It amazes me how people who die that are famous for one or a few things get so much news coverage. According to MSN.com, Casey Johnson, 30, passed away today which authorities are unsure what the cause was. Johnson apparently was famous because she was engaged to Tila Tequila, her father Woody Johnson owns the New York Jets and her great-great grandfather founded Johnson & Johnson. So basically she gets attention for doing nothing. Pardon me if I'm being brash, but I never get it when people die, it is such a juicy story. For example, on December 20, Brittany Murphy, 32, died from what police believe to be diet pills or other drugs. Murphy was famous for two movies: "8 Mile" and "Just Married". For the last two weeks, she is getting attention from "CNN", "Fox News", "People Magazine", etc. I do feel bad that these two people died, but to be realistic, they are just another set of people that died from overdosing or whatever famous people do.
In other news, President Obama finally speaks out about the airport security and how they knew what works, but does not know why it did not work at the time. What a political statement that is. We all know that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was trying to blow up a plane. For some reason, they are not telling us why. Come on people, stop being watchdogs for the government and spill it out. There is definitely something that they are not telling us. Why the heck would the U.S. Embassy all ready re-open less than a week? From the way I read it, the Americans were going to close it until they figure something out. Did they? Who knows.
It saddens me that I am going into a business that does not provide enough validation and honesty anymore. I do think that technology is getting into the new journalists' heads. In May 22, I will either start my search or already have a job lined up at some news industry. When I get there, I will work my butt off to provide a honest, well-reported and savvy news stories everyday. The last thing that I would want to do is to be a watchdog and not report certain things when the taxpayers should know what this country is doing with their money.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
Sports Monday
One of my interests that I am obsessed in is sports. It all started with watching the Red Sox in late 1998-early 1999. I have been going to Red Sox games since 1993, when Roger Clemens' time was waning with the Red Sox. I started watching baseball because I felt it was one of the best ways to have a connection with my Papou (Greek word for grandfather) because he has been a die-hard Red Sox fan for over 60 years at the time. Then it led to watching the Patriots, then the Bruins and then the Celtics. Eventually, it led me to watching all different teams in different sports. The two players on the Red Sox that caught my attention was Pedro Martinez and Nomar Garciaparra. As badly as things ended for Martinez and Garciaparra, they were both enigmatic players for Boston baseball for seven-eight years. Sure the Red Sox were never perennial contenders, they were still fun to watch.
The more I watched the Red Sox games with Papou, the closer we got. Whenever we would watch a Red Sox game together, whenever the other team would make a pivotal play or the Red Sox make a boneheaded play, Papou would punch the couch and say "Jesus Christ." Even if the Red Sox won a game, he would say they got lucky. A lot of people thought he was a grouch no matter how the Red Sox did. He was that way for such a long time because he was use to failure. He saw it when they lost the World Series in 1946, 1967, 1975, 1986 and the American League Championship series in 2003. Each of those series were seven games, the Red Sox were always 3-4 in those series. Who could blame Papou for being pessimistic? He always told me that the Red Sox would keep you interested throughout the summer, and then stink up the joint in the fall. When they swept their way to victory in 2004, the first person I called was Papou because I knew this was a big deal for him. Imagine watching a team continue to fail when it counted for 60 years? I can't even imagine it. When I called him, he said that he did not think they would win until Keith Foulke tossed the ball underhand to Doug Mientkiewicz. He was jubilant he did not know what to do. I told him that at least you saw them win before you died.
To this day whenever we talk to each other on the phone, we would first talk about current events, how everyone around him is and then the status of the Red Sox. We would argue about how the signing of Manny Ramirez for eight years, $160 million contract was idiotic to the odds in Las Vegas for the Red Sox winning the World Series that year. Papou is more of an introvert, but has a heart of gold. He has been married to my Yiayia (Greek word for grandmother) for 60 years now and they cannot be happier. Her role is to be the conversationalist and his role is to look cute and be quiet. To me, it is a great trade-off. Everyone does get along with Papou very well. Him and my dad talk about financial expenses because Papou is an accountant. Papou and my brother Pete don't talk a lot, but their love toward each other is mutual. But Papou and I have a strong connection that no one else who is close to him has, baseball, and no one can ever take that away from me.
