TEAM PROJECT #2:  CRITICAL MEDIA MASHUP
50 points (out of 200)  

DUE April 27

 

 

In teams of two or three, you’ll be taking expertly shot videos from the BBC documentary project, Virtual Revolution, download interview clips from the site's "Make Your Own Documentary" section (there are both interview clips AND b-roll video), and edit a critical, cultural critique about the internet on a topic you are specifically interested in exploring further. The video should be motivated by the BBC interview clips, but you are required to download clips beyond the BBC, create your own AE animations, titles, and effects, and build a coherent, smart, critical video piece about new media and culture. To do this, you should read beyond the interview segments you choose, bring in counter arguments, and think how you can creatively communicate complicated ideas about digital culture. You need to pick your own teams and report your team involvement before Spring Break. This project is a culminating project for our class.

 

  1. WATCH, READ and THINK. The first challenge is to familiarize yourself with the BBC material and then pick a solid idea from which you can build a critical piece that unveils the complexity of your issue. Read beyond the issue. If the interviewee is a known author, read some of their outside works (talk to Bettina). Read competing arguments. Think about how you might creatively build upon the interview footage you choose. Since AE is a requirement for tis project, think about how you can integrate aniamtion, effects, titles, etc. in your video.

 

  1. COLLECT.  Download the BBC video files you will be using. Download additional video files from the Internet Archive, YouTube (although beware of the quality), and footage you shoot yourselves (Flip cameras are available for checkout in the main office).  Record a videoscreen on a MAC with SnapzProX: trial is 15 days. Debut for PCs. Save your visuals on your portable hard drives NOTE: MAKE SURE THE VIDEO CLIPS YOU SELECT WILL BE USED ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF FAIR USE. Attribute. As you download, make sure to properly attribute any artist or work you sampled to comply with the ATTRIBUTION part of the Creative Commons license. A legible credit list should come at the end of your piece. If you use a video from YouTube, you need to supply the Video's name, the name of the AUTHOR, the Video's URL, and the DATE you downloaded the video. Photos also need to be attributed: author, name of photo, URL, DATE downloaded. Music, unless it's directly connected to the critical commentary of the piece (and is attributed) needs to be from the BBC or original (Garageband).    

 

3. REVIEW TUTORIALS.  Since this is an advanced Emedia class, the assumption is that most students in the class have some experience with Adobe Premiere Pro. Helpful tutorials are HERE).  You’ll SAVE TIME by doing these tutorials, I promise! All tutorials are also available in the "TOOLS" menu of the syllabus.

 

4. EDIT.  Edit your video, either in the Lang 212 Lab or in one of the other open labs on campus.  Remember to save your edits, often and always, on your portable hard drive. Your video should be no longer than 5-6 minutes. Resolution: If you have to use YouTube videos, they have very low resolution and there's nothing you can do about that. Adobe Premiere Pro responds to the low resolution by resizing the video so that it's small--the resolution is "clearer" but your output will look like a frame within a frame. If you're using YouTube videos you need to fix that by Right Clicking on each clip of your video (from YouTube) and selecting "Scale to Frame Size." The video clip will automatically rescale.

 

 5. AFTER EFFECTS: You need to integrate AFTER EFFECTS animation into your video. Stretch your editing wings here. We'll be doing AE workshops in class, and there are lots of tutorials to watch, starting HERE. The AE component should be approximately 20% of your video. For starters, ALL your titles should be dynamic and produced in AE. Then pick between 1) animation (with a photoshopped image using the puppet tool); 2) an experimentation with rotoscope, or 3) an advanced image effect. Keep this in mind: an animation out of nowhere that is not driven by the content of your overall piece will seem ridiculous, so plan ahead. Think about integration. You may want to have 3-4 similar animations throughout the video to isolate various points in your argument. You may want to open and close with an animation. Think about creating a wholistic piece, not a video with an AE implant.

 

 

6. EXPORT AND UPLOAD.

A. First, make sure that your video images are all showing at "maximum" size, not a frame within a frame. Adobe Premiere automically detects when a video is poor quaiity (aka, downloaded from YouTube), and it overcompensates by importing your video smaller than full screen. To fix that, put your cursor over each edited clip in the timeline and double click on the corresponding image in program view. Right Click on each clip and select "Scale to Frame Size." You'll have to do this for every clip.

 

B. When you're done, you’ll want to export your movie File/Export/Media.  You'll get a dialog box, "Export Setitngs" Select Format: Quicktime, Present:NTSC DV, make sure "Export Video" and "Export Audio" are both selected, and click OK. After Adobe Media Encoder box comes up, select "Start Queu" and you'll see (be patient) that your video will convert into Quicktime. It'll save in the same place as your project.

