What to do for Monday, Feb. 27

Part I: This week you learned how to use the great audio editing software Audacity. Now it's time for each team to edit your interviews into a 3-minute or so soundcast. First, however, a little more field work: You learned about Broll (ambient background sound associated with a story, such as the sound of a bus door opening if it is about a bus driver) from Don and in your reading. Head out and collect some B-roll and save it so that you will be able to work it into your project  in Audacity.

Now you are ready to make your show. This will take a lot of careful editing. You will want to export it from Audacity as an MP3 file Remember, if you are confused about anything Don said in class there are numerous online tutorials in addition to the guidance given in your textbook. When you are finished, email that mp3 file to me. This should be no later than Sunday, Feb. 26, at 5 p.m.

Part II:
This is a solo project. Using either a decent point-and shoot or DSLR camera (you can borrow very good cameras from Parker Lab), you are going to start shooting photos. Lots of photos. Tomorrow. If you have documentation, read the user's guide for the camera. If not, search for it online -- every camera manufacturer will post it. Re-read Chapter 6 in the textbook, which you first read for Feb. 13. Become a photojournalist, seeing the world around you, becoming aware of light and lines and shadows. Every day this week, beginning tomorrow, Find one thing or person or place that you are going to photograph every day. Same thing, every day. Take as many photos as you want, but be sure to do it every day. It doesn't have to take long. This is an exercise professional photographers do to stay sharp. Good photography is all about practice. When you save your photos as JPEGS to a folder on your computer or wherever, make sure the day's date is in the filename. It might say, for example, Feb 21 tree.jpg, or each day's photos could go into a separate folder. At the end of the week (next Tuesday) select one photo from each day and create a slideshow using the slideshow gadget on Blogger. In your folders, please save all of your photos, not just your final selections.