I presented this week, along with my fellow group members, on interactive storytelling websites. Reading and giving my interactive website, I was able to get a better understanding of how we can fully make our site look better. Visually, we need to have our website stand out with graphics and fresh look to make it look better to the consumer. Through all of these projects, the most significant idea to consider is how bright the storytelling was. Each website had a clear narrative for someone to follow. I pointed out before my presentation, the problems that existed for my interactive webpage. Still, all of them didn’t have a considerable problem other than a malfunction of the J school tech not working correctly. My group and I have been working towards getting over to our location and capturing the media we need to start compiling the press. We didn’t get to meet to long or converse because of the presentations we had this week. Next week, we will be able to have some time to sit down and work a little bit more towards the development of our project. Then, we can decide fully on how we can work towards early work that needs to be done before Spring Break. This is all to be ahead of the game, mostly.

Holy cow, I did it on time and not three days late this week! I’m proud of myself, claps all around!

So as mentioned by others, I also presented this week along with most of the rest of our group. It was a good time, to be honest, I enjoy speaking in front of people and making some people laugh along the way was good too. When it comes to telling a compelling story, I think I learned more from my teammate’s presentations than I did from my site. My site was decent, but theirs told a much more impactful and linear story. The tornado story laid out a timeline that was very easy to follow compared to my site that just jumped all over the place in a create your own adventure style. In terms of consistency, I’d say linear storytelling is the most prominent excluding my outlier of a site, haha.

We haven’t met yet as a group, but we have been planning things in the GroupMe getting ready to collect content before spring break comes around.

No challenges came up this week (which is great), and nothing needs to be improved on either, so we are riding high for now! See you next week!

This week I presented my interactive project analysis that I found, which was an interactive article of the 1968 riots. When compared to the other projects that were presented, it was less focused on graphic interactivity or “control” over seeing the story and rather focused more on writing and relaying information. I learned that for our own project we should make sure that whatever is created capture the eye of the audience in focus and relates well to them. Knowing what the target individuals will be intrigued by will help guide what we end up creating. From this, I would also like to make sure we cover all that can realistically be covered. The projects presented seemed to share either some of a great amount of information about the topics. Lastly, I would like our project to be fun for users. When the site or the story is engaging and has aspects that make it informative but not so serious, it is much more fun for the user. I think we could really go far with this in mind, since our focus is a bar. Seeing some of the other interactive project analysis presentations and looking for some on my own, I have some ideas of how this could be accomplished. This week we did not do much group work on our project. I have been brainstorming about what could possibly be done with the storyline of the bar and what content could be gathered so I have some idea as we begin to start to visit the bar and create our project.

This week, I presented my interactive analysis presentation. From the process of doing research on different stories online, I learned that stories can be told from many different points of view with unlimited forms of media. The story I chose “After the Storm” could have been told like a normal news report, but instead, the narrator took a more personal standpoint with a personal account on the tornado. From my project, I personally want to include varying forms of interactivity for our group project about the bar. This will keep the audience engaged because they will have the opportunity to watch videos and participate in hands-on activities. All of the projects from today had a very appealing format with different transitions. I want to propose to my group that we should include an option for the audience to skip around between the different stories and portions of the project so they are not locked into following a chronological story – this will keep them engaged an allow them to have the freedom to view as they please. Although Connor’s project was very appealing, the website did not give the viewers this option.

For our group, we have not met this week but we have communicated in GroupMe about how our project is coming along. We discussed the conversation Connor had with the owner of the bar, and encountered scheduling issues. We probably should have met as a group and will learn from our mistakes for next week.

HELLO … So it is currently 5 a.m. on Sunday the 16th, I’m a little late writing\handing this in I know. I will not lie I got a little caught up in Valentines Day then I have had a computer programming assignment that has been driving me up a wall that I LITERALLY just finished 5 minutes ago so my priorities have obviously been elsewhere.

ANYWAYS, our plan going forward is simple. We all want to go together and knock out everything we can content wise before spring break. We will most likely take multiple trips together that way we can gather all of the content we need and help each other out. Thankfully our whole group has specialties we all bring to the table so no one really has any worries when it comes to certain equipment. As for a checklist I think it would come down to the simple stuff.

– Camera Focus
– Angles
– Proper Mic set up for audio
– Sensable B-Roll, etc

This week we talked amongst ourselves preparing for the upcoming project. As for what I could improve on, probably not posting my Blog posts at 5 in the morning two days late!

