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Shutting down

Michael Becker — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:44:15 +0000

Hey everybody. Thanks for reading this blog while it’s been here.

This is a note to let you know that I’m going to take this content down in two weeks. The site will still exist, but probably in some different form. Jake has a backup copy of all the posts here, so if you need something please see him. Thanks for all the great comments and interaction as we learned about video and other forms of multimedia journalism this summer.

Oh, and if any of you need to reach me, go ahead and send me an e-mail at becker@hypercrit.net or reach me on Facebook.

–Mike

Due date for third assignment

Michael Becker — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:36:26 +0000

Just in case it hasn’t been clear so far, the next assignments need to be turned in to me by 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 14. We’ll be viewing them at 10 a.m. the following morning, for those who can make it.

Edit: The videos are now due to me by 3:30 p.m. Monday. We’ll watch them on Tuesday at 10 a.m. — precisely one week after the original scheduled due date.

Example: The Lemonade Kid

Michael Becker — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:53:55 +0000

“The Lemonade Kid” was shot by photographer John C.P. Goheen sometime in 1988 or 1989 in a Seattle suburb. It’s a great example of visual story telling that needs no narration from the reporter, only the sound provided by the subject — in this case, a precocious lemonade-selling kid.

Take a look at how this thing is edited together and how it uses tight, medium and wide shots to progress the story.

The file: Lemonade Kid.

Welcome

Michael Becker — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:27:16 +0000

This blog is intended to keep track of my research into multimedia and video journalism, which is really just preparation for a presentation that I’ll give to the staff on Monday, May 18. Feel free to check back here to find out what I’ve learned throughout the course of my investigation. Follow the links if you like, and read up on it yourself. And, as always, feel free to comment.

Out of touch

Michael Becker — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:59:07 +0000

When it comes to my old-time hobbies and habits, like, oh, I don’t know, actually sitting down and reading all the RSS feeds I’ve subscribed to and keeping up with the worlds of technology and digital culture, I’ve been, of late, a little, um, lazy.

I have an excuse. I had a baby. Rather, my partner had a baby, but I’m still a daddy, and little Nathan takes up a lot of the time that I would otherwise have spent doing techie things. Then there’s the fact that my work — writing about engineering for a university’s public affairs office — has little to do with the digital culture this blog purports to cover and keeps me busy chasing down carbon sequestration projects and lidar research.

So instead of sitting down at my computer and actively reading the news every day, the unread count in NetNewsWire just keeps on climbing. I started the program the other day when I managed some free time, and found out that I had more than 9,000 unread items. Panic button, anyone?

What’s going on here? Why don’t I seem to care about the subjects that I wrote my thesis about in grad school? Why am I not keeping up with the fields I one day hope to teach at a college level? Why am I not out there writing books and journal articles and attending conferences and being, well, an academic?

Plenty of questions. No answers of course. Motivation’s a factor. So’s the baby crying in the other room as I try to come up with a conclusion for this post.