Experiencing J198: Start to Finish

At the end of the semester, I was amazed at just how far I had come. Reading blog posts from January remind of just how intimidated I was sitting behind a computer--something that I had been doing since elementary school! I was worried that I would never master Movie Maker or never fully understand what the @ or # signs meant on Twitter, but I can now sit here in May and tell you that I am fully confident in my abilities as a multimedia journalist.

A product of the first class of "multimedia reporters" to go through Coppee, I can truly say that I am proud of all that J198 has achieved. It all hit me when Professor Jirik sat in on our final presentations and commented that this class should be proud of all that we have accomplished because we (all of us!) are paving the way for great things to be done in this department. Not only did I receive an excellent education in journalism through this class, but our class helped to foster a small change that could have an even bigger impact in the future.

Thank you for this experience! I am sure that I will carry all of these skills with me into the future. And to the next class of J198ers: Gear up! The semester can be gruelling at times, but the education that you will receive is well worth it!

Course Materials

Overall, I was pleased with the quality of the Kodak Zi8 cameras that we used. I thought that the additional microphones and tripods were helpful while shooting the variety of videos that we made throughout the semester. Quite honestly, I did not use the book, and I would not recommended suggesting one for purchase next year. The handouts that were given to us during class were thorough and helpful enough that no textbook was necessary! I think that the education here is in the hands-on experience, not in the suggested readings!

Other programs, such as Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Express, may be interesting programs to learn as students get further into the semester. I completely agree that Windows Movie Maker is a good way to begin learning the process of editing your own video, but I do believe that Premiere and Final Cut offer a few more bells and whistles that could enhance the final project. I know that the Digital Media Studio has a lab filled with Macs that have the Final Cut capability...maybe class could be moved down there for the second half of the semester? Overall, I do think that Movie Maker was a great way for me to jump start into learning the overall process of creating movies, but familiarity with other programs could be helpful in the future for students who plan to make a career out of multimedia journalism.

Multimedia Reporting: Self Reflection

Working in J198 this semester has taught me an incredible amount about the power of social media. I have always understood that, thanks to the Internet, we literally have the world at our fingertips. Through using blogs, Twitter and Facebook, I can now see the power that social media has to spread ideas and function as an advertising device to mass amounts of people. This course met every goal and expectation that I had entering the class in January. I expected to learn and master Windows Movie Maker and to become accustomed to Twitter and blogging. Multimedia Reporting has allowed me to become comfortable with social media in a way that I know will be very helpful to me in the future.

Thanks to J198, I was able to get a job working with CBS College Sports during March Madness. Had I not had the experience cutting and editing video and using Twitter and blog accounts, I would not have gotten the internship since it was geared toward marketing majors. I can attribute my success with the job to the skills that I acquired through this class. If I did not take Multimedia Reporting, I would not have even been a viable candidate for the job!

Foreclosed Home Tour

Last Friday, Debbie and I met Anthony Ramos from Ramos Realty over on Ridge Street to tour a foreclosed home. I was surprised at the good condition that the house was in. Debbie and I had the opportunity to tour the home and take plenty of video and pictures to add to our new website that we are creating for our final project. Right now, we are in the process of putting together our webpage -- check out the progress so far! http://lehighhomes.weebly.com/

Ramos Realty

Yesterday, Debbie and I went to Ramos Realty on the corner of East 4th and Taylor street to see if we could get an interview with an agent for our project. I had never noticed the Century 21 office until last week, so I thought that stopping in was worth a shot. It turned out to be a great success! We got an interview with real estate agent Anthony Ramos, who was more than willing to help. He talked to us a lot about the foreclosed homes in the area, the values of surrounding properties, the housing market in general and the effect the bad economy has had on the buying and selling of homes. He even offered to take us through a foreclosed home, so we are planning on meeting him this Friday.

It was nice to have someone who was really willing to talk to us. Obviously, he is a real estate agent, so this is his job. But he did take a good 20 minutes out of his lunch break to sit down with us and educate us about the parts of the buying and selling process with which Debbie and I were unfamiliar. He printed out some things about the foreclosed homes that we are going to see to help us to better understand the process of foreclosure. Debbie and I are certainly excited about the new direction that our project has taken. Getting pictures and video of the foreclosed home will be a huge asset to our project!

