Taking this class was like going into uncharted territory for me. I had done video before, but only in a creative sense since back in high school. I had interviewed people before, but I had never intended them to be on camera. J198 made me a more thorough and complete reporter. The class also made it easier for me to look for story ideas through tools like Twitter and other social media outlets.
I had never been a fan of blogging, in fact, I don't know if I still am. But one thing is for sure: I realized the rising importance it is having in today's media. Building a blog isn't easy either, and that's what I feel I didn't accomplish to my expectations. Honestly, I thought it would be easier. There came a point where I just didn't know what to write about, and for the first time in my life I experienced writer's block. The fact that nobody was commenting on my posts also raised a lack of motivation. At the end of the day, I'm pleased with some of the content I came up with. If I had more time to think and dedicate to writing thorough blogs, I'm sure I would be more proud of them.
Twitter wasn't that new to me this semester. I had opened an account last year as a sidekick to my Facebook music fan page, but I no where tweeted as much as I did back then. Twitter opened my eyes just for the sake of breaking news and trending. It became my go-to man for any problem I would have. The thing I don’t like is that I never get to read everyone’s posts because there are just so many. I’m sure there are many tweets I'm glad I overlooked, like, “I’m reading a book.” But the links proved to be a valuable resource even for news. My average consumption of CNN decreased since using Twitter this semester.
Without a doubt, doing videos was my favorite part of this class, and I feel it’s what I learned and did best. Editing wasn’t fun when I had to go through all the tedious process of Movie Maker. iMovie helped toward the end of the semester, but I wish we could have had Final Cut Pro to edit more seamlessly. Nevertheless, when you see the finished project, it's something you can be truly proud of. Finding story ideas wasn’t easy. We ended up shooting our documentary two days before it was due. And contrary to popular belief, we didn’t have it all researched and planned. We pretty much had a general idea of what we wanted, but other than that, we just went with the flow.
I’m glad I took this class. I plan to continue tweeting and blogging, but the skill I plan to use the most is making videos. I can see my self creating professional-looking music videos. In a way you’re still telling a story. You just use music instead of quotes to guide it.
