomach was full of blood clots. It has a middle, in which Freda tells of her decision to go through with the risky procedure in an attempt to save her life, and an end, in which Freda describes the ways in which her life has changed since having this procedure. The story, in describing (and showing through photography) her changes both in behavior and also in attitude, shows clear character development- the audience is able to both hear and also see the ways in which Freda has changed.
This change, or character development, begins with the photograph of her severely scarred stomach. Although the audience cannot see her face, this photograph conveys so much emotion and pain and truly shows the power of still photography. In the last picture, which depicts Freda lounging beside an open window, with the sun streaming through, and a smile on her face, the audience is able to better understand her change of attitude since her surgery. While this picture is being shown, Freda is describing how she sees the world as a more beautiful place, and realizes the things she used to take for granted. These words are really echoed in this photograph, in which Freda looks truly happy for the first time in the series of pictures. It shows that even after all this pain and suffering Freda went through, she came out of it happier than she went in.
This story and its photographs also demonstrate very important characteristics of journalism, such as relevancy and conflict or emotion. This story is relevant to anyone living in New York, as Freda is one of their neighbors, but it is also relevant to anyone who has ever had a struggle in their lives or experienced any sort of pain or suffering- it is one of those universal stories almost anyone can relate to and would find interesting. There is so much conflict and emotion in this story- conflict is found in her decision to go through with a potentially life-saving, but potentially deadly surgery and emotion is found in the success of this surgery and the words of both Freda and her doctor, who said that Freda helped him to believe that God is really out there.
However, emotion is also found in the photographs of this story. Not only in the expressions on Freda’s face throughout the pictures, but also through the composition and presentation of the photographs. Since the photographer was shooting in black and white, there was a lot of contrast in these photographs that really helped to increase the drama and emotion portrayed in the pictures. There was one photograph in particular that seemed to really use contrast between the colors black and white to convey emotion. This picture is the one in which Freda is sitting, dressed in all black, sitting in front of a sunlit window, against a white wall, with a vase of white flowers next to her. Since Freda herself has dark skin and dark hair, and is wearing dark clothes, the viewer’s eye is automatically drawn to her and her face, which helps to focus in on the emotion she is expressing- helplessness. In this way, the photographer really uses the black and white composition of the photographs to portray even more emotion than if the photographs were in color.
To me, it was this power and this emotion that these photographs were able to convey that lead me to choose this story to write about. While I looked at several other stories, including others in this black and white series, this story in particular was able to make me feel what its subject felt. It conveyed to me the truth of this woman’s life- the pain she went through, and also her strength. This strength was conveyed through her words, but also, to me, through the use of black and white photography and the contrast between the two colors. To me, the stark contrast between the black and white kind of represented the contrast between her life before the surgery and her life after the surgery. I also really liked it because it seemed to me this contrast was part of the photographer’s style. While there is naturally contrast when using black and white photography, it seemed to me that the photographer tried to increase this natural contrast, such as in the photograph I described earlier in which Freda is dressed in dark clothing and sitting in front of an all-white wall and window. This seemed to be a common factor among the other pictures in this story, and was the major reason I chose to analyze this piece.

An Experiment in Photography

This week I worked by myself to take some photographs that were meant to be both newsworthy and portray emotion. I think I did a fairly good job of doing this, although it was pretty hard to capture emotion. I wanted to go to the football game, since I figured this would be a good place to see different emotions, but unfortunately, it was during when I was working on Saturday.

Two of my photos are from the WSBE scholarship ceremony that occurred on Friday. I thought that the pictures of students smiling after receiving their awards conveyed not only the obvious emotion of happiness, but also of pride. I also took some photographs of a blindfolded man tight-rope walking between two trees on T-Hall lawn. I thought that this portrayed the emotion of determination on his part, and hope or anxiousness on the part of the viewer (at least, I know I felt hopeful that he would not fall and anxious that he might while I was watching him).

One of my favorite photos is of the young boy running. There was a track event going on at the football field Monday night for the elementary school, and this was where I took this picture. I tried to get some of the kids running and laughing with eachother, but it was very difficult to take a picture that was not fuzzy (they were really fast), plus the more pictures I took, the worse looks I was getting from parents who must have thought I was a creep.

I wish that I could have found a little more emotion, but I think that for a first attempt, I did a pretty good job. I look forward to being able to take more pictures and improve the content and also the look of them, as I felt that some of mine this week were a bit fuzzy.

Another Experiment in Audio Recording

This week we had to create an NPR-style news story that included not only the voices of our sources but also a narration by a member of the group. I narrated most of the story, and I thought I was doing a pretty good job while recording, but turns out- I sound dull! Apparently, I was not made to be on radio!

Otherwise, this project was generally more difficult than the last one- not the recording and editing aspects, but the interviewing and finding sources part. We had a great interview lined up with two professors who are husband and wife and are both in the microbiology department here at UNH, and then a few hours before our scheduled meeting, they contacted me saying they had a family emergency. Our group was left to scramble around campus on Monday trying to find other sources of information, without having to come up with a whole new story. I think under the circumstances we did a good job, and I am proud of the final project. Still, I can't help but think of what could have been...

An Experiment in Audio Recording

This week our assignment was to do an audio interview with a person who makes UNH work. My group chose to interview Sheila Mosley, a housekeeper in Smith Hall here at UNH. She was a really interesting person to interview and I was very surprised to hear about her past professional life. She was an RN before becoming a housekeeper here, and was such an interesting person to talk to.

We had one minor slip-up during the actual interview process when I thought I was recording but wasn't, but it ended ok. I think we got some really great sounds for the background noise of her job, and I loved her voice itself and the way it sounded on tape.

When it came to the actual editing and putting the story together, I was pretty nervous. No one in my group had ever done any audio editing before and so it was quite the adventure. But I think that we got the hang of it towards the end and will only continue to get better as the semester continues. It was kind of hard for me, since I am a bit of a perfectionist and was worried that it wasn't going to be good enough. But I just had to remind myself that I am certainly no expert and just like everyone else, am learning as I go in this class. Overall though, I am really pleased with how this audio story came out.

The First of Many

This post begins what is sure to be a challenging and interesting semester (with any luck, a fun one, too!) Sitting in class on Wednesday I was feeling a little 0verwhelmed. I was one of the less experienced students, with many people in the class having already done their internships and having been TNH staff writers for awhile now. Still, I am now feeling a lot less nervousness because I realized that everyone else, and I don't mean just every other student in my class, but also many, many journalists young and old (some of whom have been reporters for decades), feels the same way. Even the most experienced reporters are now having to learn the art of creating multimedia, whether its photo slide shows or videos to accompany articles. So I decided I don't have to worry, because we are all learning together.

After realizing that, I got really excited. This is going to be an awesome experience and I feel confident that participating in this course will make me a much better journalist: a journalist of the future. A lot more is going to be expected of journalists in the years to come and I am glad that I can start to prepare myself for that now.

In the area of story ideas, I am still at a bit of a blank. I have been trying to think about different multimedia projects that could be done for this class and for the newspaper as well, but it's kind of hard to know what will make a good video. I am sure that in the coming weeks, however, I will come up with something. For now, I am happy to start learning the art that is multimedia.