The following is the entirety of my work done in the fall semester of 2009 for a class called Multimedia Journalism. Before each item I will share briefly, my thoughts on each assignment.
Darkside Tattoo’s New Burlington Home
This was our first story that we completed for the class, the first to use a program called Voicethread, which encourages the social aspect of sharing stories. The class was asked to capture some snapshot of local culture in the surrounding areas of our university. Lauren and I decided it would be interesting if we could find some aspect of local culture at a tattoo parlor which had just moved to a new location. Tattoo artist Bobby Maness shared with us his thoughts on why the business has moved to the other side of the town, and how our own university played a major part in the geographic shift as a result of our impact on the towns culture. This story was put together by taking pictures and doing an interview into a voice recorder. The slideshow was put together using a program called Soundslides Plus.
Tattoo artist Bobby Maness, discusses Darkside Tattoo’s move to the other side of Burlington, business from Elon University, the most common tattoos he does and other interesting stories. Click here for the full slideshow, hosted by Voicethread.com.
Story by Dan Rickershauser and Lauren Wisniewski
Storefront of Darkside Tattoos new location in Burlington, NC
Tattoo Artist Bobby Maness completing half of a customer's tattoo
Chinatown Quest for a Perfect Pair of Shoes
This was our second story, part of a larger project on how the shoes people wear tell a story. I decided to interview Connor Stirland, whose flashy shoes had a story of their own. It was a different approach that many other students took, but I think that it worked out all right.
What brings a man to his perfect pair of shoes? For Elon freshman Connor Stirland, it was the work of fate that brought him to his beloved multi-colored Adidas sneakers more than a year ago.
“It had to have been destiny that brought me to these shoes,” Stirland said.
Stirland's sneakers in all their red, neon green, blue and yellow glory.
Journey
“It was May of 2008 and I went into New York City with one of my real
good friends for the specific journey of finding some sweet kicks,” Stirland said.
For being the largest city in the United States, Stirland was disappointed in the city’s shoe selection.
“My quandary that I came to was that I couldn’t find them anywhere,”
Stirland said. “They make nice girls shoes but all the guys shoes looked stupid.”
Discouraged with the hunt for his perfect shoes, Stirland and his friend decided to take a risk and follow their intuition.
“I saw this really cool black woman with some of the coolest shoes I have ever seen,” Stirland said.
After following the woman for some time, Stirland and his friend found themselves on Canal Street, the hub of New York City’s Chinatown where bargain hunters can find anything from fish and exotic fruits to
counterfeited handbags.
“We followed her for about seven blocks and find this hole in the wall store with a sticker on it that said 50 percent off,” Stirland said.
At first glance, Stirland was disappointed in the selection of this tiny store on Canal Street.
“We get inside and there is this little tiny Asian women in front of a wall with three pairs of sneakers,” Stirland said. “We asked if she had more, so she goes to the back and pulls out these sneakers.”
The shoes were a size nine, which wouldn’t fit Stirland’s size 11 and a half feet. But they were the most promising option he had found so far that day. Encouraged, he asked if she had any other shoes in his size.
The moment
“So I asked if she had anything in 11 and a half and she goes to the back,” Stirland said. “I’m hearing these weird noises and she comes back out and hands me these shoes, not even in a box.”
In a city known for being the cultural hub of the United States, Stirland was united with his feet’s perfect match.
“Since then, I have worn these shoes everyday of my life,” Stirland said. “They have seen many a concert and festival.“
Speaking volumes in every step
Like many footwear enthusiasts, Stirland said he believes a quality shoe speak for the person who is wearing them.
Stirland, an Elon freshman, with his "flashy kicks" on campus
“[Shoes] show personality, they show exactly what that person is all about,” Stirland said. “If you see someone wearing strappy shoes it means they care more about looks. If you see shoes that are flashy you know that person is flashy.”
While Stirland’s shoes weigh in more on the flashy side, he said the
comfort of the shoes is their greatest asset.
“These shoes are sweet looking and comfy as hell,” Stirland said.
“Every time you put them on you feel like you are wearing amazing
socks that caress every arch.”
Burlington North Carolina’s
Cedarock Park: A Hole-in-One
This was the last project our class set out to do individually. The prompt was to put together a short video detailing someone’s story related to a place. I chose to do this story on Adam Rallis because I think Cedarock Park is an interesting story on its own. This video was also a unique chance to do some creative things, such as the fast motion shot I put together where Rallis got his hole in one. I really enjoyed this project. This was also a great chance to showcase one of my friend’s band, Pile, in the soundtrack of the video.
by Dan Rickershauser
For Elon University senior Adam Rallis, there’s no place like Cedarock Park. After hearing about the disc golf course from friend and Elon resident Palmer Dillon, Rallis quickly grew fond of the sport of disc golfing.
Today, Rallis frequents the park several times a week, appreciating the break it provides from schoolwork. It is also a place that has been the source of many interesting stories. On a par-three hole, Rallis managed to sink a hole-in-one. Sailing nearly 100 yards through trees and obstacles, the disc bounced off the ground and into the basket.
Just recently, Rallis has also started the tradition of playing his girlfriend’s father on his visits to Elon University’s campus. Betting a six-pack of beer on each game, Rallis has won both times the two have played the disc course.
