Convergence Journalism End of The Year Reflection
Ryan Atchison
Hours 6-7
This year in Convergence Journalism I have learned many different things. I have increased my knowledge in all the areas including: technology, collaboration, communication, project management, and leadership. Overall, I have gotten better as an editor and a journalist and I hope to improve my work for clients and for ONW Now.
I am going to take away many things from this year and apply it to next year to make myself better. In the technology aspect, using Final Cut Pro has gotten me used to the software, and now I feel more comfortable with long hours of working. From 10 hours of color correcting to making multiple videos, it shows how much hard work pays off. Using J and L editing for me makes the videos flow better, and it gives a different tone to the story. Also, locking the white balance helps the lighting stay consistent so there is not much editing with the color board. The production side was by far my favorite as being floor director was a good experience to learn how to communicate with others to produce a show. However, I want to learn many other things like tricaster and the sound and lights because I want to try different things and learn everything I can.
The collaboration side was a struggle for me in some cases this year. Only a few people wanted to work with me, and working with different people changed the way I had to go along with the process. For example, with the Feed His Lambs endorsement project, I had to change my thinking on a story because it was a different kind of video, and not just a normal news package. Working with different people can be hard because time schedules are different and can be frustrating, but it helps get things done faster, and there’s more ways to come up with creative ideas with more people. Next year I feel like I need to work with many people, and have trust in them to get stuff done so I don’t get overly stressed out.
In the communication side, I learned how to talk with others, and be able to put myself out there in order to get a certain project done. It is important that we communicate with each other so that there are no surprises the last minute. This year the whole class was asking people to cover a sporting event or news package on the day of, and many people rejected because they either had plans or didn’t want to do it. I think that was a challenge for me because trying to turn around a project in less than a day is very hard when you’re not given a lot of time.
Project Management is probably the most important factor out of all. Being able to outline and figure out how to do a project is the one thing that I took away from this year. Planning out how a story should be is the most important thing because otherwise, the project is not going to very good. Something I had a challenge with this year is making sure I get enough footage to edit and create a story. It is hard to determine whether or not you have a lot of great footage, but next year I need to make sure I get a lot of quality shots faster so then I don’t have to spend more time outside.
Finally the leadership side was one of the most important things for me as this was the one I will take away the most. The leadership I learned in this class reflects on how you can manage people and produce good work. Leadership is leading by example to your peers and showing how it should be done. If one person slacks off, then the rest will follow that example, and I think that’s where the problem lies. Some of the challenges that I faced was that I need to work on setting the example, but also being passionate and having fun.
Some of my strengths are that I meet deadlines on time almost always, and that I strive to get better each and every time. I have edited and filmed very exceptional packages and I have come a long way since the beginning of the year. Some of my weaknesses are willing to work with other people that I know won’t help me and my voice in my voiceovers. I have to figure out how to be more expressive in my voice and change the style.
Next year what I am going to with what I have learned is to be able to expand on my knowledge, and improve to get better because next year I am going to be the example for the juniors. Next year I hope to change my roles as I want to do different things throughout the year. Hopefully Jared doesn’t change my desktop every day either because that is annoying when they mess with my things.
In conclusion, I hope that everyone will be passionate in what they are doing because some people are holding us back from being the best that this program can be. My biggest wish for next year is that we stick with one way of how to run things. With changing things every week, it leaves confusion to what the expectations are in the class and it leaves many people frustrated. Overall, I am excited to get ready for the next year.
