Broadcast journalism
I absolutely love video. Since I joined the newspaper staff, I've led a wave of emphasis on multimedia, with the intention of giving our audience unique ways to interact with our content. From filming lighthearted videos in our community to interning with a broadcast network, I've done everything I can to learn about this kind of communication.
Florida Aviation Network
I first encountered the Florida Aviation Network while interning at a video and music production studio over the summer before my senior year. FAN, a regular client of the studio, uses the space to broadcast messages about safety and industry updates for pilots, mechanics and anyone else involved in or interested in aviation. During their broadcast over the summer, the crew let me work on the set, and I helped mostly with setup and cleanup. I continued to volunteer with the network afterwards, and applied for an internship with them starting in the Fall.
As an intern, I have attended every regular "Plane Time" broadcast and every remote shoot since I began. During Plane Times, I have worked as an audio grip, a camera operator and a floor manager. These roles have allowed me to observe the operation from all angles, and I have taken time to talk with the crew and learn about the other positions involved in the broadcast.
Interning for FAN has also provided me with numerous opportunities to improve my editing skills. I attended a training that they hosted on using Premiere Pro. I was already familiar with the software, but I was entirely self-taught, so I learned a lot from people who had been working with it for longer. I also edited a video of a remote shoot, along with another crew member.
A remote shoot with John Tenney, a managing pilot at Experienced Pilot Services, who developed a flight simulator. I hosted and edited this.
Holly Tries It
For my junior year recurring content (a type of story we assign that must be completed twice per quarter), I decided to create a video series. "Holly Tries It" featured the host, Holly, interacting with unique people, businesses, and events, and trying out their specialties. This gave us a way to highlight individuals on campus and in our community, while catching students' attention with a comedic tone and creative scripted intros. To create this series, I contacted people and businesses, organized the days we would shoot (and ensured we stayed on schedule), planned out each part of the video (this included writing a jokes and segments when Holly addressed the camera), and shot and edited the videos. This series ran for 9 total episodes, most around 5-10 minutes in length. These might not have been the most traditional journalistic videos, but they allowed us to learn about our community in a really unique way, by highlighting the little things that people made major parts of their lives. This also opened us up to a whole new audience—our most popular "Holly Tries It" currently sits at 125K views.
Episode 8: "Holly Tries It: Ballroom dancing"
Episode 6: "Holly Tries It: Glass blowing"
Episode 4: "Holly Tries Bouldering"
Episode 3: "Holly Tries It: Renaissance Faire"
Other journalistic videos
I enjoyed filming enough that I began to create some of my own journalistic videos the next year.
This is possibly my favorite video I've made in my entire time in journalism. It highlighted the upcoming retirement of our athletic director and cross country coach, a strong presence on campus who is well-known by students, teachers and members of the community alike. I wanted to tell the story using fun elements that related to the topic, so I gathered cross country-related clothes and objects, placed them on the ground and drew on pages in a notebook to match what I was talking about. I used this as a major storytelling element, in addition to shots of shoes and a stopwatch that emphasized certain phrases I said.
THE SETUP
THE SHOT
Later in the year, I created another video about an assignment that the Early Childhood Education program has every year: The students create "rice babies" out of uncooked rice and stockings, and care for them for a week. It's a short, somewhat silly video, but as someone who became genuinely interested in the assignment as I was documenting it, I hope that it gives students some insight into the actual purpose of these babies. Also, they look great on camera.
The first of the videos that I shot independently were fairly straightforward, and allowed me to improve my filming and editing skills. I recorded two events (a chorus concert and a pep rally), which drew people to the website. For the chorus concert, I found a spot with a good view of the stage, and moved around as needed. I was stunned by how beautiful the concert was, and I could tell how much thought was put into everything from the song choice to the choreography to the outfits, so I had no trouble creating a video that showcased the excitement. (And yes, one of the students was wearing zombie makeup when I interviewed him.) The neon pep rally was just as exciting, and because of the scale of the pep rally (with students everywhere), I was able to move around a lot more and vary the kinds of shots I got. I edited the video that same night, and posted it within hours of the event.