May 2019

Self-Reflection on Multimedia Production-Spring 2019 (Blog Post #10)

First things first, one of my main goals in this class was to improve upon my written communication skills. Speaking from a very biased perspective, I think I have achieved this goal.

Looking back on my first blog post and some of the things I wanted to learn and expected to learn were, photo production, video production and the written elements that go along with those things. Throughout this class, photography was a major point and discussion. I think as the class went on, I learned how to not only take relevant photos for stories, include them at interesting and valuable times in those stories, but how to write about those photos and create interesting dialogue based on them. That was another big goal of mine, which was achieved from the help of this course.

One of the main skills I learned however, was the art of the interview. I was always shy, hesitant and not confident in myself enough to get a good interview that was worthwhile for a story I wanted to write. During this course however, being forced to gather interviews and useful information from these sources was very valuable in upping my confidence and allowing me to become more comfortable with speaking with strangers about their passions and what they’re experts in. I learned that I must be thoroughly prepared to ask meaningful questions to get good information about a certain topic. These skills will inevitably be valuable when I get a career in a journalistic field as I so desperately desire.

The most engaging and fascinating assignment that was produced this semester was definitely the google maps project. I felt as though I was producing real content, and not just another assignment. It felt like real journalistic work.

On a different note, the most challenging of all assignments was the web story. I chose to profile a local business, and in order to write the story, I had to interact with owners, customers and employees. As I discussed earlier, this was very challenging for me, however as the assignment progressed, I became more confident in my abilities and wound up producing what I thought was a good story about a great business.

With all of these things, it’s not about the actually writing, when you have good subjects, and good, interesting leads, the stories write themselves. What this class has done for me was taught me how to pinpoint these interesting subjects and stories and allow what I’ve learned technically in the course to shine through and really profile and write good content.

-pesch

Ryan Crawford – An Artist’s Profile – Video (Blog Post #9)

Ryan Crawford – An Artist’s Profile. Filmed by Noah Peschio

Highlighted in this video is artist Ryan Crawford. You may recognize the name from my Top 5 Climbing Areas post, as Ryan contributed a quote and a photo for the post. Aside from his pottery, Ryan boasts many talents, including his climbing.

I decided to highlight his incredible work and tell the story of his process, inspirations, and goals as an artist. Being a student, he studies ceramics at the University of Wyoming, and by surrounding himself with the vast amount of talent found at the art department, he is increasingly producing higher quality works. To see some of these excellent pieces on display, check out Ryan’s art Instagram account as he posts some of his more intricate pieces.

As far as my experience making this film, I tried to take a lot of my inspiration from VICE videos and their profiles on interesting people. Those films are really well done, and the stories are always great. So for my own video, I put the story first, I had a great subject, so it was relatively easy to put forward the story to the clips. Art is always an interesting thing to look at, so the shots in the film were easy to obtain as I filmed what I would’ve looked at had the cameras not been a factor.

With that being said, the part I did not enjoy was the editing and combing of these clips. It was tedious to make sure the progression of the process of him creating was in order so one shot was the beginning of the process and the next was the final piece. Also, I had a LOT of footage, and it was tough to condense it down into the required 4 minutes.

What I wish I would have done a little differently was create a better plan for the shots. I had what I thought was a thorough plan, however, Ryan’s process was very quick and I had to take what I could get. I didn’t get to utilize all of the tools in my arsenal that I brought that day, and I think I could’ve done a lot better if I had another shot, but the clay was gone, and the art had been created. It was a one and done type deal.

I’ve always had an affinity for the art of filming and videography, and I could really see myself utilizing it within a journalistic career as a supplemental to written stories, similar to my inspiration of VICE. However, I could also see myself creating stand alone video content with the skill I have learned and developed in and out of this course.

Utilizing Instagram to Promote Stories (Blog Post #8)

https://www.instagram.com/npeschio/

Instagram can be a fantastic way for journalists to promote their stories, get their name out there, and interact directly with readers. However, with this being said, there is definitely a right and wrong way to do things when it comes to Instagram.

Previously, my experience with Instagram was very limited, and my knowledge of Canva was even less.

However, when I created posts for my new Instagram page, I very deliberately made the choice for the design of each post to be the same. First, all the colors, fonts, and layouts matched each other. But most importantly, all the fonts, colors, and layouts matched that of my blog website, giving the reader continuity when they found the Instagram and and followed the link provided there.

Challenges of this assignment included things like, how difficult and how many hoops you have to jump through just to create and Instagram account. Verifying email addresses, confirming passwords, it’s all a little too excessive.

During this project, I was very surprised by the engagement I received on the posts. I expected to have the posts “liked” by my girlfriend when I shared the account with her, however, I didn’t not expect several others to be liking, commenting and interacting with my posts. Checking the stats on this blog, the link in my Instagram bio was used 4 times today, all from individuals that I didn’t know. The power of a hashtag goes a long way.

Throughout a professional career, utilizing things like Instagram will be a large part of my personal career. I plan to do things exactly like this assignment, promotion of work that I’ve done. Also, if it calls for it, a career in new and social media might be on my plate. I’m prepared to operate any social media for companies as that time comes.

The digital age is in full force, and in order for journalists to not be left in the dust of computers and cell phones, they must adapt and learn to conquer the digital world just the way they conquered the print world.

-pesch