the Next Journalist

Checking In

2011-01-08T09:45:00.001-08:00

It's been six months since I graduated from UO and I haven't really addressed work here in quite some time.

Over the summer I found some marketing work, some of which I enjoyed and some of which I did not. I was grateful to have some money coming in and to have the opportunity to gain some experience in communications, but I knew that what I really wanted to pursue was production work, and I knew I wouldn't have time if I was working full time in an office.

In September I got a part time job as a Promotions Assistant for a broadcast company that owns a bunch of local radio stations. At first I was working a lot of events, but now I am primarily doing video work, which I love.

The hours are irregular (I've had anywhere from 2 - 30 hours in a given week), so needless to say, I am not making bank at this job, but I feel very lucky to be doing work that I enjoy and that provides me with valuable experience in my field.

I am also happy to have the flexibility in my schedule to pursue other opportunities. I've managed to pick up other production gigs from time to time. Some are unpaid, but when I do get paid I make a lot more than I do at my regular job. I hope that as I get more experience and meet more people in the community more of these opportunities will arise.

Right now things are very slow, so I'm trying to keep busy and get involved in as many things as I can.

I've been considering joining professional organizations such as OMPA and SPJ, but it's difficult to justify spending the money on memberships when I'm making so little. I keep visiting their Websites and trying to decide how beneficial they would be. I think this is something that will have to wait.

I've applied for some other jobs with no luck. I did receive one call, but I missed it and didn't hear the voicemail until a week later and they had already filled the position. It was a position that would have required a long commute and it wasn't something I thought I would want to do long term, but I was still frustrated to have missed the opportunity.

While I keep checking Craig's List and a few other sites that post media job openings, I am trying to focus my energy on being productive, regardless of pay.

Last week I spent some time updating OJM's social media and am helping them redo some digital slides with information about upcoming exhibits and events to show on a flat screen TV in their lobby. I haven't done graphic design in a while, so it's great for me to get to brush up my Photoshop skills in a low pressure environment. I also volunteered to transcribe some interviews for a local filmmaker who's writing a book. It's a bit tedious, but I enjoy listening to interviews and I'm happy to be able to help out.

Six months ago I feared that I would not be able to find work in my field at all. I do worry about money and I sometimes get frustrated that there is no obvious next step, but I try to remember that I have made progress. I have not resorted to applying for restaurant jobs. I am doing things now that I wouldn't have dreamed of before I moved to Eugene in 2008 to finish my Journalism degree.

Despite financial fears and uncertainty about the future, I feel pretty good about what I'm doing right now. I don't feel stagnant or trapped like I did when I was working in food service. I am enjoying my existence more than I have in a long time.

There is no straightforward path to a meaningful career in a fast-changing landscape. I think the best I can do right now is to try to stay informed about what's happening both in my field and my community, to be open to different kinds of opportunities and to try to get as much out of them as possible. My hope is that if I can make myself useful to people, develop my skills, and continue to remain flexible about my goals and aspirations, that in time I will be able to make a living doing work that I care about. If I can accomplish that, I believe I will feel successful.

Facebook Photo Bombing Update

2010-12-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I sent messages to the accounts of Ted Wheeler and Berbati's Pan inquiring about the photo bombing incident.

A staff member of Ted Wheeler's named Katrina promptly responded to my message, informing me that she dealt with the issue as soon as she noticed it (within about an hour of the tagging).

" I discovered the photo bombing, untagged Ted and then blocked & reported "her" for spam, " she wrote. "Ted gets lots of friend requests from people he doesn't know and since he usually accesses FB via phone, generally just accepts the request and moves on. Unfortunately, this has led to a few instances where the "friend" was a spammer and later he or I delete & block."

Berbati's has not responded to my message and last night I noticed that they had been tagged in more photos of the same model, which were once again appearing in my Newsfeed. Either they don't mind or they don't keep very close tabs on their account.

Of course having photos of scantily clad women showing up on the page of a nightclub is hardly the same as having them on the page of a politician, and it's not surprising that Ted Wheeler has a system in place for dealing with such things, while Berbati's (which, for all I know, may benefit from the extra traffic driven to their page and arguably wouldn't suffer comparable negative consequences to those of a politician) either intentionally allows other accounts to tag them in such photos, or simply isn't worried enough about their social media image to monitor it.

Facebook Photo Bombing Targets High-Profile Portland Locals

2010-12-02T20:15:00.000-08:00

This evening I logged into Facebook and noticed a number of pictures of a scantily clad woman accompanied by a link (I did not click it, but it claims to go to the site for which the woman models) in my News Feed.

I was surprised to see them, as I did not recognize the women, nor am I friends with anyone whom I would expect to post such pictures on the site. I quickly realized that a couple of local users with whom I'm friends, Greek restaurant and night club Berbati's Pan and State Treasurer Ted Wheeler, who is known for his avid social media use (last year, while serving as County Chair he broke the news of a ski-related back injury on Twitter before contacting any traditional media) had been tagged in the photos posted by another account, presumably belonging to the model in the photos.

I can't be certain if the breast-implant laden Asian woman in the photos is truly the 23-year-old UO student and self-described "Kind,Understanding and a simple woman" the profile claims, nor can I be certain whether it is this woman who is behind the account at all, but I was struck by how simple this marketing strategy is, and how surprising it is that I haven't noticed anyone using it before.

This tactic is essentially the Facebook equivalent of Napster bombing, though it seems not to work the same way in terms of targeting a specific audience, unless "her" goal is simply to get as many Portlanders as possible to view her pictures, and, if she's lucky, her profile.

Successful Napster-bombers would tag their music with the names of popular artists whose music at least resembled or shared commonalities with their own, thus reaching the ears of music downloaders who were likely to enjoy their music.

I am, presumably, not this model's target audience. I have little interest in viewing pictures of random nearly nude women on the internet, and, while I'm sure there are exceptions, I suspect the majority of Ted Wheeler and Berbati's Pan's Facebook friends are not looking for such pictures, either. Would it not be more effective, I wonder, to tag high profile models in the photos, rather than a middle-aged white male politician and an inanimate and un-sex-related business?

Furthermore, Ted Wheeler and Berbati's Pan (and all the other people tagged in the photos) will probably un-tag themselves (and perhaps unfriend her, as well) the next time they log in, leaving only a small window for all these people's friends to see the pictures in their News Feeds.

I suspect as this strategy catches on, more public figures and businesses will change their Facebook settings so that their friends can't tag them in photos without their approval.

Facebook's down! Quick, post it on...everything that's not Facebook

2010-09-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

The web is abuzz this afternoon with news about Facebook's technical problems and users' thoughts on the situation.

The site seems to be in working order again, but its problems earlier today caused quite a stir.

Mashable, the best source I've found for this type of news posted this article today. The Huffington Post reported the story here. And even the Wall Street Journal blogged about it here.

But what I found most interesting was my Twitter feed, which is still full of insights and jokes (being retweeted like crazy) about the social media site and the impact of its complications. Some gems:

@CarlosMiller: "How come when Twitter goes through its weekly crash, nobody on FB really gives a damn, but when FB crashes, Twitter goes all up in arms?"

@OPB: "BREAKING NEWS: Facebook is down. Worker productivity rises. U.S. climbs out of recession." and 20 minutes later "Top Tweet! Can it become true? @OPB BREAKING NEWS Facebook down. Worker productivity rises. US climbs out of recession. #truthiness"

@alexpriest: "Facebook fail whale: http://twitpic.com/1yqrwc cc @Boones6433"

@bcoz79: "First thought on #Facebook being down was, "I should post this on #Facebook !""

@alquaeda: "#facebook is down. Not sure if we did that, but we should claim credit anyway. Hitting the infidels where it hurts, etc."

@intuitivebridge: "Facebook is down....It just, you know...doesn't feel like it can go on anymore. It's not you, It's facebook. Really."

@mattwaite: "Irony: Hearing about Facebook being down on Twitter. Shoe. Other foot. Yeah." and "Dear internet: While Facebook is down, why don't you go on over to @politifact http://bit.ly/Onln1 and get your learn on. Just sayin'."

I'm sure there will be plenty more to come.

I think what we saw today really underscores the importance of having multiple social media sites. While some sites may become obsolete, the trend of moving on to the new "best" site and abandoning (or never even trying out) all others, saying "I don't have time for more than one" may be unwise. Particularly with the availability of tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, it's easy to share information across multiple platforms.

I was certainly glad to have Twitter today while Facebook was down, not just so that I could find out what was wrong with Facebook (and what people in social web thought about it), but so that I could still share information with a broad audience and find out what's going and what people are reading/watching in my social web.

Opportunity Knocks X2

2010-07-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago I was starting to feel a bit discouraged and was fearing it might be almost time to start applying for restaurant jobs again.

In some ways I really enjoyed the years I spent as a line cook, but I never made much money or had any benefits, and my arms were always covered in burns (in a lot of my wedding pictures there's a real beauty that a panini press left on my left upper arm ), I had a lot of lower back pain from all the lifting, and I often didn't get home from work until after Robert had gone to bed. I think the frustration that stemmed from that lifestyle is a big part of what motivated me to finally get really serious about school.

