Overall, I am excited to be done with this class. I really want to present our website and show what we have been working on all semester. I definitely learned a lot about creating a website along with working with others. For the most part I enjoyed working with my group. There were some issues with being able to meet. It was also really hard being the only person in the group really familiar with photo and video. There was a lot of pressure on me to have all the b-roll and video done but at the same time I enjoyed it. I wish we could have all spent more time at Macie’s Place because while I was there, I learned a lot about her private life as well as her personality. I just wish the rest of my group was able to experience what I did when I would go and take video and photo. I am happy with how our project turned out and am excited to implement all that I have learned for other future projects. Interactive websites have become a huge part of journalism so having the experience of creating a website is helpful.

This week at the Iceberg Agency, we have been preparing and tying loose ends. On Friday morning, I went and finished up anything that had to do with videos, photos and other information. Unfortunately, one thing we were relying on for our project was old photos of the shop and of Suzy and Kristen and according to Suzy they do not have any photos together expect for the photos from the Lincoln Journal Star article done in 2012 when the shop first opened. We have set plans to work this weekend to ensure that we have something to present for our practice presentation on Wednesday. I am excited that we were able to find a time where we can meet to work on this especially with the current climate of my life and the other people in my group. We are all busy but I think that once we get everything organized and on the website it will be smooth sailing from there. I am exited to have this project completed and to be finished with these module classes. Overall, I have enjoyed the classes, I just am excited to spend my time working on other things and other classes.

These past few weeks have been really great toward the final project. I think that we are getting a good head start on things and we recently finished the outline. Since we have our outline pretty set, we will be beginning our website fairly soon. This is good because the end of the semester is coming up very quickly. Overall, we still need more b-roll, old photos of the shop and Suzy and her best friend Kristin who run the shop. We also need to go redo the 360 video (again, ugh) because when we did it last time for some reason it was flipped. I am not sure why but I plan to talk to Susan about it and hopefully we can get it figured out. The 360 video is going to be a large part of making the story itself interactive which is a key element in the final project. It’s really hard this time of year to find times to meet since everyone is super busy. Despite that, I am proud of how far we have come since the beginning of the year and am excited to finally have this project done.

This week at the Iceberg Agency we are getting a lot of things done. Although we have been behind the past couple of weeks because of other classes, I think this week will be really great when it comes to progress on our project. We will be re-interviewing Suzy at Macie’s Place because the last interview did not cover everything we needed. As a group, I think we have decided that the site itself will surround our text about Suzy. Not only will we interview Suzy, we will also get more b-roll and start working on 360 video to include on our site. We are planning on splitting up the transcriptions because the interview will be very long. Suzy can talk your ear off but she has a lot of interesting things to say that will be helpful toward our piece. I think it would be worthy to get old photos of the shop and what their homes used to look like when the organization was based out of Suzy’s house and Kristin Ondrak’s home. We also gained some inspiration from one of the interactive pieces that was presented on Wednesday and how we present our poverty information. I think one thing we are struggling with is following our schedule of when we should have things completed. We will figure it out though.

At the Iceberg Agency we are just beginning to collect information about poverty in Lincoln in order to create some sort of infographic or interactive map. We have been struggling to find a time to meet to work on the project as well as split up the work. I think that once we figure out how to split up the work things will go a little smoother so we don’t have to deal with meeting in person. This week I hope we can start working on our written biography of Suzy from Macie’s Place because that written piece will be a huge part of our interactive site I think. We also have been talking about what site we want to use to create the website and we think Wix will be the best way to go about it. Also, I plan on going back to the shop to get more b-roll of customers picking through and maybe even a time lapse. I think the time lapse will be a great aspect to add to our site along with 360 video. I hope to do that this week along with another person in the group. Overall, I think the work we do this week will be really influential in our final project.

