Here we are, the final day of AU Bootcamp.  In all actuality there is really nothing final about this final day, this is only the beginning.  Yes, the first three weeks are over and we do thankfully have a week-long break.  August 24 will be here soon and the fall semester will commence.

Just three short weeks ago I knew nothing about capturing audio, video and taking pictures.  Now I have been exposed to more media forms than I originally knew existed.  I came to American University to gain the skills and produce the resume tape I need to get a job on television.  Since arriving at AU I have been exposed to a plethora of new opportunities.

On this final day of the beginning, we heard from two speakers: Jan Schaffer with the J-Lab and Jeremy Stone.

Professor Olmsted filming Jan Schaffer on the last day of AU Bootcamp

Jan Schaffer gave our group an overview of what the J-Lab does and talked about her career as a print reporter in Philadelphia.  To be honest with you, I still don’t really understand the purpose of the J-Lab or where its funding come from.  I hope that I will have time to spend latter this year getting myself better acquainted with J-Lab and its purpose.

Jeremy Stone, son of I.F. Stone

Jeremy Stone, son of famed journalist I.F Stone, was our final speaker.  Stone talked about his father’s willingness to stand up to the establishment and question authority.  Although I.F. Stone put his opinions into his writings, many people still consider him an independent voice because he questioned authority.  Jeremy Stone was very passionate about building his father’s legacy and at one point choked up during his remarks.  To learn more about I.F. Stone and his body of work visit: www.ifstone.org

We are ending Bootcamp with the third weekly quiz and time to work on our blogs.

This is my last Bootcamp blog posting, cheers!

The last full day of Bootcamp, I didn’t know if we would make it, but here we are.

This morning we watched and critiqued each others videos as a group.  Almost everyone in our group is a novice video editor/producer/shooter.  A few in the group had previous experience putting a video package together and those pieces were obvious.  Everyone was given constructive criticism, but for our first go around I think we all did well.  For some reason everyone thought the package Marcus and I produced was funny.  Comedy was not the goal, but if it was funny I’m glad they laughed.

Watching and critiquing videos took all morning.

After lunch we heard from Jim Brady, an AU alum and former Washington Post Online Editor.  Brady left the Washington Post earlier this year to start his own online publication.

Jim Brady talking about his career to Bootcampers

Brady became interested in online media when he grew tired of waiting to hear the scores of his favorite baseball team, the New York Mets.  Brady became the Sports Editor at the Washington Post online division, then moved onto AOL for a four year period.  Brady eventually returned to the Post before leaving earlier this year.

Professor Olmsted then and now

Professor Olmsted led a tutorial about writing for broadcast news.  She showed a video she produced with raw footage and then how the raw footage was put into a final package.  The tutorial was a little rushed but I am sure we will get into more detail later this year.

Learning Google Maps

To wrap up the final full day of Bootcamp, Professor Hatch showed our group how to use Google Earth and Google Maps.  I have used Google Maps before but I am new to Google Earth.  Hatch showed how we could use the free services to add an interactive component to our web stories.

Looking forward to the BBQ tomorrow at Professor Olmsted’s house.  I am going to bring cookies so I guess I will be making a grocery run tonight!

First-ever Justin Gibbs Marcus Shorter Video is in!

Marcus and I are proud of our first video.  We shot over 30 minutes of video and then edited it down to just over one minute.  I don’t think we will be winning a Peabody Award with the video, but for our first go around we are pretty proud.

Interview with Susan Zirinsky

All morning was spent editing and then uploading our video to YouTube.  I wish I had some exciting details to give, but I really don’t.  The result of the editing is a source of great pride for me, but the editing itself would be a little dry to explain.  I will say that Marcus and I work together well.  It was great getting to know Marcus better.

After lunch our group did a Skype interview with CBS producer Susan Zirinsky.  Zirinsky is an AU grad and she gave our class great information.  Before talking with Zirinsky our group watched the special CBS News and Zirinsky produced for Walter Cronkite’s death.

Zirinsky talked about her career, the advances women have made in the media and her international experiences.

Also, I think we all need to take a tutorial from the Harpo staff because Oprah’s people are the only people on Earth who know how to correctly Skype an interview.

