Slideshow of South Bethlehem Muggings of Lehigh University Students

South Bethlehem Revitalization News Story

View Lehigh student hot spots in the Lehigh Valley in a larger map

The map above provides ten locations often frequented by Lehigh students. Some information about when and why students can be found in these places is also provided, making the map useful to students looking for something to do, especially if they're looking for a meal. Incoming students or visitors to the area may also find this helpful as a source to discovering a few places highly regarded by those already familiar with the locations.

While each location marked can offer food of some sort, those that provide sit-down meals are indicated by a yellow marker. The Lehigh Valley Mall is distinguished by a green marker. Addresses, brief descriptions and often a photo can be found by clicking the desired location.

Pupular Places For Lehigh University Students

View Lehigh Students' Favorite Spots in a larger map


I've mapped out ten different locations where you're bound to encounter Lehigh students at some point at any given day. I gave brief descriptions of why those spots are so important and popular to Lehigh's students. I mainly mapped out restaurants and bars, which are color-coded blue. Also included are shopping centers: color-coded magenta, supermarkets: color-coded green, and libraries: color-coded yellow.

News Story #1

Our first news story posed an intitial challenge in a lack of customers, but many willing interviewees surfaced after revisiting Home & Planet at a more convenient shopping time. Our primary issue with speaking to sources was asking the right questions that would take us to concise, usable answers. We managed to find some good quotes through the editing process. Also an issue was background sound, whether from cars outside or music in the store. Jon offered to turn down the music during our fist interview, but picking a different location in the store might have solved this problem also.

This type of store with so many different products and "eclectic" pieces challenged us to get shots that weren't to cluttered and contained a clear focal point. I addressed this by just looking through the camera for a while before filming and choosing to focus on some of the more less ambiguous pieces in Home & Planet. Lighting was fairly uniform throughout the store. I just had to make sure subjects weren't directly under one of the lights because it cast shadows on their face when they moved, especially when it was darker outside. Lighting was best during the day time when natural light was in play.

I am learning more and more that I prefer to interview, rather than recite a scripted stand up. This project was a good opportunity to practice interviewing while filimg, which is new to me. I learned how people respond differently when I have a camera in my hand instead of a pencil. This was definitely a learning experience I enjoyed and expect to improve upon next time. The recited introduction in front of the camera, however, was not my forte. I gave it a few shots but could quite get it this time.

News Story #1

For our first story Jessica and I chose to interview the owner and customers of Home and Planet, an eco-friendly furniture/jewelry store. We asked the owner about what the store specializes in, what the demographics of his clientele are and how he got the idea to create the store. We included several voice overs with b-roll to better explain the story. We also included two or three soundbites that were visually appealing and fit in well with the rest of the footage. To introduce the story, we made a standup followed by a voice over to guide the viewers into the store as if they were walkin into the store themselves.

Probably the hardest things to accomplish were getting people to talk to us and being able to film the standup outside the store in E 3rd St. with all the traffic roaring by (it was both distracting and hard not to laugh).

Also, keeping the camera still seems to be a recurring problem with all all of our videos. Throughout our videos there is visual progression. We'll just keep practicing at it.

We chose this location because we had never heard about it so we thought it would be a good way to start our tv reporting skills.

Home & Planet