Category: Uncategorized

For the last assignment, I would like to do the following:

• Interview someone or a group of individuals that works in real-estate during this crisis and ask them on their outlook on the current condition of the housing market, as well as what they predict for the future following the end of the pandemic (if there is one). I would also like to potentially (long shot but would be very interesting) interview a high level individual at real estate companies that own and lease major office spaces in high priced areas (ex. a top level person at WeWork) and ask for their thoughts as well.

For the last assignment, I would like to attempt one of the following:

1. Interview two local elementary school teachers who teach specialized subjects, ESL and speech.  Teachers who teach specialized subjects at school are currently facing bigger challenges (as opposed to regular classroom teachers) adjusting to 100% digital instruction due to the nature of the teaching methods they use and the specialized needs of the children they teach (i.e. students with learning disabilities).  Ask them what those challenges are specifically, what steps are being taken to overcome these obstacles, what they hope for the students and what they foresee as far as how this will affect their instruction/students’ quality of learning/progress/pace of learning, etc.
2. Interview a community director for one of the largest senior living communities in Atlanta, Georgia.  Ask her what she, her team and the company are doing to keep their residents safe.  In February, at the onset of the pandemic, a nursing home in Seattle, WA became the country’s epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.  What concerns did they have to address immediately due to the sensitive matter of dealing with a high-risk age group, how have those concerns been handled so far, successfully/unsuccessfully, what safety precautions have been put in place, how the residents have responded, the results of their efforts, what they hope/how they see this situation playing out for the residents/short-term and long-term goals of the company (related to addressing pandemic-related issues), etc.   Additionally, interview a resident that currently resides there (my mom) with what concerns she’s had/has and how her residents have been coping (loneliness, boredom, getting care for health-related issues) whether she feels what the company is doing is enough.

Host intro: Under these unusual circumstances that Covid-19 has brought upon the entire world, many people are facing dramatic changes in their lives and finding new ways to spend their time.  While traveling across the country, interviewer Saad Mustafa has had the opportunity to witness how different Covid-19 looks amongst different states. Here he is interviewing a local farmer’s market employee regarding how this virus has affected her life in Colorado and how it has been affecting the business.

Ambi1: wind, birds chirping, customers conversing in the background.

Track: I am here with Addison, she is an employee at a local farmers market in Loveland, Colorado. I am asking her about coronavirus and how it has affected her life and the business. She shares that she has taken this time to really focus on hobbies and other activities that she didn’t have time for before the lockdown.

Act: Yeah, this virus was and still is super scary but I’ve been trying to look at the bright side of things amongst all this craziness. I’ve gotten used to things being shut down and I’m honestly enjoying it. I’m a college student and my classes have been moved online so I have a lot of extra free time that I would normally spend commuting to school.

Track: Addison says that although the pandemic was scary, it has not only given her free time but also brought a lot of business to her work.

Act: This year was the busiest year we’ve ever had here at this farmer’s market. Since we are a business that is mostly outside and it’s not really an enclosed area, a lot of people feel safer shopping here because of the fresh air. A lot of people are also doing a lot of gardening this year because everything is on lock-down. At first I was really scared that it would negatively affect the business and I would lose my job but thankfully it ended up working out well.

Track: Fortunately, for Addison, Covid-19 didn’t have a negative affect on her life. She shares, though, that for many she knew, it had caused a lot of havoc in their lives.

Act: A lot of my friends lost their jobs due to Covid and they were struggling for a while financially. Thankfully, they managed and now they are doing well. A lot of people, like myself, have started to find enjoyment outside a lot and do things like camping and hiking. We are lucky to live in such a beautiful state where there are a lot of accessible areas that have stunning hikes and areas to spend outside.

Track: Covid has brought a lot of change around the world. Addison’s story relates to many others that I have heard in other states such as Michigan and Wisconsin. Many are trying to spend more time outdoors and many are thankful for the slowdown of life that Covid has brought.

Host Intro – With world slowly starting to boot back up, companies and small businesses are starting to call their workers back as the Covid-19 virus starts to mellow down. However, with all the guidelines provided to take safety precautions, certain group of people may still be varying about returning to work due them having a compromised immune system. Rupinder, who is immune compromised shares her thoughts about going back to work.

AMBI – Air conditioner running and Rupinder’s sister occasionally walking by in her living room

TRACK – Rupinder has been diagnosed with lupus for 7 years now and never had to worry about going to work up until the Covid-19 pandemic.

