Assignment Nine Video Proposal

Minute one:

Camera pans over the park showing the entire earth day event. Next I show detailed shots of specific events and people. Artists, demonstrators, local businesses, event goers and food vendors. All of the details that make Earth Day in Berkeley a unique experience. The audio consist of ambient sounds from the event.

About half way through the first minute the ambient sounds cut out and a narrator begins to describe earth day. There is a brief history of the event and why it was organized in the first place.

Minute two:

Event patrons describe their experiences with Earth Day. If this is their first time at earth day they describe why they came and what their first impression is they. If they are a return visitor They describe how long thy have been coming and what keeps bringing them back. Every body will be asked what one thing (demonstrations or activities) then liked the most about Earth Day, and one thing they thought was missing from the event.

Minute three:

I want to focus on sponsors that are involved in alternative energy and alternative transportation. I will ask these sponsors a set of questions about their policies and

goals and why they feel it is important to small public events like Earth Day.

The camera focuses on specific vendors related to alternative energy sources and alternative transportation. There is a narration describing what each vendor does.

Minute Four:

The camera again focuses on a specific sponsor.

At this point I will begin to integrate still images of the sponsor's booth and the technology that they are demonstrating. I want to use still images that very specifically and directly illustrate the goals of the particular sponsor. Still images are a god medium to communicate these pionts because of their superior clarity, and image quality of motion video. Where as a brief but important moment or action is lost in video, a still photograph can emphasize it.

I will interlace stills of the technology that the sponsor's are promoting while a representative narrates and describe in detail the technology and ideas that they are promoting.

Minutes Five and Six.

I will follow the same routine that I did in The fourth minute for two more specific sponsor's related to alternative energy and alternative transportation. These pieces will take up about 45 to 60 seconds.

Minute Seven.

I will close the piece with more detail and over-arching shots of the Earth Day event and, specifically, detail shots of the alternative energy and alternative transportation technology. The narrator or event goer will speak over the images and provide some closing thoughts on the event and its future.

Assignment Nine: Five Story Ideas

East Bay Express | Calendar | Berkeley Earth Day
A celebration of alrenative energy and alternative lifestyles in the heart of Berkeley.

I would like to create a visual story about earth day in Berkeley CA, through video, audio and photography.

There are articles about Earth Day and its history on wikipedia as well as the Earth Day Network.


San José State Events
Award winning poet and author holds conversation as answers questions at King library.

Dr. Sandra Gilbert will be speaking at the Martin Luther King Library on April 15th. I will attend the event and interview Gilbert as well as other attendees.

There is allot of information about Gilbert on wikipedia as well as her personal website. There are also books of hers on Google Book Search.

SAN JOSE the fun never stops
Josh Buswell-Charkow, ForestEthics organizer, will speak about the threats to California's forestes presented by archaic logging methods.

The event will take place on April 14th at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library.

There are resource online about forests and forest health at the Callifornia Forestry Ascociation's website.


SAN JOSE the fun never stops
Alva Noë, an Associate Professor of Philosphy at UC Berkeley and author, speaks about the nature of conciousness and why we are not our brains.

Noë will be speaking at Kepler Bookstore in Menlo Park on April 16. The author of "Out of Our Heads" will be speaking about

There are many articles and book reviews on news sites like salon.com and in the San Francisco Chronicle as wellas Noë's personal website that I can use as resources.

Cal Day 2009, UC Berkeley
I havent picked a single event or focus yet, but I would like to do a story on some aspect of Cal DAy 2009.

assignment eight

An Internet user has near instant access to vast amounts of information that would have taken much more time and effort to retrieve before the World Wide Web was introduced in 1992.

“I love Google” said Catherine Kessler,a 55 year old nutritionist living in Oakland CA. As a nutritionist it is part of Catherine's job to constantly investigate new medical research. She appreciates the way information seems to flow from Google, letting her read up on one topic and then quickly link it to a related topic.

“Wikipedia is good for the easy, breezy quick overview of a topic.” Kessler said. The online encyclopedia's database is made entirely of contributions from its users and only references other online content. Wikipedia is the 7th most popular website in the world.

