NMJ alum's vlog of Ireland

I thought I would just share this example of Erica Kurvach's vlog she posted during her trip to Ireland. She shot the video with her digital camera and edited it all together with Windows Movie Maker. Erica is an alumna of the class I thought it was interesting to see how she used some of the skills she has learned to post some interesting vlog entries. You can find the rest of her videos at ekstudentchannel.

Day 6 in Ireland

Five shot sequence for multimedia journalism

I thought this article by a multimedia professor gave some great advice on how to make sure you get the video coverage that you need to cover a news event. Although we are not putting together traditional broadcast news packages, the advice he gives on what kind of shots you should get in case would be helpful anytime you need to gather video clips for a story. I would take a look at the pdf he includes that breaks everything down for you visually.

Popcorn Maker Video Remix assignment

For this assignment you must report on a  breaking or ongoing news event using Mozilla's Popcorn Maker online video remixing platform. For the first step in the project you must shoot video of your selected breaking or ongoing news event (from now on the "news value" of your story will be an important part of your grade). You will assemble a video clip that is two to three minutes in length.. This video may be one continuous shot or it may be several clips edited together. After you have your video assembled upload it to YouTube.
Create an account with Popcorn Maker and sign in. Get the URL for your video off of YouTube and load that into the Media button on the upper right side of the frame and drag it into the timeline. Once the video is loaded, go to the events button and a title sequence and additional information about the video to help report your story. For this assignment you must add at least one of each of these events: text, popup, Google map, Twitter entry, image with a cutline and a Wikipedia entry. You may add more than one of each these events if it helps you report your story. Use the timeline to place events where your want them on the video. Once you have completed your video remix, save your project and then hit the share button. Grab the embed code and place it on your blog along with an appropriate head line and a brief introductory paragraph.  These are the MINIMUM requirements for this assignment. There are so many things you can do with this platform I expect some projects that dazzle me. This project's deadline is 5 pm on Wednesday, March 27th.

For more information about how to use Popcorn Maker, take a look at the article 4 Ways to Use Mozilla's Popcorn Maker. Popcorn Maker is so new there are not a lot of good example to show what is possible but below are a couple of interesting ones I found on their site.

Here is an example of a Popcorn Maker video featuring the story of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, the groundbreaking female astronomer who discovered the composition of the sun. Rather than attach a video they used their YouTube link to supply music (you'll notice that the music is longer than the content but you get the idea).

Below is a video made by the Just Us ATL organization in Atlanta, Georgia.

Popcorn Maker Video Remix

Things are going to start getting interesting beginning with our next project. For this project we are going to produce an online video remix video using Mozilla's Popcorn Maker. The article New Tool Brings Interactivity to the Web gives you a brief review and explanation of how Popcorn Maker works. Here is a quote from the article giving you the basics:

 Announced at the 2012 Mozilla Festival, this HTML5 Web app is meant to be an easy-to-use tool for bloggers and other Web makers, enabling them to add text, photos, links, maps and other content to video, creating a richer experience. The tool makes “video work like the rest of the Web: hackable, linkable, remixable and connected to the world around it," explained Mozilla's Brett Gaylor in a blog post introducing Popcorn Maker.

I would suggest you take a look at this Popcorn Maker Tutorial before class on Monday night. Your assignment for Monday is to come to class with a proposed subject for this project.The subject must be a breaking or ongoing news event from which you will shoot video and then use Popcorn Maker to add additional contextual information. This project's deadline will be at 5 pm on Wednesday, March 27th so take that into account when you come up with a proposal. Below is an example of a simple Popcorn Maker video remix that I created. You can do much better.

Fats Domino's grandson sings at Tiptina's event honoring Tremé

Conneaut Lake Collage

Vuvox Photo Collage Assignment

For this photo collage assignment you will need 25-50 still photos of a breaking news event or photos that are related in theme or content. You must have your proposal for this project approved before you proceed. You will need to establish an account with Vuvox to create your photo collage. After you have chosen your images and adjusted them appropriately for the web, you will upload them to your Picasa on the Web account. You can access photos uploaded on Picasa on the Web directly from your Vuvox account.  You will photos  to your Vuvox collage adding text to help you report your story. After you have constructed your collage add appropriate music to it.  I would suggest you use this site to find music: Incompetech-Royalty Free Music. Once you have selected a piece of music, download it and add it to your collage. The music is royalty free as long as you give the author credit at the end of your collage. You cannot use copyrighted music for this assignment. The combination of photos, text and music should combine to create a mood and tell a story to your audience. Your final collage must be embedded in your blog and appropriate links placed in the social media by 5 pm on Wednesday, March 13.

Here are some examples of Vuvox collages created by other journalists. 


A history of the Floridan Hotel from the  Tampa Bay Times



The Annie Lee Investigation from the Hartford Courant

Impressions of John Carroll University-created by students in the Cleveland Urban Journalism Workshop