New Media Workshop

I planned to do my final project on the topic about “climate change in the past decade of Hong Kong”. At that time I thought this would be an interesting topic to me on one hand, and meaningful one on the other. But then as time goes by, I have realised that it is so hard to generate pictures and videos and etc from this topic. Because this topic should be best presented with graphs and text.

So now, before the deadline for changing topic approaches, I have to make a critical change without a choice. Yes I would have to gather the needed materials again, and that takes time, but on the other side of the coin, I could try and use techniques which I have learnt from the course, including searching tags in Flickr and uploading video clips. I think I could manage such a shift.

My new theme is about a hall life at HKU. I am currently staying at Weilun Hall, an off-campus hall located next to Queen Mary Hospital, because of this, I think I could manage to finish the final project neatly with a meaningful aim, that is presenting to others what hall life really is, and maybe criticising some of the dark sides of it.

Photos and text would be what I use much, and also some videos. Although I may not be good at taking videos, I think what Foust mentions in his book is right, that we are not trying to present something with really high artistic value, rather we are aiming at presenting with journalistic one. Despite the fact that users sitting there watching the video might not be that patient to watch the whole thing, which McAdmas warns us, I think it is still crucial that some kind of video production is needed for this project, because videos is a ‘motion of pictures’ which shows much more than merely a series of pictures.

From Why Photojournalists Should Gather Audio, it says that “Audio interviews give the subject a voice, which complements the photojournalist’s taking of a photograph.” This is quite true, and it is a tool showing one is making full use of the internet resources, and distinguish internet ‘packages’ from magazine one. But then in this case, I think it will not be useful to me, because my interviewing subjects are not famous people who are likely to give soundbites good enough to be recorded in audio format. I prefer quoting them in text if I am fortunate enough to have some.

A more detailed plan of my project will be as follows.

I will be focusing on daily hall lifes, and also functions like Joint Hall Dance Performance, Interhall Atheletics Competition and Interfloor Football Competition.

Text

Text will be needed in introducing all the topicss listed above. It will also be needed in the form of captions for some of the pictures.

Photos and Graphics

Photos will be used to illustrate those topics in visual format. Captions will be added and I hope to make it a package alongside with text introducing what is going on for each of the topics.

Audio or Video?

I prefer video in this case, as discussed above.

Interaction

Interaction is also crucial for this project. Hyperlinks, which we have learnt fromt he course, and also allowing comments to be made on video and text will be the main interaction format I would like to include. As McAdams warns us, that “many discussions deteriorate if there is no moderator”, I think I will not include this way of interaction, because nobody is authoritative enough to moderate the discussion.

As far as I know, there are some MJ students also staying at hall, and some do like the hall life they are living with, while some don’t. I think they will like to express their ideas on this matter. Besides, I think some BJ students might as well want to comment on this, together with these, other hall residents might also be invited to give their comments, as long as it suits the whole idea of the “HK stories project”. I think Foust’s line would be useful to conclude this little parapragh, that interaction “provides many potential new sources and points of view for stories”.