Ah, the things we can do with technology these days. Just got the new Droid Incredible the other day and installed the WordPress app.

Today, I helped my dad cleanup the backyard and we got rid of my childhood jungle gym (see pic). Kinda sad.

This weekend I’ll be busy finalizing the DVD yearbook and senior video. It does feel like I’m entering a turning point…

The homepage of Times Beacon Record Newspapers, northshoreoflongisland.com

As the first Multimedia Intern for Times Beacon Record Newspapers, a local community newspaper that distributes papers I’ve been making short video packages highlighting events in the community. This weekend, I went to Stony Brook University’s campus and filmed their Earthstock Festivities. The video was featured on the paper’s homepage.

I’ll be working with TBR through the summer to create more videos, help develop their webpage, and learn more about the newsroom.

Like last year, I’m creating DVDs of these shows and they’ll be on sale in the lobby of upcoming shows.

I had finished editing both two-camera shoots and have spent this past weekend putting together all of the DVDs.

I did manage to spend a good portion of my time with Final Cut working on the Senior Video for the Three Village Swim Club, among other projects. Last year, I was hired to edit pre-filmed footage for our school’s swim team’s senior video. Like last year, I met with a couple of the members of the team to transfer footage from their camera onto my computer. We met in the very cliche location of Starbucks which, although I despise coffee, is the perfect meeting spot for these types of things.

The job is not an especially hard one, I put clips in order, clean them up, add titles, the occasional special effect, but it’s a job that I enjoy doing for the end result. I take footage filmed–with no offense to the team intended–with minimal videography skills (shaky camera, poor audio, etc.) and make it look good. I also just love the idea of a large audience getting to see something that I helped shape.

The least popular issue of the 5th Grade Gazette. The word art is missing but keep in mind, we were never looking to win any layout competitions.

Best of all, this project is a reminder of my #1 Rule: People Love To See Themselves. I learned it in 5th grade when my friend and I created the 5th Grade Gazette. My first venture into journalism was a huge success because my classmates loved seeing their pictures and reading what their classmates said (generally on topics such as the quality of the school’s food). I always remember that the least popular issue was one where I did a story on myself and two other friends that helped 1st graders pick out books in the library. While I thought it was interesting, I wasn’t keeping my target audience in mind (and writing about myself isn’t exactly good journalism).

The Rule applies to everything though: video, photo, news…I guess that’s why wedding videos are so popular.

One moment in particular that I always look back on when my graduating Jr. High School class watched the 9th grade video that I made in the auditorium. I was shaking the entire time, nervous, afraid that they weren’t going to be interested (and I should have remembered Rule #1) but by the time the video faded to black and everyone applauded I felt a tremendous sense of pride. It’s definitely in my top ten moments.

iCon Video on the homepage of NorthShoreOfLongIsland.com

Oh, side note: The first video that I produced during my internship for the Times Beacon Record Newspaper was on their homepage for a few days. It’s a short montage about iCon, a science fiction convention, that I filmed before leaving for vacation. Notice how many people will get to see themselves!

Yesterday, I began a multimedia internship at The Three Village Herald. I’ll be producing my first video this weekend.

Today, I found out that I was named a Communications Fellow at Elon University.

It’s been an eventful week!

My first video camera

It was a few Chanukahs later when my parents presented me with a Digital Blue video camera that held about five minutes of barely-VGA-quality video. You couldn’t playback video or erase a clip after filming a second one. There was no expandable memory and no tripod hole. I loved it. I couldn’t have dreamed of a more perfect camera.

It came with software which allowed me to add cool sound effects and animated explosions to all the movies my friends and I made. We created films ranging from Frogs Attack Earth to Jaguars Vs. Frogs to Klub House Kombat to Jaguars Vs. Frogs 2 to Not Another Japanese Movie to Jaguars Vs. Frogs 3, just to name a few. (None of these movies even resemble the type of movie I like to make today; my friends were huge into action films and I was often outnumbered in our creative brainstorming sessions…I couldn’t fire them, they were all I had!)

Klub House Kombat! A movie made in the fourth-grade that was heavily inspired by Mortal Kombat.