ACT – In 2013 I was diagnosed with Lupus and that’s what makes my immune system compromised. Also, with the medication that we use to treat my lupus it really compromises your entire immune system.

TRACK – Rupinder still must be super cautious about being in public and especially at her job with having to take care of the kids at the daycare and interacting with parents.

ACT –  umm… lupus is an auto immune disease in which your immune system mistakenly attacks all the healthy cells in your body and its potential can damage your entire body and there is no known cure for it so it’s really healthy habits that you need to do to stay healthy.

TRACK – Even with proper guidelines, Rupinder and many like her still find it hard to feel safe because she has to been in contact with the kids and you wont know if a child may be carrying the virus or a parent because no temperature checks are required except for word of mouth.

ACT – When the state announces that we all need to go into quarantine we switch to remote learning. Even though the State has provided mandatory guidelines for each daycare to follow and not all the daycares are following them to exact measures. As in for my daycare you know we are told to ask the parents for the child’s temperature instead of taking it before they come in or if they came in contact with somebody who has COVID-19 so there’s really no way of knowing if the parent is asymptomatic or if they are carrying anything because there is no testing required for anyone to come back.

TRACK – Having to resort taking a medical leave to prioritize her health, many may not be fortunate enough to do so because they need to keep a roof over their heads. People with compromised immune system face a lack of job security and are at high risk to be exposed to the virus still.

ACT – Yes I think it’s a big disadvantage for someone who has a compromised immune system and uhmm you know someone who is really vulnerable to covid-19 to go back to work as I had to a medical leave because I was in a position where I really had to decide do I want work or is it okay to put myself at a high risk like that so it was tough decision I had to make but you know health is wealth. Also, I know many people who have lost their jobs because they just simply cannot return to work, even with the guidelines, it still puts them at a very high risk of being around people. Especially when not everyone around is wearing a mask or covering their face or taking safety precautions.

TRACK – With the lack of safety for immune compromised people, going back to work is not going to be easy. Many will be at risk and as of right now there aren’t any solutions or benefits available that would help protect their jobs or alternatives that some companies can’t offer to help them keep their jobs. For Baruch college, this Navpreet Singh in Queens, New York.

https://soundcloud.com/navpreet-singh-599279208/radio-projectnav

Ambi: natural sounds of typing on a keyboard

Track: I’m here with Zuzanna, a research assistant at a memory lab at Rutgers University, looking at biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease. She is finishing a lab report, typing away in her suburban New Jersey home.

ACT: ZUZANNA: At the end of March all of our research activities were shut down completely until further notice. So, everybody has had to work from home, myself included. It’s been…there’s definitely been a lot of changes.

Track: Without any face-to-face interactions, her work day looks very different.

ACT: ZUZANNA: It’s definitely been a big transition for me personally, um I’m not used to just looking at data for 5-6 hours a day. It’s been a little exhausting honestly.

Track: Her lab was faced with new challenges since the pandemic, working with a high-risk population.

ACT: ZUZANNA: My job before was mostly testing and working face-to-face with the older participants usually in their 70s and their 80s, they’re now the most vulnerable population. So, we have had to plan what we’re going to do, essentially for the rest of the year, because we’re not sure when we’ll be able to see these participants in person again.

Track: Although skeptical, her lab is still hopeful about resuming research with the right precautions in place.

ACT: ZUZANNA: We’re definitely taking into consideration their age and the fact that even just getting to our location is going to be putting them at risk. So, for the past few weeks we are trying to plan a different testing site. We’re thinking of maybe moving our testing to a church nearby where there is a lot of room. We can keep the windows open and stay six feet away with face shields and masks. But even so, there are still risks. So right now it’s really just a waiting game.

Track: Aside from the difficulties imposed by working with a high-risk population, the lab is going to have a hard time designating research assistants to test the participants.

ACT: ZUZANNA: Usually, in a research lab, half of the staff were undergraduate students who were looking for some research experience, but because all of these classes are now going to be remote, even in the fall, we lost almost half of our staff.

Track: With a lot of changes happening, Zuzanna had assumed a lot of new responsibilities in the lab.

