While I was away from SLR, one of the things that was keeping me busy was serving as Online/Multimedia Editor for The Spartan Daily.
Among the new things I worked toward implementing, one of my proudest moments was the implementation of multimedia and the new multimedia section.
But enough about me, let’s take a look at what we produced.
We started off with a 24-hour from conception to publication production of the first annual Amgen Tour of California.
On Tuesday, February 21 and Wednesday, February 22 the riders raced their way through San Jose. On Tuesday, I woke up and realized it was race day and it dawned on me perhaps it was time to try our hand at multimedia. I made a call to Kevin White, one of our shooters at the race and worked with him to gather audio. At the same time, knowing that many other shooters were going to be covering the race, I made some calls to them and from that I knew the staff had the visuals covered.
That night it was editing time, I sat down at an iMac at the daily and started mixing audio tracks and editing together a video with the dozens upon dozens of still images. Click the image to the left to see what became the end result, “Into the Valley.”
On March 20, 2006, Ryan Sholin shoot some video for his story on the Silicon Valley regional contest of the FIRST Robotics Competition, held at the San Jose State University Event Center.
The result was a presentation we called “Robot Invasion!” Filled with interviews and footage of the games, it was packing with informative segments and provided a window into a culture seldom seen. It was also the most straight forward presentation we produced and yet took me much longer to edit than “Into the Valley.”
March 23, 2006 brought our third opportunity. Photographer Daniel Esch and writer Evie Smith were on their way to cover a story on the San Jose State University Boxing Club and they clued me in on it. I had wanted to try my hand at video and decided to go with them. The story became about two of the club’s boxers, Patrick Myers and Jeremiah Smith, and their chances in an upcoming tourney.
The result: “An education in the sweet science: From the Ringside.” Senergery became the word, as this package became the most convergent thus far with a slideshow, a text story and a mini-documentary video. Three branches all interwoven to explore the story it it’s fullest.
Then came the lull. Spring break, mid-terms, term papers, other features to implement, my commitments to my internship… and on and on. The lull came.
The first day of May brought our last, and agruably most polished, presentation. The immigration issue was at the forefront of the national phyce, from debates in Congress to debates at the dinner table. Not everyone had formed an opinion or made up thier mind, but everyone was talking about it. On this day, San Jose became the canvas for one of the largest immigration protests in the nation and the Spartan Daily was there to cover it. This story also became our first experiment with Sound Slides. I think it came out well, take a look.
My aim was to bring our paper and staff closer to the emerging “new journalism” being practiced in the real world and make the trial-by-fire education provided by the Daily more relevant. Hopefully all those involved learned a thing or two and if the paper continues to produce multimedia packages, all my efforts will not have been in vain.
Here’s hoping.
