I remember listening to the lecture in Week 1, as Mindy went over our syllabus, and thinking “Kecia, what have you gotten yourself into?” Although I continued to have these thoughts right up until I completed my last project for the class, I feel like I can honestly answer that question now. Little did I know it, but by signing up for the Journalists’ Toolkit 1 course I agreed to dedicating myself to become a well-rounded journalist (not to mention a lot of late nights, long hours in front of a computer, and days of following people around with a camera).
I remember my first lesson, which was about the care required to collect high quality audio. We started off collecting a single track of audio in a quiet room, but by the end of the semester I had learned how to use several tracks to help capture the essence of a story or experience. I learned how adjusting the volume of tracks and fading out the audio at the very end could make the sound more polished. One area that I think I still could improve on is cutting my audio and rearranging the parts to make the story interesting. It was always difficult for me to decide where to cut someone’s speech without making it sound too abrupt like they weren’t finished with their sentence.
The second lesson I learned this semester was one that saved me a lot of time and stress after my first Soundslides project. I remember Mindy emphasizing spending time with your camera so that you could develop certain instincts, like when to press the shutter or how to frame a photo. Although I’m no professional photographer as a result of the class, I have learned what elements make a photo more interesting or desirable to look upon. For example, I tried to remember the rule of thirds and varying the amount of short, medium and wide range shots when taking photos for my projects. I also remembered to take way, way, way more photos than I thought I needed, which would increase my chances of taking really decent photos (and decrease the likelihood that Mindy would tell me to reshoot!) I think the next step for me would be to improve my ability to discern which type of photos would best reflect or help me tell the story I am reporting. I learned that this was a weakness of mine once we had to cover and issue. It’s really difficult to take a picture when you want to express a feeling or idea!
Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned this semester could be one I had overlooked multiple times. I realized how being a responsible journalist means paying attention to details. There were several times this semester when I felt lost. My saving grace was learning how to spend time reading and carrying out directions as well as thinking about ways to solve technical problems. There were several times when I had to go back and change a setting or image size or file type in order to make a project successful. Before this class paying attention to detail mostly meant the “dotting I’s and crossing T’s” processes associated with checking grammar and AP Style for print journalism. Yet this class helped me learn how to be detail oriented when creating multimedia products. Out of all my lessons learned, I now know this one for sure.