ACT: ZUZANNA: Because they are a few people who have left the lab or who are leaving, I do have to take on some new responsibilities. I think the most difficult part is the training aspect so for example I’m learning how to administer fMRIs right now and its been really difficult to just picture how I am going to administer it to the participant without physically being there.

Track: Although some research has been put to a halt due to COVID-19, other research has been prioritized.

ACT: ZUZANNA: I do plan on pursuing a career in research, so this has definitely been an eye-opener for me. We have had a lot of budget cuts at our lab and I know that moving forward there is going to be an emphasis on Covid-related research, and maybe in the future even other medical research as opposed to what I am looking at now, which is memory and neuroscience.

Track: As of now most research activities at Rutgers University are on hold. Everyone is patiently waiting as we track the spread of Covid19 and wait for new information.

Host intro: Under normal circumstances, welcoming a new addition to the family is both an exciting and joyful time for the entire family.  This is especially true for first-time parents.  However, due to a recent surge in Covid-19 cases in the state of Georgia and a new executive order by the governor, new parents here, like most other places, are unfortunately having to hold off on the many “firsts” they would typically be able to enjoy with their newborns.  One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is the usual mix of emotions a first-time parent goes through before returning to work.  Here is Esther Song with the story.

AMBI1:  landscapers mowing the lawn (ideally, it would have been baby cooing or crying, OR natural leasing office sounds. But the baby fell asleep just before the interview, and my friend got swamped with work on Monday so she recorded this at home on her day off on Tuesday.) 

TRACK: I am talking with Grace Sharma. Grace is a first-time mom who had her four-and-a-half-month-old daughter, Braelynn, just before the statewide shelter-in-place mandate went into effect on April 2nd.  Braelynn, a chubby, brown-haired, hazel-eyed baby is her mom’s mini-me.  She has just fallen asleep in her mom’s arms.  Grace’s voice is full of pride as she talks about how well her daughter eats and sleeps.  Today is Grace’s day off. Other days she works as a leasing consultant at a residential complex nearby.  She is really enjoying being a new mom, but she does admit there have been additional challenges and adjustments due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

ACT:  It can be kinda isolating experiencing motherhood for the first time as much as you love your little baby.  You are, you know, stuck inside a lot, and have a lot of nights where you are up by yourself, umm, and like with this pandemic, it has been more so because I haven’t been able to leave the house really, just been stuck inside a lot…  There are so many things I want to do with her that I feel like is not safe for me to do right now so that has definitely been more frustrating.  

TRACK:  Grace says although she is happy to be back at work, it wasn’t initially easy being away from her daughter all day.  She is thankful to have the help of her mom who has been babysitting Braelynn since she returned to work.  She does feel anxious at times, but overall, she feels it was a fairly smooth process for her and the baby and is happy to have a change of scenery.  

ACT:  Getting out of the house was nice just because I was stuck inside the house like nonstop at the very beginning of having her, and then when it would have been about OK to start bringing her out to stores and taking her to public places, that’s when it got really bad with pandemic, and umm, so having the opportunity leave the house for more than like five minutes going to the grocery store that was, like, nice, just being able to get out of the house.  But being away from her has been hard, and I wish I could take her to work, honestly, because I am so attached to her now and it’s definitely, it’s not an easy adjustment for anyone.

TRACK:  Like any new parent, Grace was looking forward to many of the “firsts” with her daughter, such as her first trip to the park, her first meeting with family and friends, her first professional photo shoot at a studio, and especially, taking her to Target, Grace’s all-time favorite store, for the first time.  However, she is holding off on those moments for now until the situation feels safe enough for her and her daughter.

ACT:  So I’m definitely most looking forward to just, like, bringing Braelynnn to do, like, simple things, even just going grocery shopping or going to Target which I love to do probably a little too much (laughs), umm, and I think it’d be so fun to, like, look at baby clothes and have like her right there with me.  Umm, yeah, and I would also like to do like a baby photo shoot with her since I haven’t been able to do anything like that yet, and umm, doing like normal things in life (because) we’ve been stuck at home so much and it’d be nice to just be able to like go places freely and not question myself so much whether I’m being safe or not so I’m really looking forward to that. 

TRACK:  Becoming a new parent is never easy.  But for first-time mom, Grace Sharma, the additional challenges and adjustments brought on by the pandemic has not taken away the joy and excitement of having a baby.  She is still finding ways to enjoy being a new mom during these unusual times.  She looks forward to all of this being over soon so she can enjoy it just a little bit more.  For Baruch College, this is Esther Song in Atlanta, Georgia.