I know that Robert and I can manage on his income if we really have to, but it would mean making a lot of sacrifices. I'm trying to save us money by being really meticulous about keeping track of our spending and by cooking a lot so that we won't have to eat out, but once my graduation money runs out, it will take more than that to keep us afloat.

I also want to gain valuable experience and keep developing my skills. I've enjoyed getting to sleep in these past couple of weeks, and I really needed some time to recover from the residual stress and exhaustion of my last term at UO, but now that I'm finally more-or-less caught up I'm starting to feel anxious. I'm not used to having so much free time, and while I've managed to be pretty productive, I really haven't had to use my brain very much. I keep feeling like I must have forgotten to do a bunch of important stuff.

Fortunately, my persistence in applying for jobs and internships finally yielded some results in the form of two email responses.

About six months ago I was searching for new media internships in the Portland area and came across one at the Oregon Jewish Museum. I was particularly interested in this because over the past couple of years I've done a lot of genealogical research and have gotten in touch with a lot of relatives whom I had never met, and learned a great deal about my Ukrainian Jewish ancestors who fled to Boston in the early 1900s. I'm really interested in continuing my research and in learning more about Jewish history and culture, and I thought it would be very rewarding to get involved with an organization that helps to preserve these things and to educate the public about them.

After not hearing anything for months I assumed that I wasn't going to, but then I got an email from the museum's marketing director informing me that they now had openings. I called back right away and left a message, and then wrote him a detailed email. He wrote me back the next day and we scheduled an interview.

I went in to meet with him yesterday at noon and he said that he thought my skills would be very useful. The museum recently moved to a larger space and has a lot more going on than in the past. They need help with a lot of things that interest me including expanding their social media presence and making a video trailer to show before film screenings. It doesn't pay, but I think it will be very valuable experience for me and it sounds like it will be a lot of fun, too.

I also responded to an ad for someone to help with online marketing for an independent film and got an email back from the executive producer. I spoke with him on the phone and he said that I was the only applicant whom he had responded to because I had mentioned specific things he was looking for in my email. He told me a bit about what they need, which for now will mostly be setting up and maintaining accounts on as many social media sites as possible (something I have a lot of experience with). I'm going to meet with him in person on Tuesday to discuss things in more detail. This will be a part time position, and I'm not sure yet how many hours it will be, but it does pay! I think it will also be a great opportunity for me to get to learn more about the independent film industry.

I'm sure that I will need to keep looking for additional part-time work, but I am feeling much more optimistic now and am really excited to be starting on two different things that both really interest me and will actually make use of my education.

Life as a Recent Grad/Unemployed Person

2010-06-30T00:13:00.000-07:00

Having gotten more-or-less settled in my new home, I finally have time to feel like an actual unemployed person. I am now among Oregon's roughly 41,300 unemployed, some of whom are good friends of mine and a great many of whom are talented media professionals. At least I'm in good company.

I've been checking Craig's List multiple times a day and have updated my Linked In account and made multiple versions of my resume in Google Docs. I've applied for about 10 paid positions and 6 unpaid internships. Not a lot of progress. There just don't seem to be a lot of interesting jobs that I'm qualified for and I know there's tons of competition even for those I feel I'm perfectly suited for.

I'm trying not to sweat it too much yet. I've been back in town for less than two weeks. Shortly after moving to Oregon in 2004 I was unemployed for four months and then finally found a job that I stayed at for three and a half years, only leaving when I moved to Eugene to finish school. I know the unemployment rate is higher now, but now I have a degree, more skills, more experience, and more confidence. I am certain that something will come along if I don't give up.

In the mean time I'm trying to be productive and find ways to make my new household more efficient and sustainable. Robert and I spent the weekend unpacking and organizing, and have gotten most of the house in pretty good shape. Since I'm free during the day, I have time to do things like tending the garden, cooking healthy meals from scratch, walking to the store, and coming up with systems for saving money and avoiding waste.

I'm hoping that meeting with a career counselor next week will help me to strategize at the very least. I'm also planning to look into temp agencies. Robert and I will have to take a good look at our finances and figure out how long we can manage on his income alone, which will determine how long I have the luxury of looking for jobs that I actually want. At least summer is the busy season in his industry and the weather is pleasant enough to keep my spirits up for the time being.

Post-grad Recap

2010-06-19T06:05:00.001-07:00

I've barely had time to think since graduation on Monday. My parents and sister came out from Ohio and my mother-in-law drove down from Washington to attend the SOJC graduation ceremony.

There were about 400 graduating seniors from the program. I hadn't realized how many of us there were! I only knew about a tenth of them, almost exclusively Electronic Media majors. I'm glad I went, but by the end I was certainly ready to get out of the sun and have some lunch.

After obtaining some nourishment my family and I went to my house where we divided our efforts between packing up my belongings and preparing for the celebratory cookout my roommates and I had planned. We had people coming and going until about 1am. It was a lot of fun and I'm really glad I got to see some friends before I left. I could never have pulled it off without all the help from my family! Throwing a good party, I can handle. Preparing to move simultaneously, not so much.

Tuesday morning we had a fairly leisurely breakfast at Keystone Cafe before my parents and sister headed for the coast. My husband and my mother-in-law and I went to the DMV to get a trip permit for my car, which I hadn't been driving on account of my expired tags. She then helped us finish the after-party cleanup before beginning her long return drive to the Seattle area.

Robert and I then finished loading up our Volvo wagons and cleaned my near-empty bedroom to the best of our abilities. I wrote notes to my roommates and to my new sub-letter, and then we headed west to meet up with the rest of the family in Yachats.

It was nice to see the ocean and to have some down time with my family, but I had a hard time relaxing. After dinner I attempted to attend a production meeting via Skype, but finally gave up after getting disconnected about a half dozen times.

In the morning we got bagels, then began driving north on 101. We made a brief stop at Devil's Punchbowl, which was less crowded than the last couple times I'd been. We had thought about stopping at Three Arches, one of our favorite spots on the coast, but Robert and I were eager to start unpacking and the weather had become pretty dreary, so we headed east at the first opportunity.

I've been back in Portland for just over two days now. It's hard to believe I actually get to stay. I have to make a trip to Eugene next week to pick up the rest of my things (mostly books) and I'll be down there periodically to work on Broken over the summer, but Portland is my home once again and I am thrilled to be back here among this city's wonderful people and culture.

I still have a lot of unpacking and organizing to do before I can fully dedicate myself to the job search. I am checking Craig's List frequently, and trying to apply for at least one position every day. In a couple of weeks I'm meeting with a career counselor. I'm very grateful for the graduation money I received, which I hope I can stretch until I find some paid work.

For now I'm going to do my best to take it easy and enjoy my family's last few days in Oregon and try to get settled so that I can be as productive as possible next week. Here goes nothin'.

The End and the Beginning

2010-06-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

I finished my last final project around 1am, which was earlier than I expected. I was thrilled that I got done in time to meet a friend for a couple of drinks before my long walk home (late night public transit would make this city so much more livable).

I think I pulled more all-nighters this term than in the rest of my college career combined. I can't remember what it's like to wake up feeling rested.

I wish I could relax today, but I've got to go to the DMV to renew my expired tags, and clean the house in preparation for out of town guests and for my sub-letter, who moves in next Thursday.

My sister, whom I haven't seen since I visited Columbus a year ago, flies into Portland tonight and my husband will bring her down tomorrow. They will both be staying with me for a few days, which I am very excited about. My parents, whom I last saw on the same trip to Columbus, and my mother-in-law get into town Sunday. We're having dinner at Agate AlleyBistro, my favorite campus-area restaurant. The SOJC Commencement ceremony is at noon on Monday (follow Twitter hashtag #jgrad10 for updates) . Afterwards I'm having a cookout to celebrate and to say farewell to my Eugene friends.

After a day at the coast with the family I will begin my life in Portland as a job-seeking graduate! I am both excited and terrified.

I've been applying for lots of jobs and internships. So far I haven't had any callbacks regarding paying positions.

I got a voicemail asking me to come in for an interview for one internship in Portland, but I wasn't able to go because I wasn't finished with finals. I called back and left a message saying I could talk with them on the phone or come in next week, but they haven't returned my call.

I interviewed for another internship over Skype this morning. I really hope I get it, because the work sounds like it would be right up my alley. I think it would be a great opportunity for me to develop my skills and get professional experience.

I don't know if having a degree will help me get a job, but I do know that my experiences at the J school and with the University Film Organization over the last two years have given me confidence in my abilities and have helped me to figure out what I enjoy doing and what I'm good at, as well as what my weaknesses are and what I need to continue to work on.

My greatest fear is that I'll end up working in food service again with no benefits and no intellectual stimulation. I really hope I can find work (paid or not) that will enable me to continue learning and doing projects that I care about.

I know that I have to commit myself to making that happen no matter how busy or tired I am. If I am forced to take a full time restaurant job in order to pay the bills, I have to make sure I don't lose sight of my aspirations. As stressful as being over-committed can be, I know that not doing work that I'm passionate about is far worse.

Adrenaline Film Project

2010-05-11T12:53:00.001-07:00

My team for the Adrenaline Film Project didn't get into the competition, but I was asked to be the lead mentor assistant, which was a great experience.

