Saying Goodbye to first Semester, and Hello to a New Year

Saying Goodbye to First Semester 
As the semester comes to a close, I am inclined to reflect on my work I've produced so far this year.  When I look back at my previous works, I'm amazed at how far I've come.  I've always been fairly confident in my work, but this year I've pushed myself to test the limits and try new things, as a result, I've grown as a journalist.  I am always open to trying new techniques, and this year I've tried several different things that have improved my packages and my writing style.  I see improvement in my work in several areas such as sequencing while shooting, interview set up, and my ability to tell a story through packages.

The Prep Work

Before this year, when I went out to shoot a package, I would just grab a camera and then throw something together while I was editing.  This year I learned the importance of planning out what you want your package to look like before you shoot.  Now, I always try to have a general idea of the conflict, the characters, and what I want the plot of the package to be. This makes shooting quicker, more efficient, and it will result in a better news package.  However, it is important to be flexible.  There are always surprises that occur while I'm shooting, and I have learned to adjust to these challenges.  Sometimes while I'm interviewing someone,  a new conflict will arise, aside from the one I anticipated.  As a journalist student, I need to be able to incorporate these unexpected moments, and work them into my story if they would make an interesting addition.

At the beginning of this year, I had knowledge about the importance of the 6 shot system, but I never really made it a priority to accomplish getting all 6 shots in my packages.  Once I made an effort to get wide, extreme wide, medium, close, extreme close, and over the shoulder shots, it helped create a more dynamic and visually interesting package.  The sequencing of these different types of shots allowed me to tell a story through my characters.  I put together an example of good sequencing, featuring Kami Gibson working on homework.  Even this simple task is made more interesting through a variety of shots.   

My packages at the beginning of this year and last year lacked this important piece.  

Interviews

At the beginning of this year, I paid little attention to the location of the interview.  However, in more of my recent packages I have been trying to set up the interviewee in a relevant location to the story.  This makes the package more interesting and it gives the audience the opportunity to see the interviewee in his or her natural environment.  If you chose a location where the interviewee is comfortable,  you will also get better sound bites from them.  

My best package I produced last year was one on Nathan Muehe.  In this interview, I just interviewed him somewhere random in the school, with a very boring background.

This year, in my most recent package on Keaton Conrad, Savannah and I went to his home studio and interviewed him there.  In the background was his sound board and computers where he mixes his music.  This location created a more visually intriguing setting, versus a random location in the school.  

Beginning, Middle, and End

I have improved exponentially in my ability to tell a story through a package.  There are many important factors that make a good story.  One that I've found to be very important is that through voice over and sound bites, a good story must have a beginning, middle, and end.  I now make a conscious effort to include a climax in the story and a conflict in my packages.  

When I did my package on Ryan Devers, the conflict was that he loves Karate, but as he advances, it can often be dangerous and he has gotten injured several times.  This evoked the viewer's interest and made them appreciate how Ryan's preservation to continue practicing martial arts even after several injuries. 

Shooting for the Stars

I learn something new with every package I produce.  Something I want to focus more on is lighting. It always has been challenging for me to find a location with good lighting.  I don't really understand how to work with natural light, but it is something I would like to learn.  I think that good lighting is essential to make a package look more professional.  

I also would like to produce more content and quicker.  I am a perfectionist, so often times I am very slow and tedious with my work, trying to perfect every part, which can be good, but also it is bad because in the news world, they have to turn around packages in a day or two.  So I hope that I am able to work hard and work fast.  I know that I can produce high quality packages and I can do it quickly if I focus on the pre planning, then I will know what I want the package to look like when I go into the editing process. 

Until Next Year!

When we're back from break, it'll be a new year.  I will take this new year as an opportunity to further grow as a journalist student.  I will continue to learn new things every day and apply them to my packages to make them better.  Overall, I've come a long way since last year.  I have learned a lot so far this year, and I hope that I can continue to improve.

Crossing between the Gym and School

Working Title: Crossing between the Gym and School

Producers: Savannah Plumlee and Isabel Lauby

My feature story is about Mrs. Lofquist, E-comm graphic design teacher at ONW, and a dedicated cross fit member at X-treme athletics.  Mrs. Lofquist goes to the gym every morning and teaches cross fit classes along with teaching during the day.  This story will focus on how she manages teaching at school and teaching classes at the gym.  Ultimately, I want the audience to feel motivated to work as hard as Mrs. Lofquist and understand the hard work she puts into both instructing positions.

