Monday morning I finished the rough audio edit on the English side of the Dual Language Program classes. I even sent email attachments of two brief MP3 files in Spanish to my daughter for translation at her convenience. Her baby, however, had other plans for her. That Monday evening was the first of three mostly sleepless nights spent waiting at the hospital for her delivery. Of course I took my little camera, strapped securely to my belt. It was during the early morning hours of that first night stretched out across one of those hard, undersized waiting room couches that I rolled over on my side. The best news of the week was that we eventually wound up with a healthy new grandson. The bad news was that the LCD screen on my camera was shattered.
No serious problem, I thought. Most point-and-shoot cameras aren’t worth repairing, and I’ve had the little camera for two years now. Maybe it was time to upgrade the camera, or more likely, replace the broken one with a more affordable used camera of the same make.
Several days of research on the Internet left me better informed about my dilemma, but no closer to a decision on whether to repair or replace.
It seemed the FujiFilm Finepix F30 had become something of a cult camera for its singular ability to render good images in low light. Two years ago I paid a little over $200 for the camera brand new. I could now find only three used F30s on Amazon.com, ranging from $440 for “refurbished” to $550 for “like new.” Ebay auctions for F30s started around $300.
For that kind of money, why not upgrade to the current incarnation of the F30, right? I discovered that the Finepix F50fd that retailed for more than $500 brand new, could now be had for as little as $220 on Amazon – and they offered no less than 30 used.
What?!!
Backtracking through the reviews on the successive generations of the F30 revealed that not only did FujiFilm fail to market a truly unique niche camera, they moved away from their innovative image sensing technology in pursuit of mass consumer point-and-shoot standards. They now trailed the pack, at best. The F30 begat the F31fd, adding a marginally useful “face detection” (fd) feature and a little extra internal memory. The F40fd boosted the 6.2 megapixel sensor to 8.3, but only for an effective ISO of 2,000 (compared to the F30’s ISO of 3200 at full resolution). The only significant improvement was allowing the use of the more popular SD memory card, but gone were the aperture and shutter controls, as well as the sturdy metal casing and the topside control design that worked so well for my left-handed operation. The F50fd continued the sensor expansion to 12 megapixels (now limited to an ISO of 1600) and an LCD screen size to 2.7 inches – current standards among point-and-shooters. The optical zoom range remained at 3x, however, while most other compact cameras now offer 4x zooms. Reviewers agreed that the F50fd was “nice but unexceptional.”
Back to the option of repair: The LCD screen would cost $127 for the part alone, plus $50 labor, but the part was backordered until “at least March.” Parts-only F30s were going on eBay for more than $70, but with no guarantee that the salvaged LCD screen would work at all.
All of which put me back at square one. I’ve been partial to FujiFilm color technology since clear back in the day of film, but their shift to pursue the mainstream consumer market will likely force me to search other camera lines for a suitable alternative.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
New digs for an old prospector
Over the past week I've been slammed with a double work load at the newspaper due to the other staff photographer being on vacation for three weeks, my expectant daughter thinks she is due for delivery "any day," and I bought a new computer. The new computer is actually a used iMac, but one that runs at 1.25 GHz with an 80-gig hard drive, has the all-purpose CD/DVD Superdrive, the wireless Airport Extreme and a 20-inch flat screen. The seller even threw in the original OS 10.4 installation DVD and the iLife '06 DVD (including Garage Band), all for $475. Seems he was a young work-at-home graphic designer who had just replaced his two-year-old system with the latest thing Apple had to offer. I've been playing with his old system ever since and wondering why my newspaper remains entrenched in OS 9 software.
The distractions to my production schedule have been intense, but I managed to work up an outline of the first two stages for audio production. It is an outline that I will very likely come back and revise, as needed.
PRODUCTION OUTLINE – [Word file updated 3/16/08 to include slide show production]
The distractions to my production schedule have been intense, but I managed to work up an outline of the first two stages for audio production. It is an outline that I will very likely come back and revise, as needed.
PRODUCTION OUTLINE – [Word file updated 3/16/08 to include slide show production]
Sunday, January 13, 2008
For as long as it takes
Rather than start yet another slideshow project, I decided to continue working on the dual language program (DLP) production for as long as it takes for completion. I had already figured out that I didn’t want to pour considerable time and effort into another slideshow production only to have it sit largely unviewed on my humble blog. Each production would need a target website that could carry the slideshow as part of its content. This was an afterthought on the “Chalk” production, but when I offered the slideshow to the Valley Arts Association, sponsor of the chalk art event, they were delighted to have it for their website. I proposed the DLP slideshow project to Minter Bridge Elementary as something that could go on the school’s website to provide a brief introduction for parents who were considering enrolling their children in this program. Finding similar symbiotic relationships for future slideshow productions would lend a good deal more purpose to the hours and hours spent on editing, than mere practice.