First event of the day: FIRE DRILL

Our class outside at the fire drill

Yesterday was spent shooting video that would be compiled into a finished product.  So most of this morning was spent learning the Final Cut software needed to actually edit the raw video.

Robert Roberts was back today to teach our group the video editing.  The process was a little painful.  I thought I would never learn the program, but Roberts spent several hours with our group and did a great job explaining details.  I was beginning to wonder if my brain could absorb anymore information, but I think I am going to be alright with Final Cut.

After lunch we reviewed our slideshow projects as a group.  The group didn’t hate my group, but they didn’t love it either.  Most of the critiques centered around the lack of variety in my photos.  I admitted there could have been more variety.  None of the slideshows were perfect though.  We are beginners, we are just beginning to learn how to use the computer programs and just starting to hone our skills.

Today Robert Roberts, senior video editor with USA Today, came to class to teach our group about video editing.

Keyana and Jaun learning to use the video cameras

Roberts gave budding journalists the below tips:

• Remember that video isn’t that hard
• Video is time consuming
• The same skills that go into journalism go into video, including development of relationships
• Know your audience and medium
• Its all about the story

Professor Olmsted showing the wrong way to handle video equipment

After a few brief tips about using the video cameras we were divided into groups and sent out into the Washington heat.  Marcus and I were assigned to cover fishermen at Hanes Point just off the National Mall.  Unfortunately, the fishermen were nowhere to be found.  Marcus and I made the best of the situation and focused our attention on the tourists that were checking out the attractions on the National Mall.

Marcus and I spent three hours interviewing tourists, vendors and Washington residents about how they were coping with the hottest day of the year.

Spending the afternoon getting video footage was a welcome break from classroom learning.  Being able to get into the field and do what we came here to do was a great way to start the week.

Tomorrow we start editing!

Jim Ascendio, WAMU News Director

Jim Ascendio, News Director at WAMU, talked to our group this morning about his role as the leader of Washington’s public radio.  WAMU is owned by American University and is one of the only public radio stations in the country making money.

I hope that I will one day be lucky enough to have someone like Ascendio as my boss.  Even though WAMU is doing well financially, Ascendio is not happy to sit back and relax.  Ascendio says that he and WAMU are constantly working to stay ahead of the curve. 

Bootcamper Keyana Farkondepay

While many other public radio stations are cutting staff positions, WAMU actually added four full-time positions to its news staff.  Ascendio said that his listeners expect the best and WAMU strives to meet its listener’s standards.

Keosha Johnson talking to AU Bootcampers about her experiences at NBC

Later in the day our group was treated to a candid conversation with AU Alum Keosha Johnson.  Johnson just graduated from AU and spent a year in New York interning for NBC.  Johnson was picked from over 1000 applications to get one of six positions with NBC.  While at NBC, Johnson was able to produce segments for the Today Show and Dateline.

Bootcampers were earger to ask Johnson about her experiences at AU and what she is doing with her life now.Johnson was lucky enough to get one of the positions that WAMU created in its news department. 

Johnson told Bootcampers that the days of being just a print journalist, or radio journalist or television journalist are over.  Now journalists must be prepared to do multiple forms of journalism at the same time.

After hearing from Johnson, our group worked on our slideshow presentations.  It was not easy, but in the end I was proud of the work that I did and proud to learn a new valuable skill.

After two weeks it is obvious why this session is called Bootcamp.  We have all pushed ourselves and we will continue to push ourselves for the next 50 weeks.

Day nine of Bootcamp started on a somber note.  No one in our group was looking forward to spending the entire day in the computer labs learning how to create a slide show presentation.  Thankfully, we did not have to.

After moving from the auditorium to the computer lab, Professor Olmsted made our day.  She told us that we would be going to the National Zoo and working in pairs to capture audio and video to be used in a slide show.  Everyone was thrilled to be out of the classroom and able to get into the field.  It seems like the professors know exactly when we are at the breaking point.  Many of us were on the edge this morning, and spending the day the zoo was a welcome change.

I paired off with Leslie Byford and away we went.  After a quick bus and metro ride we arrived at the National Zoo and set out on our assignment to capture audio and photos for a slide show.

