Multimedia Bootcamp 2018

Course Description

This is a required one-week intensive multimedia training workshop at the beginning of the Fall semester to equip all first-year graduate journalism students with basic knowledge of digital storytelling techniques as well as the use of multimedia equipment and editing software to produce multimedia content. The objective is to train all students—regardless of their planned area of specialty—with some foundational digital skills to be applied during their reporting for the school’s local online news sites in the J200 Intro To Reporting class. The concepts and skills taught during the workshop also will be reaffirmed and expanded over the semester in the Intro To Multimedia Web Skills class.

Workshop instruction begins with how to properly approach a news assignment for publication online, specifically how to choose which medium — video, audio, photo, graphics or text — is best for telling a particular type of story or different segments of a story. Students also learn how to storyboard an assignment — breaking a story up into its component parts and deciding which type of media should be used to tell each part of the story. This is followed by lessons on using multimedia gear— video cameras, DSLR still cameras and audio recorders—and instruction on techniques for shooting quality video and photos and recording good audio. Students then are sent into the field for 4–5 hours, working as teams on feature stories pre-arranged in their J200 class, shooting video and photos and recording audio. All the gear used by students (video cameras, photo cameras and audio recorders) is supplied by the school, so students do not need to buy any equipment of their own.

Students then learn software for editing photos (Photoshop) and for editing video, photo slideshows and audio (Adobe Premiere), followed by instruction on mapping software, online data visualization programs and using the local sites’ content management system (CMS). Students then spend approximately 15 hours in the computer lab editing and producing the multimedia feature stories that include videos, photo slideshows with audio, maps and graphics. On the last day of the workshop, there is a school-wide presentation of the stories produced by the student teams as part of the Introductory Multimedia Reporting Skills Class.

MON

Multimedia storytelling concepts, choosing the best medium for the story, storyboarding, video training

TUE

Audio and photography training. Student teams go out on field assignments.

WED

Video, audio and photo editing software training; lab time.

THU

Mapping and data visualization training; lab time.

FRI

Lab time to finish projects.