One of my primary duties was driving mentor Jeff Wadlow around to the sets of the various groups. He would watch what they were doing, then make suggestions or, if they were really in trouble, run the show until they got back on track. I got to learn a lot just by being there for the process.

I also really enjoyed getting to spend a lot of time with the student coordinators Tomas Valladares and Stephanie Strahan, with Rom Alejandro, another mentor, with the other festival organizers, and all the teams of filmmakers who competed.

Some friends of mine from the University Film Organization , Brian Leonard, Jonathon Wheatfall, and Doug Potts, did get into Adrenaline, and made a post-apocalyptic short called The Hut, which has great set design and lighting.

I think it was a fantastic idea to hold the first Cinema Pacific festival during the first year of the new Cinema Studies major at UO. Students are so excited about production right now. I think this was a wonderful opportunity for local filmmakers to see great films, learn new skills, to meet one-another, and to see what they can accomplish in a short period of time!

I think all the participants have a renewed interest in making short films, and many have told me they plan to join the UFO, or to get more involved with it than they were in the past. It's perfect timing for us, because we are currently in pre-production for a short, and could really use more skilled, passionate people to make it happen!

All the Adrenaline films will be up on YouTube soon.

To see all the tweets from the event search the hashtag #UOAFP on Twitter.

Begin Final Term

2010-04-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

It's the third week of my last term (if everything goes as planned) at UO.

A video I made last term about park acquisition for my internship with My Eugene is now online with a piece written by another intern, Erik Maurer.

Lately my life seems like an endless string of pre-production meetings, which I am totally loving.

For my Documentary Production class, taught by Jon Palfreman, I'm working with two other students on an 8-10 minute piece about nuclear power in Oregon, which we will attempt to get on OPB. We were having trouble getting in touch with our sources for the first couple weeks, but we finally did our first interview today, have another scheduled for Sunday, and are working on scheduling a third.

In UFO we are starting to plan a short film written by our treasurer, Brian Leonard. I will most likely be DP and Art Director on it, which will be a lot work, but also a lot of fun.

Brian and another UFO member, Jake Schamber, and I have also formed a team to participate in the first annual Adrenaline Film Project at UO. I'm really excited about it. I love working with Brian, and am looking forward to working with Jake for the first time.

Playing with Text in Final Cut Pro

2010-03-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

When I was still getting comfortable with the basics of Final Cut Pro, I didn't dare take the time to try to get creative or do much experimenting--it was hard enough trying to find all my clips and get them into the timeline in order.

I've gradually started playing around with various features. I think customizing the text is one of the easiest things you can do in FCP that really changes the feel of a video.

I wish I knew more about text design. I've never taken a typography class or really studied it on my own. I learned a bit about typefaces in the Visual Communication class I took at Portland Community College a couple years ago, and I recently watched Gary Hustwit's documentary Helvetica, which was really enlightening.

I've been aware for a long time that text has a significant impact in visual media, but there are so many options, I've always been a little overwhelmed by the idea of trying to do much with it.

As a teenager I was a big fan of Courier typeface, I think largely because I associated it with typewriters and DIY culture. I still have a fondness for it, but it's not appropriate everywhere.

It's hard not to love Helvetica. It's so modern and easy to read. But it's also EVERYWHERE.

In FCP the default font is Lucida Grand. It's a simple sans serif font and is quite readable, but something about it bothers me. It looks lifeless somehow: it's like Helvetica with less personality.

When I finally got around to using different fonts in FCP, I knew I wanted to make sure my text was easy to read, but I also wanted it to stand out a little. I didn't want something distracting, but I also wanted it to be a little more eye-catching than Lucida Grand, and less common than Helvetica.

After a little experimenting I settled on Stone Sans. I wanted a sans serif font that stood out a little. I think it's really easy on the eyes. It's very uniform and looks both bold and comforting at the same time.

According to MyFonts.com, the Stone typeface family, designed by Sumner Stone "solves the problem of mixing different styles of type on the same page. Most combined type styles, because they aren’t designed to work together, often have radically different characteristics such as cap heights, stem weights, and proportions."

I guess I picked a good one to experiment with.

The more I look at it, however, the more I feel like I'm watching credits from a cartoon show. Maybe I've just been looking at it too long, or maybe it's time to try a different one.

Here, I use the Blogger default font Georgia in "small" size.

New Film Blog

2010-03-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

I just started a new blog: Oregon Film News. A variation of my UO Cinema Studies program news package is up!

Almost Spring

2010-03-15T00:05:00.000-07:00

Finals week begins tomorrow. I, fortunately, only have one final left: my History of the Motion Picture Part 2 exam. I'm going to a study group with some other students from the class tomorrow night. The exam is Tuesday afternoon. I have a UFO meeting that night and we have a short shoot on Wednesday. Besides that, all I have to do is finish editing a video for my internship, and then I can head up to Portland for the break!

I'm really looking forward to spending time outside and being active after the ridiculous number of hours I've spent in the computer lab this term. Next term I'm taking a 10k training class. I think I'll feel a lot better with regular exercise scheduled in. I've been feeling really stressed out and lethargic for the last month or so. I'm going to need to run a lot over spring break to prepare!

I'm also taking History of the Motion Picture Part 3, TV Documentary Production, and 2 J408 workshops: Mobile Media Production and Lighting for Video.

In addition to classes, UFO, and WMTM, I'm also planning to participate in the Adrenaline Film Project in May. Brian and I are planning to work together, and are looking for a third person (hopefully someone with good Final Cut Pro skills). Someone is coming to talk to the UFO about it on Tuesday. I'm really excited about it.

I'll be really busy, but I don't think it could possibly be more stressful than this term has been.

Latin American Cinema

2010-03-08T22:42:00.000-08:00

I have just begun my Latin American Cinema (J467) take-home final essay exam.

I've really enjoyed the class, but I think the subject is far too broad to adequately cover in a single term. The other two foreign film classes I've taken focused on much more specific topics: a single country (Germany) and a single genre within a continent (Asian Fantasy Cinema).

Gabriela Martinez, who teaches the class, is very knowledgeable and I think she does a great job of leading class discussions. I know far more about Latin American culture and history than I did a couple of months ago, and have been exposed to a lot of films I probably never would have seen otherwise. That said, I am really struggling with trying to keep all the details straight. It's difficult for me to remember what happened in which country. All of Latin America is a lot to cover in such a short time.

I think I have retained the most about Mexico and Argentina, both of which we covered early in the term. I remember a fair amount about Brazil, which we also spent more time on than the subsequent countries. Most of what we covered in the second half of the term (Chile, Bolivia, Cuba) is a blur.

I think we could easily have spent the entire term focusing on Argentina and the Dirty War, or documentaries from the continent, and it still would have been a lot to grapple with.

Writing these essays is going to require a lot of reading and reviewing of my notes. I hope that by the end of the week I will be able to say something intelligent about three of the six topics I have to choose from!

the Oscars

2010-03-07T23:33:00.000-08:00

I watched the Academy Awards tonight for the first time in many years, and while most of it seemed unnecessarily drawn out, it was worth it.

I was thrilled to witness the first woman ever to win the award for best director and then immediately afterwards to see Kathryn Bigelow return to the stage to accept another for best picture! I, sadly, have not seen the Hurt Locker yet, but may go see it tomorrow at the David Minor Theatre.

I was really happy that Christoph Waltz won for best supporting actor. I was really impressed by Inglorious Basters, and thought Waltz' performance was amazing.

I haven't seen Crazy Heart yet, but was happy to Jeff Bridges win for best actor. I really enjoyed his acceptance speech, too. He apparently wasn't acting in the Big Lebowski!

I was dumbfounded when the show ended and Barbara Walters came on the screen saying that this would be her last Oscars special. I guess it's not shocking that she's retiring now, and I watch TV so rarely I would never know the difference, but it's certainly hard to imagine the medium without her!

Men in Film

2010-03-03T19:36:00.001-08:00

It may seem ridiculous to discuss "men in film." Isn't it obvious that men make films? Aren't most filmmakers men? Why would we need to use the qualifier?

We assume that filmmakers are men unless we are told otherwise, and most of the time it is, unfortunately, true.

I like to think that we are making progress. Maybe Kathryn Bigelow will win an Academy Award this year. Maybe people will start thinking of filmmaking as something that people can do regardless of gender.

When I go to University Film Organization meetings or take film-related classes, I see that at least half the people present are women. Women clearly do not a lack an interest in filmmaking. Women have the desire and they are making the effort to learn the skills.

So why are "women filmmakers" such a rarity?

Certainly in the past there have been a lot of barriers. My grandmother wrote in her diaries about her love of film. She went to the movies multiple times a week in the 30s and 40s. When I was growing up everyone in the family went to her to ask whether a film was worth seeing. Years after her death, we go to movies together in her memory.

Early in her life she wrote of her desire to act, but eventually decided she was too shy and gave up on the idea. She was a talented writer, but never in her diary did she write of a desire to write a screenplay. The notion probably would have been laughable. She also loved photography. She kept a huge collection of family photos and always had a camera ready at family get-togethers. Would she ever have had the audacity to dream of being a cinematographer?

My grandmother worked tedious secretary jobs until she married my grandfather and spent the rest of her life raising their five children. That's what women of her generation did.

