Jour278 overview

In this class you will be learning to shoot and edit digital videos of the kind found on many news websites. These are important tools to learn because increasingly even reporters for newspapers and news websites are being asked to produce such videos.  

You will check out a video camera for this semester, either from me - I have a limited number of cameras available - or from the college library's media lab. Obviously it's your responsibility to take good care of these cameras and return them at the end of the semester in the same condition as when you checked them out. If you have a smart phone, you can use that to shoot your videos if you want. 

You will be learning to use two main computer programs: Adobe Premiere and Audacity. Adobe Premiere is a professional video editing program that is used by news outlets nationwide. We will be taking some time in class for you to learn to use this program, but online tutorials will also be made available and you will be expected to make use of them. The computers in the Centurion office all have Adobe Premiere, but if you would like to be able to edit your videos at home you can get the software for a reduced student price of $20 per month. 

Audacity is a free downloadable audio editing program that you will use to record your voice over narration. You can use it in the centurion office or download it onto your home computer. We have a microphone available in the centurion office for recording voice over narration. 

Class Requirements 

You will be required to produce four videos and one research paper over the course of the semester. Student videos typically range from 90 seconds to two minutes. You can make your video longer than that if you wish, but videos shouldn't be much shorter than 90 seconds. Videos should generally focus on news and events at the college, or off-campus events that might be of interest to college students. Be sure to discuss your ideas for each video with me before starting. 

Allowing for startup time at the beginning of the semester, you will have about three weeks to complete each video. That may sound like a lot of time, but you will find that the editing process can be time-consuming. Don't make the mistake of starting on a video late and then finding that you run out of time. Shoot your video footage as early as possible so you can leave plenty of time for editing. 

Video requirements: as noted earlier, all videos should be at least 90 seconds long. Student videos typically run about two minutes but you can make yours longer if you want.  

All videos must include the following: 

An introduction: the introduction at the start of the video explains what the report is about. The introduction can be the reporter standing in front of the camera, explaining what the video is about, or voiceover narration mixed with B-roll (see below). 

Interviews with sources. You should interview at least one person for each video. If the topic requires interviews with several sources then that's what you need to do. 

Voiceover narration: This is narration that you record with Audacity and mix with b-roll footage. Voiceovers typically help explain what the video is about and provide transitions between interviews.

B-roll: B-roll is footage that is interspersed with your interview footage to make the video more visually interesting. For instance, if you are doing a video about the men's basketball team and have an interview with the coach, you could mix footage from the interview with footage of the team practicing or playing a game. Or if you were doing a video profile of a Bucks professor, you could intersperse interview footage with the role of that professor teaching her class. B-roll footage should whenever possible focus on something active and visually interesting because again, it is being used to make the video more visually interesting. 

Titles: you should include titles both for yourself and for the people you interview. If I were creating a video I would have a title at the bottom in my introduction saying "Tony Rogers reporting." Then you would have a title stating the name of each person you interview. Titles go at the bottom of the screen. Adobe Premiere offers a variety of fonts for video titles. Choose one that looks professional and is easy to read.  

A wrapup: this is where you conclude the video by summarizing what it was about. Again, the wrapup can be the reporter standing in front of the camera, or b-roll with voiceover narration. 

The paper: this will be due near the end of the semester. It should be a paper of about 1,000 words focusing on such topics as important figures in the history of broadcast journalism, changes and/or trends in broadcast and online journalism, current topics of interest in broadcast and online journalism, and so on. Please discuss your paper topic with me before beginning. 

Note: if you would like to do your research project is a video, that's fine, but it should be substantive, probably at least two minutes in length.