Apr/100
Adam Westbrook on video and soundslides
video editing 101
Adam Westbrook came to BCU to give us a quick lecture about visual narratives, focusing on video and soundslides. He showed us a few examples of visual storytelling and shared with us the basics, like story arcs, sequences, editing. It’s not something we can learn instantly but it’s easy to find references in our video drowned culture. Main ideas: web is not television, though video has a fundamental language that crosses over all types of moving image narratives, from news to cinema, from documentary to animation. And to make it work, keep it simple, and avoid the technical gimmicks, make it personal and intimate. Other advices include get lots of ambient sound, find color in the character’s surroundings and story.
One of the examples he brought us was this great story.
And the secret to become a good visual storyteller? Practice, practice, practice. Get a camera and just do it.
Apr/102
Breadth Portfolio: Part 3 – Data Visualization
The last part of the series with parts of the report I made for the Multimedia Journalism module, this time about data visualization.
Experiments in Data Visualization
One of the fields I’ve been interested the most is in data journalism, and the visual representation of information. It takes two seemingly opposite mindsets to work with data: one of a statistician and the other of a designer, the analytical and the creative side by side. But I found that data, to be interesting to the audience must have one or both of these features, besides being accurate and relevant: it has to be visually compelling and/or interactive. Once again, technology comes to the rescue, and at the same time can lead us to disaster. The huge amount of tools available to organize and present data relies in different coding languages, mostly Javascript and Flash, and if we are to use live data we must know how to use APIs to direct content into our application. And even if we find a software that does it all for us, we need to know which story we’re telling.
I did some research about newspaper brand values and online traffic of Portuguese news websites, and I came across with the monthly traffic report for all of them. My goal was to understand the relative and proportional position of each one, regarding visits, page views, and how those two values relate to each other. The data I got also has portals, specialized websites, and entertainment magazines so it has a broad range of themes (all charts are available live here – http://is.gd/aZLXs)
First of all I wanted to have a general overview of the size of each one when it comes to space within the Portuguese online universe, so I went for a tree map. The view wasn’t clear enough, so I tried a different approach, using a bubble chart, highlighting just the focus of my research, which were specifically newspapers. It was a better option, and I could have done things even more interesting if I added the paper circulation data. One of the conclusions that I would have found was that best selling newspapers don’t necessarily do equally well online.
But the real risk when connecting data is to draw wrong conclusions from fact. So these are the most successful websites, looking at these data sets right? Well, maybe not. What if we try to understand who are better at engaging the audience and get more page views per visit?
The idea that I got is that we can use data visualization to find a perspective on the subject and that will lead us to a better understanding of what were just numbers on a paper.
Apr/101
Breadth Portfolio: Part 2 – Flash Package
The second part of my Breadth Portfolio series, in this one i briefly explain how the Moseley Road Baths Flash package was made.
Flash
Moseley Road Baths
I’ve wanted to use Flash to create a multimedia package or to aggregate different types of content in one same product. Recycling the contents I had produced previously for HashBrum, I made a serious attempt to build one: “Moseley Road Baths- Pool of Affection”[i].
I’ll avoid commenting on the content of the piece, because all the questions are related to the construction process. First of all, Flash is an almost exclusive of Adobe, and its complexity make it hard to use, but in the right hands it can deliver amazing works. This is not the case, and there are many reasons for it.
First of all, Flash evolved into Actionscript 3.0 which is much harder to use than the previous 2.0 version that I was familiarized with. This wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t have planned to use features that will only work with the 3.0 version, like mapping components. So I had to give up on my initial plan of incorporating a map into the piece, if I was to do it in AS2, although I searched intensively Google for solutions. But choosing which script language is used to build a work with Flash it’s just the beginning. We have to decide what contents are going to be featured, which technical specificities they demand, how are we supposed to navigate through them and which aesthetic options we will take. The most interesting part is that it is truly an interdisciplinary experience: I used video, and had to go through the options to embed it, and pick the best format (FLV) and size to convert it to; I had to create a look for the project, and I used image editors to edit pictures and small graphic elements; besides, flash is based in animation principles, so some notions on the subject will help.
Non-linearity is an important factor to this kind of work, and since I had divided the main video to small, independent bits it wasn’t hard to do. When I first started shooting this story, I had the notion I would use it for something like this, so I wasn’t that worried about creating a narrative chain throughout the filming, but just keeping it visually coherent, which under personal limitations is not that difficult.
Flash projects are also all about functionality (the way buttons are placed) and details (the way buttons move). To improve these two factors you must have a deeper knowledge of Flash (beyond button level), which is hard to acquire on your own. Though the web is filled with video tutorials and great websites on the matter, Flash is mostly about a logical process that it is hard to grasp on your own. But I fear the approach I took using AS2 is rendered obsolete, since AS3 is more powerful, albeit more difficult to use. This raises questions about how specialized a journalist’s skills can be, since it takes time to learn these new procedures, and which alternatives are there to Flash packages.