Crossing the Street
Our big project as a group was to put together a project detailing the relationship that our school, Elon University, shares with the surrounding area of Alamance County. The first thing I put together for this was a profile on a pizzeria owner, Eric Klein. I had interviewed him before I found out, in the interview, that he was also an Elon alumni.
This was my fourth and only successful attempt to put together a profile. My first attempt was to interview the boss at Sandy’s Bar and Grill. I came away with that interview with too little information to use. For my second interview with a student, I ran into a similar problem. On my third attempt to get a good profile, I interviewed a worker at Dan Thai who was from Thailand. She offered a very interesting international perspective on the relationship that students share with the surrounding area. Much to my chagrin, I came away from that interview only to find that the audio from the interview had not recorded. While I was heartbroken, luckily this interview with Eric Klein came out very well.Lesson learned: Make sure your audio recording device is working before you start an interview.
I was also on the design team for putting together the whole project, which we have titled Crossing the Street. We decided to use a program, Wix.com, which provides a template for building a flash site. We decided that this would bypass any issues we would have with what domain would host the site, as well as time-limitations that would stop the design team from putting something together from scratch using Flash or Dreamweaver. In hindsight, I would say that the limitations that wix.com created would prevent me from using again. But I am pleased with the overall project and the work our class had put into it. I had tried covering this story before for another class, Reporting for the Public Good, as a long-issue story. I was overwhelmed by the depth of the subject, and feel that we covered much better with our whole class working on different aspects of this very complicated relationship.
Lessons Learned from Multimedia Journalism
For the purpose of simplicity, I’m going to break down the five lessons that I have learned while enrolled in Multimedia Journalism.
1. Design is king
With print publications, the integrity of your publication is measured in the design. This is no different with Web design, an area that is still in the process of much development. What makes a good Web design is also not very different from what makes good design in print. The same rules often apply to both fields. When it came down to putting together all the content for our project, Crossing the Street, I feel like we hit a roadblock with how to design it. While we are all well-equipped with the tools to put together many different forms of media, when it came down to the final stage in designing and putting together a Web site to host our content, I think the design team ran into some issues. It’s a hard thing to visualize from scratch a Web site and implement it in a program with it’s own limitations.
2. Break up text
How text is treated on a Web site is incredibly important. Unlike print publications, online readers are very reluctant to read large paragraphs of text. My own decision to break up this text into a numbered list is the result of this knowledge. To give a good real life example, one of my favorite Web sites for discovering music, daytrotter.com does a terrible job breaking up its own text. The main highlight and draw of their Web site is the free music, but with the accompanying biographies written up on the bands they record are all one block of text. It couldn’t be more unappealing to read, even though the actually text often provides very interesting anecdotes. You can find an example of this here.
3. Functionality is key
Our whole class learned a word that we became very fond of throughout the semester, contiguity. The contiguity of a Web site is how easily users can travel through it, simply put. This seems like an easy and obvious thing, but come the actual design of a Web site is the most important thing to remember. Designers must constantly ask themselves, will the average internet user find this easy to use? Is the important content the first thing to catch user’s eyes on this page?
4. Avoid those killer kick-outs
Perhaps our classes second favorite word learned this semester is kick-out, which refers to an aspect of a Web site that instantly turns readers off. The best example of this would be sound on a Web site. It is often something that is met with disdain. It is a very easy thing for users to disregard a Web site immediately, so avoiding kick-outs is an absolute must. Just as Web design is important, it is important to avoid any of these unwelcomed elements to any Web sites. Leaving a Web site is as easy as one click.
5. You can’t fight the rules of the Internet
This pertains to where I see the future of Web-based content. The music industry, with such a young customer-base, was the first industry to truly experience how the internet would change everything. How they approached the invention of Napster may go down as one of the biggest business blunders in history, one that the music industry continues to struggle with as it faces continuous losses in their profit. Their decision to fight file-sharing with all of their might, rather then embrace it and apply their own business model, was a tragic blow to the industry. Suing your customers is never the right approach.
We see similar things happen today with Murdoch’s attempt to take all Newscorp material off of Google search engines. The internet will change everything. The print news industry is finding that they are no exception to this. As we enter a new era in how people get their news, industry has to do everything they can to restructure and adapt to this changing landscape. My future career depends on it.
To refer back to the music industry, for all the losses it has faced, their are many publications and labels that have picked up the pieces and better adapted to the altered landscape. Many music labels no longer see themselves as distributors of music, but gate-keepers that help distinguish what is worth listening to with the artists they sign onto their label.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the new age of music is pitchfork.com. Pitchfork started off as a site devoted to music criticism. While you can find pretty much any music anywhere on the internet at no cost, their is still some value in deciphering what music is worth a listen. Pitchfork, as a result, has become a powerhouse in the music industry. Their criticism can be a make or break for emerging artists. They have since grown to provide their own content, offering exclusive content and music videos on their subsidiary, Pitchfork.tv.
I believe the future of journalism online is somewhere in what Pitchfork has achieved. Successful sites like Huffingtonpost.com have found success not as reporters of news, but by aggregating news that is already out there.
News organizations, for the online world, must redefine their role. It is much more plausible or a future than hoping that some system of micro-payments will work, and that readers will be willing to pay for content that they are getting for free from hundreds of other places. Trying to pull content off of Google, or demanding that users subscribe to see exclusive content online, will only further isolate audiences from an organization. It’s a shot-in-the-foot equivalent to the RIAA’s decision to start suing their customers who engaged in file-sharing. How well that went for them…
