2014 - Spring

WRRII – Studio20

Course Number: JOUR-GA 1022.008

Day & Time: Friday, 1-4:40pm

Location: 655

This Studio 20 version of Writing, Research and Reporting II is specifically geared towards mastering multimedia reporting and production techniques. In 14 weeks, students will develop the skills to expand their reporting abilities into the areas of basic photography, audio production and, most significantly, video production.

This course is not just an academic exercise. In fact, the class will function at times more like an actual newsroom. We will use New York City as our assignment area and produce real audiovisual content on a regular basis. As students will own their own media, they will have the option to place it on any news site or blog they wish. They will also benefit from having the ability to produce content for the Local East Village, the Hyperlocal news blog that is a joint venture between the New York Times and NYU.

While much of what we will learn in WRRII will be of a technical skills nature, for example practicing how to shoot sequences, learning basic effects in Final Cut Pro, our main priority will be to learn and practice the essential elements of visual storytelling. While the basics can be discussed in our classroom setting, and we will devote a certain amount of our time to watching examples of excellence in visual storytelling, this is a skill that is best learned by doing. So it will be a key component of our field work: focusing on how to best use the visual medium to tell our stories. We will also learn to exercise our judgment as to which media can be used to best tell which stories.

At the successful conclusion of the course, students will have learned how to develop, produce, edit and deliver multi-media stories. This includes demonstrated proficiency in:

• Shooting basic video and acquiring professional audio

• Editing video and audio; encoding projects for final delivery to a variety of outlets

• Use of basic video titling, manipulating and editing still photographs for use in video projects or creating

audio slideshows

• Introductory audio and video effects

• Audio and Video storytelling techniques: how to produce visual narratives.

This course represents a rare, exciting and meaningful opportunity for professional growth. These multi-media production abilities are the kinds of skills that will be required to be competitive for many jobs. Students will leave the course with not only new skills and knowledge, but with at least the start of a “clip reel”.