Better pumpkin slides...

I redid my pumpkin slides in Moviemaker, and this time it worked. Here is my slideshow:

Starting the big project

So I'm kind of nervous to start working on our big video project this semester. At first, I was going to do something on the nursing homes and the difference activities for the elderly make. However, I realized that such places might have a problem if I brought a camera in there, and I would be very limited with what I can do with the project. So, I thought of doing something for therapeutic horseback riding.

The challenge with this topic, as I realized in group discussions, is that therapeutic horseback riding has been done and redone before. There have been many stories dedicated to covering developmentally-challenged children, for example, whose cognitive skills improve from spending time with horses. So, my challenge in the project will have to be finding a different angle that has not been covered before. I'd like to find something compelling and new about the topic, something that no one had previously realized about what horseback riding does, or doesn't do for the kids. More importantly, I'll be seeking to find an answer to the "so what" question, which will take a bit of searching.

I really liked some of the ideas that were brought up in groups. A couple people had profile-type stories in mind about interesting people, and I thought that would be kind of cool. That way, the topic is narrow and one just has to find what aspect of a person to focus on. Maybe for my project, I'll focus not so much on horses, but rather a specific child I'll be talking about (I am still yet to find him or her). I could take the story out of the barn and into that child's life. I want the viewer to really feel like they're getting to know him or her. Maybe I'll follow the kid around and show the struggles, the successes, and little moments of joy. And the horseback riding can be the glue that holds the story together.

On another note, I've attempted to post my slideshow on pumpkins at the bottom of the blog, though I don't think it worked for some reason. I'm hoping I just don't see it because I don't have the right version of Adobe Flashplayer, but I'm thinking that's not the case. Sometimes, I wish multimedia journalism didn't come with consistent technical difficulties. I really liked the photos I took, especially with the pumpkins and the kids. Maybe I'll post the photos separately if it really isn't working.

First video project

For this week's project I got a video camera and got some shots of the career fair at the MUB. It was pretty interesting, and I was surprised at how many people were there. Many of the people in the booths actually had gone to UNH and returned to find employees for their companies. It was nice getting to talk to a variety of people at the fair--it didn't feel as creepy as taking still photos.

When interviewing the employers and prospective UNH students, I was having trouble getting an interesting shot, not just a frame filled with a guy talking for a period of time. I already had to be pretty far away from the interviewee so that the shot is not too close, so I didn't have much space to move the camera around to get more of the background or other objects.

But I think I got a variety of shots--some wide range, and some close-ups of the conversations. I found the article on sequencing really helpful, and I kept in mind trying to get at least 10 second sequences.

"One in 8 Million" story analysis

Looking through the various media sites, I really enjoyed watching videos from New York Time’s “One in 8 Million” collection. The different people’s stories were really captivating. I like the technique of letting the interviewee narrate the story, while showing pictures relating to the mood of what’s being said. The one story I really liked was about a former bar fighter named Steven Marmo, who tells about his past problems with anger and getting into fights. The story takes a turning point when he talks about gets in trouble while drinking at work and turning his life for the better after his taking up bicycle racing.

One of the main reasons I picked this story is that it has a clear progression from a conflict situation to a resolution, and it keeps the viewers on their toes while keeping with a direct storyline. The story that Marmo tells has a clear beginning, high point, and an end, and the photos that accompany the narration do a great job of representing the tone of what’s being said. At the beginning, when Marmo talks about his stored feelings of anger and energy, and wanting to release that energy by fighting, he is shown pulling heavy objects while doing construction work. The “conflict” of the story is resolved when Marmo talks about picking out a bike at a store and realizing that he hadn’t gotten in trouble since bike racing. The photo of him in a bike store is really great—he’s standing in front of a large selection of bikes. Not only is that photo graphically appealing, but it also portrays the feeling of many open possibilities. During the resolution part of the story happens when Marmo starts bike racing and he hasn’t gotten in trouble since.

The style of photography in this story deals a lot with motion and playing with shadows to convey emotion. When the narration talks about Marmo getting drunk at work and doing something inappropriate, the shadow is over his eyes in the photo, showing his guilt, or recalling of dark times. Many of the photos are intimate, making viewers feel like they’re getting to know Marmo as a person.

The photos captivate the viewer by conveying the by presenting intense sensations to the story. The first half of the images present Marmo’s physical struggle at the construction site, and the second half show feelings of speed and freedom through him bicycling. At the beginning, when Marmo talks about his stored feelings of anger and energy, he is shown pulling down heavy objects with rope. From his posture, as well as the angles of the photos, you can really feel the motion of pulling down something heavy, demonstrating Marmo’s struggle. When the images go from construction work to the bicycle, the images convey his feelings of freedom and that nothing can stop him by showing him speeding down the bridge on his bike.

Overall, the story clearly shows Marmo’s transformation from being a troubled, violence-prone kid to finding a better way to channel his energy at the end. In a way, the story shows that people can change for the better even if they have been a certain way for a long time. It shows that emotions such as anger, which might need to be taken out in a physical way, can be channeled through a more positive activity, such as biking.

Here's a link of this story:

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/index.html#steven_marmo