Video Work
These are some of my video works in stills, with a description of the work and links where possible.
ARVR PROJECT
The final project for my ‘Augmented and Virtual Reality’ course with professor Dr. Christopher Ball, which I completed with three other students, was on the Journalism Department Tour. From our research, no other school has a virtual tour for their department in any field. Alongside the video, we had to create a website. Since this is a group project, we each had to split up the project roles. I conceptualized the idea and directed the project in the video format and in our research presentations to our classmates. My groupmates edited the experience, made the website, helped coordinate filming with professors, and aided in general research. We entrusted each other with tasks, and the final result was one of strong work between a team that came out with a beautiful website and a YouTube video tour that could be clicked around in a virtual format or in a headset. This project really launched my newfound passion for Augmented and Virtual Reality. I’m continuing to research and understand the field and consider how it might be used in journalism, film, and media in general.
Mobile Me and You Conference
I covered this event for my TV Storytelling course at UIUC in a VOSOT format. My ‘Public Affairs Reporting’ professor, Brant Houston, co-hosted the event with three colleagues from across the nation. I met innovators in the journalism field who utilize technology in journalism. Some of the people I got to connect with and hear their presentations include Julia Munslow (Wall Street Journal), Zach Wade (CNN), Subbu Vincent (Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University), and Robert Hernandez (University of Southern California Annenberg). With my B-roll, I wanted to make this conference that happens in one space as interesting as possible with different vantage points to capture as much of the event and people as possible with no interruption. I coordinated with the event staff to set up interviews with audience members and presenters and managed the equipment I was responsible for. I attended one day from about 8:15 a.m. before guests arrived at approximately 1:00 p.m. after the lunch break. These stills are from the event to show a variety of images that otherwise wouldn’t make it in a short VOSOT.
Drag Queen and King Panel
This panel occurred on a Tuesday night and followed a Get Ready With Me format while the Drag Queens and Kings did their makeup and answered audience questions. After the conclusion of the get-ready portion, the Kings and Queens dressed and performed for the audience. I filmed this project with another classmate as part of the assignment requirements. We each shot separate portions of the event, so I included stills of only my portions.
Alpaca Farm: Woman & Family-Owned
This story follows female alpaca farmers in central Illinois. I drove forty-five minutes to a female and family-owned alpaca farm and learned about the business and how it changed during COVID-19. Their business mainly relies on alpaca fiber and making alpaca crafts, socks, hats, scarves, and more. They explained everything about alpaca behavior and the alpaca community. They pointed me to another alpaca farmer in the area, a multi-business owner. This other female alpaca farmer mainly focused on different fiber patterns and textures for competitions, breeding, and selling the fiber. Overall, I spent a few weeks learning about alpacas hands-on and being in the field with wonderful female alpaca owners.
Farmers Market
This farmers market takes place in a small town in central Illinois where the community is very close, and they hold potlucks after the market ends for the season. There are so many stories in each person I recorded and talked to. I spent hours getting to know the community members and event organizers at the event. The main family I follow is a multi-generation farming family that grows crops during the season and sells them at the market. This event had a certain closeness and creativity that I wanted to capture artfully. It rained and went from cloudy to sunny, which made capturing B-roll difficult, but nevertheless, it made for some beautiful images and footage of the event.
Speech Accessibility Project
This video project was filmed as a package. It was one of the hardest packages to film since I couldn’t record anyone participating in the project outside of the researchers and research assistants. The participants for the Speech Accessibility project are across the nation, and people in Illinois aren’t allowed to participate for legal reasons, so I couldn’t feasibly drive and find a candidate or get personal information from the project about participants. Luckily, I was able to talk to a student working on the project as a research assistant and use logos from the companies as a section of the B-roll. The challenges of filming the B-roll outweighed the need to find creative solutions to tell the story of this important technological development that will better people’s lives. I wanted to showcase this project for its innovation in accessibility.
For a short backstory, this project uses recorded speech from people with various health conditions and various speech patterns to develop technology for voice-activated chats, such as Siri, to accommodate various speech patterns better. Various speech patterns could be pauses between speech, repeating words, speech volume, and other types of speech patterns specific to each health condition. Some of the criteria they’re recruiting for include Parkinson’s, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and those who’ve had a stroke.
Gas Prices
This section of the B-roll is from a story reporting on local gas prices and how conflict abroad may potentially impact gas prices. As a journalist, covering conflict is important work, but I wanted to cover it in a way that looks at a global economic perspective. The parameters for this story outlined that we needed to take a global/national issue and make it personal to the Champaign Urbana Area. I filmed the B-Rroll at a gas station and wanted to showcase the ways I made the fairly mundane environment of a gas station turn intriguing. I used figures of gas prices across the state and the interview of an economics professor with expertise in the topic I researched and reported on.
Rose Festival
This was my first time taking out news-based cameras in the field. I had to navigate remembering how to plug in certain cords and use wireless Rhode equipment without a student or professor there to help me. I had to go up to people and ask them to do an interview and then conduct the interview. B-roll is one of the most important parts of a film or video because it fills in the time when you can’t have your main person on screen. Capturing enough of it is always a contentious battle, especially when you don’t know precisely what your story will become. In this experience, I learned to have confidence in my skills as a videographer and apply them to this new media of television news style. I went all across the open-air fest to get different vantage points and capture as many crafts and people as possible.
Garden Hills Community Project
The Garden Hills Community Project was a multi-class effort to highlight members of the neighborhood. They've faced many issues in their infrastructure and neighborhood in general. This project aimed to highlight leaders and positive aspects of the community. I worked with two other classmates on our video profile as per the instructions, and we worked together on all aspects of the project. I led the interview, filmed the B-roll, edited the B-roll and A-roll, and maintained communication with our subject, Debra. They managed the audio, lit the subject, location scouted, added questions to our group question list, and researched our subject, Debra. From covering Debra for this project, I covered Garden Hills in other stories the following semester to continue to highlight this community.