That’s my story. Everyone has their own story about how they got started making movies. (And if you’re so inclined to comment below, I’d love to hear yours) I used to work in the camera department of Best Buy and the best sales I ever made were when I sold a video camera to a young kid…I always saw a part of myself in them. One time a mom asked me if she was crazy for buying her seven-year old son the new Flip Video Camera. I told her absolutely, positively not (and then proceeded to share my aforementioned experience).

I mentioned in my last blog post that students should be taught media literacy in grade school. I could also form an argument that all second graders should have to make a movie in class. Moviemaking teaches collaboration, leadership, and teamwork and there’s a tangible product in the end that can be shared with everyone.

Maybe it doesn’t affect everyone the same way it did to me–it probably doesn’t. Just, if a kid wants to make movies…it’s a great idea to support it. There was a speech on the Academy Awards a few weeks ago…Michael Giacchino, the composer for Up and most of the other Pixar movies. To quote his speech:

When I was nine I asked my dad, “Can I have your movie camera? That old, wind-up 8mm camera that was in your drawer?” And he goes, “Sure, take it.” And I took it and I started making movies with it and I started being as creative as I could, and never once in my life did my parents ever say, “What you’re doing is a waste of time.” Never. And I grew up, I had teachers, I had colleagues, I had people that I worked with all through my life who always told me what you’re doing is not a waste of time. So it was normal to me that it was OK to do that. But  I know there are kids out there that don’t have that support system, so if you’re out there and you’re listening, listen to me: If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It’s not a waste of time. Do it. OK?”

I really can’t say it much better than Giacchino did a few weeks back. Even though I may not go on to work on Hollywood (because frankly, I’m not sure I would want to) having that ‘support system’ in my own life has really helped me grow as a person and find what I want to do with my life. I truly appreciate Giacchino saying what he did–and I’m not sure why it came into my head today, so long after I saw it on TV. (Maybe the new Pokemon game I’ve been playing all weekend reminded me of my youth?)

So thank you Michael Giacchino. Thank you to all the people that have provided me support: Mrs. Landgraf, my second grade teacher, my friends, my teachers, my family, everyone who has seen any of my work.

You really have made a difference.

The front page of Kaleidoscope.

My school has four student publications: The yearbook, my own DVD Yearbook, the annual literary magazine, and the newspaper. My complaints are about the last of these.

I’ve been enrolled in a News Literacy course at Stony Brook University this semester that meets every Tuesday and Thursday. Through this class I’ve learned how to be a better news consumer, a skill that, I believe, should be a part of the core curriculum in grade school.

If that was the case, it’s likely my school’s newspaper would show some characteristics of journalistic integrity. The Ward Melville Kaleidoscope: with its sporadic and rare publishing schedule, I was surprised to find a new issue out today. Although I have had little faith with the publication since before today, I still picked up a copy.

This issue’s front page stories:

• Seniors Recognized in National Science Talent Search
• Open Campus Comes To A Close

Nothing wrong with those. Both are very important stories that students should know about…in fact, they do know about them. Both of these stories are well over a month old now and I’d guarantee most students that would look at Kaleidoscope in the first place know of both of these items. These aren’t stories have lost all timeliness and relevance…not something I’d be inclined to put on the cover of a newspaper. Although it probably didn’t hurt that two of the seniors that were “recognized in [the] national science talent search” are also mentioned on the colophon.

On a sidenote, speaking of the colophon, the inside-cover sidebar boasts that “Kaleidoscope is a Silver Medalist in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.” I would love to know when they were actually critiqued by CSPA as no year is listed.

The “Science Competition” story and the “Open Campus” story are not only untimely but also dull reads. I’m not sure how many students are truly interested in reading an entire overview of the Intel Science Competition. Where’s the human interest? “Ruoyi did a project involving the effects of an anti-cancer drug.” THAT’S AWESOME! I would love to know how Ruoyi chose that topic and how he felt being named an Intel Finalist. Instead I get the following sentence: Both of these high school seniors will go on in the spring to represent Ward Melville High school in Washington D.C. this spring. Good work editors. There is all of one quote in the article’s last paragraph, coming just in the nick of time.

And the closed campus story? I’m pretty sure the decision to juxtapose a picture of students cheering at a board meeting next to a headline Open Campus Comes To A Close was not the best layout choice. I’m positive that these students are not applauding the board’s decision and, without reading the caption, a reader will be sorely confused.

