Magzalez’s eyes on media

Sports columnist Greg Cote inserted a cute little quip about his newspaper in a column about the Florida Marlins, their game last night and their playoff push:

The buoyant crowd of 23,165, seventh-biggest home gate of the year, found warring factions of fans vying for supremacy in the stands as their teams worked the diamond — the home side winning both ways.

Cody Ross delivered what proved to be the winning RBI single to right field in the eighth as the crowd roared, “Co-dy! Co-dy!”

Apparently it was a chant for Ross. For a second, I thought the crowd was chanting “Co-te! Co-te!” so that I might be inspired to make deadline.

(By the way, I hope this column made it to you OK, as these are austere times for a newspaper industry beset by drastic cutbacks. For example, I was recently made to give up my laptop and etched this column on small stone tablets transported back to the paper by night-flying carrier pigeons).

Oh that crazy singing sports writer is a funny one. Greg Cote and I got locked out of the Dolphins locker room together once at Dolphins training camp last year, true story. He asked me how to get in. I gave him the best “are-you-serious?” look I could. We eventually found our way in and laughed it off.

I love me a good Ciara reference.

I edited a video shot by Alligator feature writer Chantelle Marcelle. She did a very good job of getting all of the types of shots she needed. The only real problem was the audio on the interviews was not very good. It’s OK though because I only used one of the interviews. She made sure there was a story in the footage she gave me, which is a good thing.

The video is pretty fun. Not much to say about it. I love me a good fiddler.

The Alligator has a weekly entertainment section called the Avenue. It is a silly section, but I’m sure a lot of people read it. There is an over-the-top sex column along side book, cd and movie reviews. Honestly, I don’t think the paper puts enough work into the section, but that is only because the section does not put enough work into the paper.

Either way, I edited — and I used the term lightly today — a video shot by avenue-write Bailey Park. It is just a silly supplement to her story about a new store in Gainesville that I won’t bother plugging by putting its Web site here.

She shot the whole interview/tour in one take. It’s shaky; It’s crazy, but the information is actually pretty interesting, and it is a good example of how, if done right, even a simple video tour shot by a reporter can be a great supplement to a story that needs visuals.

Really though, the most important thing to come out of the video is the new Alligator logo that is going to appear at the end of all the videos. Exciting!

Last night I collaborated with The Alligator managing editor for online media, Ken Schwencke, a sweet and to-the-point infographic about proposed bus route changes around Gainesville.

I wrote the action script and made the design. Ken found the maps on the Gainesville Regional Transit System’s Web site. We copied some Google maps, and Ken overlayed the bus routes with the hoity toity Photoshop Pen tool — the most difficult part of the night.

I was glad I didn’t have a whole heap of trouble catching up on my Flash. It is really pretty intuitive once you’ve done it before. That was the first Flash I’d done since I made a small package for class a couple of months ago. Before then it had been more than a year.

Although this story and idea were sprung up on me, I commend Ken for thinking out of the box for different ways to present information on The Alligator’s Web site. The site’s multimedia section is growing as Ken has somehow motivated reporters to shoot video. Alligator photographer Charles Roop — great photographer — shot a video about a roller derby for today’s online edition as well. I’d be lying if I said I’d seen it already, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check it out!

I helped an Alligator Writer, Kristin Huff, edit her first video yesterday. Kristin was the first brave reporter to offer up a video after managing editor of online media Ken Schwenke offered up his Flip video camera for the less-experienced videographers looking for something new to try.

She did a good job of keeping the camera steady and getting a story out of the interview. She asked the right questions and got some good shots.

Overall I give her an A+ for her first effort.

I told her for next time she needed to consider a few things:

• A wider variety of shots — especially some good, wide, establishing shots
• More b-roll
• Work on having the camera steady before she starts shooting because she ended up having a little less video than she thought because the beginning of every video was too shaky.

Check out the video on the Alligator’s multimedia page.