Monday, December 17, 2012

Class "Audience Award" Winners

After last week's screening of the class final projects, I asked everyone in the class to vote on your favorite for the "audience award." Here are the results:

First Place (two-way tie)

Singing Pandas


Beauty School Drop-Out



Second Place


U of Maryland Workers Call for Justice


Thursday, December 13, 2012

Dean Essner Final Project: A Seat At The Tiny Desk

Jimmy Williams Final Project: The Struggle to Keep Kids in Catholic School

Max Simpson Final Project: Annual Pow Wow promotes awareness of Native American culture

Kayla Faria Final Project: Greenbelt team jumps for the stars

Tim Ryan Final Project: This Side of "The Far Side"

Sarah Sexton Final Project: Singing "Pandas"


Jess Nicolao Final Project: Hidden Hero in the Valley

Chelsea Director Final Project: Beauty School Drop Out


Scott Laube Final Project: A Different Kind of Black Friday Tradition

Jaime Cantor Final Project: Finding Food

Shannon Atran Final Project: Gymkana: Not The Average Gymnastics Troupe


Shannon McHale Final Project: A Breath of Fresh Air


Friday, December 7, 2012

Slides From Last Official Class

Remember: We'll meet next week in at the usual time and place to view final projects.

Fall2012_week_14

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Final Project Details

Final projects are due on Friday, December 14 at 9 a.m.

I know it's a busy time, but please keep this in mind as you work: The goal of this project is to produce a multimedia piece that you will be proud to show future employers. That means that it needs to be as professional and as compelling as possible for that reason, above all else. The job market is increasingly competitive, as you know, and people will want to see your work rather than how many points you got in a class. Please use this week's class to consult me on any questions you have about how to make your work stronger before you turn in the final draft. And I will be giving feedback on the finals, and I encourage you to make changes to the project even after the term is over and the grade has been given -- and re-upload that to your own personal Web site, resume, or portfolio -- so that you will have it to show anyone who you want to convince that you can tell stories in multimedia form.

 Here are some boring but important details about logistics:
 
Post your final project to the class blog (unless you used SoundSlides). The title of the post should include: Your Name Final Project: Headline.
The headline is important, so make sure to include one. 
Post videos to YouTube or Vimeo first and then paste the embed code into the blog post.
For those of you creating an audio slideshow in SoundSlides, bring your output files in person to our classroom on December 14 and I'll copy them to my flash drive so I can grade them. Make sure you include a headline (which SoundSlides lets you add in the presentation itself).

There is no set length for the final project, but most will generally run between 2:00 and 4:00 minutes.  
Your final project will be a work of journalism. That is, it will tell a story, (ideally a compelling story) not simply document an event, just as we have been talking about all semester. I'll be looking for a hook and a story arc. I'll also be looking to see that you've followed all of the composition and technical guidelines we've covered. There will be significant penalty for late work.
Do not use music in your project unless you clear it with me first.  You can use "found footage" if it helps tell your story, providing it does not violate copyright laws. In other words, if you are profiling a student band, you can use a short clip from their music video if they give you permission to do that. Such footage cannot make up more than 15 percent of the running time of your piece. (Most projects don't have such footage, but it's an option.)

Friday, November 30, 2012

Slides From Video Week 4

Fall2012_week_13

Links from today's class RadioLab AV Smackdown

The Challenge: A Car for the Blind

Frederick Keys Interns

Group Project, Final Edit

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Annika McGinnis: Final Project Shoot

I'm making a video about worker abuse on campus and Justice at Maryland's efforts to combat this issue. In one of my interviews on Tuesday, I talked to Sam Williamson, senior history major and member of Justice at Maryland, who told me about the issue in general and Justice at Maryland's initiatives to combat it. (This is raw footage of the interview; I'll edit it once I get the rest of my interviews and B-roll).

Max Simpson: Final Project Shoot

I do not have photos for my project yet because the Rifle and Pistol club did not have a range trip over the Thanksgiving break. I do have about 40 minutes of sound from a rifle range I went to over the break and audio from an interview with club president Ken Lan. Some of the sound from the rifle range will be used in the beginning of my project. When there is a club trip I will get pictures of the members and of the range they go to in Poolesville, which is run by the Bethesda Chevy Chase Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America.
A few sound segments from the rifle range:

Sarah Tincher: Final Project Shoot


Jess Nicolao: Project Shoot

I covered Tony Mendez's art show and book signing the weekend of November 10. He is the Author of Argo and the subject of Ben Affleck's new film Argo. He lives in Rural Maryland and is a Retired CIA Agent and a well known local artist. This is some raw footage from the weekend.