Compare to the worlds most popular pre-internet encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica, which contains 65,000 articles and is the 3,053th most popular website in the world.

“My parents are really big on books and magazines. They used to have an Encyclopedia Britannica at home,” said Ronald Adan, a 38 year old student at San Jose State University. “If I wanted to look for something I would ask mom or dad or look in the encyclopedia.”

There are some questions that are not so easy to just Google. For instance, if you wanted to find out if civilian salary is greater than salary in the army after all the benefits added up, it would take some research.

Actually, a quick Google search does turn up some results on websites devoted to plagiarizing students essays, but to get a factual answer, one would need to look at current, up to date information, or ask someone who knows.

On the Internet, there are many ways to ask real people questions about any topic. The website allexperts.com claims to connect Internet users to 'experts' with an “...above-average knowledge of the subject...”

When asked about civilian and army salary, the 'experts' on allexperts.com gave an in depth answer about different pay scales in the army complete with links to pay scale charts updated in January 2009. While the information was useful it was not straightforward and did not answer the basic question: will a civilian or a person enlisted in the army make more money.

There are many alternatives to allexperts.com. A Google search for “army forums” returns many websites dedicated to the discussion of army and millitary related topics between enlisted people and civilian Internet users. The millitary.com discussion boards and the official army.com forums were two of many such sites.

When the question was posted on these use forums, there were more responses in less time but with much less information.

Michael Young, the 56 year old Director of Information Systems for the Center for Social Services Research at U.C. Berkeley said, thirty years ago, that question would have taken allot more effort and time to answer than today.

“I Think I would have been more self reliant then than today.” Said Young. “Before there was a website, there were publications by the Department of Labor Statistics.” Young said he would have done the research himself instead of asking some one else.

Kessler says that if she were to research the same question 30 years ago should would start at a library but eventually turn to real people for information.

“I would go and ask around. I would ask an army recruiter and then ask blue collar workers.” Kessler said. “I used to think of the phone book as a really good source of information.”

The Internet has consolidated the information contained in the phone book, encyclopedias, libraries and even communities of people into one resource. The big difference between researching a topic thirty years ago and today is how easily and immediately questions can be answered.

Assignment Seven

Fear, Unemployment and layoffs are the words that come to mind and the realities being faced by young people in the current economy, yet that doesn't mean that they necessarily want to cut back on their spending.

I haven't been buying video games, but I have been buying micro brews .” Said Dorian Young, a 23 year old consultant living in Oakland, CA. “I'll go to the smaller independent businesses. Local cafés instead of Starbucks and Peet's.”

That isn't to say the current state of the economy isn't having an effect on young workers and college graduates.

“The state of the economy directly effects the well being of the people I care about.” Said Joshua Owings, a 22 year old musician and teacher living in Oakland, CA. “It's scary. Will I be able to find a job? Will the program that I work for at a public school be canceled due to budget cuts?”

Owings would like to start a local business in Oakland but he fears that because of current a future economic conditions getting a loan is near impossible. For Owings, a young person with little capital, making a large purchases or investment is not going to be in the near future.

“Schools are getting shut down in Richmond...” Said Tara Ramanathan, a 22 year old third grade teacher at Nystrom Elementary School in Richmond, CA. “I'm concerned about unemployment rates and jobs.”

According to the West Contra Costa Unified School District, at least six schools are being closed for budgetary reasons. As a first year teacher without tenure, Ramanathan could find herself out of work next school year.

Despite the doom-and-gloom atmosphere being presented in the media, Ramanathan, Young and Owings have not decreased their spending.

“I've been making a conscious effort to shop at local shops and businesses instead of large corporations.” said Owings.

“When I saw myself with an abundance of savings at the end of 2008, I decided not to invest it as planned.” Young said. Undeterred by a recent pay cut, Young has not decreased his spending. In fact, it's increased. “I feel better about spending money. The justification for spending money is 'I'm helping the economy.'”