 

C. Finally, with Quicktime in hand, you're ready to upload the video to:  YouTube or Vimeo! If you don’t have a Google/YouTube account, you’ll have to create one.  Follow the “Upload” directions…very easy!  This MAY take as long as 6 hours or as short as 10 minutes, depending on the time of day and the length/quality of your video.  Then email Bettina the URL, along with the YouTube search terms and the title of your piece.

 

7. EVALUATE (2 areas). 
A. I first need to know if certain people did not pull their weight in their groups.  Please write a paragraph evaluating your peers’ collaboration. I will grade (up or down) accordingly

B. 3/4 page (single space please) on how this project shaped you as a researcher and scholar. The academy tends to (still) value research in written form: How important do you think it is to critique an aspect of mass communication by remixing visual examples? How is visualized research different than a written research paper? And what did you gain from this experience? Please hand in your peer and self evaluations on the day your team presents their project. 

 

8. PRESENT. April 27. 15-20 minutes long, Team presentation. Here are some guidelines to make it as effective as possible.  You do not have to present in this order, but it’s a good idea to addressthe following components.  Using Google Slides is mandatory. Also, please do not refer to this list as part of your presentation (as in..."ummm, next on the list that we were supposed to talk about is....ummm....technology...."--you're expected to be a LOT more professional than that).

  1. Genesis.  Please explain how you worked through the article, and the choices you made to visualize the research. What other kind of research did you do beyond the article?   
  1. Technology.  Please explain how you made the video.  What tools did you use?  How well do you think you used them?  Did anything go wrong?  How could you have prevented techno-hardship?  What did you learn from using these production tools?  How did your team work with new media?  Did your team share expertise and build tech knowledge together (did all of you grow technologically), or did you assign tasks according to prior areas of expertise?   
  1. Narrative.  How did you structure your piece?  What specific choices went into making your video?  Why did you put what where? What things do you want us to notice especially, about your piece?  What do you want us to take away from your video?  
  1. Contribution.  You have just shared your video--a piece of critical media--with the world.  How does it feel to critique media WITH media?  How do you think your video will be useful to the study of media?  When you contacted the author of the article you worked with, what was the response?  How has making this project benefited you personally/your group? Think about what Lessig wrote about in terms of visual literacy and rewrite culture. To what extent do you agree with him, that you’ve engaged in a type of literacy that is crucial to the next generation of culture?  In what ways is it, is it not crucial?  Did you learn skills that you think you will use again?  In what ways? Linking your video to themes of the class is a CRITICAL part of your presentation. Don't worry if another group touched on something that you think is also relevant. Please don't think of our class as the target audience for your presentation...act like you're talking to a conference room filled with 80 people.  
  1. Show.  At some point during your presentation, you should show your piece (it MUST be on YouTube or Vimeo).   
  1. Supporting documents.  Besides the slide presentation (Google Slides) to illustrate your points, any handouts or information you can devise to make your presentation more gripping is greatly advised.  If you’re planning on individual handouts, bring enough copies. Also, make sure you refer to the handouts; integrate them into the presentation. It's not enough to just give your audience material.
  1. Discussion.  If there is time, you should build in a question and answer period as part of your presentation.

Here are some more presentation dos and don'ts:

  1. Don't load too much info on your presentation (Google) slides. We want to see you explain things; we don't want to read a bunch of minutia.
  2. Don't create slides that don't have a good amount of contrast between text font and background. Your whole goal should be: clarity.
  3. Don't refer to the other groups who presented before you....Like the other groups said....
  4. Don't giggle and hesitate during your presentations.
  5. Don't be bored by your own creative work (or if you are, pretend not to be).
  6. Don't imply that we as an audience know everything.
  7. Don't sluff off if you're presenting on Day 2. This ALWAYS HAPPENS. Presentations are usually better on Day 1. Why is that? Help me figure that out and counteract it.
  8. DO refer to the readings, to specific concepts and themes that you got out of the class...it's okay to bring in Lessig but what does Lessig say specifically? Try to think of ways to link this video project to classroom discussions beyond Lessig, Benkler and Copyright/Fair Use (although these people themes are very valid). Be original applying your connections.
  9. DO Treat the class like their an interested audience who has never heard of this mashup project.

GRADING:
1. Preproduction: 20 points
You will evaluated on your overall concept; the critical nature of your argument; the amount of research involved in your project; the depth in which you analyzed your material; the novelty of your ideas; the creativity of your approach.

2. Production: 20 points
You will be evaluated on the polish of your piece; the thoughtfulness of your edits; the flow of your visual argument; the effectiveness of your titles; the ambition of your use of AE and Adobe Premiere Pro; Proper attribution at the end of your video that is legible and clear; the exporting of your video and theuploading to YouTube. Expect to make a piece about 5-6 minutes in length. If you get working on schedule you can better use me for constructive criticism. For full points you will need to upload this project by the April 27 deadline.

3. Post Production: 10 points
You will be evaluated on your peer evaluation, your self-evaluation (written solo, apart from your group) and your participation in (and quality of) your group presentation.