I definitely learned a lot from the people who presented their interactive analysis projects. Same as last week, I got a really good idea of the different types of media I should be looking for. Everybody found such great websites, but I think that certain ones had a lot more variety, which made those ones seem a lot more interesting to me. I think for my project I want to try and find something that has the most variety of media, with minimal reading, because I think that is was really draws attention to something. Going along with this, I think that the most common thing with all of these presentations is how the presenter mentioned how they looked for, and liked, the website with the least amount of reading. In addition to this, I think that I want to look for something that possibly has some media that other peoples projects did not have.

This week we really got into the research we would be doing, as well as divided the research into different categories so that we could get a good variety of information and not overlap our research. The categories we decided on are the history of DACA, history of illegal immigration, success stories of DACA, the process of getting DACA and the requirements and DACA locally including resources and possibly state that are against DACE. I will be researching the background and history of DACA. In addition to this, we have decided to have two member of the group start the interview process with one of our participants, as well as capturing photos of the participant.

I did not present this week but I saw many things from my classmates that I think would be beneficial to implement into our project. I was most drawn to the one presented about the endangered species. I liked how many different components there were to it. For our project, it would be cool if you could click on a headshot of one of our subjects, one of the dreamers, and it would then lead you into a space with more links. These imbedded links could be a video interview, short videos of the subjects daily lives, their stories, and other various information about them and their experience in DACA. Many of the presentations this week also had background audio. I think it could also work in our favor to have background audio going during the stories of short videos/photos. This audio could either be music or short clips of them talking about their experiences. Some of the websites presented this week were fairly linear, with few interactive pieces. I think it is important for us to try to make our website at visibly stimulating as possible through various interactive bits.

This week we are focusing on our first subject. I am contributing by meeting with her to take headshots for the website and to hopefully get a couple more pieces of media that we can use. We are also hoping to get an interview done with her, possible a video interview or just an audio interview.

I did not present my interactive project analysis this week but I did find the website I would like to use after watching my peers present theirs. A wide variety of media is present in these projects, and all of them use a variety of ways to tell stories whether that be through video, photos, texts, or data visualization techniques such as graphs. I didn’t see any problem with the projects that we saw this week, but I think just making sure you understand the full potential of your website is crucial. Knowing the functions and features of the website you have chosen will help your audience get a grasp on the full purpose and functionality of said website.

This week my group went over our questionnaire responses to see who we wanted to include in our project, and how we would be able to tie them into our storyboard. We also checkup up on the progress of our research and made sure we all knew how much we needed to do individually to have the required 7 pages of research. We solidified our points of interest so that our research would reflect them, to make sure that it would be useful to us in the creation of the final product.

I definitely learned a lot from the people who presented their interactive analysis projects. Honestly, before this week I was having a hard time visualizing exactly what type of website I should be looking for, as well as knowing how long I should spend actually showing the website versus my actual presentation. I think the biggest thing that I got from seeing everybody’s presentations would be getting clarification and reassurance on what I should be looking for. In addition to this, I got a really good idea of the different types of media I should be looking for. Everybody found such great websites, but I think that certain ones had a lot more variety, which made those ones seem a lot more interesting to me. I think for my project I want to try and find something that has the most variety of media, with minimal reading, because I think that is was really draws attention to something. Going along with this, I think that the most common thing with all of these presentations is how the presenter mentioned how they looked for, and liked, the website with the least amount of reading.

This week for our group we brainstormed different questions we could add to a questionnaire that will be sent to the individuals who have expressed interest in participating with our project. From this, we will evaluate each persons answers and decide which people we want to move forward with and do in person interviews and follow their daily lives.

This week I did not present for the interactive analysis presentations, but it was really interesting to see what everyone else chose to share. The presentations that I found the most interesting were the ones that covered natural disasters. A lot of the people who shared these storytelling projects recognized the importance of photographs and how powerful not only images, but videos can be. One of my favorites was the one that Kellyn did. I think it was both touching and informational to see the impact that one man could make in the California fires. This makes me excited to explore other interactive storytelling websites for my own presentation. As for the contributions to the project this week, I mainly focused on searching for Dreamers who are willing to tell their story and sending out a survey to help my team select the best candidates for our project. So far, we have a solid group of people, and it’s going to be extremely hard to choose which four we choose to tell their story, but I’m excited about the impact that this will have on the community, and I think it will even be a good learning experience for my team members to hear about people who come from a different background than them.

