Synopsis:
Throughout the course of this semester I learned a lot of digital journalistic techniques that I believe are fundamental to a journalist's career. I learned that Google Sheets can be a very important tool to use for research and creating things that show that research such as charts, graphs or even google maps which I used in my digital story. I also learned a lot of interview and film techniques that are great for broadcast journalists which I also incorporated into my digital story. The main takeaway I got from this semester was that sometimes writing can just be half of a journalist's career. There are so many ways digital media and techniques can be used in order to tell a story.
Developing the Story:
While making my story I wanted to show that the music scene in San Diego isn’t dead, but there are several factors as to why it might feel stale or why several scenes have to resort to D.I.Y. The way I wanted to tell this story is by showing how many music venues shut down, how expensive music can be and why streaming apps can cause a passive listening habit. The most ethical way I thought to do this was by connecting with musicians who originated in San Diego and have been playing music for over a decade since they have been the ones who have seen the most change. I also wanted to physically visit the venues that have shut down and the best way I thought to do so was by making a mini documentary for my social media aspect to have visual representation. While coming up with this plan, I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate my interviews in the documentary so the audience can see the colorful personalities of my subjects. I think the story accompanied by my mini documentary was the best way I can tell this story.
There were a lot of challenges I faced while creating my digital story, most of them came from creating the documentary. When I first started the digital story, I did not think I was going to invest most of my time towards the documentary, but I got so into the idea that I spent a lot of time working on it without realizing how hard everything was going to be. The first challenge was trying to coordinate with my subjects to record and film the interviews since they are all very busy working musicians. Another challenge was the editing process. With all of my interviews, B-Roll footage and footage of the venues, the editing process took a really long time. I wanted to show my subjects full personality so I allowed them to speak freely, meaning there was a lot of cursing which meant I had to go back through all of the dissected footage and then bleep out everything. The main challenge was mainly trying to get everything done within the timeframe that I had.
Throughout this whole process, the amount of opportunities for learning and growth were significant. I had the opportunity to speak to some very successful musicians and create a story using their voices. I also had the opportunity to write about something I am so passionate about which is the best part of journalism. I was able to create a documentary, which is something I have never done before, and use the digital techniques I learned this semester to aid me throughout the process. For my infographic I created a google map that shows the venues that have shut down over the past decade which I thought was perfect for my story. Being able to learn about digital techniques and storytelling and actually applying them to my story was very rewarding.
Digital Media Experience
Creating my digital story broadened my initial thoughts about what journalism truly is. Journalism can be so much more than just writing. Journalism is storytelling and you can tell a story in multiple ways using digital techniques. I think it’s important for journalists to understand the many paths one can take in order to create their story, which is something that I learned. Before learning about all of the many digital tips and tricks I can use for storytelling, I felt like I was always subjected to only writing, which is okay because I do really enjoy writing. In terms of a career though, I know I will need to incorporate the digital aspect in order to be successful and create a well versed portfolio.
Using databases and Google Sheets was very eye-opening. Before this semester, the last time I touched Google Sheets was probably in 2017. At first I didn’t really understand how Google Sheets could help me as a journalist until I actually needed to use it to create my Google Map for my digital story. I actually really enjoyed the process for creating the map. I started by gathering all of the information through various sources such as personal information and other local musicians, compiling all of it into Google Sheets and then transferring all of that data into the map. It was a very rewarding experience being able to understand how data and applications for data work and incorporate them.
One of the most enjoyable moments I had while working on my digital story was creating the mini documentary. As challenging as it was, I was very proud with the way it turned out. The main thing that inspired me to create this documentary was actually a clip of a documentary we saw in class about rappers and how they don’t write lyrics down anymore but use comping and editing to create their music. I thought the way everything was filmed and edited was really well done. I wanted to take inspiration from that documentary and incorporate it into my own because they both were on the subject of music.
One specific inspiration I took from the clip we saw in class was how every interview was spliced together throughout, but was edited in a way that each subject was talking about the same thing. I really liked that style so I tried to replicate it. Instead of having one subject on screen for their whole interview and then having the next subject on screen for their whole interview, I edited it so that each subject had mixed clips throughout but they all remained on the same subject of focus. The documentary was definitely the most challenging yet most enjoyable about my whole story.