Third in a series.
It is a rite of passage for early May each year as the students in my Multiplatform Design & Storytelling course at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism turn in their final projects.
The assignment varies each semester, but it usually involves a multimedia story that the students write, design and promote themselves.
I will be profiling the work of the 13 students in my class, with their permission, and hope you will feel free to comment and to contact the students if you would like to discuss their story, or even offer job possibilities. They are receiving their Masters in Journalism from Columbia in the next few days.
The project’s goal
Final: A multimedia story
Here is how I presented the final project in our course syllabus.
It’s been years since The New York Times published “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek.” It instantly became a storytelling sensation. More than that, it pioneered the multimedia story for the digital age. What is it that the best multimedia stories have in common? All emphasize segmentation. All introduce texture woven into the narrative with photo galleries, quotes, videos and highlights. All allow readers to explore related content.
For the final project, each student will create his or her own story and present it in a multimedia mode, appealing to the senses through audio, video, photography and text. This final project will become a valuable portfolio piece, while demonstrating your ability to tell stories across platforms.
The presentation must include the following:
- How story would be promoted through various social media outlets: Tweeter, Instagram, Snapchat. In addition, the story must follow a linear visual storytelling format, and students must present how that story would appear on various digital platforms.
- Each student is required to create his/her own BRAND on which to display the story.
- The final project should become a major centerpiece of the student’s portfolio for future job interviews.
Each day I will profile about three projects.
The projects
Project 7
Headline: The Faces of the Opioid Epidemic in New York
Author: Miguel Amaya (maa2300@columbia.edu)
Highlight: Jorge Vazquez is one of the 60,000 New Yorkers suffering with opioid addiction. Sick and homeless for 7 years, Jorge is now looking for help.
Mobile: https://marvelapp.com/6aachdb
Desktop: https://marvelapp.com/8e0h320/screen/41966208
Project 8
Headline: The Inmates Left Behind
Author: Raishad Hardnett (rmh2190@columbia.edu)
Highlight: Thousands of nonviolent drug offenders are stuck in limbo, praying for their chance at mercy under an administration that has shown no interest in reviving Obama’s clemency program.
Project 9
Headline: Looking at a Vanishing Newsroom
Author: Maria Patino (mpp2134@columbia.edu)
Highlight: The Greensboro News and Record has gone through multiple cuts in the past years, much like other small-town newspapers.
Project 10
Headline: A Second Perspective: Living with the iPhone 7 Plus’s Dual Cameras
Author: Tiancheng (Harry) Zhang ( tz2309@columbia.edu)
Highlight: “The iPhone 7 Plus finally gave me a camera that more closely matches the human eye.”
A Page We Don’t Like
Sometimes bad things happen, and apparently that was the case with this front page from South Florida’s Sun Sentinel, which ran an ad for guns directly under an article related to one of the victims of the Parkland massacre.
For more:
Mario’s Speaking Engagements
June 7-8—WAN-IFRA World Congress, Lisbon, Portugal
June 12-14, CUE Days , Aarhus, Denmark
http://www.ccieurope.com/news/6738/Video_What_is_CUE_Days_2018
August 2, Digital House (Facebook workshop), Buenos Aires
October 6, 20, 27–King’s College, New York City
The Basics of Visual Journalism seminars
Garcia Media: Over 25 years at your service
TheMarioBlog post #2832