Obama Campaign at RWU

Actor Kalpen Modi turned up at Roger Williams University Thursday to talk to students about Senator Barack Obama's presidential run. Modi says he's been stumping for Obama since January, making appearances, primarily, on college campuses.

Roughly 100 students turned out to see the Modi speak. During the lecture, the TV and movie actor spoke about Senator Obama's political platform and his appeal to college-aged students. He spoke for 45 minutes and fielded questions afterwards. Overall, Modi's presentation was funny, charming and endearing.

If you don't recognize the name, you may know his face. Kalpen Modi goes by the stage name "Kal Penn," and his television credits include 24 and House MD. He's also had starring roles in "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle," and "National Lampoon's Van Wilder." The 30-year-old actor is from New Jersey and will soon accept a visiting professorship at the University of Pennsylvania.

On Tuesday, March 4th, Rhode Island is hosting its primaries. Modi's visit to Roger Williams University was part of his election-week sweep through the state.

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Internet TV Interviewing Techniques

In class today, I spoke to my Digital Journalism students about Internet TV interviewing techniques. To do so, I chose one of my students, Ben Camobreco, and spoke to him about his final days as a Roger Williams University basketball player. That interview is below.

As for the purpose of the drill: In the last video production cycle, I let them just wield the camera and interview family and friends. The results were very raw. The students experimented with two-shots, shot under poor lighting, and they allowed their subjects to babble. I got a lot of rambling BABBLE.

Today's lesson was about "managing the interview." As a one-person video team, the students need to learn how important it is to PRODUCE the video. Part of that is CONTROLLING the interview.

One very successful technique that I learned from my teaching partner Ted Delaney was to give the subject the first two or three words and have them finish the sentence. An example would be: "When the basketball season ends, I will...." As a result, each sentence is short and declarative. Once each sentence is married together, the final interview should be solid, information rich, and fluid.

Here's how it worked out with Ben:



Now, there are some production problems here. The lighting isn't great, the background is a disaster and -- if you watch the shadows in the background -- you can see me moving.

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Abe Lincoln Statue Redux

After shooting and editing video of Rhode Island's only statue of Abraham Lincoln, I decided that maybe using Barber's "Adagio for Strings" was a little too baroque, so I recut the video and added a different soundtrack. Instead of going with classical music, I opted for -- ahem -- Dwight Yoakam's "Please, Please Baby."

The affect, when compared to the classical music version, is very funny.



Clearly, the message here is to see what emotional value music can add to video.

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Rhode Island's only statue of Abe Lincoln

There's only one statue of Abraham Lincoln in Rhode Island. The life size bronze of the 16th president stands near the entrance to the zoo inside Roger Williams Park in Cranston, RI. The statue is beautiful but somber; clearly, a fitting memorial to the martyred president. It's located on a small bluff surrounded by deciduous trees and over looks the entrance to the zoo.

A friend of mine at Roger Williams University, Professor Jim Tackach, tells me he's part of a non-profit working to raise money to restore the tarnished statue. Inspired by his passion for it, I decided to drive over during the President's Day weekend and shoot video of it. Of course, as I drove there, a ceiling of low-flying gray clouds blew in from the west and dulled the images.

Still, I shot 10 minutes of video and cobbled it together and set it to Barber's "Adagio for Strings."



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Roger Williams University New Media Student Standups

With just 10 minutes left in the class, I dragged my 14 New Media students outside to shoot standups. I armed them with a microphone, situated them in front of the camera and then had them tell me who they were, where they were from and finish the phrase "Roger Williams is...." I got a lot of weather reports.



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The New SMART Car

Walking across campus today, I was surprised to see one of the new SMART cars on campus. This one was yellow with a light lime tinge to it which made it nearly impossible to miss. In a hurry to get some work done, I quickly walked swiftly passed it all-the-while wondering who on the faculty at Roger Williams University owned it.

An hour later, I found myself talking to Professor Brett McKenzie, one of the hipper guys on campus. He's a computer guy working in the information sciences major and I'm a less-than-techno guy working in journalism. So, when I see Brett I make a point of picking his brain about technology.