But none of this is what has really pushed me over the edge with this newspaper. It was the Editorial featured on the News page (a huge mistake right there in itself) that drove me to write this critique. Featured right on page 2 is an editorial called “WMCommons.org.” First: catchy headline. Second: I was infuriated upon reading this article, it failed to adhere to any sense of journalism, let alone non-fiction. The following is the second paragraph of this “editorial,” spelling errors and grammatical mistakes present:

Unfortunately, due to a lack of media literacy education, most readers probably couldn't say exactly what an Editorial is.

Wmcommons.org is a new website, set up by the administration specifically for clubs that presently work primarily on print publications. The website will provide a “virtual commons” where allegedly it will be possible for students to “hang out” much in the same way they presently do in the commons. If by hanging out, you mean reading news articles and looking at you friends’ yearbook photos. The curious student may set up an account through wordpress to access the website and check out what is currently posted. It may not be the same as wandering the actual commons but that’s not the point.

What you'll currently see if you visit wmcommons.org. There's no way for regular visitors to log in.

WHAT!?! First, let me explain: WMCommons.org is a website that I’ve been working on for the past couple of months that will be a way to spotlight work from the school’s four student publications. It was not set up by the administration but as a project for my Advertising Arts class. I brought up the website to Kaleidoscope on one occasion to see if it would be something they’d be interested in contributing to, along with the other clubs.

Yet, Kaleidoscope’s editorial states: “However, just as the digital journalism industry struggles to contend with generating revenue online, we will, no doubt face this same problem as a student publication.” Kaleidoscope should not even be concerned with finances being an issue considering they’re not a for-profit corporation nor are they financing the website. The website is not their property, as the editorial suggests.

One of the things I learned in News Literacy is that opinion pieces are still bound to the same journalistic standards as news: Independence, Verifiability, and Accountability. Unfortunately, this half-page article fails to verify any of their information. I was never contacted concerning the piece (which is sad, considering they’ve had about three months since their last issue was released) and if I was I would have provided them with accurate information. I would have requested that they not publish the editorial, for everyone’s sake, concerning the fact that the website will not launch until later in the school year. However, Kaleidoscope emblazoned the front page with CHECK US OUT ONLINE AT WMCOMMONS.ORG.

Excellence in journalism?

If this was, as the newspaper’s tag line claims, “excellence in journalism since 1969″ then I’d be embarrassed to have an interest in journalism. Thankfully, it is not. Kaleidoscope suffers from several other problems (using copyrighted images being one of their biggest) apart from the ones that I’ve already mentioned. ‘It’s a high school publication, it won’t perfect’–fine, but shouldn’t we be working to improve the paper and teach proper journalism to our students? This is how far we’ve come in over 40 years?

And for the record, it’s not that I’ve never been involved with this organization–in years prior, I wrote a review of The Office, a humorous article on how to ask a girl out, and interviewed the saxophone player of O.A.R. and never received feedback on an article I had written–it’s simply that I’m tired of our school’s newspaper not capturing the spirit of journalism. Other high school papers do it. So how come, if I’m going to a public high school where we have seven semifinalists in the Intel Science Competition, we can’t have a semi-decent student newspaper?

The editors of Kaleidoscope are not solely to blame. Unfortunately, while our science department may be strong (we’re currently building a brand-new two-story science wing extension), Ward Melville High School–with the very few exceptions–just doesn’t seem to be focused on promoting media literacy and communications in the classroom. And nobody seems to realize the issues at hand. The editors will likely never hold themselves accountable for the mistakes in their editorial (to date, I have never seen a corrections column in Kaleidoscope) and most readers will take what the WMCommons.org article says as pure unbiased fact–it is an editorial published in the news section after all.

If we required media literacy courses, it would improve the paper and it’s readers. Ironically, today in my SBU News Literacy course, Dean Howard Schneider discussed the similarities between journalism and science (they’re both based off a provisional truth, both employ a system of peer review, and both understand the importance of fact verification).

Our student newspaper is mailed out to the homes of every Ward Melville High School student twice a year.

This is what we want representing our school?

The site IS coming--and it's not being made by the school administration--it's just not coming yet.