Bethlehem Real Estate News Story

Debbie and I just finished our news story about real estate in the Bethlehem area. Debbie got a couple good interviews from Santos Rosado, South Side resident, and Anthony Spagnola, local proprietor and landlord. These two interviews accompanied my interview with Sterrett pretty well because it gave three similar prespectives from three very different people. In addition to interviews, Debbie and I did some research to help the news story to run smoothly. We found some pretty interesting statistics that certainly add to the message that we're trying to get across. This video will serve as a great addition to our new website, which we will be working on improving next week.

Real Estate Interview

I recently interviewed Julie Sterrett, first-time homebuyer in the Bethlehem area. She gave me a lot of good insight that I plan on using in our latest video for our final project. Sterrett was optimistic about the housing market and said that this poor economy actually worked in her favor. She lives in a neighborhood where residents are having no trouble selling their houses. As a first-time homebuyer, she was glad to have a mortgage broker that was willing to teach her about the entire process and help guide her along the way. Her input will be valuable in our next news story video!

Bethlehem Real Estate Podcast

Debbie and I recorded our first podcast about the trials and tribulations of our final project. The podcast talks about the entire process so far--failed ideas, difficulties along the way, good interviews, bad interviews and a brand new idea that we are excited to work on! Right now, we are working on getting some good interviews and footage for upload later in the week. No need to explain our ideas here, the podcast says it all!

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Flickr: Lehigh in the Spring

In Monday's class, we learned how to create our own slideshows on Flickr. The process is pretty simple because the website is very basic and user-friendly. Our assignment was to go out and create our own photo collection on our cameras to upload on Flickr. The name of my collection is Lehigh in the Spring. I captured pictures of students on the University Center Front Lawn, beautiful Linderman Library and blossoming trees and flowers. The collection showcases the best of what Lehigh has to offer--it's students and beautiful campus!

WEEK ONE WINNERS!

Jack and I just found out that we are winners of the first challenge! I am incredibly proud of our efforts and am excited to be recognized. Out of the 64 teams that made the tournament and are participating in this campaign, we did one of the best jobs in obtaining footage, making marketing plans, completing reports by deadline and marketing our work online. Our Marketing Coordinator, Emily, informed us of their decision and will be mailing an American Express gift card as our prize. We can attribute our success to the fans that made our jobs easy--without them, the pictures and videos would not have been possible! Lehigh is one of the smallest Division One schools that made the tournament, making our jobs as campus representatives a little harder because we don't have the amount of students as the bigger state schools. I am proud that we, as well as mountain hawk fans, have represented our school so well!

Show Your Spirit: Part Two

Because the lighting in Starters was a little too low to get high-quality pictures, I left the bar and grill and went to an on-campus party. A group of my guy friends were sitting around their big-screen t.v. watching the drama unfold as Lehigh continued to give Kansas a good game. I got some great footage and pictures at their house, as well as a few interviews of post-game reactions.

I was up part 1 a.m. getting all of my latest pictures uploaded to the website. I am really excited to see them up on http://www.lgcollegesports.com/#/menu

At the end of the week, the other college representative sent in our weekly reports to our Marketing Coordinator, Emily. These weekly reports detail how exactly we have been using viral marketing to spread the word about our campaign. I have been using Facebook, twitter, blog accounts and e-mail blasts to share my work with others.

Show Your Spirit: Part One

The "Life's Good on Campus" campaign is comprised of 4 different challenges: Show Your Spirit, Game Face, Sing-A-Long and Rivals. Last week's challenge was Show Your Spirit, so I made sure to visit campus parties and Starter's to capture all of Lehigh Men's Basketball's game day excitement! The other CBS College Campus Rep from Lehigh is Jack, a senior marketing major. He and I have been in contact frequently throughout the campaign to coordinate opportunities to shoot pictures and footage, send in our promotional plans and weekly reviews to our marketing coordinator.

Last Thursday night marked the big game...Lehigh vs. the number one seed Kansas! I began the night at Starter's at the Riverport to capture great game day environment. The place was packed and was going crazy when Lehigh went on a run right off the bat! There were cheers for all members of the Lehigh team everytime there was a close-up of them on-screen. The atmosphere was great and I used my digital camera and handheld Kodak Zi8 to record the cheers and boos as the game was playing.

Check out

More LG!

At the tail end of spring break, I took plenty of pictures and video from both the men's and women's Patriot League Championships for upload onto http://lgcollegesports.com/#/menu. Lehigh students have been very enthusiastic with showing their school spirit!