After some brief chatter he finally offered: "Oh! I just bought one of the new SMART cars." I immediately asked for a quick ride... which he gladly agreed to do. And off we went.

I don't have video of our little drive, but I do have video of the car.



The car is a two-seater. It's got a 1.0 liter engine in it. The car was designed and engineered first as a consortium between Swatch and Mercedes-Benz, but Swatch bailed out. The car is swift, comfortable and fun to drive in. It also has a great sunroof and lots of cool amenities for a sporty little compact.

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Test Final Cut Pro video

This is a test video from my Digital Journalism course.



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U.S. Album Sales Fell 9.5% in 2007

Album sales in the United States plunged 9.5 percent last year from 2006, as the recording industry had another weak year despite a 45 percent surge in the sale of digital tracks, according to figures released Thursday. Just further proof that the traditional media are in trouble.

read more | digg story

Worthless and Weak

On Thursday, my students and I packed up our bags and wandered out into the Roger Williams University quad to do camera training. The drill here is simple enough. The idea is to get them to pull the tripod out of its bag and mount the camera -- the Flip Video Ultra -- on the tripod and then shoot stand ups.

My methods here are many. First, I wanted them out using the camera; I want them learning the process of setting up a shoot; I want them building a confidence with the equipment and with their presence on air.



As it happens, four students ended up using my camera. After the class, I loaded that video into my computer and pasted it together. The shoot is rough but at least we've got proof of the work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjzxLX0leDI

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Roger Williams University Offers Streaming Audio of Basketball

In December, I was approached by the Roger Williams University Athletics Department about finding play-by-play sports announcers to call the men's and women's basketball games. After a quick survey of students, I found that I had six students who were very interested in calling the games live over an audio Internet feed on http://www.CollegeCast.Net.

This broadcasting team includes Michael Hollander, Michael Naymie, Tucker Silva, Chuck Davidson, Dan Kennedy and Dan Malkin.

With a team in place, we began calling the games in December and will continue until the basketball season ends in March. In addition to calling the home games, these guys have been traveling with the teams too.

Adding to the dynamic of the project, the CollegeCast website is also archiving the games. So, if you've missed a Hawk's game, you can find it in the archive.

The men's and women's Hawks games are typically on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

At last count, I've heard that we've earned an audience of 500 listeners per game.

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Lou Dobbs at Roger Williams University

So, CNN Anchorman Lou Dobbs turned up at Roger Williams University on January 31st to talk about political, economic and social issues -- as he saw them -- here in the United States. During the 60-minute presentation, he touched on many of his pet issues including partisan politics, illegal immigration, the mortgage crisis and so forth.

And while many of the 300 or so people who turned out for the speech, did so expecting to hate Lou Dobbs, some found his lecture to be surprisingly charming. Lou had a way of defusing controversial issues by offering both sides -- off in a contradictory way -- of the key arguments.

On mortgage crisis, for example, he argued that the banking community should never had allowed itself to lend money to people who had not financial business trying to buy a home. Instead, he argued, there needed to be some sort of government regulation. And then later, he'd argue that he was a believer in capitalism and free markets. Clearly, these too ideas are in conflict with each other. Unless you consider a middle ground: I believe Lou made this point that capitalism is good for the United States but unfettered or under-regulated capitalism is poisonous to the economy of the United States.

Near the end of the lecture, Lou took questions from the audience including several on the state of illegal immigration here in the United States. He said that the commonly quoted figure ranged between 12 and 20 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and that these people should be arrested and deported. He said that it was shameless for anyone in politics to champion the rights of illegal aliens in a country that tends to ignore its own unemployed and impoverished citizens.

Adding to the tone of the lecture was the presence of several anti-illegal immigrant groups here in Rhode Island. With every talking point on Lou Dobbs's list of reasons to close the borders and deport illegals, this caucus of activists cheered and applauded vigorously. By the end of the speech, it was apparent that Lou was pandering to the swollen support offered by these folks.

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