University of Toledo Prepares For Finals

By Christopher Chapman

@integratedmedia2300

Finals week is right around the corner and campus is busy studying at the great Carlson Library at the University of Toledo #universityoftoledo #campuslife #studentlife #finals#carlsonlibrary

♬ Lofi – Domknowz

Toledo (Carlson Library) – It was a cold Wednesday afternoon when I descended on campus to film a Tiktok. I pulled up and inconveniently had to pay for parking, and while I was annoyed by that I began to notice something about campus. The student body was missing. I paid for my parking and proceeded to centennial mall to see where everyone was. To my surprise, there wasn’t really anyone on campus that I could see. And that was when the story started to form in my head. 

The Story

The apparent lack of students wasn’t actually that shocking to me, after all it was cold and unpleasant outside, I didn’t necessarily want to be out there either. However, the idea of making a Tiktok about where the student body was hiding seemed like a great idea, as I wasn’t aware of any scheduled campus activities at the time. I started to wander around to the buildings, thinking either everyone was in class (which didn’t seem likely on the last week of classes) or maybe getting food and staying warm in the student union. Upon investigation, I found this was not the case. There were a few students around in the union, but only small groups gathered in social areas. Even Frogtown, the coffee shop in the union, had absolutely no business going on, and nobody was gathered there either. So where were all the students? My next course of action was checking out the library, and I am glad that I did. It seemed like this was the place the majority of students were. And that made sense, considering that finals were right around the corner.

The Production

Producing the Tiktok was actually easier than I thought it was going to be. I did more than a few panning shots to show how empty campus was in the centennial mall, and a few in the union to highlight that people were not using it as an area to study. Of course I got some footage from the library as well, showing pictures of students using the white boards to study and showing some of the groups in there as well. Then, because I hated recording other people without their permission, I also did some shots and videos of some of the displays that are in the library as well. This way I could include some content about ways to de-stress/pallet cleanse for those choosing to study in the library. When it came to editing, I decided that a slow and low-pitched voice over would be most appropriate for the mood I was trying to set. I also used some lo-fi tunes to help set the mood, and while it may come across as a bit of an ad for Carlson Library, overall I was satisfied, and felt like I had actually produced a “proper” Tiktok.

Interviewing a UTMC Medical Student

By Christopher Chapman

Welcome to another exciting blog post! This time around I have a real treat for you readers. I was recently assigned to interview someone for a podcast for my integrated media course. I happened to be close friends with a UT medical student, Caitlin Kilmurry, and decided that it would be informative and interesting to hear about the trials and tribulations of a medical student late in their schooling. 

My Guest

As I already said, my guest was Caitlin Kilmurry. Caitlin comes from the small suburban area of Grove City, which is located just south of Columbus, Ohio. She has completed her undergraduate, masters, and currently her medical schooling all at the University of Toledo. I have personally known Caitlin for a number of years as a close friend. And being friends with her, I often hear about the absolutely insane amount of effort and work that goes into becoming a doctor. I know for myself that I could never deal with the amount of endless studying, the hours spent at the hospital, and stress of passing national exams, that’s all far too much for me to handle. But I don’t think people give enough credit to doctors and what they have to go through to make it in the medical field, and that’s why I thought hearing Caitlins experiences would be enlightening and informative to the listener. I could go into more detail about what Caitlin has been through to get to where she is now, but I’ll save that for you to hear in the podcast!

Production

When it came to producing my episode, I was already a little experienced in podcast production. In two of my former classes I have had to produce podcasts for class projects, but this one was honestly much simpler than those were. To start, this was a more formal interview format that what I have done in the past. This project had a full script, including the opening/closing and the questions asked. In my prior podcasts, there was a limited script, a lot of winging it, and a whole lot more editing to be done after. From that perspective, I am thankful that this one was so easy to produce, and that a script was required, because somehow I needed very little editing to make this interview shine! Caitlin was also great in giving answers that didn’t run too long, and in fact answered the questions in a way that the overall audio track needed little editing if at all. Our audio was a bit quiet, as I did not turn up the mic volume enough, but for the most part that was fixed in post. Overall I consider the production a success, and am ultimately pleased with how my episode came out.

Promotion

Using a combination of social media platforms, I was able to promote my podcast through many avenues. One such avenue was the podcast platform itself, Spotify. Spotify, through their built in promo cards feature, makes it easy to make an eye-drawing promo picture, as seen in this blog! The next promo platform I used was called Headliner. Headliner allows for Spotify audio to be used to make a visual player for the podcast that can be shared across social media. Through Headliner, I was able to post my podcast to my student Instagram page as an Instagram reel, which I wish could have been featured as a normal post, but I understand that short form content is attractive on social media these days, so it isn’t a big deal. LinkedIn was another place that allowed me to use Headliner to promote my podcast, though I think I have less of a following there than Instagram. Overall promotion was simple to handle, though I wish more platforms had a direct Spotify integration so workarounds like Headliner weren’t necessary.

How I Took Six Incredible Photos

  • Color
  • Light
  • Silhouette
  • Moment
  • Composition
  • Distance

Welcome to my MoJo Dojo

Written By Christopher Chapman

Hello Reader! In this week’s blog post I will be discussing the topic of Mobile Journalism, and what I have learned in regards to how to take and edit photos to be presentable on digital media. Our assignment was to capture six different types of photos and, if necessary, edit them to better exhibit compositional elements such as the rule of thirds, leading lines, and other similar concepts. The six categories were Color, Light, Silhouette, Moment, Composition, and Distance, and below you will read about what techniques I used to capture and each one, and why I chose to take them in the first place.