[i] Online http://tinyurl.com/ydufyp6
Apr/100
Breadth Portfolio: Part 1 – Maps and Forms
In this series of posts I’ll share part of the report I wrote for the MA Online Journalism’s Multimedia Journalism module, in which I describe some experiments I developed in the last months. I’d appreciate some feedback and ideas on this.
Maps and Forms
One of the most interesting phenomena in online journalism is how media can easily be left out of the process of delivering the news: they are no longer the source of information to a wider audience, but most times sit on the sidelines trying to grasp what is going on before their eyes. As we have learned with breaking news stories, it has been the crowd, the common users, that have revealed events to the world faster, more accurately and in a more diverse fashion than “regular” media is able to. We saw that happen with the Hudson River airplane near-crash, lots of earthquakes from China to Haiti, with the demonstrations in Iran. All were relevant for different reasons, but their dissemination to a wider audience has a few points in common: social networks, and the absence of media, at least in the very first instants.
I’ve been defending for a while that journalists are no longer mediators between fact and public, but news DJs that remix the information available, building on preexistent content, generated by users, authorities, and other media. Yet, media seem to fail to gather and organize this torrent of information.
When on the 20th of February a storm hit Madeira Island, causing mudslides and floods, the silence on most news websites, radios and TV stations was deafening. But on Twitter there were accounts from local people about what was going on, and, above all, they had videos. The event was being tagged as #tempmad, so it was easy to follow all the developments, but the information seemed to be too scattered to get a real picture of what was going on in the island, and since there was no one organizing the information available, I decided to create a map on Google[ii], to place videos, pictures and other relevant information.
Starting off with links to YouTube videos published by witnesses on location, and asking for more content, I quickly put the map together and made it available to everyone and although it hadn’t many items, it started to get hits at an impressive rate. Since it was Saturday, and most newsrooms were empty, it was the only visual representation online of the events in the first hours, and it was used by some Portuguese media[iii] in their coverage of the event (more specifically, two national newspapers and public television). It got 10.000 views in the first hours and reached 30.000 in just two days. One month later, it has the impressive number of 77 thousand visits.
Madeira Map
But that was relatively easy, since all I had to do was to place and embed the video and photographic content available into the map. When I started collaborating on the second day with an impromptu team that was aggregating data about the floods in a Netvibes website[iv] created by IT student, I started thinking about how to create ways to make information available in real time, or with the direct participation of the community. We were already trying to create lists of missing people, when doubts started about the number of dead. So we asked people to share the information they had, and since we couldn’t be waiting for that information to show up on the timeline, I created a form[v] where people could – with some detail – give out the names, residence and origin of the victims, and where they were found. Rumors placed the number of dead around the hundred, but final count marks 43, and that form was useful to have some grasp on reality. The form would then feed a spreadsheet automatically, placed on the website.
I also installed two maps, one giving the number of dead by district[vii], fed through a spreadsheet that automatically placed the marks in the right geolocation; the other was a recent Umapper development, showing geolocated tweets[ix] using the referred #tempad tag. These were easy to set and place and I think they did their job quite well.
It is hard to present a structured research for this assignment about this situation. The technical skills required are not that demanding, and the most rewarding and interesting tools for live mapping did not apply or were too complicated to put into use in a breaking news operation. But as geolocation gains more and more relevance in the production and sharing of content, the standards for online news coverage start to revolve around the concept.
One of the things that struck me is that despite these are tools available for free and easy to use, media don’t take advantage of them. It was really fast to deploy these features on the website, and there wasn’t much science involved, all that is required to respond in a breaking news situation. GoogleDocs are simple to use, and the latest developments allowed them to become almost “just-add-water” apps. What is the real challenge is to choose the right way to present information. It’s the journalist’s discerning view that will make the difference between good and bad web-based newsgathering.