LG College Sports

Over spring break, I found out that I got a job with LG and CBS College Sports. I will be using viral marketing to spread the word about the new website that LG is launching within the next few weeks. This website will be highlighting March Madness on college campuses across the country. I was so excited to get the job because I am a HUGE fan of the basketball teams here at Lehigh and have been working on using Twitter, Facebook and blogs throughout the semester.

Bethlehem Residents on the Rise in PPL Bill Cost

Debbie and I gathered interview footage from four different people: Lehigh student and South Bethlehem resident Claire Horn, Bethlehem residents Stacey Blue and Jesus Gonzalez and business owner Tony Silvoy. All four interviewees were pretty upset about the sharp rise in cost on their monthly bills--Jesus even switched his electricity supplier!

Putting together the footage was not too hard. Debbie took plenty of B roll, and we even incorporated an image of PPL's logo, like we learned in class last week, to play during Debbie's voice over. The entire movie making process is starting to become second nature. I'm glad that cutting, adding titles and voice overs and just general editing is finally getting easier! Check out the final product.

More Work!

This morning, I went into the Lehigh sports broadcasting office to make small changes to the softball preview and to edit and upload the baseball preview. Again, after over 3 hours of work, both were ready to upload! The entire process is becoming easier, but there are still some things that I confuse me. The conversion to .avi and .wmv files can sometimes be tricky, but I know I'll have it all together soon! I have learned a lot and still have a long way to go...Check out the final products!

Lehigh Softball - 2010 Season Preview, February 24, 2010 @ Yahoo! Video

Lehigh Baseball - 2010 Season Preview. February 24, 2010 @ Yahoo! Video

First Ever Preview on Lehighsports.com

I've worked very hard this week on season previews for baseball and softball. Monday night I spent several hours over on Goodman Campus, filming, interviewing and gathering some B roll to add to my video. I even braved the sleet and snow to talk to a few of the softball players under the lights of Ulrich Field!

On-site reporting is tough because you are always on someone else's schedule. I was hoping to be able to interview softball players at the end of their practice and then interview baseball players at the beginning of their practice, but the two ended up overlapping. Classmate Kenny Burgess came along with me to help film the openings, closings, interviews and B roll. Softball's practice ran a little later than expected, so I missed my opportunity to talk to the baseball players before practice. Instead of sitting there for the entire baseball practice, I dropped Kenny off at home so that he could study for a test and then went back over to catch the players and head coach on their way out of practice.

I got there at around 8 and didn't end up leaving until 9:15. In total, I probably spent about 3 hours at the practices. But the work didn't stop there!

The next morning, I went in to begin the editing process on Adobe Premiere, a program completely different from Windows Media Maker in its complexity. After over 3 hours of work, I edited and uploaded the 2010 softball preview to the web, so that my supervisor could look over it before publication.

Wow...that was a close one!

Debbie and I spent a lot of time putting our clips together for our latest lab assignment on Friday. After about 2 hours of work, we were saving the video when the screen froze! Shocked, we just sat there hoping that we didn't lose hours worth of editing (Hey, after my experience in the DMC, it would happen this week. Right?). After waiting a few seconds, panicking, waiting a few more seconds and then panicking some more, we were somehow able to reopen Windows Movie Maker and view the movie! I don't know what happened, how it happened or why...but all I know is that I am so thankful that we didn't lose all that we had worked on! Check out the final product!

Perfecting the Art of Interviewing

There is much more that goes into interviewing than just asking the perfect questions. This week, Professor Jirik stopped into class to talk to us about specific techniques that help to build a solid interview. He referred to the Rule of Thirds, which was discussed in class on Monday, as well as camera angles and other tips that would help to make the interview look more professional. Jirik has worked for a number of news broadcasting companies around the world, so his input was incredibly insightful.

Once we had our lesson with Jirik, Professor Littau sent us on a mission to gather footage from several different places around campus. Debbie and I interviewed Lehigh faculty, staff and students about how the campus handled the incredible snow storm that caused the university to shut down for a day. Through these interviews, we were able to experiment with different types of lighting in an array of settings. As always, these clips were going to be used in the newest lab assignment that we were going to work on later in the week.

Valentine's Day in the Digital Media Center...How Romantic!