Today most women work. Too many women are still stuck in pink collar jobs, but many women have positions that they wouldn't have dreamed of holding a few decades ago.

Why have so few women made it as filmmakers?

A few months ago I attended What is Film? in Portland. It was a really interesting and informative conference, but I was really struck by how few women speakers were present. All three of the keynote speakers were men and most of the panelists who work in the film industry were men. Many women were in the academic panels on the second day. This suggests that women can find their way into positions where they get to talk and write about films, but most of the films are still made by men.

Lately I've spent a lot of time looking for production jobs and internships on Craig's List, both in Portland and Eugene and I've been shocked by the number of listings that use male gender pronouns such as "cameraman" and "sound guy." The people (presumably men) posting these ads may not be deliberately excluding women, but their oversight has an impact.

I am certainly hesitant to apply for any such position.

Will a woman be considered based on her experience and abilities or will these producers automatically assume that she's not what they had in mind?

If a woman is hired by someone who thinks of a position as something a man does, will she be scrutinized? Will he assume that any mistake or shortcoming is the result of her gender? Will she have to work twice as hard to prove herself?

If these filmmakers assume that people with production skills are men, what other areas does their sexism permeate? If they do hire a woman, how will she be treated? Will she be seen as a novelty? Will she be sexually harassed? Will she be given "pink collar" duties like making coffee for the men? Will her input be taken seriously?

If a woman feels men on the set are being sexist will anyone take her complaints seriously? Will anyone back her up?

I wonder if the men who post these ads ever think about these things or if they care. I wonder if they know that they may be the gatekeepers preventing another generation of women from becoming filmmakers.

WMTM Update

2010-03-03T13:16:00.000-08:00

On Monday night the We Make the Media non-profit group held another meeting. This time some members of a smaller group focused on investigative journalism, also from WMTM, joined us. This group headed by OPB's Emily Harris came to find out whether our groups shared enough goals to merge. Last night she sent out an email announcing that they have, in fact, decided to merge with us. Exciting news!

As usual, we had a lot to cover and it was a struggle trying to keep things on track. Twenty-two of us attended the meeting, and most had a lot to say. Colin Lovett, our chair, did a remarkable job of keeping us on schedule, which I really appreciated, because I had to leave right at 9 to get back to Eugene to finish a project.

A non-profit lawyer came to the meeting to briefly introduce himself and tell us some basic things we need to consider. He's going to come to our next meeting to answer more questions.

We still have a lot of research and planning to do, but we've certainly made a lot of progress.

Finals week will seem like nothing after this.

2010-02-26T02:45:00.000-08:00

After many consecutive late nights in the editing lab I finally finished my multimedia piece. As it turns out, I need to make a lot of changes to it, but I think it was the best-organized and most consistent solo video project I've done so far.

I only slept about three hours last night and then got back to campus to do add some final touches. I was there from 10am until past 1am.

In class today our instructor informed us about what days we're doing our finals (six minute newscasts). I'm going Tuesday, which is the first day. Our script rough drafts are due tomorrow, and I haven't even started mine yet. Before I can get to that I need to finish a paper for History of the Motion picture.

Despite having virtually no life outside of school, I always feel like I'm behind. No matter how far in advance I start on a project, I always seem to end up pulling an all-nighter (or a few) to get it done. I don't know if I'm exceptionally slow or if I just need that pressure in order to make final decisions. Maybe I just make too much work for myself. I think I tend to get over-ambitious, especially when I'm shooting. I always seem to shoot way more b-roll than I need and it takes me a really long time to capture and sort through it all and then I struggle to keep it organized. I hope it will get easier.

I came home to try to get some rest for a few hours before I get up to do more homework, but I'm not sleepy on account of too much coffee and stress. I don't have time to sleep for long and I'm so exhausted, I wonder if it's even worth taking a nap.

If I can just get through the next five days, the worst will be over. I just have to finish this paper, write my script, put together all the video I need for my newscast, write two more papers, and do my newscast, and then all I have to worry about is final exams for History of the Motion Picture and Latin American Cinema, which by comparison to what I'm going through now, don't sound too bad!

Red-winged Blackbird

2010-02-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

I'm really glad I chose a topic (parks) for my multimedia project that enabled me to spend a lot of time shooting outside!

Here's a cool little guy I saw at Golden Gardens who may or may not make it into the final cut of my project.

I Live at the J School

2010-02-24T01:19:00.000-08:00

I feel like I have no life outside of the J school these days. No time for a social life, and often skip other classes to work on Electronic Media projects. Would never get them done otherwise!

This weekend I took one of the J408 workshops. This one, taught by Andre Sirois,who also taught Video Production last term, was on sound recording and editing.

We went over equipment, such as different types of mics (some of this I remembered from previous classes, but the review is always good), cords, headphones and digital recorders.

We also watched some videos about how sound works and went over different ways it can be used.

We took digital recorders and mics on our lunch break and experimented with recording different types of sounds, then returned and uploaded the files. Andre showed us how to do all kinds of stuff in Soundtrack Pro and then gave us some time to experiment with it.

He later emailed us a packet he put together with lots of helpful info, which I'm glad to have, as I was way too tired to retain all the details at 8am Saturday morning after a long, busy week with many late nights.

I fell asleep before 9 (unheard of) Saturday night and slept for more than 13 hours! I felt really rested for the first time in weeks. It seems I'm at the J school past midnight at least three nights a week.

I spent most of Sunday and Monday shooting b-roll at parks for my multimedia package. I've done a lot of editing, but have a long way to go. It seems like I always have a hard time figuring out how to organize my sound bites until the last minute when the pressure's really on. I'm kind of overwhelmed at the moment. I really hope it all comes together. If nothing else, at least I should be able to make my audio sound good this time!

Yesterday I registered for Spring classes. It will be my last term if everything goes according to plan! I'm really excited for Documentary Production with Jon Palfreman. I'm really looking forward to working on a more in-depth project. I also really admire Palfreman's work, and feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from him. I hope that there will be more creative freedom in this class than there is in Reporting for Electronic Media.

More News

2010-02-17T03:10:00.000-08:00

I turned in my second news package today. I think it turned out a lot better than the first, though I still struggled to get it down to two minutes.

From a technical standpoint, I think it turned out pretty well. The biggest issue I'm having is getting the audio levels for all the different clips properly adjusted. the variation seems to be much more exaggerated when played on a TV than on a computer.

In terms of content, I think my story was pretty well focused and organized. I was really happy with the sound bites I got from my interviews, and I felt like I had a better sense of how to "write to" the bites this time. I still couldn't fit everything in that I wanted to, though.

I did my first stand up for this assignment. I really dislike being on camera, and I think I come across as kind of stiff and awkward. I hope it will get easier if I have to do more of these in the future.

I'm thinking about re-editing the piece and making it into something more to my taste.

I'm now starting on my last project for this class, which is a three minute multimedia piece using video and still images. I think I will feel more comfortable with this format, but it may require more planning.

Struggling with Broadcast Reporting

2010-02-07T20:22:00.000-08:00

A week and a half ago I completed my first news package for J432. It was possibly the hardest project I've ever done.

I had a number of technical problems (mostly with mics not working properly), which made the footage from two of my six interviews unusable. I always record audio on two channels, using both the on-camera mic and another one directed at the subject (usually a lav), so that I will have some ambient sound in addition to the voice, but also as a back-up, so that if the some of the audio from one is unusable I will still have something. Maybe I had the levels too low on the on-camera mic, or maybe there was too much ambient noise, but I had no usable sound. Will have to be more diligent about using headphones for sound checks, and not just relying on the camera's audio meters.

Working alone, I'm finding is very difficult. I enjoy writing questions and conducting interviews by myself, but lugging all the equipment is a serious physical challenge, and the amount of time it takes to set up is substantially longer than it was when I worked with a group or even a partner. I sometimes feel overwhelmed trying to make small talk with interviewees (not one of my strengths) while I'm setting up and trying to make sure I'm not forgetting anything (white balancing, checking audio levels, etc).

I also struggled with focus. There turned out to be a lot more to the story than I initially realized, and I couldn't fit everything into my two-minute piece. I had to leave out a lot of information that I thought was important, and really struggled with writing a voice over that filled in the information I couldn't pack in with sound bites.

I also found writing in TV news style really challenging. I hadn't done formal news writing in a while prior to this class, and writing for broadcast is a truly daunting task for me.

I almost never watch television news, partly because I don't own a functional television, but also because I usually don't like television news. Trying to emulate something that I generally find to be formulaic and insincere is pretty frustrating.

I do really like some radio news,particularly what I hear on public radio, but I don't think much of it adheres to the style my instructor expects me to use for these assignments.

Radio Lab host Jad Abumrad, for example, probably doesn't sound "authoritative" enough, and sometimes speaks in a manner that some TV news viewers might find offensive.

Personally, I think he and co-host Robert Krulwich do a fantastic job and I really value their work. I love to listen to them and trust them because they seem sincere and unpretentious, and to be genuinely interested in the information they present.

They cover topics that I know very little about (but am often curious about), but make them accessible and interesting for a general audience without making me feel like they think I'm not smart enough to understand. I also like that the show is creatively produced,using music and sound bites to aurally illustrate ideas in way traditional news shows would never dare.

