Photo Essay
For this project, it was interesting to see how I could use photography to tell a cohesive story. Moving into college is a story that many people can relate to but I wanted to find a new take that was more timely and relevant. I used the information in Kobre Chapter Four: Producing a Story to see how I could narrow down the scope of the story and choose my primary characters. I took a look at how my roommates adjusted to living on campus this year, from having to complete Trojan Check every morning to getting work done around the building.
audio slideshow
For my audio slideshow, I decided to tell the story of a friend. Javi Casanova is a sophomore majoring in theatre who finally had the chance to act in a live college production this year. This was a story of new opportunities and art coming back from the pandemic.
This project was particularly difficult for me during the editing process. Cutting and putting together the audio was honestly an absolute pain but was definitely a good learning experience as well. Javi had given me a great 20-minute long interview with fun anecdotes and strong opinions. But, this only made editing harder as I had to cut this down to one minute. Then, after the audio editing came putting the visuals with it. I took from Kobre Chapter Nine: Combining Audio and Stills with the advice to "shoot sequences like a videographer." This helped a lot with getting interesting and insightful stills of Javi to go along with his interview. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend a rehearsal of his production to shoot which I think would've made the slideshow much more dynamic.
final social video
My final social video looked at the personal story of Liana Hampton who was adopted from China and raised in a predominantly white community. My goal with this video was to appeal to human interest as it tackled issues of identity and self-image.
I faced similar difficulty from the audio slideshow with having to cut down a lot of great quotes, from both Liana and her parents. I found that Kobre Chapter 13: Editing the Story's section on storyboarding really guided me on what I could include from my interviews to create a solid narrative arc and how I could intertwine my separate interviews to be cohesive. My experience from the audio slideshow made the editing process for this video go much smoother. The main difference with this project though was inserting video transitions that jumps from clip to clip look smoother.
reflection
Getting into visual journalism was truly a new process for me. My experience behind the camera was previously limited to taking cover images that would accompany a text story. Professor Ching emphasized how important visual mediums are to journalism from day one. I had to step outside of my comfort zone of only writing and working behind a keyboard.
Throughout the course, I learned the steps of producing multimedia content as well as some of the ins and outs of Adobe Audition and Premiere. It took a lot of trial and error but I've grown in my journalistic abilities.
The biggest thing I took from this semester is that it is always important to take a look at how I can present a story in a new and interesting way. This could be through narrowing in on certain perspectives or exploring new mediums. I look forward to using the skills and lessons I've learned as I continue in my career as a journalist.
Thank you Justin for a wonderful semester!