My experiences, things I learned, sights I saw

At Maynard multimedia editing program, Reno, Nevada

Welcome to my first ever blog.

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We can make a mobile app?

As the program starts the coundown to the end, we had amazing classes last 2 days.

Jeremy Gilbert of Northwestern University taught us so patiently from the basics of writing HTML codes– to writing our own mobile app for iphone at the end of Friday class. We were hanging in there, trying to believe that we can actually write codes.  He was an excellent teacher and we were so appreciative that he took time to go step by step so all of us can keep up with it.

At the end of Friday, we all showed what we accomplished to make in the form of mobile app.  Most of us was not finished with them, but we had pretty good ideas and we made very good start of them. I tried to create an app for the people who visit Victoria linking it to our newspaper website, facebook and twitter page.  I want to keep on working on it before I forget.

Thursday night was enchilada party night.  Dennis Joyce who taught us a couple of great classes cooked enchilada dinner, including awesome salsa and chips for all of us. Evelyn Hsu, (and the faculty) also brought great baked chicken.. very tasty ones. We gathered at Odom/Waltman residence, beer and wine were consumed rapidly, ..we were grabbing the amazing food Dennis prepared so fast,… some people had to wait for a while for next batch of enchiladas to come out of the oven.

I made a slides show of the photos I took:

 

Images of Reno

Per a request of my coleague from my paper, I took some photo of Reno.

Here is the first installment.

I am sure I will take some more and make another slide before long.

First video editing

Finally my first video I did more than 10 days ago got posted here. It took a while because of the slow uploading at the UNR lab. Boy, I had fun shooting and editing this video. FUN, I meant it to be all inclusive, such feeling as frustrations, agony and pain. After all it was my very first video assignment using Final Cut done entirely by myself.  I cannot believe how long it took. It was quite a learning experience that I should be able to build on.

 

Today we had some good classes again. It started with critique session of the Rodeo reporting simulation we did yesterday. We had some good ideas and feedback which I should be able to utilize tomorrow when we do another one. (I will be in the office posting this time. I was one of the reporting staff on Monday.)

Afterwards we had a great session with Jack Rowland, The Gadget Guy, senior video producer, St. Petersburg Times. He showed us great video clips that he did, and also some great gadgets. It was so so interesting. I truly enjoyed it. We also had a session with Dennis Joyce, editor, Data Circle, The News Center, Tampa, who showed us how to utilize data to make visual presentation on web.

Need to practice so that I can use it back home.

Anyhow, I am so happy my “Real estate crash in Reno” video finally got posted on youtube and here.

Artist Coop of Reno

Last Sunday I visited this little gallery in downtown Reno.
I was actually looking for another co-op artist event, but ended up spending some time with a nice man, resident artist Mike Hess.
I enjoyed the visit and he was very kind showing me around, talking to me about the oldest continuously-operating co-operative gallery.

Here is my second video for the weekend assignment.

weekend-June 19

Unlike the last weekend when everyone was pretty uptight about the 3min. video assignments that we pitched and determined to deliver, this was a bit more relaxing weekend.

On Saturday, I and 3 other fellow Maynardiettes went out to see Egyptian Birthday Bazaar at Museum of Nevada. It was an event to celebrate museum’s 80th anniversary, well-organized with a snake woman, story-teller/singer, belly-dancer, dagger-swallower, and a lot of other curious characters. Also crowds enjoyed exotic food/drink and Egyptian bazaar booths.
Here is a short clip I took.

 

On Sunday, I went out and took some pictures for a slide show, beautiful mountains and flowers in Reno.
Will post that later.

Another week is starting… which is our 3rd, and the last full week of classes.
Looking forward to them all.

Day 13, June 16

Day started with the presentation from Sona Pastel, seattletimes.com. She started teaching us on Tuesday on social media in general.  She taught me a lot about how Twitter works on breaking news situation.

Today she talked about storify.com, which is very interesting tool to use social media posts/photos/videos and create a story board on web.  She also talked about hootsuite.com. In the afternoon she did a class about social medial ethics.  They are all presented very well. I enjoyed her classes immensely.

here is a short clip from the morning class:

Later on in the morning Kelly Scott, senior editor/news, Reno Gazette-Journal talked about how to coordinate a story across platforms, specifically for breaking news.  It was interesting as we encounter that situation more often than not.  The use of twitter was quite extensive at her paper, something we will be cultivating in our paper in near future.

We had a lunch meeting with creater of grammar girl.com.  It is a pod cast site where she does a pod cast every week about English grammar. It was amazing to hear her story.