Mrs. Lofquist will be the main character in this feature story.  We will film her at the gym and teaching classes at school to show her in both elements.  In the interview, we will ask her what motivates her to continue to do both cross fit and teach.  Mrs. Lofquist will be an interesting person to do a story on because

Mrs. Lofquist's husband would also be a good character to interview.  I'm not exactly sure of his involvement in the gym, but I think he teaches cross fit classes as well.  Mr. Lofquist would be interesting because he could give a different perspective on Mrs. Lofquist's busy lifestyle.

The conflict of this film would be how Mrs. Lofquist handles having two jobs.  I want to start the package with shots of Mrs. Lofquist tying her shoes, putting her hair up, and preparing for the cross fit class.  Then I want to include a sequencing of shots of her teaching the cross fit class.  Then I want to transition to shots of her teaching her graphic design class.  The climax of the film will be why she enjoys being busy.  The conclusion will be why she does both jobs instead of just one or the other.

I want this package to be informative and after watching it, I want the audience to have learned something more about Mrs. Lofquist that they might not have known previously.  Savannah and I plan to film Mrs. Lofquist teaching her class at 5:00 on Thursday.  Before she begins her class, we were going to interview her in the gym.  Then after Christmas break, we will get shots of her teaching her graphic design class.  After we have shot everything, we will begin the editing process.

The Passion Behind the Music

Cheering others up through Music

3 weeks ago, our school was shocked with the tragic loss of two beautiful Junior girls, Ciara Webb and Cady Housh.  The raven family was broken.  In the middle of the sadness, I was searching for comfort when I stumbled upon a tweet from Ragan Kinkade. Her tweet said that an ONW student, Keaton Conrad, put a song up on
Soundcloud and dedicated it to Ciara and Cady.  I looked up his song, and I found out that he had a lot of other original songs up as well.  I thought it would be interesting to do a story over him and discover where he finds his inspiration and how he produces his own songs.

The piano, guitar, mandolin, ukulele, and base drums Man 

Savannah Plumlee and I pulled Keaton out of his first hour to ask him if we could do a story over him.  He happily accepted and told us he had a home studio where he produces his music and he said we could record him in there.  We set up a time and went over to his house to record.  We came prepared with questions and first did an interview with him.  Unfortunately, the only tripod left when I went to check out equipment was broken, so while we were doing the interview, it was challenging to make the shot completely stable the entire time.  While we were interviewing Keaton, we discovered that he is very musically talented.  Not only does he write songs, he also plays the piano, ukelele, base drums, and the mandolin.  We were able to get shots of him playing for us on all of those instruments for b-roll.

However, the first two songs Keaton played and sang for us, I wasn't able to capture audio.  I forgot to switch the audio inputs I had set for mic after the interview was over.  Luckily, I caught it soon enough and the remainder of our clips had audio.  It still provided a problem during the editing process.

The first song that he sang for us was "Don't Cry," the song he dedicated to Ciara

and Cady, and Savannah and I thought this song was very important to include in the package.  So I texted Keaton and asked him to email me the audio file of the song, and he did.  Because this package was about music, I thought it was important that the clips we included of Keaton singing matched up with the audio. It made editing a long process, by the end of it I got really good at lip reading and I learned all of the words to "Don't Cry."  In the end, I was able to match up the clips pretty well and the final product looked good.  

Steps towards Improvement

Every package I produce, I learn something new.  If I were to redo this package I would've shot Keaton playing his songs with two cameras.  I did not anticipate the fact that in order to play his songs continuously, I needed to have one stable shot that I could jump back to.  While he was playing, I kept the camera rolling the entire time so I could detach the audio in the editing process and place the clips over it.  However, because I only had one camera, when I was moving the camera to change the shot, I couldn't include that shot of b-roll with the audio.  As a result, the editing process took much longer than normal, because I had to try to match up Keaton's singing with the audio as well as cut out the shots of movement.  If Savannah and I would've thought to bring two cameras, we could've had one standard medium shot and another camera to get a variety of shots.  This way we could jump back to the stationary shot while the other camera was moving to get a different angle.  

Although the editing process was complex because of this mistake, Savannah and I were able to make a solid package out of it.  In fact, I think this is one of my best packages I've made so far.  The nat noise of Keaton singing with the clips of him playing over it made the story entertaining and it really enhanced the overall quality of the package.  I also started the package and ended the package with nat noise of Keaton singing which I thought was a good way to introduce and conclude the story.  I thought the voice over I wrote helped drive the story, and Keaton's sound bites from the interview created the package's beginning, middle, and end.  I also think that I used the six shot system well because we ended with a large variety of shots in the package.  

Overall, I think I improve with every package I produce.  I will apply the things I learned to my next package and continue learning from my mistakes and successes.