I can't think of any daily news shows on radio or television that I have this sort of appreciation for. Maybe that's the curse of daily news. When something has to be done immediately, I suppose there isn't much room for creativity or really trying to draw your audience in in a sustained manner. Of course the short format of daily news is also extremely limiting.

I find short format really unappealing. I really enjoy doing a lot of research on a topic, and producing things that are visually interesting is really important to me.

I suppose it's good for me to get experience with this kind of work, but I'm really looking forward to next term when I'll finally be in Documentary TV Production.

It's Going to be a Busy Term!

2010-01-11T19:40:00.000-08:00

Week two of winter term has begun. I don't have any Monday classes, but managed to stay busy today.

The weather wasn't bad so I walked to campus. I submitted another application for office space for the University Film Organization. I really hope we get it. We really need a physical space! Also did some online planning for a group assignment and then headed over to Cafe Yumm for the first My Eugene meeting.

I'm really looking forward to getting started with my internship। It sounds like it will be really flexible, so I won't have to worry about time conflicts, which is great for me, because I'm often busy with UFO and We Make the Media activities. There are seven other interns, all of whom are J school students, and we each chose a couple of assignments we're interested in working on. Additionally, we each submit three events to the calendar per week, so if anyone knows of any cool stuff going on around Eugene, please let me know about it!

Internship with My Eugene

2009-12-21T23:25:00.000-08:00

This winter I will be starting an internship with the community news site My Eugene. Jaculynn Peterson, who runs the site out of her home, interviewed me over the phone yesterday and told me a bit about it.

She started the site when she was new to the city, and used it to record her discoveries about her new home. She now has between six and 10 thousand unique visitors per month, and receives far more story suggestions than she can keep up with on her own.

She has decided to take on a number of interns and to redesign and expand the site. She says we will work on group projects as well as individual assignments. She plans to schedule a team meeting soon so that we can all meet each other and to discuss the plans in more detail.

I think this is going to be a great opportunity for me to get experience with local, non-commercial, multimedia journalism, and work with some like-minded people.

The New York Times Continues to Embrace New Tools

2009-12-20T15:05:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was reading a fascinating article about Nancy Meyers, one of the very few successful female Hollywood directors, on the New York Times Magazine website. I came across a word that I didn't know and highlighted it, with the intention of pasting into a search engine, when a little speech bubble with a question mark in it popped up, as if the word itself was beckoning me to ask it about itself. I had never seen this before, and was intrigued. I clicked the bubble and a reference page opened up in a new window!

After playing around with it a bit, I've found that your results will vary. Sometimes you'll get entries from multiple dictionaries and a thesaurus, sometimes just one basic dictionary definition. Results for proper names are mixed: selecting the Beatles yields entries from Columbia Encyclopedia, the Fine Arts Dictionary, and WordNet, but nothing comes up for film score composerHans Zimmer or the recent film "The Dark Knight." Nothing comes up for "Skyping" and "cougar" has only one definition (which does not apply to the word's use in the article).

It's an imperfect tool, but I imagine it will improve with time. Innovations like this are what make the New York Times website one of the best news sources. The New York Times is one of the few big papers that has truly embraced the move to digital and is using new technology to make news more accessible. Rather than dumbing down the writing to reach a broader audience, the paper (news entity? news organization?) continues to produce thought-provoking, original stories, and has simply made it easier for readers to look up the words they don't know!

The New York Times, like all legacy media, has faced and will continue to face many challenges as technology and the demands of consumers change, but has demonstrated that it is pragmatic and adaptable, and I believe that it will continue to be one of the most respected and widely-read national news sources.

The New York Times' website is more appealing than the print paper, not just because it is free and easy to access, but because it encourages and rewards its readers' curiosity in ways a print edition never could. If anything, this is evidence that the future of journalism is not the bleak, watered-down drivel that many fear it will be. If those who truly care about good journalism work towards using new tools to make news better, rather than seeing them as a threat, the journalism of the future could be far better than any we have known.

Multi-Media Non-Profit News Group Update

2009-12-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

Last night myself and 11 other We Make the Media attendees interested in forming a multi-media non-profit in Portland met to discuss further plans for the organization.

After much discussion, the group decided as a next step to break into two subgroups, which will work on the organization's values, and on researching existing non-profit news organizations, respectively. Both subgroups plan to meet again in the next couple of weeks to get started, and the whole group will get back together at the end of January to report back on what has been accomplished, and to select a name for the organization. One member also volunteered to meet with a lawyer to discuss filing for 501C3 status.

There was also discussion of merging the group with another breakout group from WMTM. This group, headed by Think Out Loud host Emily Harris, is focused on local investigative journalism, and seemingly has a lot of overlapping goals with our group.

Other things we discussed that will begin to take shape over the next few months are constructing a business model and putting together a board of directors.

We elected Colin Lovett, who put together a Google site for the group, chair, and I volunteered to be secretary. My meeting minutes should make future blog posts about our meetings easy.

Finals Week Begins

2009-12-07T02:17:00.000-08:00

I spent most of the weekend working on my J331 group dramatic short. We are nearly done shooting it, and I started editing yesterday. The rough cut of the first scene I edited is up on Vimeo.

We are meeting with our actors at noon tomorrow to get the last few shots we need, and then we can focus on editing (and our other finals). I have a paper for my Media Aesthetics class due on Tuesday, and then I can devote all my time to the short films.

I'm really happy with how both of them are looking and am pleasantly surprised at how well the members of my group work together. We're hoping to get the last of our editing done on Wednesday, so that we can relax and start celebrating before our class screening on Thursday evening.

I'm usually nervous before showing final projects, but so far I'm feeling pretty good about these, even with quite a bit of work still ahead of my group. I suppose because it's a group project, I don't feel like there's quite so much attention on me, but I think a big part of it is that I am finally starting to feel like I know what I'm doing. Even earlier this term I felt overwhelmed even with relatively small projects, but this time, once I got focused, I really felt like I knew exactly what needed to be done.

Twitter as an original source

2009-11-29T21:05:00.000-08:00

Criticism of the Oregonian's reporting on Ted Wheeler's ski injury sparked a Twitter discussion on the ethics of quoting Twitter posts.

Ian Malkasian (@ianmal) wrote "running stories w/ twitter as a primary source is risky & in my mind poor journalistic judgment." In another Tweet he posed the question"in the absence of no other corroborating info. is the twitter stream of an elected official on the record?"I re-Tweeted the question and got a few responses.

Betsy Richter (@betsywhim) replied "yes. In the Wheeler case, you have the photograph, which corroborates his story, plus the Tweets from his wife. plus he's already gone on record as stating communicating via Twitter/Facebook fosters government transparency/good comms practice."

T.A. Barnhart wrote "Ted thinks so."

Ronald Morgan (@rhyzome) answered "Um, yeah, as is an email, phone call or any other media."

Suzi Steffen (@SuziSteffen) directed me to an episode of OPB's(@opb) Think Out Loud (@thinkoutloudopb) from October, in which Ted Wheeler, who was a guest on the show, discussed his thoughts on the the benefits of using social media such as Twitter and Facebook. "When you read the Tweets, they come from me directly, warts and all.... What you see on Twitter is what you get. That is your county chair." He goes on to say that Tweets are governed by the same public records laws as e-mail and other public communications. "I just assume that everything that I put out there is public information..." he explained. He did note that the law has not been able to keep up with technology, so this may not always be the case.

I'm interested to hear more thoughts and opinions on this topic.

Oregon Live is Anything But

2009-11-29T13:44:00.000-08:00

The Oregonian's web site, OregonLive.com, failed to report on Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler's broken back resulting from a ski accident, hours after Wheeler broke the story via Twitter this morning until about 3PM. Shortly after Wheeler's Twitter post appeared the story was reported by Our PDX, KGW, and Matt Davis' blog on the Portland Mercury's Blogtown. At 2:52, after Multnomah County issued a press release , Oregon Live posted their story, which contained no original information, and did not mention Twitter. Many on Twitter are wondering what their excuse is. The Portland Tribune, which beat the Oregonian by a couple of hours, at least attempted to reach Wheeler for comment, and posted a link to his web site, which they noted includes a link to his Twitter page.

WMTM Still Going Strong

2009-11-28T11:59:00.000-08:00

A week after the We Make the Media conference in Portland, an active online discussion continues via Twitter, Google Groups, and Google Wave. Participants include many from the Portland metro area, but also a number of people like myself who aren't as centrally located, who could not stay so involved if follow-up discussion was limited to face-to-face meetings. That attendees remain so engaged suggests that the conference may have achieved what its organizers set out to do. Members of a few, if not all of the planning groups that formed at the conference, are working on ideas online and have concrete plans to meet again in person, and are also brainstorming with people from the other groups. It's too early to speculate about the success of the proposed ideas, but it seems clear that something good will come of all this!

J331 Shorts Well Underway

2009-11-27T07:54:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday my J331 production group conducted three more interviews and shot a lot of B-roll footage for our short documentary.