Last Sunday, I had my first official on-camera experience with Lehighsports.com. I was filming a post-match extra for the Lehigh women's tennis team with Courtney, a fifth year, who has been working with Lehigh Sports for a while. She did on-camera interviews with the men's team, while I did on-camera interviews with the women's team. Both matches took the entire day...about 7 hours once it was all said it done! After interviewing players and the coach, we filmed our openings and closings and hurried to the Digital Media Center to edit our work on Final Cut Express and be done for the day.

After several failed attempts, Courtney and I were quickly finding ourselves frustrated with Final Cut's inability to capture the clips that we had just filmed. We moved from computer to computer for about 20 minutes, and finally find one that works. We capture our image and start to watch our clips, only to find that the audio did not record for any of our interviews! We spoke with Katie, a broadcast specialist who works for Lehighsports.com, and she had no idea what the problem was.

We were so frustrated because of all the time we spent gathering footage and trying to upload our clips had all gone to waste. No worries though because I'll be getting back at it on Monday as I interview the baseball and softball teams about their upcoming seasons in a preview that should be posted mid-week!

Snowpocalypse 2010!

After a few hours of editing, Snowpocalypse 2010 is finally ready to be unveiled! I am happy with how the whole preview came together and am even happier that this whole movie-making thing is becoming a lot easier. Incorporating transitions, cutting clips, adding title bars and credits are now second nature. I am going to start "branding" myself a little better by providing links to this video (and my blog) on twitter. All that's left is to save the movie file and upload to my blog and YouTube. So the waiting begins...

comPILING SNOW FOOTage for lab 4

After much debate as to which Lehigh event we should preview for this week's lab, Debbie and I came up with a brilliant solution. SNOWPOCALYPSE 2010! We got footage from before the storm and during the storm to use in our video. Our goal was to see how Lehigh students were preparing for the snowstorm and a possible day off. After the first day of canceled classes in years, we went back to those same students to see how they were feeling about returning to school...

We got some great footage of the first snowfall on Tuesday night and then followed up with the accumulation on Wednesday morning. We stopped by Zoellner where we found plenty of students building jumps and sledding down the monstrous hill in anything that they could find! Additional footage of road cleanup outside of Taylor was shot, as were clips from inside of Taylor Gym, where many students braved the blizzard conditions to get in a work out!

The Art of Twitter

To be honest, I am very glad that Monday's class was an informational session on Twitter. Okay, okay, I know what you're thinking. It's 2010 and you don't know how to tweet on Twitter? Yes, it's true. I have been a member of the site for a couple weeks now, and I am slowly but surely starting to understand it. Professor Littau took the time to explain the lists, retweeting and plenty of other Twitter jargon that a user should know.

After the blogging and tweeting information sessions that have been given over the past two weeks, I have learned one thing of which I was never fully aware: brand yourself. I need to rework my blog and fix a few things on my Twitter account so that they are more compatible. They need to be able to market both me as a journalism student and the work that I complete throughout the semester. This will become very important as Debbie and I move forward with our project this semester. I want to be able to (or at least attempt to!) become a part of a small online community shares the same interest in journalism as I do.

Lab 3: Overlaying sound...could this be getting easier?

Today's lab taught us how to overlay sound onto video clips. I used footage from Debbie's interview with Dana Stellar, a senior on the indoor track and field team. Dana did a great job answering the questions, making it easy to edit and create the video. It's amazing how quickly you can become accostumed to using Windows Movie Maker. I am certainly starting to feel more comfortable with using the system. Although there were points during the editing process today where I got confused, I figured it out with a lot less help than I needed last time! I am looking forward to the point where I can say that I understand this program completely and that I do not need anyone's help. I get more and more excited each week to learn more tools to better the quality of my videos. Here is the final product:

Hours of my time this week were also devoted to filming, editing and uploading an Indoor Track and Field Preview for the upcoming meet at the New Balance Invitational in New York this weekend for Lehighsports.com. I, too, was at track and field practice with classmate Kenny Burgess, filming for him as he interviewed players about this weekend's upcoming meet. That experience was one of my first behind a video camera and editing with Final Cut Express. Boy, was it interesting...