In the afternoon  James Ku, senior editor of digital, Reno Gazette-Journal came aboard.  He talked about how to strategize the stories and contents using analytics. When the hits peak, how different they are from desktop to mobile site.  I am now very curious to see how our paper’s analytics look.

I am still trying to upload my 3 minute video of Real Estate Crash in Reno that I worked hours and hours.  Cannot believe how long it took to edit down 60 minute video down to 3 minutes.  I am going to put link here as soon as I can upload it.

 

Stay tuned…. things are heating up here.

Day 10

Boy, days are going by fast here at Maynard multimedia classes.  Every day we have great classes one after another…I worry constantly whether we are getting all the presentation materials so that I can review all the things I am learning.

Last Friday, we learned about HTML 5, QR codes, — and all the great free (almost free) softwares available online. I really have to try some of those. Later that day, each of us pitched to the class an idea of video story which we are assigned to work over the weekend.

On Saturday morning, I and Debra tagged along with one of my Maynard classmate, Sheryl, to downtown block party which she chose as her topic.  It was absolutely gorgeous day, and downtown park by the river was dream-like.  While live music by local bands are going on, lot of people was enjoying the sunny day at the park. The rest of the weekend I ran around visiting real estate offices, open houses, finding and talking to some home owners.  The subject I picked was real estate market crash in Reno.  (Those who know me, will understand why I picked this subject.)

Monday started with class with Charles Apple (familiar name at Victoria Advocate).  He critiqued each of our papers and its web sites. His critique of our paper was: A1 is a bit too busy with too many color elements. He actually suggested to take out some color items from the page. He likes our Feature pages.  (He seems to have an impression that Ryan was our Feature page designer. I am sure that is why he said that.)  He likes our big home page photo (video) on our web site.

Later that day we learned how to use google map to customize a map. I loved the batchgeo that let you spot numerous sites in one click importing information from excel document. We can definitely use this feature.

Today, Tuesday was again a lot of fun.  We learned about user generated contents, whcih Advocate do very well and also SEO (search engine optimization.)  Something we need to work on at our paper. In the afternoon, we learned social media.  How to use twitter was so much fun. After the class everyone stayed late to work on our video assignment.  Tomorrow we will be presenting our video at the class.  Looking forward to it.  Mine– is coming out as good as it gets. Consideing it is my very first video story using Final Cut…. I am willing to overlook some shortcoming.

 

 

Day 7– now I need to catch up my blog

Last two days were a lot of fun here at Maynard Multimedia training program.

All of us got DSL camera on the first day we got here and took a lot of pictures over the first weekend.

This week we got our own audio recorders and video cameras. Monday, we learned to do Coveritlive. Yesterday we jumped in and learned to make a slide show with the photos we took.

After the practice, we stayed late to create slide show of our own with audio track.  It was fun. Most of us did actually managed to put up the slide shows on our blog, too.

Today, we are tackling videos.  Another quick practice, we went out on UNR campus to do “man on the street” video shoots.

Came back and edited  videos with type overlay and all other good stuff.

Boy, this session is really start moving fast. It is scarely that we have to learn them so quickly…if I get sidetracked a bit during the class, I get lost.  It is quite intense.. we’re all trying to keep up.

Software we are using are Photo mechanics (for photos editing), Audacity (for audio edit), Soundslides (for slide show), and Final cut for video editing.  All unfamiliar software to me and many others.  Some have some experiences in some of them, and they turn into  instructor’s assistants, because everybody needs so much help.

Kind of fun…in that we are all teaching and helping each other.

In a day of two, I should be able to post my first video.

Stay tuned.

 

My first slideshow

On Saturday, June 4, we noticed there are motorcycles lined up in front of the Ramada Inn Hotel downtown Reno where Brooks and I were staying for the weekend. Beautiful, shiny toys,  they must be very proud of.
Took some photos of them getting ready to head to the convention.

Today, June 8, we learned how to create a slide show.  So here it is…

Rainly day in Reno

When I arrived in Reno last Wednesday, it was so so cold… it actually snowed..(believe me, it is true, I saw white things flying around.)    I jumped into a clothing store to get some cheap warm clothes.  To my dismay, stores are all geared for summer, almost nothing left for the cold weather. However, my instructor told me it will get warmer next week.  Besides it is sunny 320 days a year in Reno.

So comes Monday morning, I was expecting the beginning of sunny and warm week. I go outside, and it is freezing and rainy.  I hit the Jackpot, I met rain in Reno.

I normally like water falling from sky. It is calming and make everything clean and sparkles.

Not so much on a freezing and windy day like we have here today.

Well, there is always tomorrow.

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