I think we are all marginally well versed in the many ways to obtain media for this kind of project. From what I understand we are also going to use a variety of methods of media obtaining as well. 

For photos, I can use my own personal DSLR as well as one from the J school for angles and shots I wouldn’t be able to produce with my personal equipment. As far as video, I am not sure what we are planning on using, in my experience it is much easier to use DSLRs when getting video interviews than the other bulkier cameras but that would be up to my group. As far as lighting, mics and other necessities for interviews and B-roll, we will most likely rent from the J school depending on our needs.

The actual logistics are a bit fuzzy at the moment because we haven’t been to the bar yet. Once we get to the bar we can all start planning who, what, when, where and how we plan to get our content for the project. Until then we can speculate and make templates, but that doesn’t do much in the place of actually seeing the location.

With the creation of our schedule, it should be pretty easy to plan and get all the content that we need. I’m excited to see how it is going to come together.

As a group, we discussed how we would handle the roles of what needed to be done. As we went around Swazy, our group mate, told us he was good with video capture, and Johnna said she would be good with photo capture. I agreed with the group that I would do a vast majority of editing the media content for video and Photo. At the moment, we need to meet with the Owner of the Bar to establish contact and make sure we can get the time and media we need to capture efficiently and effectively. It seems like those that know what there doing have the lead on what devices need and require, they are professionals. Probably pre-media capture for lighting, audio, and other checks like that. Then would come the actual capture of the video followed with a minor review to make sure the camera is working correctly, then record and review once done. The hard part at the moment our group is struggling with is that I gave my word that I would let the group know when we can start filming and photographing. I am meeting one of the owners tonight to confirm what the times will be for us to begin. I hope they won’t push us back any weeks we don’t need to miss. We did an excellent job this week, and hopefully, we won’t need to go further down the other possibilities because I believe we did the best we could this week.

Our team decided do the majority of our content split up, meaning one or two people focuses on one area, like the video or photography portion of the project. We are going to need a video camera to record the video that will be used on the site and for any other high video related projects. We will also need a DSLR camera, with a variety of lenses to capture photos of people, drinks and the bar itself. Various audio recording techniques may be used during this project, so the array of tools needed will span the various types. This week we made a schedule for when and what we want done at certain checkpoints. We all contributed by providing our thoughts and opinions, as well as availability for when content could be captured. The schedule was very rough so in the future we may think ahead of time and really plan out when things should be done so that we are the most productive with our limited time. Ensuring that everyone participates and is allowed input is crucial in this step. We also need to make sure that the availability of the bar owner is going to work for the project as well.

Sad Journalism Kids

1. Research
   • Research done by gathering all information possible from the internet will be completed by 2/25.
   • Research done by visiting the bar and talking with people directly tied to it and its origins will be completed by 3/20.
2. Writing Storyboard
   • Our storyboard for our interviews, photos and b-roll will be completed by 3/3.
3. Scheduling
   • Our team will go to the bar to capture the media needed before spring break during the weeks of 3/9 – 3/20.
4. Media Acquired
   • Media required to start creating the website will be completed before spring break,  3/20.
5. Media Edited
   • Media will be edited and ready to be put on our website by 4/14.
6. Final Project Platform 
   • Our final project platform will be completed two weeks before the deadline on 4/21.
7. Project Completed
   • Our project will be completed in its entirety by 4/28.
8. Presentation
   • Our presentation will be during finals week, the week of 5/4 – 5/8.

For capturing media, our plan is generally centered around researching the history of the bar, how it started, the vision for it, and where it’s progressing into the future. Since it is a very new bar in downtown Lincoln, there is very limited information on it. Because of this, we want to do our best to educate our audience on what makes it so different. We have committed do doing extensive amounts of research before we capture media; this includes who we want to interview, what we will ask, and the photos and b-roll we want to capture while we are there. Currently, we are waiting on a response from the owner of the bar as to when the best time would be for our group to come in and get this media. When we have this confirmed, our group will all go to the bar and get everything we can done, and continue to go back as needed. For equipment, we will need a camera, video camera, and microphone to capture our initial media. Our check list will have the steps we need to take to ensure high media quality, including everyone showing up to our designated meeting times with proper equipment, staying on task while at the bar and while working in the classroom, and being as efficient as possible while producing quality work for our presentation.

This week, our group worked on our team project schedule, and we discussed when we will meet outside of class for work time and capturing media. One challenge we encountered was finding a time when everyone could meet, but this was quickly resolved. In the future, I think our group needs to come more prepared to class discussions so we can maximize the time we are given in class to work on our project.