The more I watched the Red Sox games with Papou, the closer we got. Whenever we would watch a Red Sox game together, whenever the other team would make a pivotal play or the Red Sox make a boneheaded play, Papou would punch the couch and say "Jesus Christ." Even if the Red Sox won a game, he would say they got lucky. A lot of people thought he was a grouch no matter how the Red Sox did. He was that way for such a long time because he was use to failure. He saw it when they lost the World Series in 1946, 1967, 1975, 1986 and the American League Championship series in 2003. Each of those series were seven games, the Red Sox were always 3-4 in those series. Who could blame Papou for being pessimistic? He always told me that the Red Sox would keep you interested throughout the summer, and then stink up the joint in the fall. When they swept their way to victory in 2004, the first person I called was Papou because I knew this was a big deal for him. Imagine watching a team continue to fail when it counted for 60 years? I can't even imagine it. When I called him, he said that he did not think they would win until Keith Foulke tossed the ball underhand to Doug Mientkiewicz. He was jubilant he did not know what to do. I told him that at least you saw them win before you died.
To this day whenever we talk to each other on the phone, we would first talk about current events, how everyone around him is and then the status of the Red Sox. We would argue about how the signing of Manny Ramirez for eight years, $160 million contract was idiotic to the odds in Las Vegas for the Red Sox winning the World Series that year. Papou is more of an introvert, but has a heart of gold. He has been married to my Yiayia (Greek word for grandmother) for 60 years now and they cannot be happier. Her role is to be the conversationalist and his role is to look cute and be quiet. To me, it is a great trade-off. Everyone does get along with Papou very well. Him and my dad talk about financial expenses because Papou is an accountant. Papou and my brother Pete don't talk a lot, but their love toward each other is mutual. But Papou and I have a strong connection that no one else who is close to him has, baseball, and no one can ever take that away from me.
Here is to the start of 2010
One of my new year's resolutions is to write more since I am studying Journalism. One of the ways I can do that is to maintain a blog. Since I am heading into my last semester at the University of New Hampshire and the job search is looming, I have to polish my resume and qualifications to be marketable when I get out of school. I have had this blog since September 2009 when I had my Multimedia and Advanced Reporting class. The philosophy of the class was to learn about the evolution of multimedia and how it affects journalism. We learned how to take still photography, audio and video. It was difficult at first because I did not have prior experience with this technology, although, I have always believed that the only way that you learn something is if you learn how to fail. I did fail quite often, but I learned from my mistakes. In 2008, I did a blog called "The Juice Machine" which was about Boston Sports teams. I had a fun time writing about it, except I did not really market it towards anyone else. My plan is to market this blog to news companies to have them view my writing through the internet. I have many interests between sports, politics, traveling, movies, video games, reading and music. I am planning to write three days a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The posts will be sports on Mondays, journalism on Wednesdays, and my status on Fridays. I hope you enjoy what my writing brings to you. My goals in this blog are to bring credible, validated writing to the audience and also to bring a forum to my readers. If any of you have a question or a comment to any of my posts, I will be happy to read and then write back to any of your comments. Be free to browse my work in my Multimedia class. I am looking forward to make a blog and this will be the start for the rest of my life as a journalist.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
My project appears to be done
Hence if there is any problems with the uploading of the video on YouTube (knock on wood), my project appears to be done. It is about 4 minutes and 40 seconds. It contains my voice as a narrative. The only beef I have with it is that most of the audio when I am talking and same with Suzanne Power is scratchy. There is an abundance of pictures of UNH fans, the hockey players, etc. The video has a combination of audio, picture and video. The end includes the accomplishments of the UNH hockey team and a couple of quotes from "Dot" Sheehan, who is one of the Senior Athletic directors. I added a few combination of transitions so the pictures won't seem to be bland. Overall, I am mega excited that the project is done. I think for my first project I did a really good job. It took a maximum amount of work and perseverance, but I did what I had to do. To some of you, it could be better. There may be some missing pieces. However, that is why we need readers and viewers to be more observant when it comes to reading the news; it is an education of what is around you in your everyday life. I hope you all enjoy it. If I don't get a chance to post the video online, you'll have to wait until tomorrow. Hope everyday is not dreading to do their last stage of their stories. Good luck everyone.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Project as of 12/5/09
Another day, another post about the update of the project. I continue to have my doubts on my project, mostly because I want to make it really good. The presentations on Wednesday did not help too much when it comes to confidence. But no matter, I will do my project my way.
I got some live shots of the hockey game from the TNH. Some of them are really good and I think it can add a lot when it comes to my project. It will be better than some of the hockey pictures than I had before.
Anyway, I went to the hockey game last night and got some recordings on the chants again. The audio is not even as close to as good as the one I lost because 1) it was not again Maine and 2) no one is passionate about facing UMASS Lowell. They are the #8 team in the country. To have the opportunity to dethrone them out of the top ten ranking in the country could gain monumental confidence in the hockey team. But that is okay because the student section was once again sold out. In the beginning of the game, the crowd was pretty loud. In the middle of the game, the crowd was quiet because the Wildcats were not playing particularly well. In the end, the crowd got into it and the recordings got better. Once I get the audio put together, I should be able to get to the next step, putting the audio, video and photography together in IMovie.