I did not present my interactive project analysis this week but I did find the website I would like to use after watching my peers present theirs. A wide variety of media is present in these projects, and all of them use a variety of ways to tell stories whether that be through video, photos, texts, or data visualization techniques such as graphs. I didn’t see any problem with the projects that we saw this week, but I think just making sure you understand the full potential of your website is crucial. Knowing the functions and features of the website you have chosen will help your audience get a grasp on the full purpose and functionality of said website.

This week my group compiled a list of all the people we would like to consider profiling or interviewing for our project. As a group, we created a questionnaire to send to the people we are considering, this will help us better understand their views on the topic and how that will match up with the way we are wanting to tell the story. We got a better idea of what direction we would like our project to move in and we now know how we would like to tell our story.

This week I gave my presentation over the interactive project analysis. From this presentation I learned a couple of things that we can implement into our project. First, I found that the interface of our website must be clear and easy to follow or it may not tell a clear story. Second, I found that different types of media help to show the different parts of a story. Photo and video work to evoke emotion while infographics and interviews help being expert opinions and put them in a form that is very easily understood. Lastly, looking at my website showed me that we will probably need to find an outside source who is not one of the subjects of our story. This source can be used to give an outside opinion on DACA and immigration in the U.S.

Something that I found was consistently present in all of our presentation was the use of infographics that give information in a more digestible way. Looking at a map that gives information or an interactive graph can give boring information in a way that is easier to understand than an article or block of text. Second, each website shown used a variety of media to tell a complete story. Using photo and video in our case will be a great way to evoke emotion and make a call to action.

The basic plan for our project is to meet up with people that choose to participate in the project a number of times throughout the semester in order to get an accurate view of their lives, as well as acquiring enough material for the project. When doing this we are going to try to really capture a variety of content. While an interview portion with the participates is important, and that will be a large part of the process, we want to try to capture different aspects of their everyday lives and careers. I think that getting plenty of b-roll can help us with this, as well as help us make the content look unique and not like a carbon copy for each person. In addition to this, I think that getting different viewpoints from people educated on the subject other than dreamers and possibly attending events could help with getting different content. I think that between all of us, we have a really good understanding of how to use all the equipment we will need. While video and photo are not my strength, we do have people that are really good at it, and I think that through them we could get great content, and I could possibly learn a lot from them. This week we are all doing our part by starting to do the basic research we will need for the project. 

Our plan so far for gathering media for this project, is to meet up with the individuals who choose to participate in our project several times throughout the semester, so that we can really get to know what their lives are like, not just at a surface level. Not only that but we also don’t want all of the media that we collect to look the same. We will probably have a day where we mainly focus on photographs, one for interviews, and then one for gathering B-roll footage for each individual. There is at least one person in our group that has a pretty clear understanding of each type of equipment that we will be using, so I think we’ll be able to help each other out and teach each other as we go. For this week, my main task was to find people who are willing to share their story. I reached out to a friend from high school who recently created Stand in for Omaha, a human rights organization that does a lot of peaceful protesting. She connected me with someone who does a lot of work with undocumented students. I also posted on social media about the project, in the hopes that people would reach out, and made an announcement at the Mexican American Student Association meeting this week. So far, I have only found three people, but I’m very optimistic that I will find more, and I think we have a pretty good start.

The plan to capture media would be too clearly define everyone in the groups strengths and weaknesses when it comes to equipment and software. For example, I personally know that my strengths are in video and audio production whether that be a large camera with boom and lav mics, or mobile devices like the OSMO that I own. I also know that I am not the strongest photographer so it would be smart to identify the person in our group that is the best at that. I am very unsure of my skills when it comes to good photography and editing, as well as my skills in making graphics. I do however have a decent understanding of code so if our website is causing us any probably I may be able to help make the fixes we need. Another must when it comes to planning the capture of our media would be to have an understanding or our setting and of some of our subjects, I like to take the time to feel out what I am wanting to capture and formulate a vision or plan in my head before I begin.

This week our group went over our schedule in person and fine tuned it and then I submitted it. We then decided what we should be getting done within the next one to two weeks.

A smart checklist would be:

Multiple video cameras, boom and lav mics, tripods, photo cameras, multiple lenses, lighting equipment, updated Premeire Pro, Audition and Photoshop.