Statement
Freshman year I wanted to be an architect. I loved art and design and I put journalism, another of my interests, aside.
I was pretty stunned and disappointed when I wasn’t chosen for my school’s architecture program. Instead, I enrolled in the Introduction to Journalism course. I always like to plan for the future, and it is not an exaggeration to say that this unexpected twist changed my vision completely. Joining the newspaper exposed me to a world of photography, graphic design, writing, and video producing. I fell in love with it.
In my first year with The Raider Voice, my sophomore year, I was copy editor and explored a variety of categories and mediums: sports and features, articles and video packages. While I am very interested in writing, I found that creating video packages allowed me to communicate information and share stories in a way that words alone could not accomplish. My first experience with this was filming and editing a fun Brooklyn 99-themed staff video using Adobe Premiere Pro, a program that I taught myself to use and found extremely useful for other projects later in the year.
In October, my staff and I also had the special experience of attending a workshop with award-winning multimedia instructor Don Goble, who helped us to improve our video and editing skills and to produce a video package about the Breakthrough Miami organization. In November, my staff and I were also fortunate to visit Washington, D.C., where we attended the NSPA National High School Journalism Conference. These two experiences both taught me how to strengthen the work I produce and further expanded my enthusiasm for journalism.
Throughout the year, I could see my multimedia projects improve exponentially, as I experimented with interesting camera angles, more complex video editing platforms, and new ways to communicate and share multimedia stories. I began making more video packages and created a YouTube channel for my publication, The Raider Voice, to showcase them. The process of filming, interviewing, voicing, and editing videos went from a time-consuming ordeal to fun and almost routine. This year alone, I played a major role in producing and editing 23 of the 32 multimedia video projects on our channel.
Next year, I have been chosen by my adviser to be the Editor-in-Chief of The Raider Voice. I am so excited for this opportunity, and one of my main goals is to further incorporate multimedia elements into our stories. While I focused mostly on video packages this year and am nowhere near an expert, I feel that throughout this year I have become a much more skilled multimedia journalist. I transformed from knowing close to nothing about video producing to fully engaging myself in new ways of journalistic communication.
Please keep scrolling to see my portfolio of my 5 favorite multimedia projects of the year!
Meet Your Staff of the 2019 – 2020 Raider Voice
This was one the first videos I made, and honestly, one of the hardest. I had to teach myself to use Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Photoshop so I could edit and animate the video to replicate the theme song of one of my favorite shows, NBC's Brooklyn 99. While the music and style of the video does not belong to my publication, I made sure to credit Brooklyn 99 for the inspiration and I did all of the editing myself from scratch.
An Inside Look at Concussion Prevention
While the voiceover for this video was done by Eduardo Cachon and the football and volleyball footage belongs to Lucas Figueroa, I feel that I played an important role in the production of this video because I conducted and filmed the interviews and edited the video. Working as a team with other staff members was a fun experience, and we conducted research and spoke with a variety of people within the athletic program to learn as much as we could about sports concussions and what our school was doing to prevent them.
Sophomores Work Together to Build Bikes for Charity at Annual Team–Building Event
This one I did entirely by myself while I attended the field trip. It was one of the first videos I made after Don Goble's workshop, and to me it marks a turning point in my development as a multimedia journalist. Unlike the videos before it, I made sure to include a variety of interesting angles and breaks from voice over with natural sound. It was also really fun to put together.
A Weekend of (Fun)draising at RaiderFest
RaiderFest is the annual fundraising carnival-like event at my school, Gulliver Prep. For those that weren't able to go or were unable to see everything there, I put together a quick video package covering what the event was like and some of the organizations that the event benefits. I made the whole video myself, except for some of the photos, which were taken by Julian Concepcion.
Ghost Town Miami Episode 2: Miracle Mile
Looking at each other through Zoom on our computer screens, my staff and I tried to think of interesting ways to cover the changes brought by the Coronavirus pandemic. And we came with Ghost Town Miami: a multimedia three-part video series touring the streets of some of the most popular areas of South Florida, discussing the new changes and what citizens were doing to stay together in this difficult time. Episode 2 is my favorite of the series; the footage was taken by Teresa Ariza, but I wrote, edited, and voiced the video.