My last objective is to talk to the director of the ticket office. I have to wait until Monday if I can even talk to her because she is traveling with the UNH Football team this weekend. She was initially annoyed at me because I did at the last minute. I did then say I notified someone on Tuesday which gives you or someone else time to talk to me. She was okay afterward. I am concerned that she will not be committed to the interview on Monday. If it does not happen, then I may just have to talk about the tradition of going to the game, which I guess will not be too bad. It's crunch time now. Whatever happens, that's life and there is nothing I can do about it.
I got some live shots of the hockey game from the TNH. Some of them are really good and I think it can add a lot when it comes to my project. It will be better than some of the hockey pictures than I had before.
Anyway, I went to the hockey game last night and got some recordings on the chants again. The audio is not even as close to as good as the one I lost because 1) it was not again Maine and 2) no one is passionate about facing UMASS Lowell. They are the #8 team in the country. To have the opportunity to dethrone them out of the top ten ranking in the country could gain monumental confidence in the hockey team. But that is okay because the student section was once again sold out. In the beginning of the game, the crowd was pretty loud. In the middle of the game, the crowd was quiet because the Wildcats were not playing particularly well. In the end, the crowd got into it and the recordings got better. Once I get the audio put together, I should be able to get to the next step, putting the audio, video and photography together in IMovie.
My last objective is to talk to the director of the ticket office. I have to wait until Monday if I can even talk to her because she is traveling with the UNH Football team this weekend. She was initially annoyed at me because I did at the last minute. I did then say I notified someone on Tuesday which gives you or someone else time to talk to me. She was okay afterward. I am concerned that she will not be committed to the interview on Monday. If it does not happen, then I may just have to talk about the tradition of going to the game, which I guess will not be too bad. It's crunch time now. Whatever happens, that's life and there is nothing I can do about it.
Good presentations peers!
Coming into Wednesday's class, I did not know what to expect when it came to the first round of multimedia presentations. I have been looking forward to the final projects because I have been anticipating on how my classmates made adjustments to their final projects. We had a rough start at first because the sound was a little quirky, but once that was fixed, the presentations were off and running.
Sylvia's project was actually a lot better than I expected. When I learned that her project was going to be about love relationships, I was not fond of it because I thought it was a little lame and kind of gossipy. But once she released facts about relationships between high school and college, I became more interested. She taught her audience that couples learn more about each other and have different personalities when it comes to high school and college. I wish that she got a picture of the psychiatrist, but the source probably did not want that. She had really good pictures too. This version had more variety than on the rough draft. It was a massive improvement. Well done Sylvia!
Once again, Cam's project was impressive, but this presentation was much better than his last one. What I loved about the story was the relationship between Cam and his father. Through video, audio and pictures, the audience can feel the emotions before, during and after the race. I really liked the candid pictures of Cam and his dad when they were both younger. Personally, I am very close to my family and thanks to them, they make me strong, confident and their teachings make me the best person I can be. That is what I see in Cam's story, love and trust. The pictures were just gorgeous and I thought the video interviews were well done. Once again, Cam's second crack was amazing and I don't see anyone in the class that will come close to as good as his presentation.
I liked AJ's project a lot. At first, I thought it was a little boring because it was just another story about a band of people congratulating the military of fighting for our country. But once AJ managed to get to the older veterans and the family members of the troops that were coming back, I thought it was pretty cool. The pictures were really smooth and crisp. I could tell it must have been a difficult process of choosing them. What impressed me the most was the music. I liked the alternate version of the "Star-Spangled Banner." It was very modern and mellow. The video interviews with the soldiers were really powerful. The project was very good because it had a really strong ending, which is what I like the most. I was in the Parker Media Lab when AJ had problems what IMovie, but it appeared that she combated it enough that everything came out well in the end. Love the persistence AJ. Keep it up.
Mike's presentation was really solid and kind of groovy. I was really impressed of his composure with the camera when he had the video recordings of the concert and when he was taking pictures of it. The trust with the use of the camera was obvious and that is a very difficult obstacle to overcome. The audio recordings of the band members at first was irritating at first because of the noise of the background, but the more interviews there were, the more appropriate the B-roll was. I think it was my favorite project when it comes to creativity for college students. We all love music and we all love going to concerts and rocking out. Mike gave us that and it was a job well done.
These presentations intimidates me even more now once it will be my turn. I guess that it what happens when you encounter high quality work. I am going to have to step it up with my project. Once again, well done classmates. I am looking forward to next week's presentations.