This week for the Iceberg Agency led to several successes and just a few failures. Although we got the interview we needed and most of the b-roll we needed, we could get more b-roll. Overall, I do not think we have enough for a substantial interactive website. We need to begin doing research on poverty in Lincoln so we can attempt to create a map highlighting the higher levels of poverty around Lincoln and the different organizations similar to Macie’s Place that are put in place to aid those that are less fortunate. Another interactive aspect that will be important to get that we failed to achieve 360 video. But this week we hope to rent a 360 video camera out from the equipment check out office to utilize. Another thing we were successful with was interviews with different people who come into the shop. One of these interviews was from a woman who has volunteered at Macie’s Place since the very beginning. I hope that this week we can work to split up the work more evenly so that we all can contribute equally. Overall, I feel a lot better now that we have the interview and a portion of the b-roll out of the way. We still have a lot to do.

Overall, the Iceberg Agency did not get exactly what we wanted completed but we have a solid plan to drive over to Macie’s Place to interview Suzy, one of the owners, get some b-roll and get 360 video. I am excited about this because of all the different visuals we will create and work on. I am love visuals and think, especially for this type of project, these visuals will be extremely important for the final product. I also found a site that might be a viable option for the interactive website called Esri. I have not thoroughly looked through it yet but suspect there is a possibility that it will require some form of initial payment to continue working with it. Esri looks like a solid option because it also has a function that creates maps, which has definitely been something we want to include on our site. The interactive websites we have been looking at in class have definitely been really helpful when brainstorming different ideas for the project. I am just excited to finally have some physical work done on this project so I can better visualize how we will end up creating the final product.

The Iceberg Agency was able to actually go in to Macie’s place and talk to Suzy, one of the owners, about some of our ideas. Suzy also gave us the go ahead to film whatever we need to at the store as well as interview her for a biography. We also asked her about some of the customers that regularly come to the shop. We wanted to know if we could talk to them about writing a story about them and getting  some photographs. We think also attaching an audio recording of these customers to the photo that will play at the viewers control. Then the viewers not only can read about the customer but also hear his or her voice and their character. This will give the viewer another insight to the human being. Max, Jadyn, Maggie and I also discussed with her when the gift drive would begin. Suzy informed us she was planning on working on them soon. We now have a plan to meet with her next Wednesday to get video of her writing on the mittens and hanging them up. Overall, we are excited with our progress and can’t wait to get to know Suzy and her customers more.

Weekly meeting: hour or two after class

Sept. 24-30

• Tues 10:45: Go to Macie’s Place
• Ask the owners about photo, video, stories from unique customers, her story
• After class: plan out exactly what we want to do

Oct. 1-7

• Interview time set and done
• Photos and videos

Oct. 8-14

• 360 trial run at weekly meeting and go to the store
• Begin working on written pieces
• Research for infographics/interactive

Oct. 15-21

• Start pursuing the side stories
• Written pieces ~mostly~ done
• Pitch infographics/interactive and plan

Oct. 22-28

• Messing around with website and how we want it set up

Oct. 29-Nov. 4

• Make sure we have an interactive stuff down/know how to do it

Nov. 5-11

• Start/work on multimedia video thing

Nov. 12-18

• Clothing drive around this time
• Get video, edit and compile videos

Nov. 19-25

• Thanksgiving break

Nov. 26-Dec. 2

• Finalize EVERYTHING

Dec. 3-8

• Work on presentation/more finalizing

Dec. 10-14

• present

The Iceberg Agency is excited to say that we will be working with Macie’s Place this semester to produce an interactive website including biographies on the owners, video interviews with regular customers and an interactive map of poverty in Nebraska. The group is excited to work with Macie’s Place mainly because there are more outlets and time for us to work with. Unfortunately, because of conflicting schedules we were unable to work on the Market to Market run. Although it would have been a really interesting story visually, it would be too hard and too much pressure to be able to get all of our videos as work done in one day. Now that we have decided what our project will be, we worked on a schedule for how we want the project to go and when we want everything done. We plan on going on Tuesday to visit with the owners of Macie’s Place to discuss their limitations as well as any regular customers who would be willing to speak to us for this project. Overall, a very successful week for The Iceberg Agency and we hope to continue getting things done in time for our presentation at the end of the semester.