Host intro: with the increased coronavirus cases every single day schools across the country have decided to teach from online. Steven Hall spoke to one of these students trying to adapt to this new environment.

AMBI: joining Google Meet sound effect, and Gabriella typing on the computer.

TRACK: I am here with Gabriella Gutierrez she’s an incoming senior from Sachem North High School in Suffolk County, NY.

ACT Gaby: I had to do my work online through Google Classroom and I would get work every day and the teachers would text me the lesson. They weren’t really showing me on video so I had to practice and teach myself.

TRACK: She also had to miss sports during this pandemic and has been doing what she can to get ready for a season if school officials allow it.

ACT Gaby: I love sports and I like doing something else other than school work because I get to focus on something else. That isn’t school and I just really miss doing sports.

TRACK: Her days mainly consist of working and staying at home, she misses her friends.

ACT Gaby: I’ve been working, I’ve been working out. I’ve been going to the stores with my parents just grocery shopping, I go to my job, I work at Crazy Crepe where I’m a team member so I do a little bit of everything. I’m a cashier and I also cook. I don’t want to miss out on my senior stuff. I’ve been facetiming my friends almost every single day, calling them, trying to keep in contact as much as I can.

TRACK: As of recording, Sachem schools haven’t released a plan for the fall semester. For Baruch College, I’m Steven Hall

 

Host Intro – With the recent pandemic known as COVID-19 spreading across the nation, schools have been closed down for the foreseeable future. While remote learning has remained a valuable tool for students to continue their studies, many young kids and adolescents remain indifferent to online classes and zoom sessions.

AMBI1: (Keyboard typing)

TRACK: Crystal Lin a high school student at Townsend Harris High School gives her take on this current situation.

ACT: It’s a little boring during quarantine cause all you do is stay at home but other than that it’s pretty good.

TRACK: Do you prefer going to school as opposed to online learning?

ACT: I like online learning because you could teach yourself at your own pace and you don’t have to keep up with the rest of the class. But going to school is also fun because you get to meet your friends and teachers.

TRACK: Alright well, good luck on your studies and hopefully schools open back up soon. For Baruch College, this is Wen Lin in New York City, Queens.

Intro to Video Journalism

With video, we build on the compositional techniques of photography and the structural, storytelling aspects of audio with one obvious additional element: Motion.

How does video storytelling for the web and mobile differ from TV and film?

• Need to be CLOSER to your subject. Web videos are smaller and more compressed.
• 20 percent of online viewers bail on a video within 10 seconds. So you don’t have a lot of time to grab your viewers and make sure they stick around.

How important is audio?

• Good audio is of paramount importance. If you have low-quality video and good audio, the video will still be watchable. If you have gorgeous visuals but terrible audio, it will not.

When is narration necessary?

Sometimes, you can let the subjects of your video tell the story all on their own — as long as you edit with care, presenting what they’ve told you in a way that makes narrative sense. One benefit of non-narrated videos is that they can feel more organic. There’s no disembodied voice stepping in to tell the story, which keeps the focus on the characters in the story.

But sometimes, for clarity’s sake or for stylistic reasons, narration is necessary, or text.

Narrated videos

Text-Narrated videos

These are more and more popular thanks to social media distribution because they automatically start playing as you scroll through your feed and they can be watched without sound.

Non-Narrated videos

 

Shooting Your Video

There are two main components to any video: your interviews and your B-roll. The rules of composition we learned for photography (thirds, colors, patterns, symmetry, etc.) all apply here, but you also need to keep an eye out for motion. Tracking shots involve following the action with your camera, while static shots involve keeping your camera still, but that doesn’t mean there’s no motion involved; you might just be letting the action go in and out of the frame.

What is B-roll? And what difference does it make?

A big difference.

Things to keep in mind while you’re shooting B-roll:

1. Shoot more than you think you’ll need.
2. Get a variety of shots. Close-up, medium, wide, detail shots, static shots, tracking shots.
3. Use a tripod whenever possible. If you don’t have one or you’re shooting in a mobile, chaotic situation, be resourceful about stabilizing your shots.
4. Think about your interviews and let them inform your B-roll shooting decisions. Look for shots that illustrate what the person is talking about.
5. Hold your shot longer than you think you need to. A good rule of thumb is to hold it for at least 10 seconds (AFTER it’s already steady).

