Just a quick video from today's interview with some football players. Same setups as before, but this time I used my Tascam DR-07 recorder and the Audio Technica Hand-held mic for audio instead of the shotgun mic (way too much wind noise).
Fer Lernin' Gud:
This video was not done entirely by me. Most of the work was done by Jeremy. He started on as a videographer this summer and is sticking with us (thanks!).
What I wanted to point out here was the difference in audio. The audio from the callout itself (when John Cox is talking) is recorded with the on-camera microphone. These microphones are put in merely as after-thoughts so the average joe-shmo can shoot a complete video straight out of the box. They are low-quality and pick up about every sound imaginable (but not in a good way).
The voice over, however, was recorded using the Tascam DR-07 audio recorder directly (it has a pair of stereo microphones). I think you can hear the difference for yourself.
Lesson learned: Always record audio separately, or at least plug a nice mic into the camera.
Dan Gillmor is a writer and educator at Arizona Sate University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Recently, Dan wrote an article for Salon.com on "Who's a journalist? Does that matter?"
I agree completely that with tools like facebook, twitter, digg, reddit and a host of other outlets for laymen to communicate, we all are creating media, and lots of it.
I also agree that not all of this is journalism. Not even Dan calls himself a journalist most of the time feeling that
"Calling myself a journalist, which I did from time to time, tended to make me feel like I was pretending to a higher role than the craft, however vital and honorable it may be, merited."
While trying to define who is a journalist in class, the example of Jamal Albarghouti was brought up. For those of you who don't know this gentleman by name, he is the only person to have captured video during the Virginia Tech shootings. Jamal used his Nokia cell phone to capture not only footage of a S.W.A.T. Team entering a building, but also 26 shots fired by the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho.
Many fine points for both side of the argument were brought up during the discussion. Jamal acted with the Media in mind, wanting to show people what happened, instead of running away, he started rolling video and even moved forward toward the danger. On the other hand, Jamal is an engineering graduate student, while he did take the video he gave it away (not a professional choice), and he provided absolutely zero context for anyone watching the video.
When you watched the video the first time, did you know what it was? I sure didn't. My position is that Jamal, and many other people in positions similar to his, are not journalists. They don't practice journalism as a vocation, they don't provide context, they don't even know what is going on half the time. While their actions are valued and are important, Journalists are the ones who take this information and turn it into something of substance for the audience.
Thoughts on Social Media
Who doesn't enjoy a good tweet about someone's poop?
I love twitter. I think it is a fun way to keep up with people you know or people in similar lines of work to you, or just follow someone who likes to party.
Twitter also provides an opportunity for people to quickly provide information to each other. Did you read that Dan Gillmor article I linked above? Do you recall the traffic information tweets during that snowstorm? Yeah, that's pretty much why twitter rocks.
On the other hand, we have Facebook. Fuck you, Facebook.
and I'll leave you with that for now. I'll finish it when I get back from class.
and by back from class I really mean at 2:26am the next day because, well, that's just how I roll.
Back to Facebook. When I first got accepted to Purdue, one of the first things I did was head over to Facebook (shown to me by my older brother) and start an account. It was a fun tool that I used to keep in touch with high school friends, and people I met at Purdue. Then came bumper stickers, then gifts. Then farmville. And mafia wars. And now god knows what because they've changed their layout so many God damned times I don't even know what I'm looking at.
And in the meantime Mark Zuckerberg and his team of cronies have decided to change the privacy settings to, oh wait, that's right. There are no privacy settings.
What was that Facebook? A public outcry for control over our own content and respecting copyright and privacy? Oh, I guess you could just send out a quick press release and put a few confusing-as-hell-and-impossible-to-get-to settings back up. But don't worry, Zuckerberg is still impossible to friend and I'm sure his data isn't getting mined at all...
Yet I still use you facebook. Why? Because of your 500 million users. Not because I like the system, but because it is the easiest way for me to keep in touch with my friends all over the world.
Granted, when Diaspora is released to the public, I'm opening an account there, but I'll leave my FB account open so others can still contact me if all else fails.
I also used a Manfrotto Tripod and 701HDV fluid head for support instead of just a monopod.
I still used the Sennheiser MKE 400 mini shotgun mic for audio, but I dropped the recorded audio as it conflicted too much (even at -35db) with the voice over.
Speaking of Voice Overs, the VO for this piece was recorded using a Tascam DR-07 audio recorder and an Audio Technica hand-held microphone.
I still forgot to include the location in the lower third identifier (face-palm). But at least it was mentioned in the VO. After all, if I get it perfect the first time, there's no room for improvement, right?
Notes is a segment where I will break down a multimedia piece I complete and describe what I like and don't like about it. I'll talk about how it's made and why somethings happened (or didn't happen).
Aspects of New Media: Video - hopefully you've gathered there is video footage involved with this piece ;) Audio - Audio is one of the most important aspects of video, yet can stand on its own too. Graphics - While not the main aspect here, it adds information and gives a more professional touch
This video was shot with my Nikon D300s and a 35mm f/1.8 lens. I used a monopod to help stabilize the video, but I can't wait until I get a shoulder mount!
Overall it looks okay. I had some exposure differences from one interviewee to another, especially with coach Hope. I fixed it a bit with some color correction in post, but going from direct sunlight to shade is going to cause problems no matter what. I also had a slight focus problem when talking to coach Clark (0:50).
Audio:
The audio was capture with my Sennheiser MKE-400 shotgun mic mounted directly to the camera and plugged into the audio input.
I opted not to use a less sensitive mic like a hand-held or lavaliere microphone simply for the ease of use. I didn't want to spend the time syncing the audio in post so I traded audio quality for speed. A great example of using a strongly directional microphone like the Sennheiser is audible at 1:15.
You can also hear the wind moving across the microphone and some handling noise throughout the piece. I used the foamie that came with the microphone, I really need to get a dead-cat wind screen.
Graphics:
I added a few things at the suggestion of Maura. I made all of the graphics in Photoshop and saved them as .TIFF files with transparency layers.
Firstly I added a date-stamp in the upper right. This was pretty simple, and while anyone can look at the upload date, its quicker to just see it in the video to see if its current.
Secondly I added a "bug" to the lower right. This is a simple graphic used as a watermark.
Finally I re-vamped the super so it looks cleaner. Overall doing all of the graphics took about 20 minutes and I think it was worth it. They provide some basic information while giving the whole piece a more professional look.
Today in class we discussed some aspects of what new media includes. I think this is a beautiful example of three of those: Audio, Video, Graphics. Plus its just really cool to watch (and informative).
This blog has been launched for a number of reasons. First among them (and really, it wouldn't have started without this) is it is required. As part of a communications course (New Media in Journalism and Convergent Technology) we are required to keep a blog to not only detail our progress on our final presentation, but to also "hand-in" assignments.
Secondly, I named this blog "Michael's Media Manifestation" because of what I am hoping to get out of it. In our present time, journalism and media are evolving about as fast as nano-bots in an oil pool. I am trying to define and manifest what journalism and new media really are to me.
Well That's it for now. But check back soon, I'll be updating frequently. I'll also be updating my normal blog with a new recipe and photo soon.