Links and references
[iii] Post with media references http://tinyurl.com/y9wdu3t
[iv] Netvibes website http://tinyurl.com/yhb8zux
[v] Form on page http://tinyurl.com/yhb8zux
[vii] Death Map (on top) http://tinyurl.com/yhb8zux
[ix] Ummaper tweet map at the end of the post http://tinyurl.com/yapktkz
Mar/101
Moseley Road Baths: Flash Multimedia Package | Trabalho Flash Multimedia
click image | cliquem na imagem
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I had a go with Flash for my assignment for the Multimedia Journalism module of the MA. I recycled some work i had done before for HashBrum, and did what i had planned from the start, though not the way i intended. It is an experiment, and i had to do it in ActionScript 2 instead of 3, because i didn’t have time to learn how to work with Flash all over again. Anyway here it is, comments and ideas are appreciated. |
Fiz um trabalho em Flash para o módulo de Jornalismo Multimédia do mestrado. Reciclei algum trabalho anterior que já tinha sido usado para o HashBrum, e fiz o que tinha planeado fazer desde o início, mas não da maneira que queria. É uma experiência, e tive que fazer tudo em ActionScript 2 em vez de 3, porque não tinha tempo para voltar a aprender a trabalhar com Flash outra vez. De qualquer forma, aqui está, ideias e comentários são bem-vindos. |
Mar/101
Visual representations of online traffic for Portuguese news websites
I’ve been working on my assignment for the Online Journalism module, where we are supposed to experiment with different ways of presenting information. Since i was already looking into this data, i decided to try ManyEyes to produce three different charts for online traffic of Portuguese news websites.
They are not visually outstanding, but i think they convey a pretty good notion how the online universe is organized in Portugal. The three values i used were Visits, Pageviews and the relationship between those two. This first tree map shows how much space each website takes, and you can select different sets of values in the drop down menu below.
But my goal was to highlight just the most important newspapers. So i highlighted them in a bubble chart:
But what i really wanted was how to measure success. Do more visits and pageviews mean the product is more compelling? I tried something else:
We can see that the bulk of the audience engages more with specialized, leisure publications, and that the outliers in terms of visits and pegeviews are not ”page turners”, so to speak.
What conclusions do you draw from these representations (besides that i’m not that good at it)?
Mar/104
Time is of the essence
- the control board: mostly analogical
I’m depressed. Looking at my blog these days makes me feel that way, because i owe so much to it. And when i look at the wonderful stuff other people are posting it gets worse. Not that I would be able to write awesome posts everyday, i wish i could nail one once a week, but it’s like when i was a kid and watched all the other kids play outside, behind the curtains, because i was grounded.
But no one is punishing me these days for misbehaving, it’s just it has been too much stuff going on. I’m reading and trying to do more stuff for the MA, and at the same time i’m trying to make some money, and i’m starting something now i hope to tell you all about it soon. Unless i give up sleeping there’s no way i can write good stuff for you. My hope is after these two deadlines due next Friday things get better. Because i need to blog for all of my readers, and i have been sticking to the english speakers. I don’t have time to write a good post and then translate it, sorry. I also have a weekly column about media in a Portuguese website, and that’s the only thing i get to do when it comes to writing, apart from the occasional article for Journalism.co.uk (making interviews in Spanish, which is not my first language and then getting them back to English).
The MA is an almost full time job, and i have three more part times on the side to make a living. So forgive me if i have been away recently. I don’t like to shove a dozen links down your throat everyday and think i can get away with it, because i don’t. You deserve more from me, but my priorities have been elsewhere recently. Automatization is a fallacy.
If look at the picture you can see how my life is organized: four major tasks (one was the blog, but i had to leave it empty), with the MA modules on top, and the priority part-time below, then the other two jobs, and the project for the last term. I have to plan two weeks ahead to be comfortable, and i don’t have much room for setbacks. Many of you will say “So what?”. You’re right. I’m not whining, i’ve never been so happy about work in my life, there are lots of things going wrong, but i’m feeling great. There is no other place i want to be right now, and the prospects are looking good. I feel privileged for being here, and doing what i am doing. I just don’t have time for everything.
So if you have suggestions, ideas, thoughts or just want to say hi, i’d appreciate that, i spend too much time in front a computer these days, so this is truly a window to the world. Feel free to look in. Now i have to get back to work.
Feb/100
Riding the 654 | Viajar no 654
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It is what it means. Bus ride from Perry Barr, where i have classes, to Handsworth Wood, where the Halls of Residence are. Nothing much to it. If you want a map to go with it just ask.
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É o que significa. A viagem de autocarro desde Perry Barr, onde tenho aulas, até Handsworth Wood, onde fica a residência. Nada mais. Se quiserem um mapa a acompanhar é só pedir.
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Feb/100
BBC UGC Tour
video by Dan Davies
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Although i wasn’t able to go with my colleagues because i’m flat broke, the MA students went to London last week to visit the BBC newsroom and especially the UGC unit. Since i can’t tell you much about it, here are the videos Dan and Caroline made. |
Apesar de não ter podido ir com os meus colegas porque estou assim nas lonas, os estudantes do MA foram a Londres a semana passada visitar a redacção da BBC em especial o departamento de UGC. Como não posso contar como foi, aqui ficam os videos que a Caroline e o Dan fizeram. |
videos by Caroline Beavon