Things to keep in mind when you’re shooting your interviews:

1. Frame the shot with your subject on one of the thirds, angled so that they’re looking slightly INTO the frame. Have them look at you, not at the camera, so be mindful of where you are sitting. It’s a bit intense when someone looks directly into the camera.

2.  If you’re working with a translator, be mindful that the subject will want to look at them, so make sure they are positioned in the ideal place to draw the person’s gaze.
3.  Prioritize good audio.
4.  Make sure their face is lit, but not too harshly.
5. Think about composing the shot in a way that allows for some negative space where the Lower Third will eventually go.

Obviously, you will be a bit limited in the types of video stories you are able to do at the moment. So here are some suggestions:

• ​Aim to find stories you can report at home or close to home. Interview people you are already in close contact with. There are also a ton of internet/social media stories right now because so much human interaction and creativity is unfolding virtually, so consider finding ways to report on this visually via screen recording tools.
•  Ask your sources to record video on their phones and send it to you. Make sure they orient their phones horizontally. This can include interviews you conduct over the phone or B-roll/video diaries done in the moment while your source is handing out free lunches at an NYC public school, teaching their child from home while struggling to work full-time from home, working a hospital shift, etc.
• Use the Screen Recording feature on your phones to record video from your phone screen, or select “New Screen Recording” in Quicktime to record video off your laptop screen. Use KeepVid to grab videos off of YouTube, if relevant to your story. (Make sure to attribute any videos you grab this way and make sure you only use short clips to stay on the right side of Fair Use.)
• Go out and film only if it’s filming you can do outside by going for a solitary walk or bike ride and from a distance of greater than six feet. Don’t use your wired lav mics to interview people in these situations. Under the circumstances, it’s okay if the audio isn’t perfect. Ask the person to speak up.

 

---

BREAK

---

 

Audio Editing Workshop

Audacity shortcuts to know:

Play/pause: Space bar
Split track: Command I
Zoom in: Command 1
Zoom out: Command 3

In the tool bar, this is the selection tool that allows you to click and highlight and delete sections of track or select a spot where you want to split it:

And this is the tool that allows you to move sections of track:


And this is the one that lets you adjust the volume, basically the same way the pen tool works in Premiere for anyone who may be familiar with that program:

You’ll need to export the finished sound file before you can upload it anywhere.

In Audacity, it’s File –> Export Audio –> select “WAV” from dropdown menu and give the file a name and location, then hit “Save” and “OK.”

I recommend uploading to Soundcloud rather than hosting it on the blog. It’s free to create an account. Please post the link on the class blog by the end of the day.

—

Example Script

Host intro: With CUNY schools transitioning to online learning this week amid the coronavirus outbreak, professors across New York City are getting creative. Emily Johnson spoke to one CUNY adjunct about what it’s like trying to teach during a pandemic.

AMBI: Nat sounds of tea kettle boiling (FADE DOWN AS TRACK BEGINS)

TRACK: I’m here with Anna Ficek in her Brooklyn apartment, watching her make tea while she works from home. She’s a PhD student at the CUNY Grad Center and when she’s not working on her dissertation she teaches art history at Baruch College and Borough of Manhattan Community College, or BMCC.

ACT: ANNA: When I found out that everything was getting shut down and especially CUNY I felt extremely sad. Because CUNY is such a big part of my lie, such a great community that it was hard to feel that kind of dissipating.

TRACK: She says teaching from home has been a real challenge because of the way she runs her classes.

ACT: ANNA: It’s been very difficult to adapt to teaching remotely just because I really value the discussion I have with my students.

TRACK: Still, she’s trying to see this as an opportunity.

ACT: ANNA: What I’m hoping to get out of this is more time to really focus on what’s important both in terms of teaching and my own dissertation and my own research and trying to figure out creative problem solving ways to deal with these new issues that are going to come around like libraries being closed and inaccessibility to archives and how myself as an academic and as a researcher can get around that. So challenges, but also good challenges!

TRACK: CUNY schools will continue with distance learning for at least the remainder of the spring semester. For Baruch College, I’m Emily Johnson.

 

---

 

Upcoming due dates:

Monday, August 3: Radio scripts due. Individual script edit meetings and video pitches due. Sign up for a time slot here.

Wednesday, August 5: Radio stories due.