Sylvia's project was actually a lot better than I expected. When I learned that her project was going to be about love relationships, I was not fond of it because I thought it was a little lame and kind of gossipy. But once she released facts about relationships between high school and college, I became more interested. She taught her audience that couples learn more about each other and have different personalities when it comes to high school and college. I wish that she got a picture of the psychiatrist, but the source probably did not want that. She had really good pictures too. This version had more variety than on the rough draft. It was a massive improvement. Well done Sylvia!
Once again, Cam's project was impressive, but this presentation was much better than his last one. What I loved about the story was the relationship between Cam and his father. Through video, audio and pictures, the audience can feel the emotions before, during and after the race. I really liked the candid pictures of Cam and his dad when they were both younger. Personally, I am very close to my family and thanks to them, they make me strong, confident and their teachings make me the best person I can be. That is what I see in Cam's story, love and trust. The pictures were just gorgeous and I thought the video interviews were well done. Once again, Cam's second crack was amazing and I don't see anyone in the class that will come close to as good as his presentation.
I liked AJ's project a lot. At first, I thought it was a little boring because it was just another story about a band of people congratulating the military of fighting for our country. But once AJ managed to get to the older veterans and the family members of the troops that were coming back, I thought it was pretty cool. The pictures were really smooth and crisp. I could tell it must have been a difficult process of choosing them. What impressed me the most was the music. I liked the alternate version of the "Star-Spangled Banner." It was very modern and mellow. The video interviews with the soldiers were really powerful. The project was very good because it had a really strong ending, which is what I like the most. I was in the Parker Media Lab when AJ had problems what IMovie, but it appeared that she combated it enough that everything came out well in the end. Love the persistence AJ. Keep it up.
Mike's presentation was really solid and kind of groovy. I was really impressed of his composure with the camera when he had the video recordings of the concert and when he was taking pictures of it. The trust with the use of the camera was obvious and that is a very difficult obstacle to overcome. The audio recordings of the band members at first was irritating at first because of the noise of the background, but the more interviews there were, the more appropriate the B-roll was. I think it was my favorite project when it comes to creativity for college students. We all love music and we all love going to concerts and rocking out. Mike gave us that and it was a job well done.
These presentations intimidates me even more now once it will be my turn. I guess that it what happens when you encounter high quality work. I am going to have to step it up with my project. Once again, well done classmates. I am looking forward to next week's presentations.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Updated project
As of right now, I am still trying to speak to someone at the ticket office. Someone is going to call me tomorrow and then I can make an arrangement with whoever calls and then interview them. I want to talk to someone from the ticket office because maybe he or she can give me an idea what the atmosphere when students are buying their tickets. I will make a judgment to see whether it will be worthy enough to add that person after the interview.
I tried to call one of the editors of the USA Hockey Magazine to ask why they added the fish tradition in the article, but I have had no luck. I am going to keep calling until they respond. But I did find another article that added the fish tradition why it is so famous.
I also added some narration of my story. I did an introduction, the nutgraph, introducing my sources, and the ending. The narration is not all of the way finished, but it is getting there. I edited all of my photos that I am going to use on Adobe Photoshop. I may take a few more pictures at Friday's game and then will edit a few more. I could also go to the TNH during production night and get some photos then. If the photos are good, it could add a lot of emotion and dimension to the project. I think once I get all of my objectives done, I will use IMovie to use the stuff. I will use still photography and audio and then add some video. At this point, it is a day-to-day process until Friday. Once December 4th is here, I will then take full advantage of audio recording since I lost the original recording on the chants.
Losing the original audio recording definitely hurt, because I guess this is something I should learn from it...don't save too much audio in one project; you will lose everything. If I keep being productive in this story, I think it can work out well. If anyone has suggestions, let me know. Thanks.
I tried to call one of the editors of the USA Hockey Magazine to ask why they added the fish tradition in the article, but I have had no luck. I am going to keep calling until they respond. But I did find another article that added the fish tradition why it is so famous.
I also added some narration of my story. I did an introduction, the nutgraph, introducing my sources, and the ending. The narration is not all of the way finished, but it is getting there. I edited all of my photos that I am going to use on Adobe Photoshop. I may take a few more pictures at Friday's game and then will edit a few more. I could also go to the TNH during production night and get some photos then. If the photos are good, it could add a lot of emotion and dimension to the project. I think once I get all of my objectives done, I will use IMovie to use the stuff. I will use still photography and audio and then add some video. At this point, it is a day-to-day process until Friday. Once December 4th is here, I will then take full advantage of audio recording since I lost the original recording on the chants.
Losing the original audio recording definitely hurt, because I guess this is something I should learn from it...don't save too much audio in one project; you will lose everything. If I keep being productive in this story, I think it can work out well. If anyone has suggestions, let me know. Thanks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)