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!