Kaleidoscope Festival Coverage

The 2007 Kaleidoscope Festival at Cal State Long Beach was my first, being that I just transferred here this year.

I gotta say, covering that event was probably the best, and funnest idea me and Daniela had regarding our "Day in the Life" project. Everyone there was extremely kind and just happy to be there, making it easy to approach them and snap shots and ask questions. Although we didn't have any trouble with our story, we came across several "talkers" who wouldn't let us get away once they found out we were writing a story for the CSULB Journalism Department.

The huge crowds were sort of an obstacle as far as getting good shots - there was fear of getting a portion of a head, arm, leg, what have you in all of the shots we took - that's how crowded the campus was on Saturday. However, we quickly learned the importance of the crop function in iPhoto making the project go by a bit faster.

The hardest part of putting together the slideshow wasn't the narration or the sequencing - the most time consuming part of the project was decided which pictures to keep. We started with a bit under 300 photos and had to cut it down to around 45. That took us about 1.5 hours, while the rest whizzed on by.

"Is There Something in My Teeth?" - Capturing a Personal Moment?

So me and Daniela's initial angle for our "Day in the Life" project was to capture shots of people eating throughout various hours of the day.

This turned out to be a horrible idea. I found out that for some people, eating is a sacred event - not to be disturbed. As I was snapping away at one gentleman, he stopped me after about the 2nd shot and started to interrogate me about what I was doing. After kindly explaining to him the guidelines of my project and that I wasn't a creepy stalker, he kindly told me to "get lost."

I think a lot of people regard eating as a somewhat of a personal act, something they're only comfortable doing in front of friends, family, etc. I guess that explains the paranoid looks I've seen on some of the diners here at CSULB as I've walked through the food courts.

Other than that, I felt that watching people eat and trying to get "good" shots of them doing it was a pretty hard task - one that I didn't have the stomach for.

Journalism Day - Panel 3 Coverage

Follwing the tasty, yet tiny lunch during the Journalism Day rush hour, the final panel took the stage and addressed the audience, answering questions about the Halloween beatings that occured in Long Beach in 2006.

The panel members, consisting of reporters and editors from the Los Angeles Times and the Long Beach Press-Telegram offered personal experiences and insight into the profession and the ethical obstacles that are sometimes presented when dealing with stories featuring minors.

The crowd of students gave the panel their undivided attention, and when it was time to ask questions, several students approached the microphone at the front of the auditorium and asked away - covering topics from the recent firefighter hazing story, the witness relocation program - however, my favorite moment of the afternoon was Professor Burnett asking Dean Babcock if "he was dreaming" when he asked a question.

It was actually quite difficult trying to juggle my reporting duties, along with trying to get the perfect picture with my camera. I did my best, and tried to snap shots in between questions.

Group Video Project - Tracking Down the Dean

Tracking down faculty at Cal State Long Beach is definitely a much harder task than say, getting a hold of a faculty member at a community college.

When I had to conduct interviews at Cerritos Community College for another video project I was involved in, it was a lot easier to contact the people I needed to talk to. Now, for the campus library video project me and my group are doing, it's been almost impossible to contact the dean of the library. Luckily, I was referred to the assistant dean of the library, Sarah Sluss.

She was probably one of the most delightful people I've ever met. Off camera, she was engaging and completely candid, giving me a photo tour of her office - and on camera, she was a professional - answering all of the questions i threw at her with concise, yet highly informative answers.

Now that we've obtained all our footage, I'm really looking forward to putting the whole video together. Now only if we had a little more time to finish it...

Introducing LA.com's Very Own Web Designer... Joseph Vu

Writing a story about one of my oldest friends was a pretty weird experience. Listening to my good ol' buddy of more than 20 years conduct himself in a professional and orderly manner was definitely new terrain for me and further proof that "he's all growns up" now.

Joe has been working at LA.com for a little over a year now and is not new to the new media field. He's always been interested in graphic design and putting websites together from scratch. It was pretty interesting to gain insight into an actual new media business - learning about the research that LA.com does to underestand their market audience and the lengths they go to in order to gain new devotees.

The biggest thing I learned from this story is that whatever you're selling, through whatever medium, it is still a business which must be run in some sort of similar, straightforward manner - no matter how cool the company is.

Media Packages - The Bread & Butter of New Media?

After doing research on various media packages employed by some major media outlets, I've concluded that these simple series of photos, sounds and sometimes videos are paramount as far as unique contributions go in the new media realm.

It's amazing how much information can be disseminated over the net, using only a few minutes worth of images. Not that these packages are a complete cinch to put together, because it takes the right pictures and captions to convey the desired message. I really enjoyed the New York Times' multimedia sections - the Los Angeles Times had a pretty nice user interface when accessing their multimedia material, but overall, I felt the aesthetic of the New York Times' was far more design-friendly.

However, the Los Angeles Times' "Calendar" Web blog is definitely something worth checking out. Their coverage on the Oscars was claustrophic in detail and the accompanying media was just as dizzying (in a good way).