The DLP production project quickly outgrew the single kindergarten classroom where it was being introduced at Minter Bridge Elementary. Had I confined it to that, it would have been relatively simple to pick out two kindergartners – one English-speaking and one Spanish-speaking – and develop parallel storylines. However, I thought the subject of DLP needed broader treatment to give the viewer a sense of direction for a program that expected at least a seven-year commitment of its participants. That meant not only covering the kindergarten class at Minter Bridge, but also covering one of the upper classes at the other school where the DLP program had been running for five years. It also meant having to find an appropriate person to interview for the narration to provide the production’s framework, similar to what was done for the production of “Chalk.”
I wound up going to the district office to interview the ‘executive director of school improvement’ – in charge of both the Dual Language Programs and English as a Second Language program. The interview went smoothly and the subsequent editing resulted in a narration track that ran just under two minutes, but it took well over a week to achieve. In the process of shuffling files from desktop computer to laptop and back – trying to edit at every chance I had during a day – files got lost, including the original recording of the interview. Not only the randomness of my work schedule worked against me, but the process of trying to edit audio without a clear step procedure left me disoriented each time I sat down to work. Editing the interview into narration under these terms was a challenge. Trying to edit the several recording sessions at two schools was a disaster.
Creating a specific schedule of work was my first breakthrough. I managed to stay on schedule over the past week – for the most part – although just getting into a productive daily routine was the high achievement for the week. It gave me a sense of progress, however tortoise-like. Five in the morning my alarm goes off. I get up, get dressed, get coffee, read the paper, feed the dogs and then sit down to my laptop by six and work until eight. That’s the schedule. I edit only on the laptop, transfer files to the desktop for backup, and then to the external hard drive for archiving. That’s the flow.
Working up a practical step procedure for editing will be the key to proficiency, and that is evolving. I keep a procedural outline handy, along with a scratch pad to note little efficiencies that come up in an editing session. For instance, I discovered this week:
• that the Mac operating system I use (OS 10.3.9) allows me to select the option “Show Item Info” under View on the Finder Menu, a feature that automatically posts the length of an audio file (all but the Windows files my little recorder produces, of course – these have to be converted to MP3 files). I don’t have to open the file to get this information.
• that the best way to open an MP3 file in Audacity is to first create a new, blank Audacity file and then Import the MP3 file. Actually, I knew this already. I just forgot.
• that the Audacity’s Label Track can have only one label open at any time. If you suddenly can’t add or edit a label to your Label Track, it’s because you have another label still open somewhere in the track. Go back and look for the label with the box around it and close that one before adding or opening another.
So at this point I’ve managed to go back over all the classroom audio in English, cataloging and screening for usable segments that can be worked into the narration track. The week(s) ahead will entail selecting and placing the English segments from both schools. That done, I’ll conscript my bilingual daughter into helping screen the classroom audio in Spanish for segments that can complement the English segments. After that, I can decide whether to include brief interviews with English-speaking and Spanish-speaking parents of upperclass DLP students about their experience over the years, and perhaps even prepare a parallel translation into Spanish (via my daughter) of the finished production for viewing by Spanish-speaking families.
And then I will look for a much, much simpler slideshow project for my next production.
The DLP production project quickly outgrew the single kindergarten classroom where it was being introduced at Minter Bridge Elementary. Had I confined it to that, it would have been relatively simple to pick out two kindergartners – one English-speaking and one Spanish-speaking – and develop parallel storylines. However, I thought the subject of DLP needed broader treatment to give the viewer a sense of direction for a program that expected at least a seven-year commitment of its participants. That meant not only covering the kindergarten class at Minter Bridge, but also covering one of the upper classes at the other school where the DLP program had been running for five years. It also meant having to find an appropriate person to interview for the narration to provide the production’s framework, similar to what was done for the production of “Chalk.”
I wound up going to the district office to interview the ‘executive director of school improvement’ – in charge of both the Dual Language Programs and English as a Second Language program. The interview went smoothly and the subsequent editing resulted in a narration track that ran just under two minutes, but it took well over a week to achieve. In the process of shuffling files from desktop computer to laptop and back – trying to edit at every chance I had during a day – files got lost, including the original recording of the interview. Not only the randomness of my work schedule worked against me, but the process of trying to edit audio without a clear step procedure left me disoriented each time I sat down to work. Editing the interview into narration under these terms was a challenge. Trying to edit the several recording sessions at two schools was a disaster.
Creating a specific schedule of work was my first breakthrough. I managed to stay on schedule over the past week – for the most part – although just getting into a productive daily routine was the high achievement for the week. It gave me a sense of progress, however tortoise-like. Five in the morning my alarm goes off. I get up, get dressed, get coffee, read the paper, feed the dogs and then sit down to my laptop by six and work until eight. That’s the schedule. I edit only on the laptop, transfer files to the desktop for backup, and then to the external hard drive for archiving. That’s the flow.