I watched some footage with Jenica, one of my group members, and discovered that the first few minutes of one of our tapes is useless. Not sure what's wrong with it, but it's really jerky and the sound is distorted. The footage was from our interview with the University president and our establishing shots of Johnson Hall where we met with him. We shot the interview on two cameras, so as long as we got decent sound on the other one, we should be okay. If not, we'll only have half the interview to select sound bytes from. We will definitely have to reshoot the establishing shots, but that shouldn't take long. We are very fortunate that Johnson is right by Allen Hall, so we won't have to haul equipment all the way across campus.

I think we're going to try to get one more interview next week and then we can start editing this project and start shooting our dramatic short, which is due at the same time.

I've asked Rose and Tim from UFO to be our actors, but haven't figured out our shooting schedule. Tim sprained his ankle the other day, so I'll have to find out if he's still going to be able to do it. I also need to finish writing the last scene this weekend and get a storyboard together.

This class really takes up a lot of my time, but I think it's worth it. At this point I'm feeling much more comfortable with the equipment than I did at the beginning of the term. I feel pretty confident about my shooting abilities. I'm still not as comfortable with editing as I'd like to be, but maybe by the end of these projects that will change.

We Make the Media

2009-11-22T12:23:00.000-08:00

I dragged myself out of bed early Saturday morning to attend We Make the Media, my second conference at the Turnbull Center. My husband was nice enough to drop me off before he headed over to Blitz Ladd to watch the Ohio State v. Michigan game with some of our other friends from Columbus.

I tweeted from my phone (not one of those new-fangled smart ones) throughout the day, but left my laptop at home. I'm kind of sad that I missed out on reading all the Twitter discussion that went on during the conference (which I did read as soon as I got home), but am also glad that I was able to focus my attention on what was actually being said in the room. I think the tweeters made a lot of good observations, but I also thought some of the comments were rather dismissive and disrespectful of the older attendees, who were less media savvy, but very experienced and knowledgeable in other areas, and certainly every bit as passionate about working for change as the younger crowd.

After checking in, I ran out for some coffee and made it back in plenty of time to get seated and somewhat caffeinated before Joe Smith took the floor and introduced keynote speaker Steven A. Smith, a seasoned newspaper man who grew up in Portland and Eugene, and attended U of O and Ohio State (I'm always intrigued by the number of people who seem to move back and forth between these two O states). Everything he said about the industry was in line with what I've been hearing at school and at other conferences: everything's going electronic, there are serious funding problems that no one's figured out how to handle yet, shrinking newsrooms are leading to a decline in the quality and quantity of news being produced, small local papers are doing the best, etc.

Next a panel of media professionals introduced the topics of the breakout groups and then Joe Smith opened the floor up to the roomful of journalists, who had more to say (much of which they had already been tweeting) than I think he anticipated. One of the proposed breakout groups was replaced by an "Unconference" group that planned to tackle a number of the issues that attendees felt were being overlooked.

I decided to go to the OPB group, which was focused on expanding the organization and possibly forming a new non-profit. There were about 15 people who stayed for the duration of the session, and about 10 more who popped in briefly, often just long enough to share their opinions and avoid hearing those of others. It was kind of strange, I thought. I was also surprised by how much hostility developed during the session.

There was certainly a divide, which was apparent the whole day, between those who were more into new media, and more open to new methods, and the more old-school crowd, who seemed not to take Twitter and blogs very seriously, which I think fueled some productive discussion about the role of citizen journalists and how they can be included without dismissing or hurting "real" journalists (or how we can even make such distinctions), and how to be more inclusive of marginalized groups in the media; but there also seemed to be some tension that I had a hard time placing. I suppose when you put that many smart, vocal people in a room you're bound to have some clashes of personality. I certainly came away with a better understanding of the range of opinions on a number of topics, and hope others did, too.

In the end, I think our group came up with some good ideas about how to improve OPB, but there wasn't much discussion about forming a new non-profit, and after our group representative presented to the room, Joe Smith suggested that OPB move ahead with some of the proposed actions, but that we not continue to discuss it as a group.

After all the groups presented, individuals formed more specific proposals for actions, which all of the attendees voted on by way of a complex hand-rasing system. I think new technology could have saved a lot of time and frustration there. I'd certainly jump at the opportunity to use the iclicker I was required to spend upwards of $30 on for my Grammar for Journalists class last year (and have never used since).

Over the course of the afternoon, there was a noticeable decline in the size of the group. I'm not sure how many people left because of other obligations, and how many just felt that nothing productive was going to come from the conference.

Finally, after about eight hours of trying to figure out how such a large group of people with such disparate ideas could take action together to improve the outlook of journalism in Portland, we broke into smaller groups once more to make concrete plans.

I joined a group that plans to create a new non-profit multi-media entity. Ron Buel, one of the conference organizers and founding editor and publisher of Willamette Week (and another UO alum), was appointed discussion leader. I think we may collaborate with some of the other groups. We're planning to meet again in three weeks. Hope this goes somewhere!

Lots of others are blogging about this event. I'll add to this list as I find more:

Thoughts From the Spiral
Carla Axtman on Blue Oregon
360 Convos
Reporting 1 Blog
Civics 21
Still a Newspaper Man
Joe Wilson
Oregon Media Central
Ran Dum Thots

nozzlmedia
WordCount
T.A. Barnhart

Electronic Media FInal Projects

2009-11-17T15:24:00.000-08:00

For my Video Production class I am working with a group on two final projects: an evergreen documentary and a dramatic short. For the documentary we are doing a piece on the new Services for Student Athletes building that is currently under construction on the corner of Agate and 13th.

We've done three interviews this week: one with a cheerleader who uses SSA, one with an SSA tutor, and one with the university's new president Richard Lariviere.

We did the first two on Monday evening at the current SSA building. It was a struggle to lug all our gear(two cameras, two tripods, a light kit, a shotgun mic, a boom pole, some extra cords) all the way from Allen Hall to Mac Court, but we managed. We didn't have much space in the room they let us use, but we made it work. The interviews went smoothly and we finished on schedule.

This afternoon we did our third interview, and that was a little more challenging. We were all a little nervous about interviewing the University President, and we had only a half hour to set up and conduct the interview. The room provided for us was spacious and allowed us more control over our setup than the previous one. We closed all the shades to block out the sunlight and set up three point lighting. We rearranged the furniture a little bit and got our cameras set up. All of this took slightly longer than we anticipated, but we got everything looking really nice.

We informed the receptionist that we were ready and President Lariviere came in and sat down. We got him miked and let him look at our question list, and were just about to start shooting when all of our lights went out. Someone in the office flipped a breaker and they came back on, but we lost some valuable time. We conducted the interview as best we could in the short time we had left, and we all felt that we got some good sound bytes, but it was certainly a nerve-racking experience.

We're planning to do a few more interviews in the next week and then focus our attention on shooting the dramatic short.

'In the Rain' Almost Finished!

2009-11-12T19:28:00.000-08:00

We only have one scene left to shoot for "In the Rain" and then we begin the post-production phase. We began this project with no budget, and have all been working for free and paying for things (food, gas, lighting equipment, wardrobe, props, etc.) out-of-pocket as we go. In hopes of being able to refund the cast and crew for some of their expenses and of being able to promote and distribute the film when it's finished, I decided to give the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo a try.

We have all worked very hard to make this film a reality. Most of us are students, and are broke, so we'd be thrilled if we got back some of the money we put into it, and more importantly if we could afford to promote the film and get DVDs made so that people will get to see what we've done! If you can spare even a few dollars and would like to support our efforts, it would be a tremendous help to us!

the State of the Film Industry

2009-11-08T22:13:00.001-08:00

I spent the weekend in Portland, where I attended the What is Film? conference at the UO's Turnbull Center. I learned a lot about the global, national, and northwest film industries. The focus of the conference was on changes in the industry, especially of the technological variety.

Much of the discussion was focused on problems the industry faces "in the digital age," (keynote speaker Bryce Zabel joked during his presentation that "in the digital age" is now tacked onto the end of conference panels in much the same manor as "in bed" is tacked onto the end of cookie fortunes).

Funding problems for both Hollywood and independent film were a hot topic. Hollywood is having increasing problems as the move to digital formats makes piracy more common. For indies the greatest challenges are coming up with start up money and getting a film distributed in the first place. Today I heard about the tremendous jump in popularity Double Edge Films' new movie Ink experienced as the result of illegal file sharing. They are responding positively. Could this be the new marketing model for indie films or will this be damaging to them in the long run?

While funding and distribution problems are certainly daunting, I was most disheartened by how few of the filmmakers at the conference were women. All three of the keynote speakers were men, as were the majority of panelists. There were a lot of women on the academic panels, but almost none on the Friday panels that focused on working in the industry. In an area like the pacific northwest, known for its progressive values, I expected women to be better represented.

Friday night I checked out some short films (some of them quite good) that the Northwest Film Center showed as part of the Northwest Film and Video Festival. I was pleased to see that a number of the filmmakers, including Heather Harlow, director of best of show winner Nous Deux Encore, were women.

Word Clouds

2009-11-05T01:03:00.000-08:00

As someone who loves both language and visual communication, I am a huge fan of word clouds, which I'm suddenly seeing everywhere! I saw a Wordle image on Male Hipster Leering and was immediately intrigued. Above is a Wordle image of this blog. I think I really lucked out with the color scheme!

