iStory Production Notes!

Seeing as this is the second iStory tour from Kean University, I thought you might want to know about the production elements involved in the process. Here are a few lessons learned in the first three days of Paris iStory.

1. You can never have enough equipment......in our situation, we have approximately 30 students who are blogging, recording sound, videotaping and producing news and feature stories for Journalism, Flm, Cultural Studies, and iStories while enjoying Paris and what it has to offer. We bought with us 8 Apple Macs, iPods with microphone recorders, a few video and still cameras. Many students bought their personal still cameras, a couple bought their own video and a few even brought their own laptops. Every piece of equipment we have is constantly being requested by students. This leads us to the second point......

2. You can never have enough Power. All of our electronic equipment needs to be recharged daily. This is turning out to be a major issue, since our hotel rooms only havve one outlet available. The faculty and staff support are being overwhelmed with the demands placed on them to recharge equipment. We already had a power strip fail, when it was attempting to recharge multiple items.

3. Save it for Post Production. To create quality productions (which we in the Media & Film dept require) you need to spend time editing your work together in a package that can be disseminated. We continually stress to the students that you need to time to create quality projects. With an iStory package, it's important to be quick and get everthing posted to the web to see what is going on. While these two thought might be contrary....it's important to realize the goals of each parrticular project.

4. Internet Access. Blogging and posting media to the web takes quality access to the internet. Our hotel does offer 10 hours of time for 15 Euros. There is free internet at a Restaurant/Bar across the street, but you do need to be eating/drinking to remain there for some time. We also have to be thoughtful about how to create with certain software and have compatibility with the requirements of the Internet Content Providers, whether it's blogger, youtube, Apple or Microsoft.

After the trip, I'm sure I will be adding to this quick list and making suggestions for advancements in the iStory Travel Learn Course .

Needless to say, Paris is beautiful and we are having a good time seeing the sites. In our short time, I've been to Versaille, Notre Dame, Le Louvre, the Opera House, the Catacombs, walked around downtown Paris and dined in the Latin Quarter.

Many of the students have been posting photos, blogs, and working on short video pieces that family and friends are commenting on.....this will definitely continue in the next few days and after we return to Kean.

scott