Shannon Atran: Final Project Shoot

These are two of the interviews I have edited so far for my final project profiling Gymkana. The videos are a compilation of the clips from the interview that I am considering using for my final project. The first interview is with Lizzie McLellan. She is a senior and the secretary of Gymkana. The second interview is with Head Coach Joshua Montfort.

Sarah Sexton: Project Shoot




I'm covering the new members in the co-ed a cappella group PandemoniUM. Their names are Seamus McKenna, Valen Gordon, Richard Gil II, Natalie Carlyle and Tiffany Bamdad. I will most likely feature Valen (pictured in the last photo I submitted here) as my main focus as she plans to become a doctor and hopes to combine her vocal talent with her medical aspirations and possibly provide therapy through singing. I have video interviews with each of the five new members (they are too long to post here), photos from rehearsal and audio from rehearsal. I plan to attend PandemoniUM's Big Show this Saturday and get more photos and audio there.

Shannon McHale Project Shoot








These are some of the interview responses from Marcy Marinelli, the Chair of the University Senate Campus Affairs Committee. Marcy leads the committee, which is writing a recommendation for President Loh regarding the upcoming smoking ban. The in/out markers on this are somewhat rough since I haven't decided which responses to use yet...I'll decide which parts of Marcy's interview to include once I finish the man on the street interviews with students and faculty. I kept a version of the edited down clips without the cross-dissolve (I know it's super cheesy but it looked very choppy without any transitions) so there's better/ more raw footage for the final. I also need to crop/zoom in on this and fix or edit any lighting issues because of the window in the background. Marcy's office was on a corner and this was the least strange setup for the filming...I might ask her to re-do certain parts of the interview in a different location depending on how feasible it is to mess with the light.

Dean Essner: Final Project Shoot

Tim Ryan: Final Project Shoot

Cory Puffett: Final Project

I don't have any photos for my final project yet because the event I am using takes place on Monday, Dec. 2 from 9-11pm, Thursday, Dec. 6 (time TBA), and Monday Dec. 10 (time TBA).

I do, however, have a rough draft of my narration:


The Comcast Center, home of the Maryland Terrapins men’s and women’s basketball teams, and the volleyball team, is always busy. The turf fields just outside, not so much.

The turf fields, used occasionally for practices by varsity sports such as cross country, consist of three separate event areas meant primarily for intramural sports, such as flag football.

The fall version of intramural flag football consists of seven players on each team with an emphasis on speed, whether in movement or in decision-making. Each player wears a belt with three flags attached and is ruled ‘down’ wherever the ball-carriers’ flags were removed.

Some games are low scoring, but most are either blowouts or shoot-outs.

At Maryland, the regular season consists of three games, more of a warm-up for the playoffs than anything since nearly everyone qualifies. Once the playoffs begin, it’s win or you’re done.

There are several different leagues, including Fraternity leagues and Co-Ed leagues, but the most competitive is the Men’s A league.

The final three rounds of the playoffs take place in early December once the original postseason field is reduced from more than 30 to just 8 teams.

(Sound byte from player about competitiveness)

-Rest depends on what I get from the games-

Kayla Faria: Project Shoot



Will Friedman- Final Project Shoot

Jimmy Williams: Project Shoot









The pictures are just some of the exterior shots of St. Bernadette Catholic School that I was able to grab before I had to go inside to work my job at the extended day program. This interview is with Virginia Cooper, a 4th grade teacher who has been at the school for 25 years. We talked about the economy and how it has affected enrollment in her classes over the past 5 or 6 years as well as what she thinks parents will do in order to keep giving their children a Catholic education no matter what happens. Tomorrow I will be going back to interview the principal of the school and a teacher who has children enrolled at the school. I'll be taking more pictures and gathering additional video as well.

Scott Laube: Project Shoot








 
 
These are pictures I took of a Christmas tree farm at Baiting Hollow Nursery in Calverton, Long Island on the day after Thanksgiving. I am doing an audio slideshow that will in part profile the nursery as well as profile a family and their reason for cutting down a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, or more commonly referred to as "Black Friday". I will explain how the family got the tree back to their car after cutting it down as well. I also interviewed the farm owner's son Joe Lewin (seen in third to last picture) to get his thoughts on why he thinks people enjoy cutting down their own Christmas tree. I will also display a few pictures of other families and people who decided to come to cut down a tree as well. For ambient sound, I recorded the tractor that is used to pick up customers and their trees to take back to the netting machines near the entrance.

Jaime Cantor: Project Shoot