Video Assignment No. 1

I am a print, or "traditional," journalism major who is trying to learn multimedia journalism. I am mostly in the class because it is a requirement, but now that I am here, I think it will benefit me a lot as a reporter. I really enjoyed the audio slice of the class, and I think I adapted to and absorbed that medium very well, so hopefully the same will go for video journalism.

That said, making video news will definitely have its challenges for me because print journalism and video journalism are such very different media. One challenge would be getting people to talk to me in front of a video camera, as opposed to talking to me when I have just a pen and paper in my hand. I feel like many people are intimidated about being in front of the camera, including myself, which is one of the reasons I chose print journalism. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised by how willing people are to talk to me on camera about certain issues, but I may also have to learn how to make people more at ease about it.

I am also pretty skeptical about the equipment. Audio was great in that I am used to wielding a digital recorder, but another one of the reasons I didn't go into broadcast is because thinking about all of the new equipment I would have to learn to use just blew my mind. Using a small video camera like we are in class shouldn't be too hard to manage, but I guess I would say I never planned on toting around a tripod, so that will be an adjustment for me.

Another issue will be figuring out how to translate my love for playing with and manipulating words on a page to playing with images instead. I consider myself a writer and I am attempting to use journalism as an outlet for my passion for writing. But with video, I now have to tell stories by just using images, which will be difficult considering how accustomed I am to using words. Nonetheless, I believe learning news video will make me a better, more well-rounded reporter as we enter a new technological era of journalism.


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