The original portfolio page for JeffSternVideo.com

The other day I wrote about one of the first websites I made for my friend’s comic. While it eventually came to an end, I learned a lot about the basics of web language. I wanted to learn more, and eventually taught myself some of the very basics of CSS. So when I went about designing a website for myself, I was going to apply these skills. JeffSternVideo.com started back in the summer of 2009, however, I never got to put these skills to the test.

While I messed around with code for a little while, I was temporarily settling for a basic iWeb site. However, as I struggled with the web design, I realized that the iWeb page I put together really quickly was suiting my needs just fine. So it stayed that way, all the way up until my 18th birthday.

Soon after coming back from a Journalism Convention in Washington D.C. with my school’s Yearbook and DVD Yearbook, my advisor asked if I’d be interested in creating a website for all of the school’s publications using WordPress.org. I agreed and began to work on a site called WMCommons.org. Unfortunately, this site is still under construction–almost at a halt–due to a lack of time, incentive, and conflict. However(!), I realized how powerful WordPress.org was and suggested it to my Journalism teacher who wanted to create an online publication with our class this semester. That site will be live very soon and I’ll provide a link to it once it is.

Writing this blog post in the WordPress interface

But after all this, I realized it was time to re-design JeffSternVideo.com. I’ve been editing the CSS so I still get to work with code, but I also get to use WordPress’s advanced content manager which has been really, really useful. The internet is an awesome place and web design, blogging, etc…it’s all really interesting…I guess I would classify it as a hobby (weird hobby, I know).

One day I think I would like to maintain an online magazine-style blog with multiple contributors. I also hope to work on Elon’s newspaper’s website next year when I’m there.

The very original Mr. Mohawk comic designed by Joe Morelli in 2006. The bold black lines were added by myself.

My history with the internet and web design goes way back. I was a very passionate Geocities and Freewebs user back in the day. I’ve lost track of how many small websites I’ve made using these programs over the years but the number is definitely in the double digits. One of my first websites that ever went anywhere was MrMohawk.com–and I feel obliged to add that all the page views it received was from the rest of my 9th grade class. MrMohawk.com began in 2006 and was an online home for my friend Joe Morelli‘s comic strip. He would draw the comics–first by hand, later on a tablet–and I would touch up them up before posting them online. At one point, the comics would go up nearly daily…and that was before I knew I could use a website like WordPress to schedule posts in advanced. The website was completely designed from scratch with just HTML, the most primitive of web languages, which meant a lot of manual updating whenever I wanted to change anything.

The last Mr. Mohawk comic ever posted two years later. Along with managing the website, my contribution was the text along the top and bottom.

A quick glance to the two comic strips on the right show a clear progression over the quality of the site’s contents and I worked hard to constantly improve the site itself. I would create banners on Photoshop for the top of the website that were frequently changed to reflect everything from a new season to the holidays. Looking back, it was all very basic, but it was Joe and I’s baby. We loved having our own place on the web that we could tell people to go visit. Over time Mr. Mohawk did grow in popularity–among our friends–and we even campaigned (successfully) to have Mr. Mohawk on the cover of our Junior High Yearbook.

Our two-year long fad eventually came to an end, Joe began experimenting with fine-art and I wanted to focus more on video. After two years and 277 comics, it was a sad day when Mr. Mohawk finally ended. I would love to one day maintain another daily website for someone else’s comic strip, I think that’s the part about Mr. Mohawk that I liked the most, that it required daily attention and it was constantly changing.

It wasn’t for another year or so that I would make another website, this time for myself. Tomorrow, I’ll take a look at why I made JeffSternVideo and share what it looked like just a few weeks ago.

Danielle picks up newspapers on the side of the road in our Recycling PSA

After finally recovering from a long weekend at Elon, I’ve been getting back into the swing of things. I finished editing a PSA for a competition that Ward Melville TV is participating in. The 30-second spot on recycling for Waste Management was filmed last week.

We were definitely pressed on time to make a solid PSA, we were able to begin last week and the PSA has to be out in the mail by the end of the week. I tried to take less involvement with this project, I held the camera and I edited, I wanted to see what my club could come up with on their own. We’re not expecting to win–apparently, a group at Rocky Point HS got fire trucks involved–but it was fun diversion and good bonding time for the club.

It still could use some tightening, but I might eventually post the PSA to this site.