Blogging about blogging

Monday's session was an instructional class on how to blog. Since I am not familiar at all with the blogging community, it was good to hear what Professor Littau had to say about it. The class really opened my eyes to the endless universe of blogging and the online communities that are formed as a result of it. Professor Littau covered all of the basics about blogging. He stressed the importance of blogging often, in order to captivate your audience. Additionally, he added that branding yourself through both your blog and twitter are two very important things for establishing yourself in an online community. You want to appeal to certain niches and allow your voice to come through in your posts, so that you can keep your blogs interesting.

The class ended before we could discuss twitter. I am looking forward to learning more about twitter, so that I can maximize the experience of tweeting this semester. Professor Littau encouraged us to add 5 local people to follow each day. This will allow us to have a better understanding of not the only the online community that surrounds us virtually, but of the local community that surrounds us physically.

Lab 2: The Final Product

The editing process started off difficult, but certainly got a little easier as I moved along. After my clips were organized, I began to add different effects to my movie. I added a title bar with Mel's name, title pages stating the questions that I had asked her, a credit page and non-text transitions. Additionally, I edited my clips down to eliminate me asking Mel a question, so that I would not be too repetitive. Once all of my editing was complete, I saved the movie as a movie file, so that I could upload it to YouTube and post it to my blog. I am looking forward to repeating this exercise so that I can practice the skills that I have just started using.

The three videos that are embedded into the blog show the three different stages of the editing process. The first video is just the raw footage of all that was taped in my interview. No editing was done and no slide transitions, titles or credits were added. My second video includes the majority of my editing, including the clip-cutting, transitions, titles and credits. My third and final video includes some last-minute editing touches and the final required element: the non-text slide transition from the introduction to the start of the interview. This project certainly made me realize all of the technical work that is required to put a good movie together...and this is just the beginning!

Lab 2: Interview, Upload and Edit

Today's lab sent us out into the field to interview a subject on a certain topic. Debbie, Lauren and I ventured over to Ulrich Student Center hoping to find some people who were willing to participate, and ultimately came out successful. We filmed introductions and then got right into the interviewing. I was up first. I interviewed Debbie's friend, Mel, who was picking up a package from the Mail Center. I chose the topic of the poor economy to investigate, and Mel did a great job answering the questions! She was pretty calm and relaxed throughout the entire interview, which really helped for things to run smoothly. But little did I know that things back at the lab would not be so easy...

Once we returned to the computer lab, we immediately began uploading our videos. Because there were three of us (as opposed to two), the interviewing process and uploading process took a lot longer, so I was feeling really behind. It also took a while to figure out whose clips belong to each person because you cannot view them before converting the clips on Prism Video Converter.

NOTE TO SELF: Bring a pad and pen out into the field to note which clips/takes you want to use!

After my clips were all organized, the editing process began...

Adding titles, credits and transitions to your clips

In Monday's class, we learned how to take the clips that we had uploaded and began adding effects to them. The whole process seems pretty basic, but I'm glad that we went over how to do it because I know very little about editing movies. After watching Professor Littau go through the process, it was evident that Windows Movie Maker makes it as easy as possible for the user. On the left side of the screen it gives you the option to "Edit Movie" with "View video transitions" and "Make titles and credits" listed below. Nothing complicated! I think that I can handle that.

I am excited to put it all together in today's class. Today we will be put into groups of two or three and sent out to do an interview somewhere on campus. We will then practice uploading the clip, editing the clip, and then uploading it to YouTube. With each class that goes by, we will be learning more and more skills that will help to perfect our final project.

Week of January 18

After this week, I am finally all set with all of my accounts. I set up my twitter account, YouTube account and this blog so that I can start and continue posting this semester. Unlike a lot of my friends, I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook, YouTube or twitter, so blogging and tweeting on a regular basis will be a big change. I think that the reason why I've never used twitter or sites like that is because I know I will be continually checking the web for updates! I'm looking forward to getting started with this semester because the content of what we'll be learning is something almost completely knew to me. I'm excited to get started and to see what the semester brings!

Week of January 18

In this week's lab, we started to familiarize ourselves with the Kodak Zi8. The cameras are pretty simple and easy to use. The image that the camera produces is high-quality, which will enhance the quality of the projects that we will be doing this semester. To practice using the camera, we interviewed each other and then transferred the movie to a computer, where we converted it to a .asf file. After the conversion, we uploaded the interviews onto YouTube (our first upload!) for the world to see! The whole process is a little confusing at first, but I'm sure it will become second nature as we progress further into the semester. But for now, I'm sure I'll be using the packet!