Tomas Balino talks about last class and potential challenges

Last Friday, we began the video slice of our non-print media class. Nina began by telling us about her professional background; she then went on to show us how to upload videos onto the class blog with Windows Movie Maker. She did say, however, that Final Cut Po 6 was her preferred program for editing movies.

We looked at a number of video clips. The Reagan Evacuation video, for example, gave us a feel for what "on-the-scene" reporting is like. For example, since the person filming the evacuation was moving through the crowd, instead of standing still, keeping steady wasn't as big of a priority as it might be in other cases.

We also saw some pieces Nina worked on: one was about the Mexican Elections and the other was about jazz player Lene Cuje. Both showed us how to use a voiceover narrative to weave several clips about a related subject together.

We learned how even seemingly little things like bad lighting can ruin a piece, as seen in a Washington Post video about Obama winning the 2008 election. Nina also told us about the rule of thirds: namely, a person's eyes must always be at the top third of the screen. Finally, using video examples, she taught us two different kinds of shots: one was the "T.V. anchor/reporter style," in which the subject is filmed "on center" and is looking straight at the camera. The other I call the "interview subject style," where the camera is at a slight angle ("off-center") and the interviewee does not look directly at the lens. At the end of the class, we practiced screwing our cameras onto our tripods and filming one another in the "interview subject style."

There are a few challenges I think I'll have to overcome in multimedia journalism. For one, I always have a lot of trouble cutting out the unimportant parts of a piece, since I sometimes forget that what's interesting isn't always important to the story. Similarly, I often have trouble finding my story, or "hook," as it were. I know these problems aren't specific to multimedia journalism, but I'm worried they'll crop up in this course. On the technical side, I am a little worried about making clean video edits; I didn't have a problem with Audacity for sound clips, but I didn't have to worry about visuals! Still, I'm ready and willing to learn.