Color

I was torn between two different shots to use for my color subject; either the flowers or the pumpkins. Ultimately I chose the flowers, and I took this shot with a higher exposure to really let the violet hues glow against the background of green leaves. This photo was taken in the neighborhood next to the university, right across from Bancroft, and with the gray of the clouds over everything the bright color of these flowers stood out so much that I had to stop and take their picture.

Light

I’m so happy with how this photo turned out. I went looking through Home Depot, knowing that they have an extensive lighting fixture section, and I thought that there might be some interesting angles to capture there. But before I even reached that section, I passed a display of Edison bulbs, and I immediately loved the moodiness of the light and the vintage look of the bulb. I lowered my exposure to let in very little Light, and with my camera almost touching the bulb I focused on the filament, and captured my favorite picture of this whole project.

Silhouette

I struggled to find what I consider a good silhouette. The weather during the week of our shooting wasn’t the best, and it was almost always overcast outside, making natural light a rarity. Still, when I was capturing my photo for color, I looked up at the light pole next to me and realized that if I angled my camera the right way, and raised my exposure to let in enough light, the light pole actually formed a pretty alright silhouette. I framed the picture so the pole running up the middle would guide eyes to the center, where ultimately you can see the Silhouette of the light.

Moment

I know I said the light was my favorite picture, I think I may have to tie this one with it. I did not expect to come across a couple of stray kitties, but lo and behold I was just so lucky. The pair were very friendly but hard to control. One minute they would both be in frame, then just as I was about to shoot my Moment shot, they would go running off or get startled by a passing person. In the end, I was able to get a shot with both in frame, but this one did need some post-shot editing to help keep all subjects focused in the frame. As a side note, I did not leave them before first confirming that they were being cared for by local residents, of which they were. There was food set out for them and temporary shelter outside as well.

Composition

For this shot, I once again find myself at Home Depot. I had a toss up with this one as I said earlier, but I thought that this shot fit the description of a composition image. The pumpkins all being of similar shape and color, packed tightly together, combined with a lite depth of field effect in the background help this shot stand out, and as a whole is a great Composition shot.

Distance

For this last photo, I was again in the neighborhood across from the university. This time, I found the street that leads right up the the front of University Hall, and I finally got to make use of my phones built in wide lens. The yellow fallen leaves on either side of the frame with the pavement line in the middle draw the eyes from the foreground to the distant middle, where far off you can see the entrance to University Hall. Through these elements this photo captures the essence of a Distance photo.

Composition Essay FinalsWeek Light medical-students Mobile journalism Moment Photography podcast podcasting radio-interview SocialMedia student-media StudentBlog StudentTiktok StudentWork Tiktok UToledo UToledoTiktok Webdesign Writing

Chapman’s Brief Take on Social Media

By Christopher Chapman

What is Social Media

In older times, to get my personal message out, I might need to stand on a soap box in the middle of a busy street and shout to the world what I want people to hear. Thankfully we have evolved beyond the need for the soapbox, and my vocal cords can rest easy, thanks to the creation of Social Media platforms. Social media allows users to connect with one another and share their content with the world. I might post an interesting picture that I took, a life update, a funny meme I found, anything I can use to create a buzz online. To summarize, Frederick Stutzman of the University of North Carolina said in words that sounds smarter than anything I write: “Social network communities facilitate the sharing of identity information in a directed network. Compared with traditional methods for identity information disclosure, such as a campus directory, the social network community fosters a more subjective and holistic disclosure of identity information”.

“…150% more engagement than brand averages”.

simplymeasured.com

Imagery in Social Media

An interesting fact I read in our textbook for this assignment was in regards to how news media is read more when it features an accompanied picture. I wasn’t sure how that would carry over to social media, with people posting pictures online of anything they want I thought there would be an over saturation and disinterest but the case is entirely the opposite. According to our textbook quoting a statistic from simplymeasured.com, when a tweet features a picture in it receives “…150% more engagement than brand averages”.

Infographics in Social Media

Another facet of social media that I was unaware of was the abundance of graphics. Being a student, of course I am familiar with graphing information for presentation to viewers, but I was unaware that some companies take their graphic reporting so seriously. I myself am not entirely well versed in microsoft excel or publisher, but it’s surprising to hear that there are whole company departments dedicated to visualizing information in their particular brand and style. There are four main keys to making a good infographic. Firstly it has to have functionality, the graph must be appropriate for the type of data it is presenting. Secondly, it needs some beauty. A graph only looks as nice as the effort put into it, and a better looking graph will be able to grab more attention. Thirdly, an infographic should be insightful and offer new and interesting information. And lastly an infographic should enlighten the reader. If they come away with having learnt nothing, their time was wasted looking at the graph and so was yours for making it.

Structuring a Website

The last thing I will discuss in this post is about structuring a website. It really isn’t difficult to create your own, the blog you’re viewing this on was partially made by me! Well that’s more to say I used a predesigned template from WordPress.com, but it helped to have a visual template to work off of. Creating a visual grid can help you with your initial design and layout. Once your grid is set, you can go ahead and build your wireframe, which is more of a visual blueprint of what your final website will look like. Outside of coding it yourself, you will probably need some help along the way to reach your final website goal, but it is only becoming simpler to do, and just look at what I was able to do without much help myself!

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