Leslie and I talked about the focus of our presentation.  After listing the obvious topics of pandas, elephants, snakes and little kids, we decided to focus our piece on a zoo employee.  We talked to a parking attendant, bus driver and then finally were directed to a guests services employee, Mr. George.

Leslie and I spent the next two hours talking to Mr. George and other zoo employees.  We learned that Mr. George is considered the “backbone” on the National Zoo.

After returning to the AU campus our entire group was given brief instructions about putting the audio and photos into a presentation.  Then it was baptism by fire, the AU way!  We dove in head first and started production on our slide show.

We have reached the half way point of AU Bootcamp.  The past week and a half have gone by so quickly and we have all been bombarded with so much new information and knowledge.  I don’t know exactly what I will be doing professionally in ten years, but I do know the information I have learned will be helpful.  We have heard from some fascinating speakers, taken an awesome field trip and been exposed to an incredible amount of technology.  All this in only 8 days!

Student Lauryn Smith takes photos for her blog

This morning started on a bit of a depressing note.  It seems that nearly everyday our group is given information about new equipment that we need to purchase.  $150 for a Flip Cam, $100 for a digital audio recorder, $200 for an external hard drive, $1600 for a Mac Book Pro, the list seems to have no end.  That’s a lot of money for grad students who live on Ramen noodles. At this point we are not required to buy anything and American University does have equipment we can use.  Everyone appreciates the fact that the university has equipment to loan out.

Professor Olmsted showing different types of digital audio recorders

Professor Olmsted showed us several different kinds of digital audio recorders available for purchase.  Everything from the Marant 620 on the high end to a small Olympus recorder on the low end.  We were also shown microphones we could buy to go with the audio recorders.

Our speaker today, Deborah Bolling, was the most entertaining speaker to date.  Bolling has enjoyed a 30-year career as a journalist, film producer, music video producer and most recently a teacher.  Bolling shared a documentary she produced with high school and college freshmen chronicling President Obama’s inauguration on the National Mall.  The documentary used still photos, video and audio clips to produce a true multimedia experience.

Brianna Pellicane recording sounds heard on the Quad

Bolling took our group outside onto the Quad to record sounds.  We then used the sounds we recorded to write a story.  The exercise was designed to get us to start showing what is happening instead of just telling what is happening.

Erissa Scalera using her Flip cam to record Deborah Bolling

Bolling gave some parting advice to our group saying, “When they walk away from your story they should be able to tell the story themselves.”

This afternoon we honed our skills with editing audio clips.  Considering I have only spent one afternoon working with the Audacity editing program, I feel like I am understanding it better than some of the other skills we are trying to learn.  I hope you can take a minute and listen to the short audio clip I recorded and edited from my classmate Sean Connolly about his impressions of Deborah Bolling:

Professor Hatch concluded class today by showing us a few multimedia projects that he worked on for USA Today.  Although it is not necessarily important that we know how to design and construct multimedia projects, we do at least need to understand what is possible.

Note to self for tomorrow: bring a jacket, the computer lab is cold enough to hang meat in!

So this morning was one of the coolest parts of Bootcamp so far.

John Pomfret, a career international correspondent, spoke to our group about reporting from war torn nations.  Pomfret reported from China during the tension of the Tienanmen Square Massacre, from Hong Kong, form the Persian Gulf during the First Gulf War, from Bosnia during the Bosnian War and from the Congo during that countries time of war.

John Pomfret talks about his career as a foreign correspondent

Pomfret spoke about the rush he and other journalists get from reporting and covering news while bullets are flying inches above their heads.  I don’t know that anyone who has not been in a war zone can really appreciate what Pomfret and other war journalists go through to report the news.  When reporting from China, Pomfret noted that the Chinese Government tapped his cell phone, land line phone, office and apartment.  The Chinese also tried to pay Pomfret’s assistance to leak details about his report.

Pomfret gave budding journalists tw0 pieces of advice to land a foreign correspondent job:

1. Learn a foreign language

2. Develop an area of expertise like business, the environment or public policy

During his long career, Pomfret had several close calls.  One on occasion a bomb detonated and Pomfret lived to tell the story, while his friend did not.  Danger is a reality for most foreign correspondents.

Later in the morning we had the chance to hear from Chuck Lewis, a dedicated investigative journalist. Lewis worked as Mike Wallace’s executive producer and founded the Center for Public Integrity.

