Why do a video project?

[AlexReid]

Perhaps you are asking this question. This is, after all, a "writing" class. Well, as I am sure you are aware by now, writing is no longer just putting words on paper. It is not even just putting words on a screen. In the digital age, text intersects with image, sound, graphics, video, etc. Certainly there are courses on this campus (and some of you have taken them) where video production is addressed as a professional practice. But today, it is also quite clear that video production is part of the larger participatory culture that Jenkins describes. We are all part of the YouTube phenomenon, as viewers if not also as producers.

Today, videos produced by everyday folks like you and me with consumer-grade video cameras, home pcs, and cheap video editing software are part of the fabric of our culture. Videos of this kind serve a variety of purposes: educational, entertainment, political, personal, documentary, marketing/pr, commercial. It's a jumbled list, but it's a jumbled world of video out there.

A video project, like any rhetorical/compositional project, begins with thinking about audience and purpose. Who do you want to speak to? What do you want to say to them? What result/reaction are you looking for? Then you need to think about genre, in this case the short video. Maybe you could look at similar videos for similar audiences and purposes on YouTube. How do they work? How are they organized? What do these videos have in common? What do the best of these videos have that the others don't? Those are the kinds of questions you need to ask when thinking about genre. The answer to the last question might be "high production values," and maybe you can't expect that in your first attempt. I know I don't expect that from you.

So as you start to discuss this project with your group members, I would like to know what you are talking about and what you hope to do.

[Taylor]

Our group (me, Deanna, Jacob, and Isaac) met yesterday and we discussed how we're going to do our video on the College Social Media topic you suggested. What we're going to do is interview each other on media that is used in the classroom such as WebCT. Here are some interview questions we decided on:

1) How many of your classes use WebCT?
2) Is it advantageous to use WebCT or other social media within the classroom?
3) What is your opinion on social media within the classroom?
4) Do you take advantage of the media resources in the library such as the PCs and Macs, or renting media equipment such as video cameras, still life cameras, microphones etc?

We will interview each other, along with some other strays we may find, then will walk around campus and document the social media we may find in some of the classrooms.

[Bryce Urbany]

I met with Michelle, Alyson, and Sarah yesterday in the library and had a brainstorming session for about an hour. In that time, we figured out what we are going to do for our project and when we can all get together to film it. This was interesting because in an online environment there are no obligations for traveling but Michelle commutes from Syracuse and it was hard to work around her schedule. If this project was something done online, that factor, which was the only complication that arose, would not have been an issue. Ultimately we decided upon filming a project that highlights the advantages of always being connected in today's society using the social mediums we have been talking about in this class all semester. This will be done through a simulated experience through the course of one day featuring each group member and how we each could potentially use online social media to learn of an event going on. Each person will be filmed using a certain social device and a narration/interview from the student will explain what they are doing and the advantages of each tool used.