Hot time, summer at the J-School

Summer term may have started, but a dozen J-School faculty members spent three intense days learning video shooting and editing for the web.

We came in with vastly varying skill levels, but, by Wednesday afternoon, every one of us had crafted a video we uploaded to YouTube.

Robb Montgomery from VisualEditors.com did the training. We brought him in from Chicago. Despite a bad head cold, he showed us the basics and put us to work. J-School faculty members Bob Gould and Karl Gude, who had taken advanced training the previous week, pitched in to help faculty as we were put through our paces. The editing, on iMovie (though likely simple for many of our students!) was challenging for some of us. But Karl and Bob showed us some terrific tips and shortcuts. Also helping were Lucinda Davenport, Dave Poulson and me—we had taken beginning training the previous week.

At the end of the training, we viewed our maiden efforts of web storytelling. Faculty participants were given Journalism Survivor t-shirts and Flip video cameras to practice with for the summer. By fall, everyone of us should come back as sharp shooters.

What’s ahead in the fall?? Expect the first Flip Flicks contest at the J-School. Stay tuned. And check out my video.

In more J-School multimedia news, Nick Dentamaro won 10^th place in the Multimedia Competition in the 2007-8 Hearst Journalism Awards Program. Congrats, Nick!!