Final Project Plan

My final project is going to be about the culture of going to a UNH Hockey game. What it is like to go, what goes on there, why it is such a great atmosphere. I thought this story would be cool because UNH hockey was one of the reasons I decided to come to this school to begin with. Also, it is such big thing to do on campus on the weekends.
I have already taken some video clips and put it together for my previous project, so I can use some of my better clips and use that for the final project. I plan to use some audio recordings for some of the chants that they do because it is a big thing in the hockey game. I am going to take pictures of the other teams and how the fans react to them. Since Maine came this weekend, I got some good pictures and audio clips of the fans and the opposing team. I learned that my other peers really liked my idea, which made me surprised because I usually do not get such positive feedback on any of my story ideas. The feedback that I got was very positive. They liked it because they know how passionate a lot of the students are about the hockey at UNH. They suggested that I should focus mostly on the fans instead of the players views of what it is like to play hockey.
My ideas of the project has not changed at all. In fact, I feel more confident in doing it. My challenges are going to be staying on top of the fans chants and cheers and watching the game. Sometimes I do not take the right pictures or record all of the chants in time. There are no warnings of when the chants happen, so I have to be more aware of my surroundings. I felt lukewarm about the other ideas in my group because the story ideas were either just okay or they seemed too unrealistic to accomplish. I think my classmates will do well, but it depends on how determined they are to succeed. I am super excited about this project. I think the biggest obstacle was having some other people agree on me doing it. Once it passed, I am more focused and more prepared than anything now.

Shooting Video

Since I am such a big UNH hockey fan, I thought it would be cool to take some shots of what it is like to go to a hockey game and why the fans get so into it. It was a good time because Friday and Saturday were their first home games of the season and it was against University of Miami in Ohio, which they were the #1 team in the country. I was really excited about shooting video while I was planning it because not only do I learn how to do it, but I can be watching the game in the process.
It was a lot harder than I thought. On Friday night when I used Sandy's camera, the video card was full as I was taping one of the interviews I had with a UNH student. Luckily, I had another camera that can shoot video, so I ran back to my dorm, got my camera and then came back. As I was filming again, the battery died. So the multimedia gods punished me that night, but I was fortunate that UNH was playing the next night.
Saturday ended being great because I had better shots and I interviewed better people. When I was walking around the arena, I saw Bobby Butler, one of the two captains of the hockey team. When I asked if I can interview him, he told me that I should consult with the Sports Information Director first, so that irritated me. Then I talked to some fans, two people who work for the media groups for athletics and a member of the band. I also took some shots of some cheers, some of the activities during intermission and the game. It really worked out for me that the hockey team played again on Saturday.
Video recording to me was the biggest challenge because I always had to be on the move during the game since it has such a fast pace. Trying to hold it as still as possible was another obstacle, but I know I am not a professional. Another thing that made me paranoid was when I was filming and making sure that I was not some sort of creeper. Otherwise, it was a lot of fun. I think visually, video recording is the best way of journalism that we have done so far in this class because when someone is talking, viewers can see what they look like and they can see what happened in this particular news story. Even though this was my first time, I was really proud of myself when it came to recording.
So far, editing is not as difficult as I thought it would be, but it is tedious. Making sure that I put everything in the right order took some time. Once I tighten everything, it should come out a little smoother. I am really looking forward to what everyone thinks of this video. Hope it turns out to be good results!

The Ninth Floor

I looked at a couple of multimedia stories from One in 8 million and Mediastorm. When I viewed "The Ninth Floor" by Jessica Dimmock, I felt like I did not want to look at any other story. As a curious journalist who is always looking for more interesting news stories, I decided to look at one more and then decided there is no way I would write about anything else other than "The Ninth Floor."
This story is about three drug addicts: Jessie, Dionn and Rachel who lived in an apartment with a man named Joe Smith in New York City. The new roommates of Smith's were all drug addicts, which influenced him to also be a drug addict. Once Smith ran out of money to pay their rent, they were all evicted. All of them split up. Jessie was addicted to Heroin and Dionn and Rachel are on Methadone. Jessie was in and out of the hospital. She had trouble staying clean. There were photos of when she was in the hospital, she was doing morphine, which was her medicine. Dionn and Rachel were an item. They had a violent but loving relationship. The couple conceived a baby and luckily the infant did not have any Methadone in its system. Dionn went back to school and Rachel is watching the baby. The information said that the photographer followed these people for about three years. She followed them through the highs and lows of their drug addictions.
I loved this story because reading and listening about drug addicts always intrigued me. Even though drug addicts are everywhere, everyone is different. Drug addicts are people too. I would always think about how they are low lifes and I should not feel bad for them because they made their decisions. But at the same time, I always think that they have the potential to do great things if they quit their addiction and pursue on their dreams they use to have.
This photographer had a lot of different styles. She had a combination of the landscape portraits and the action shots (an instant which it was like a film). The photos were beautiful and very powerful. When I was looking at the photos, I cringed, I shivered and my eyes watered. There were photos of them inserting the needles into their arms, they were naked, having sex and some other disturbing endings. The audio added a lot to the story because while viewers see the photos, you can tell who is talking and their emotions they must be feeling as the interviews wore on. There were also captions on updates of the subjects.
I thought the photographer did a really good job presenting the subjects in their good days and bad days. I was not a fan of the photos of them being naked. It is not that I am offended by those photos, but I felt that they were unnecessary.
Overall, I thought it was a great piece of journalism. What I look for in a multimedia story is if I can relate to it, if my attention span can last longer than five minutes and if I feel more than one emotion. What was compelling about this work is that it took three years to put everything together. It showed that it took that much time and the journalist did such a good job editing everything to the T.