Multimedia Class

I sat cooped up in a room for most of the last five days. But I wasn’t alone. I had registered for a free, week long, multimedia course the NYU journalism department had arranged for the winter break. I, along with five other students, spent the week learning how to shoot and edit video and record and edit audio.

We learned how to use the equipment (which was intimidating at first) and what type of shots to capture on the first day. On Tuesday we went out and got stories-- I chose to do mine on halal food cart vendors in lower Manhattan (their business is way down).

Then we spent the rest of the week editing. I composed two pieces: a radio clip and a separate video. How’d they turn out? I was told they were both,“good, for someone who’s never done it before.” Which, to state the obvious, means they both sucked.

The important thing was to learn the skills though. I felt like I really learned a lot. And it was a ton of fun. Especially the video stuff. It’s gonna immensely help me down the road. I’ve decided that, for every article I write this semester for class, I’m also going to shoot a video.

Some things I learned:

• Start with a close up. That helps catch people’s interests.
  
• Film from a bunch of different angles. You’ll only use three to four seconds from each shot.