Working up a practical step procedure for editing will be the key to proficiency, and that is evolving. I keep a procedural outline handy, along with a scratch pad to note little efficiencies that come up in an editing session. For instance, I discovered this week:
• that the Mac operating system I use (OS 10.3.9) allows me to select the option “Show Item Info” under View on the Finder Menu, a feature that automatically posts the length of an audio file (all but the Windows files my little recorder produces, of course – these have to be converted to MP3 files). I don’t have to open the file to get this information.
• that the best way to open an MP3 file in Audacity is to first create a new, blank Audacity file and then Import the MP3 file. Actually, I knew this already. I just forgot.
• that the Audacity’s Label Track can have only one label open at any time. If you suddenly can’t add or edit a label to your Label Track, it’s because you have another label still open somewhere in the track. Go back and look for the label with the box around it and close that one before adding or opening another.
So at this point I’ve managed to go back over all the classroom audio in English, cataloging and screening for usable segments that can be worked into the narration track. The week(s) ahead will entail selecting and placing the English segments from both schools. That done, I’ll conscript my bilingual daughter into helping screen the classroom audio in Spanish for segments that can complement the English segments. After that, I can decide whether to include brief interviews with English-speaking and Spanish-speaking parents of upperclass DLP students about their experience over the years, and perhaps even prepare a parallel translation into Spanish (via my daughter) of the finished production for viewing by Spanish-speaking families.
And then I will look for a much, much simpler slideshow project for my next production.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Coping with a crisis in confidence
A hiatus has been necessary in order to regroup after a series of discouragements over project setbacks and distractions from the original purpose of my blog. The original idea was to teach myself how to produce good audio-driven slideshows about community life in my area. I got off to a good start by learning first how to produce a decent audio story ("Hillsboro School of Rock"), then by learning how to produce a fully-developed slideshow ("Chalk"). I kept good notes on both projects in the blog, but then I got distracted first by trying to stimulate discussion on the journalistic protocol involved in audio editing, then by soliciting exchange of views on entries in the NPPA Monthly Multimedia Contest. While these are both worthy blog projects in themselves, the silence was numbing.
Add the fact that I couldn't seem to produce another slideshow for more than two months, and the result amounted to a crisis in confidence over the whole endeavor. Of the two, the project setbacks have been most frustrating.
Hooked on Flies – Something as simple as a loose cable connection completely unnerved me during the initial interview of a man who spends most of his spare (indoor) time tying his own fishing flies –hundreds of them. The sound check revealed a steady hum in the recording, and I could not figure out the source. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting the microphone cable several times without results. We tried shutting down his computer, his wife’s computer, his son’s electric guitar and even their refrigerator, all without effect on the hum. I wound up recording an unusable, buzzy interview just to gather background information, but the technical snafu so thoroughly demoralized me that I couldn’t bring myself to reschedule another interview. It wasn’t until I did the sound check on my next production project that I realized the microphone-to-recorder cable connects at both the recorder AND the microphone. The hum was coming from a loose connection at the microphone end, not from the recorder end.
Dinner for 9,000 – One of our area communities has hosted an annual sausage and sauerkraut dinner for nearly 50 years. I made the mistake of trying to cover this one-day event on the same day I had to shoot no less than seven assignments for the newspaper. I just don’t have that sort of stamina any more. Besides, I had already missed a significant part of the story, the preparations for that dinner. Instead, I wound up simply hanging out for a couple of hours to practice working left-handed with the little camera while operating the ‘shotgun’ equipped recorder with my right hand. That was fun. In the end, I came up with a plan to cover their 49th dinner this coming fall in a two-part project. Part one would document the preparation leading up to the big day. Part two would portray how the entire community turns out to orchestrate the dinner, from the youngest school kids to the oldest seniors. The two slideshows could then be used to promote their 50th dinner the following year.
Expectant Fathers – A class for new fathers at the local hospital seemed like a good, straightforward subject. I cleared the hurdles of gaining permission for an audio-slideshow production from the hospital and the instructor, but decided at the last minute that I had a personal reason for not following through with the coverage. My own son-in-law was enrolled in the class. My presence as an observer would affect his participation. All I could do was interview the instructor and wait for the next time the course was scheduled. During the interview I realized that the course was entirely classroom-based, which would make dull visuals. Unless I could come up with a storyline to pursue outside of class, the production had little prospect of engaging viewers visually. I shelved it and moved on to the next project.