Busy, Busy, Busy....

2009-11-04T00:31:00.000-08:00

@MYMHM on Twitter was nice enough to send me a Google Wave invitation in exchange for retweeting a link to their latest episode, which I was happy to do. It took a few days for the invitation to arrive in my inbox, which gave me a chance to read about it a bit, mostly on Twitter, which did little to clarify for me exactly what it does. I finally got to try it out today, but so few people have access to it yet that it's difficult to tell how functional or cool it is yet. I am intrigued, at the very least.

At tonight's University Film Organization we did a lot of planning, and should be pretty busy for the next few weeks.

Tomorrow we are shooting more of a short written by club member Rose Guess, which we started on a couple of weeks ago.

Thursday night a couple of club members and I are driving up to Portland for the weekend to attend What is Film?, which I am very excited about. If we have time, we may go check out the Northwest Film Center's 36th NW Film and Video Festival, though I fear we have too much else to do.

We have also broken into two small groups to make music videos for folk musician Will Hobbs of Portland and metal band Straitjacket Seduction of Columbus, Ohio. We will start pre-production next week in club.

In addition to all of that, I have plenty of classwork to keep me occupied right now. My third video assignment for J331 is due next Monday. I also have exams on Monday and Tuesday and a project for my Media Aesthetics class due Tuesday.

I really can't afford to slack at all, as I am trying to bring up my GPA in order to increase my chances of getting into a graduate program next year (not that I'm sure yet that that's what I want to do). I will also have to take the GRE very soon.

I hope I can make it through the rest of the term without getting swine flu!

J Skills in the Media Convergence Era

2009-10-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks, WoodysWorldTV, for tweeting this video, in which Alan Murray of the Wall Street Journal discusses finding and building an audience and marketing your work.

These are the same points that many of the panelists made at the Oregon Society of Professional Journalists' Building a Better Journalist conference at U of O last weekend. Many professional journalists today are struggling to make digital media work for them. While tools such as blogs and social media sites can be hugely beneficial to journalists, and are becoming increasingly necessary, they present a substantial challenge.

I feel very fortunate to be starting to get a handle on digital media while I'm in school, rather than trying to learn it all on the job. As an Electronic Media major, I'm learning a lot about broadcast in my classes, but so far, discussion of how to produce media for the web has been peripheral. I spend many hours a week exploring these tools on my own, and while I use many of them regularly, I'm still learning how to use them effectively. It's sometimes difficult to determine what's worth spending time on and what's just a fad or only of real use for socializing with friends.

I first heard about Twitter about a year ago when I attended the OSPJ's 2008 conference here in Eugene. I joined immediately, mostly out of curiosity. It wasn't until recently that I began to use it regularly. When Twitter comes up in conversation, people often scoff, but I'm really impressed with how useful it's becoming for me. In addition to getting news updates from the New York Times, NPR, and various other major outlets, I get a lot of useful information from individuals working in media, which I can't imagine having found elsewhere. It's incredible the breadth of information I can get in a few minutes just by scrolling through recent tweets:links to videos, articles, and blogs; event listings; professional advice; etc.

The downside is that it has taken quite a lot of time for me to get to the point where sites like this are really becoming useful to me, and I still have a lot to learn. Learning to use something like Twitter effectively is akin to learning a new language. In addition to becoming able to communicate very concisely (tweets are limited to 140 characters) there are conventions and tags one must learn to use in order to communicate effectively. For example using "RT" to denote that something is a "retweet" and using "#" to create a "hashtag."

New social media sites crop up all the time, and it can be overwhelming trying to determine in which ones it's worth becoming literate. The newest one I've joined is Cinchcast, which is a lot like Twitter, but allows users to post photos and to record audio directly via their phones. So far users can only post mobile photos using an iPhone application, so people like myself, who don't have iPhones can only upload photos from their computers, but the site's developers are extremely responsive to user feedback, and are working on improving it so that it's more useful. There aren't many people using it yet, and a huge portion of the posts at the moment are "test" posts form new users trying to figure out how the site works. I'm excited about the site's potential, but only time will tell whether it will become as popular and useful as Twitter.

Video Production

2009-10-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

Last February, which you may note is when I stopped writing here, the University Film Organization began shooting a feature length film called In the Rain. I am director of photography for the project, and as it turns out, that's a big job.

It's been especially tough because the club has almost no funding, which means we have to use all our own equipment, which is far from professional. It can be really frustrating for me going from working on small class projects with really nice cameras, tripods, lights, etc. to working on a huge long-term project without such things. I often find that I'm unable to do what I would like to because what we have is inadequate. Even doing simple moving shots like tilts and pans is near impossible if your tripod doesn't allow for smooth movement.

We planned to finish production before the end of the school year, but that didn't happen, and then many members of our cast and crew left for the summer. We have just begun shooting again, and only have about 10 scenes left before the film goes into post-production. We've been keeping a production blog, which contains a lot of photos and updates about our progress.

I've been elected president of the club for the 2009/2010 school year, and that has been keeping me pretty busy. We have a lot of new members this year, some of whom bring a lot of skills to the table. I'm really excited about working with them, as well as our returning members from last year.

I have started looking for video production internships, and am not having much luck so far. I hope to start one this winter or spring. Chambers isn't offering any right now, but said they might in the spring, so I guess I'll have to keep checking back with them. I'd really like to get some hands-on experience using professional equipment in a professional environment.

Keep printing?

2009-02-03T11:13:00.000-08:00

I've chosen the topic of '"selling" newspapers in a digital age' for my J203 term project. I've just begun my research, and a few days ago came across this excellent blog by Alan Mutter. He has a lot to say about the future of the newspaper business, some of it quite at odds with what I've been hearing elsewhere, for example this: "almost every newspaper company still needs to print newspapers if it wants to stay in business."

The New York Times on Bishop Williamson

2009-01-24T13:07:00.000-08:00

In a piece from today's New York Times on Pope Benedict's reinstatement of four bishops, Rachel Donadio wrote"a particularly contentious part of the reinstatement on Saturday was the inclusion of Richard Williamson, a British-born cleric who in an interview last week said he did not believe that six million Jews died in the Nazi gas chambers."

Williamson's Antisemitism, which Telegraph writer Damian Thompson wrote about in his blog last March, is newsworthy, but you would never know it from Donadio's words, or at least not unless you read carefully and made it to the twelfth paragraph, where she explains 'in a November interview broadcast on Swedish television last week and widely available on the Internet, the bishop said that he believed that “the historical evidence” was hugely against the conclusion that millions of Jews had been “deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.”' The key word here is "millions."

In this quote Williamson denied that "millions" of Jews were killed in gas chambers, which is entirely different from denying, as Donadio wrote before, that 6 million Jews were gassed. If he had said the latter, he would have been factually accurate, and this statement alone would not be evidence of his Holocaust denial.

It has been well documented that Approximately 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, but they did not all die in gas chambers. An estimated 3.5 million, slightly more than half, were killed in this way. The rest died in a variety of other horrific ways including disease that resulted from the unthinkable living conditions in concentration camps, shooting, medical experimentation, and suicide. That they were not all killed in gas chambers does not make their deaths any less horrific nor does it make the Nazis any less guilty.

Most of my Jewish ancestors who did not emigrate to the United States from Eastern Europe were never heard from again, and were probably killed by the Nazis in one way or another, and I cannot say that I would be relieved to learn that their cause of death was not gassing. What matters is that they were murdered in a genocide.

It is important that we get the historical facts right. Repeating false statistics does nothing to rectify the atrocities of the Holocaust or to educate the public about them. We can simply say that 6 million Jews were murdered. That fact is both accurate and devastating.

Donadio should investigate Williamson's anti-Semitism further. His denial of the Holocaust is just the tip of the iceberg. She should also get her facts straight.

Obama and Adams in the news

2009-01-22T11:26:00.000-08:00

I spent the long weekend (no classes on Martin Luther King Jr. Day) in Portland, and watched clips from the inauguration on CNN.com before driving back to Eugene on Tuesday afternoon. I listened to further Obama coverage on KOPB until the signal faded, and then switched to KLCC. It was a little anti-climactic for me, after all the excitement of the campaign and election night, and most of the coverage wasn't too insightful, though All Things Considered had an interesting analysis of Obama's inaugural address including a comparison to speeches of previous presidents.

What's been more interesting in the past few days is the coverage of the Sam Adams scandal, which is getting almost as much attention in Portland's papers as our new president.

Perhaps more interesting than the news coverage itself is the debate that's going on in the comment sections that follow the online stories, such as those on the websites of Willamette Week, who broke the story, and the Oregonian. The response is surprisingly thoughtful and intelligent, expressing a variety of opinions about Adams' actions, whether or not he should step down, and on the media's coverage of the story. That's something you don't get when you pick up a hard copy of the newspaper. I'm really glad to be able to follow the responses of Portlanders from my computer here in Eugene.

Winter Term Begins

2009-01-14T19:56:00.000-08:00

I am halfway into my second week of winter term. I think the combination of classes and extracurricular activities I'm participating in are going to keep me pretty busy, which makes me almost relieved that I am not working right now (the restaurant I was at since I moved here just went under). My hope is that I won't have time to spend money.