Professor Olmsted introducing Chuck Lewis

Chuck Lewis is the coolest guy we have heard from to date.  Anyone who wants to, “get the bastards’” is a good guy in my book.  During his long career Lewis helped exposed some of the biggest scandals of our time.  Lewis and company broke the story about the no-bid contracts awarded to Halliburton.

Chuck Lewis, master investigative journalist

Lewis listed signposts as to how investigative journalism is expanding to include online media:

1. The Pulitzer Prize has opened its doors to none newspaper media

2. The AP invited 4 non-for-profit online media outlets to submit content to the AP and be distributed on the AP network

3. The formation of the Investigative News Network

According to almost every speakers we have heard from so far, the future of journalism looks bleak.  Lewis disagrees.  According to Lewis the “hey day of investigative reporting is yet to come.”

During the afternoon we had time to catch our breath.  I have tried to be a sponge and soak up as much information as possible.  Thankfully this afternoon we had time to work individually with teachers to improve our skills on the blogs.  Everyone needed and appreciated the time we were given.

“Hey mom did you sign up to get my tweets?”

“Your tweets, I thought you hated birds?”

“My tweets have nothing to do with birds, most of the time I am just talking about random stuff.”

“Then why don’t you just tell me?”

“Because mom, when I tweet I am talking to more than just you.”

The above is how a Twitter conservation would go with my mom.  I have to admit I am not Twitter’s biggest aficionado, but after today I have a new respect for the social networking site.

Josh Hatch talks about social networking

Josh Hatch, the Multimedia Producer at USA Today, kicked off day six of AU bootcamp.  Hatch talked about search engine optimization (SEO) and the wonders of social networking.  The SEO information was actually really great.  By using good key words in the headlines of articles, search engines are then able to find the articles easier.  Of course if the articles are more easily found, then they will be read by more people.  The SEO information will hopefully help us all get more attention to anything we post online, its all about understanding the way search engines filter information and making our headlines as friendly as possible to search engines.

Hatch gave our group two strategies for making our headlines search-engine-friendly:

1. Use language search engines will respond to

2. Build a navigation display into the website that will display in search engine results

My favorite part of the day was learning about new social networking programs.  I am of the Facebook generation, so I thought social networking would be a piece of cake.  Not so.  Although I have had a profile on Facebook for over five years I have not even begun to scratch the surface as to what is available with social networks.  Since starting graduate school at AU just one week ago I have created user accounts with wordpress, twitter, flickr, youtube and delicious.

Before today I thought Twitter was either for famous people or people who are socially awkward and don’t have any real friends.  After today I appreciate the fact that Twitter is a platform for sharing small amounts of information with a potentially large group of people.  For a reporter, Twitter can be a great source for finding leads to a story.  Professor Olmsted did caution us about not using the information on Twitter as fact.  Anyone can have a Twitter account and people are free to write whatever they want.  In that regard, Twitter may not always have accurate information.  None the less Twitter is a wonderful resource to see what people are talking about.

We also created Flickr and Delicious accounts today.  Flickr is for sharing pictures and Delicious is for sharing bookmarks.  I don’t know that I will be using Flickr or Delicious in the near future but I have the accounts none the less.

Our next speaker of the day was AU alum Rachel Wulff.  Wulff is the weekend anchor and I-Team Reporter at WDSU-TV in New Orleans.  Unfortunately, I thought class was dismissed until 1:30 before Rachel even got to the classroom so I missed her talk.  I would have really liked to hear what she had to say being that I am interested in broadcast.

Laura Pohl gives tips on taking good pictures

This afternoon we heard from photojournalist Laura Pohl.  Laura is another AU alum who has worked as a free lance photojournalist and now does multimedia work for a non-for-profit group.  Laura’s enthusiam for her craft was noticeable.  She clearing is passionate about what she does and also talented.  I am not interested in photojournalism at all, but I did find her introduction to PhotoShop to be helpful.  Laura also provided our group with a list of key items to remember when taking pictures.  The list will be helpful whether a person is interested in photojournalism or not.

AU Bootcampers listening to Laura Pohl's presentation

Looking forward to Day seven of AU Bootcamp…