Dual Language Program – My own expectant daughter proposed the next project: a new dual language program started at the kindergarten level in the school where she teaches. This is now the second school in our district to develop what is also called two-way language immersion education. Half the day in the classroom is spent teaching in English and the other half is spent entirely in Spanish. I plunged into this project, interviewing two people at the administrative level for a narrative frame along with multiple visits to both schools for both the English and Spanish sessions. I managed to develop the narrative frame in short order but bogged down trying to sort through all the classroom material. I couldn’t seem to get organized even on the English sessions, never mind that my knowledge of Spanish is minimal. When a software glitch wiped out what little progress I had made on the production audio track, I hit the wall and shut down for the holiday season.
I am now refocusing the blog, developing a strict workflow for production, and establishing a disciplined work schedule.
The blog will be limited to accounting for my own production efforts, the production workflow will start with step procedures for processing audio and developing the audio story first, and the production schedule will consist of five to six two-hour sessions per week on mornings before leaving for the office. I’ll devote Sunday mornings to the blog.
If I can’t develop a reasonable amount of discipline and consistency, and still enjoy the challenge of learning new skills, then I’ll have to give up on multimedia and let the profession leave me behind along with my newspaper.
It’s that simple.
The worst part of being your own producer is being responsible for your own productivity. The second worst part is having to recognize and solve your own problems.
Add the fact that I couldn't seem to produce another slideshow for more than two months, and the result amounted to a crisis in confidence over the whole endeavor. Of the two, the project setbacks have been most frustrating.
Hooked on Flies – Something as simple as a loose cable connection completely unnerved me during the initial interview of a man who spends most of his spare (indoor) time tying his own fishing flies –hundreds of them. The sound check revealed a steady hum in the recording, and I could not figure out the source. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting the microphone cable several times without results. We tried shutting down his computer, his wife’s computer, his son’s electric guitar and even their refrigerator, all without effect on the hum. I wound up recording an unusable, buzzy interview just to gather background information, but the technical snafu so thoroughly demoralized me that I couldn’t bring myself to reschedule another interview. It wasn’t until I did the sound check on my next production project that I realized the microphone-to-recorder cable connects at both the recorder AND the microphone. The hum was coming from a loose connection at the microphone end, not from the recorder end.
Dinner for 9,000 – One of our area communities has hosted an annual sausage and sauerkraut dinner for nearly 50 years. I made the mistake of trying to cover this one-day event on the same day I had to shoot no less than seven assignments for the newspaper. I just don’t have that sort of stamina any more. Besides, I had already missed a significant part of the story, the preparations for that dinner. Instead, I wound up simply hanging out for a couple of hours to practice working left-handed with the little camera while operating the ‘shotgun’ equipped recorder with my right hand. That was fun. In the end, I came up with a plan to cover their 49th dinner this coming fall in a two-part project. Part one would document the preparation leading up to the big day. Part two would portray how the entire community turns out to orchestrate the dinner, from the youngest school kids to the oldest seniors. The two slideshows could then be used to promote their 50th dinner the following year.
Expectant Fathers – A class for new fathers at the local hospital seemed like a good, straightforward subject. I cleared the hurdles of gaining permission for an audio-slideshow production from the hospital and the instructor, but decided at the last minute that I had a personal reason for not following through with the coverage. My own son-in-law was enrolled in the class. My presence as an observer would affect his participation. All I could do was interview the instructor and wait for the next time the course was scheduled. During the interview I realized that the course was entirely classroom-based, which would make dull visuals. Unless I could come up with a storyline to pursue outside of class, the production had little prospect of engaging viewers visually. I shelved it and moved on to the next project.
Dual Language Program – My own expectant daughter proposed the next project: a new dual language program started at the kindergarten level in the school where she teaches. This is now the second school in our district to develop what is also called two-way language immersion education. Half the day in the classroom is spent teaching in English and the other half is spent entirely in Spanish. I plunged into this project, interviewing two people at the administrative level for a narrative frame along with multiple visits to both schools for both the English and Spanish sessions. I managed to develop the narrative frame in short order but bogged down trying to sort through all the classroom material. I couldn’t seem to get organized even on the English sessions, never mind that my knowledge of Spanish is minimal. When a software glitch wiped out what little progress I had made on the production audio track, I hit the wall and shut down for the holiday season.
I am now refocusing the blog, developing a strict workflow for production, and establishing a disciplined work schedule.
The blog will be limited to accounting for my own production efforts, the production workflow will start with step procedures for processing audio and developing the audio story first, and the production schedule will consist of five to six two-hour sessions per week on mornings before leaving for the office. I’ll devote Sunday mornings to the blog.
If I can’t develop a reasonable amount of discipline and consistency, and still enjoy the challenge of learning new skills, then I’ll have to give up on multimedia and let the profession leave me behind along with my newspaper.
It’s that simple.
The worst part of being your own producer is being responsible for your own productivity. The second worst part is having to recognize and solve your own problems.
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