5030 Digital Story Telling Media Types Story Boarding February 28 08

Slide 1: Photojournalism on the Web & Digital Storytelling University of North Texas Department of Journalism Visual Journalism February 28, 2008

Slide 2: The Five ‘I’s  Interactivity  Involvement  Immediacy  Integration  In-depth

Slide 3: Basic Tips for Good Photos  Range of Values  Understanding your lighting  Contrast  Shadows  Clear, sharply focused subjects  Too far away  Not focused

Slide 4: Composition & the ‘Rule of Thirds’  Understand where all objects are in the picture  Use your naked eye AND look through your viewfinder  Divide the picture into thirds – The main object or action of the picture should be near one of the intersecting points.

Slide 5: The “Decisive Moment”  Photos have to ‘tell’ a story  Some circumstances are easy:  Academy Awards; Principal awarding the diploma; a ‘handshake’ closing a deal  Others are more difficult  Keep shooting until you get it  The “Aha” Moment  Feel it in your gut

Slide 6: Challenges/Opportunities Digital Photography  Unlimited capacity  Flexibility  The Ol’ Days: Limited space, wrong photo, badly cropped,  Immediacy size of photo doesn’t do event justice  Permanence/Archival  Slide shows, photo galleries  Interactivity  Multiple publishing formats  More tools to improve quality – or manipulate  Control  Greater control on which images to use  Higher risk of managing copyright – ethical issues

Slide 7: Interaction/Involvement Continuum The greater the interaction and involvement, the higher the learning Low High Text Online Discussion Online Lurker Interactive: Interactive Discussions -Timeline Game Static Link Quiz Reporter Graphic: - fact box Email Photo - Slideshow Interactive Text Box - map Flash Content

Slide 8: Digital Storytelling Tools  Shovelware out, Within Media In  It’s no place for lazy journalists  Dig deeper, report more, drive to find more sources, quicker  Need to be more accurate and more thorough  Search, research and verify

Slide 9: Digital Storytelling Tools  Rules of the road:  Links  Tighter, shorter copy  Fact Boxes  Section heads  Graphics  Boldface type, bulleted  Visuals presentations  Audio  Pull out quotes  Timelines

Slide 10: Digital Storytelling Tools  Drilling Down – What Really Works  Timelines  Old School: Static graphic in chronological order  New School: Dates, images, description, audio  http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/timelines  Quality Audio & Video  Slide shows  Story Boards

Slide 11: Story Boarding  It’s all about nonlinear!!! 2) Divide the story into its logical, nonlinear parts, such as: a) A lead or nut paragraph, essentially addressing why this story is important b) Profiles of the main person or people in the story c) The event or situation d) Any process or how something works e) The history of the event or situation f) Other related issues raised by the story

Slide 12: Story boarding  Change the way you think:  Avoid “First Part”, “Second Part”, etc.  Divide the contents of story into media elements  Video  Still photos  Audio  Graphics  Text

Slide 13: Story boarding  Determine which pieces of story work best with video  What a great way to see, hear, watch  Decide which still photos you want  Creates moods, punctuates your text, adds context, richness  Which audio? And will still photos work with it?  Bad audio detracts from the story, the audio and the entire package  What about graphics  Animated graphics help show how things work  Go where no cameras can go: e.g. showing how things work, like cells or space

Slide 14: Story boarding  Using maps  Google, government, satellite imaging  Showing neighborhoods, patterns of crime  Text  “Chunking stories”. Q&A. First-person. Investigative.  Complementary media, not redundant  Match each element.  Interactivity means reader involvement