Radio Tower Relocation Story

The video below is my team's first real news package for our new media class. The story is about the relocation of the radio tower and transmitter of the Roger Williams University student-run radio station, WQRI.

The reason for the relocation is that the tower and transmitter are presently located behind the school's old dining commons, which is scheduled for demolition on May 11. The school's plan is to take down the current tower and replace it with an antenna that will sit atop one of the university's dormitories. This is just a basic summary, there are more details in the video.

Anyway, as I said earlier this was my team's first full news package and I have to say that I am very pleased with how well it came out. I am also pleased with how smoothly the production process went. When we first decided to do this story, I was a little worried about the visual elements of it.

I knew that the only b-roll we could possibly shoot would be of the old cafeteria and the radio tower, which I did on the first day of filming. However, as the story progressed we came up with new ideas for shots and actually put together a strong piece visually. The only visual elements I am not happy with are the two shots of my computer screen when we talk about the FCC and the web-casting of WQRI.

These shots were a creative solution for a lack of footage, but I still wish I could have gotten something better. Another disappointment for me is how poorly lit some of the shots are. We filmed our standup and several other shots in the WQRI radio booth, which was not the easiest light to work with.

Overall though I very pleased with how this piece turned out, and I think we managed the poor lighting as best we could.

Please enjoy the video.

Interview With Professor Bob Blackburn

Professor Bob Blackburn is a member of the philosophy department at Roger Williams University. Blackburn has been a professor at Roger Williams for just over 40 years, he joined the university in 1968 after finishing graduate school at Brown University. He attended Brown for his undergraduate work as well.

Blackburn said he was attracted to teaching by the professors he had while in college. He said that while he had some great teachers as a student, he also had some bad ones. Blackburn said he was attracted to teaching by the ineffective teachers, because he felt that he could teach the material better than they could. Reaching this goal has been Blackburn's primary objective over his 40-year teaching career at Roger Williams.

Blackburn said his favorite part of teaching is how the classes are always different, even if he is teaching the same material he has already taught to hundreds of students over the years. He said he greatly enjoys the challenges presented by having different students every semester.

In this video, Blackburn discusses why he was attracted to Roger Williams after graduating from Brown University and he explains why he has remained a member of the faculty for so long.

Interview With My Mom

The assignment this time was to to do a short 90 second interview with someone over the President's Day Weekend. Since I was at home for the long weekend I decided to interview my mom and ask her about her horse. So the video below is a short video of my mom talking about her horse. I tried to film some background video of her riding on Sunday, but because it is winter she is riding inside and the lighting is terrible. Therefore, the video that I used as background footage is from last summer. However, I think it still ads a lot to the video. Overall, I am very pleased with how this piece turned out.

Show and Tell

First Post

Hi my name is Shaun, my new media professor wants me to post my first entry on this blog, which is for class. I am a senior at Roger Williams with a major in Communications and a concentration in journalism.