Assignment Six

Main Story

A chlorine gas leak, caused by a train accident, has left six people dead, nine people injured and 90 evacuated from their homes.

The gas leak began when a tank car on a Union Pacific train was damaged. The cracked car allowed the chlorine, which is transported as a liquid, to leak out as a gas.

The accident occurred in South Morgan Hill near the Railroad Avenue and Tennant Avenue intersection. The wind, blowing from the South East, dispersed the gas into the surrounding area.

Teri Jenkins, 18, died at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose where she and her family were evacuated after exposure to the chlorine gas. The rest of his family, John, Glynis and Timmy remain in critical condition at O'Connor Hospital.

The body of a middle aged woman along with four unidentified bodies have also been removed from houses near the chlorine gas leak site.

Union Pacific employee Dwight Dougherty, who first phoned in information of the accident, was taken to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose. He is not expected to survive.

“Usually Chlorine gas victims respond well to treatment. This looks like a much more toxic substance” said the supervising nurse.

90 other residents in the area have been evacuated to motels by Union Pacific

“There is no need to worry,” said Pat Pritchard, Union Pacific spokesperson. He claimed to not know exactly when the accident took place and that the gas spill would be cleaned up in a matter of hours.

The gas leak was first reported to the Santa Clara County Sheriff, Laurie Smith , at 6:20 a.m. Saturday, by Pritchard. Smith said that while the Morgan Hill Police Department is responsible for the area where the accident occurred, the affected homes lie outside the city limits inside the county.

Smith said at least 12 of her deputies are now combing the neighborhood house-to-house, wearing gas masks. She also said that the Red Cross and the local fire department are on the scene.

Sidebar

Chlorine, an element that is used to disinfect drinking water and swimming pools, can be deadly when humans are exposed to its pure form.

Chlorine gas was the culprit in the deaths of six people after a train car carrying the substance was damaged in Morgan Hill.

Chlorine is a member of the halogen group of elements, the most unstable group on the periodic table. It was used as a chemical weapon in World War I and has been used in the Iraq war by insurgents.

Chlorine is a helpful disinfectant in the form of hypochlorous acid but a few deep breaths of Chlorine in its pure, gaseous form can irritate and damage the respiratory system, causing injury and death.

Assignment Five

Sally Blaine, a Sunnyvale, CA resident, was having a normal Tuesday night bath when a 6-foot anaconda just happened to poke his head out of the tub's overflow.

The anaconda, Bruno, belongs to James P. Stanley, her neighbor. A programmer for Apple Computer and a snake enthusiast, Stanley lives with his wife, three children and four snakes in the eastern half of a Sunnyvale duplex.

Tuesday night?, Bruno was showing signs of discomfort so Stanley gave him a warm bath. He left to answer the phone and when he returned, Stanley managed to grasp the last few inches of Bruno's tail as he slithered down the drain.

Stanley's wife called the Humane Society while Blaine's husband called the fire department.

Both firefighters and Humane Society personnel arrived at the duplex and began to pull Bruno from opposite ends. The two groups were unaware of each other and continued to play tug of war with Bruno for 10 minutes.

After Stanley realized what was going on, he raced next door to save Bruno. With the cooperation of the Humane Society and Fire Department, Bruno was freed in a few minutes.

Assignment Five

The Middlesburgh, Ohio Board of education was accused of violating state code by buying milk for the school cafeteria program without taking bids

Karen A. Borchard, Home Economist for the Ohio Department of Education told the school board it had to seek bids from dairy companies before purchasing milk for the school system. If the school board did not take offers and buy from the lowest, it risked losing its $365,000 state lunch grant.

The school board had been buying milk from the local company, Clover Dairy, which is best known for its too strong billboards.

Before the meeting adjourned, Harlan E. Ellsworth, president of the school board addressed Borchard. “I object strenuously to this dictatorial attitude of the Ohio Department of Education. We buy milk from Clover because it's the best available product for the best price. Besides, it's a local concern and deserves the business more than an outside chain,” he said.

The school board adjourned without taking action. A special meeting will be called next week to discuss the milk issue.