I am now taking Writing for the Media, the last of my pre-Journalism classes. I think it's going to be challenging, but I expect to learn a lot. I am glad that I took Intro to Media Writing at PCC before transferring. It is a definite bonus to be somewhat familiar with the basic concepts. I got back my first graded assignment today, which I did not edit it as carefully as I should have. I am relieved that we are given the opportunity to resubmit.

I have joined Duck U, for which I get 1 credit, but more importantly I get hands-on experience working with professional equipment. So far I have gotten to work with a pretty nice digital video camera, and have gotten some practice setting up lights.

I am also going to be shooting video for UFO's major project for the year, a feature-length (or close to it) romantic comedy about FBI agents working in Eugene. The film is untitled as of now, but the script was just finished, and we are planning to hold auditions in a couple of weeks. I think this is going to take up a lot of my time, but I think it will be a valuable experience and am looking forward to it.

2008-12-09T23:13:00.000-08:00

I finished finals yesterday. My Grammar exam was about what I expected, and I think I did pretty well. My German Cinema exam was a little more challenging than I anticipated, but I think I did okay, if not as well as I would have liked. Now that Fall term is over I can focus my full attention on freaking out about what I should be doing for the next 6 terms.

I'm still debating a double major/minor. I registered for a third year German class, thinking that I wanted to do a minor in German. This would require 6 more courses including the one I am registered for, and would not postpone my graduation date as long as I don't take off a term from my Journalism major to study abroad. However, the language immersion program in Tuebingen is awfully tempting. It's something that I would really like to do and think would be a valuable experience, but I think it would be wiser to finish my bachelor's degree as quickly as possible and go on with foreign language some time in the future. I also fear 3rd year German grammar would have a detrimental effect on my GPA.

I think I am going to declare an Art minor because I already have a ton of art credits, and I think I would only need to take three more studio classes, which I think I could do pretty easily over the summer. I plan to look into how much more I would need for a major. If it won't interfere with my graduation plan I will probably do it.

I am also looking into the Film Certificate offered by the English department. I think that my Electronic Media and Art courses would fulfill most of the requirements, and I would only need two additional courses, but I need to check with an adviser.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by all the possibilities. I have so many options and am not sure how to predict what will be most beneficial to me in the future. What I am feeling is well-expressed in a recent episode of WNYC's Radiolab entitled Choice.

Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, and Technology

2008-12-03T01:25:00.000-08:00

I am at the library (open 24 hours, much to my liking) finishing up a paper on montage in German Expressionist film and Walter Benjamin's essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction for my German Cinema class.

In the piece Benjamin argues that technology redefined art:

"The nineteenth-century dispute as to the artistic value of painting versus photography today seems devious and confused. This does not diminish its importance, however; if anything, it underlines it. The dispute was in fact the symptom of a historical transformation the universal impact of which was not realized by either of the rivals. When the age of mechanical reproduction separated art from its basis in cult, the semblance of its autonomy disappeared forever. The resulting change in the function of art transcended the perspective of the century; for a long time it even escaped that of the twentieth century, which experienced the development of the film.

Earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of whether photography is an art. The primary question—whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art—was not raised. Soon the film theoreticians asked the same ill-considered question with regard to the film. But the difficulties which photography caused traditional aesthetics were mere child’s play as compared to those raised by the film."

Discussing this section in my paper, I couldn't help thinking of a Marshall McLuhan quote that Rick Seifert, one of my Journalism teachers at PCC, often repeated: "the medium is the message."

Changing Media and Political Organizing

2008-11-17T19:18:00.000-08:00

From a New York Times piece on Howard Dean

...[I]t was Dean, back when Obama was still serving in the Illinois State Senate, who first introduced his party to the idea that, in the Internet age, a campaign could be built from the ground up, that door-to-door organizing could matter more than TV ads.

High Demand for Post-Election Newspapers

2008-11-06T22:27:00.000-08:00

It comes as no surprise that Tuesday's election sent newspaper sales skyrocketing. "Apparently looking for something old to go with something new (Barack Obama) and something blue (a more Democratic Congress), the American people bought newspapers in huge numbers Wednesday, a day after the historic election of the nation's first black president," wrote James Rainey in today's LA Times. My sentiments exactly.

I usually read the New York Times online (unless I want to do the crossword puzzle), but yesterday morning I made a point of snagging one of the remaining free copies UO provides to students. Somehow holding the paper in my hands and seeing the word "Obama" across the top made the election results real for me. Up until that point I think I half believed that it could be undone (maybe that's just because I'm from Ohio).

Maybe I should have grabbed a few copies. They seem to be a hot commodity.

My copy is not for sale, however. I'd like to show it to my future children one day and let them try to imagine a time when people doubted that we could have a black president and you could read about it in something called a "newspaper."

2008 Election Coverage

2008-11-04T12:47:00.000-08:00

Election coverage this year seems to be all about user participation.

This will be my first election sans-TV. In '04 my roommates and I actually went to the thrift store and bought one just to watch the debates and election returns. This year I thought about it, but decided not to bother. Like many people in my age group I will get most of my news tonight from internet sources (although I will be listening to public radio coverage at work this evening).

For months now I've been frequenting the Election 2008 sections of various online news sources and have been pretty impressed with how sophisticated they have become.

The New York Times' Politics section has a couple of unique features. One called Your State of Mind is a box in which adjectives scroll across the screen from left to right. These are the words entered by visitors to the site describing their current feelings about the election (you are allowed to update your entry every 30 minutes). The words that are largest and nearest the top are the most popular entries. You can also choose to view only the words entered by people supporting Obama or McCain. It is pretty interesting to compare the two.

The other, which becomes active at 6pm, is their pop-up dashboard. It's a small window that opens up and will provide live election updates, allowing you to stay updated while visiting other websites.

They have a multimedia What to Watch for on Election Night feature with an hour-by-hour breakdown of what they expect to be significant.

The site also includes an interactive map that shows which way each state is leaning in different races and how many electoral votes it gives to the candidate. It also allows viewers to change the colors (red for republican, blue for democrat or yellow for undecided) to look at different hypothetical scenarios.

CNN's Election Center 2008 page has a Your Races column that you can personalize to include up to 35 races that you want to keep an eye on (for example the Ohio presidential race, California's proposition 8, and the Oregon senate race). They also have a map, but theirs only shows poll results. They do have other interactive features including a debate forum and a whole website called iReport where voters can share their experiences at the polls.

PBS's Vote 2008 page encourages voters to video their voting experiences and share them via YouTube. They have an interactive map similar to the New York Times', which they share with NPR's Election 2008 website. They also provide links to election-related quizzes.

MSNBC's Decision '08 website offers yet another interactive map as well as a Presidential Results widget that updates every 10 minutes and can be shared on Facebook and other such sites (available in 3 sizes!).

Moving Away from Print Media

2008-10-30T22:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a segment from PBS News Hour about some significant new developments in the move away from print media. The panel of guests includes Mark Glaser who wrote an optimistic entry on the future of journalism in his blog, Mediashift.

For a darker perspective on what's to come check out Epic 2014, a short film about the hypothetical future of the industry.

Beginning an Education in Journalism

2008-10-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

I am nearing the end of my fourth week at U of O. Halfway through my first term I am struggling to process all of the information I have gleaned, and each tidbit seems to lead to a plethora of new questions.

I am currently taking two pre-journalism courses: Grammar for Journalists and Journalism Transfer Seminar.

Perhaps the most notable thing I have discovered in my grammar class is that there is a great deal that I don't know about grammar. A lot of my fellow students seem to dislike the class, and it certainly has its problems (there are 160 students in the class, which meets for 50 minutes three times a week, which does not leave enough time for discussion or answering questions). I, however, find it fascinating. I've always been interested in language, and am excited to gain a better understanding of it.

The seminar consists largely of visits from staff members who speak about the industry and the school's program. One of the recurring themes is "the future of journalism." The program is in the process of changing in order to try to prepare students for the new and different jobs in the field. There's certainly a lot to keep up with, and it must be a daunting task for the faculty and staff.

Last weekend I attended the Society of Professional Journalists' conference Building a Better Journalist. I went to panels on political reporting (this panel included former senatorial candidate Steve Novick, of whom I am a fan), freelancing,the future of the news business, deadline writing, and blogging. Again the major focus seemed to be the tremendous changes that are occurring in the industry. Something else that came up a number of times was the debate over the significance or usefulness of having a journalism degree. Many of the speakers who are arguably successful in the industry did not have journalism degrees, and a number did not have degrees at all. Hank Stern, the news editor of Portland's Willamette Week, who moderated some of the panels at the conference said that whether or not someone has a journalism degree does not make much difference to him when he's making hiring decisions. When I went to the social hour after the conference I spoke with some working journalists from Portland and was repeatedly given two pieces of advice: "double major" and "get an internship ASAP," the points being that specialization and on-the-job experience are of great significance in the industry. Probably more-so than having a degree in journalism.

That said, I do not think that this program is a waste of my time. Even in the pre-journalism classes that I've taken so far I have learned a great deal, and feel much more prepared for a future in journalism. The degree alone may not make much difference when I am job-hunting, but I suspect that the skills I learn, the advice I get, and the connections I make will be of great value. I hope I am right.